Read Why Software Should Not Have Owners and Why Software Should Be Free. RMS makes the argument that creators should not have any special rights to the works they create, which completely goes against the idea that creators have the right to be compensated for their work on their terms. So for him, it's actually a bit stronger than what I said. He doesn't just want to force creators to give away their work -- he denies that they even owned it to begin with.
I can't see why I should be paid when someone listens to a recording of my music. I just can't see it. I get paid when I perform. People come to hear me play (or I'm paid by the owner of the venue). WHYINHELL should I expect to be paid when I'm not doing anything?
What about artists who simply can't do live performances? For example, electronica groups. Galbatron has been working for many months on their latest album. Shouldn't they get compensated for that work if others benefit from it? They can't do live performances, but they put huge amounts of effort into producing music that others enjoy listening to. If I want to have a copy of their music to enjoy, aren't I morally obligated to repay them on their terms?
And the thing is, this applies not just to music, but other forms of art as well. Take visual art. How can someone who makes digital imagery (stills, or animations, movies...) make a living by doing "live performances"? What about software developers? These are all really special cases of the same thing: digital media.
And now that I've brought up software developers, I know someone is going to say "look how well open source software is doing. People are making money off that...". Yes, people are. Distributors like RedHat are. Not developers though. RedHat is like a record label, in a sense (except musicians at least try and get money from their labels, while software developer just hand over their work for free). Look at the ideas Katz suggests. A lot of those ideas can very easily be economically controlled by labels, just as open source software is economically controlled by distributors like RedHat. Think about it: if anyone can distribute the same data, it's the one with the best distribution channel that wins. Technological superiority is no longer an issue, because if you improve your product, your competitor will have it out the door the next day in a prettier box than you. If you're a little guy, people won't even know about the cool stuff you've added until the bigger distributors have made it available.
But I digress...
I believe that when someone does some work, and others benefit from that work, the people who benefit have a moral obligation to compensate the provider on their terms. If you don't like their terms, go elsewhere. That said, I do disagree with DMCA, an I think that both the RIAA and MPAA are getting out of hand.
While I do think it's wrong to keep an MP3 of a song that you don't have rights to (ie: didn't pay for, on the producer's terms), I think it should be fine to have MP3's of songs that you do have rights to (no matter what channels you got the MP3's through). That's fair use. It also seems that it should count as fair use when you download an MP3 of a song you don't own rights to, but you just want to listen to it a couple of times to see if you like it.
Likewise, the whole DeCSS thing seems pretty ridiculous to me. Yes, I think people shouldn't be copying DVD's and giving them to all of their friends. But if I buy a DVD, and want to play it on my Linux box, or over at my friend's house (even if my friend lives in a different region) I shouldn't be prevented from doing that. Heck, if I want to copy all of my DVD's to my 40Tb RAID in my basement (heh, I wish...) then I should be allowed to do that.
Despite the fact that I share the "common/. viewpoint" when it comes to fair use, I don't think that I should be able to keep copies of, or distribute copies of, things that I don't have to rights to. That means music, movies, or whatever. If people want to give their work away for free, that's great. But forcing them to do so isn't right. This is my big gripe about RMS, incidently. (well, that, and his ego) While I do think that free software is wonderful, which is why I've contributed to several projects, I don't think software developers should be forced to release their code as free if they don't want to. If you write the code, you can choose the terms. If I don't like your terms, I'll go elsewhere.
Heck, I'd write more free software myself, if someone would tell me a viable business model. I've been actively looking for one for a couple of years now. I still haven't found a business model for open source software where the developers actually make money, rather than the middle-men (distros). If you can think of such a model, it could probably be applied to other forms of digital media as well. The problem is, if you ask for money at virtually any point, most of the/. whiners will complain that "it isn't free (like speech)!", which has effectively become a euphemism for "it isn't free (like beer)". [sigh]
The biggest problem with portable devices (like MP3 players) is that storage is so expensive, because leaving a conventional HDD in a cold car can demagnitize and permanently damage it.
Huh? I know excessive heat can demagnetize, but excessive cold? IANAP, but I don't think so. At least not the kind of cold your car is likely to experience on the surface of the Earth...
Anecdotal evidence: I left an IBM 20GB HDD in a car at -20C (that's about -5F, for the uncivilized) for several hours, and it's had no problems. Of course, maybe I was just lucky, but I've never heard anything before that suggested that cold could demagnetize something.
Of course, cars can get very hot in the summer when parked in the sun, and portable MP3 players probably also take quite a beating. So I'd think heat and vibration would be the two big issues.
I don't know how the heat issue could be avoided with a magnetic drive, except perhaps building a themos-like heat shield around the thing. I doubt that there exists any material that can remain magnetic at very high temperatures and which is also suitable for high-density data storage.
Actually, it's Gattaca. The title only has four letters: G, A, T and C.
But the trouble in Gattaca wasn't with corporations misusing the technology. It was with society not accepting those who weren't altered by the technology.
Maybe we should have a central site, where we can mention which patches (kernel/user space) should be applied to get the most out of insert_your_hardware_here. I would rather see people running Redhat than Redhat_clone. Support the vendors that do the work!
Um, I think the developers do more work than the distro vendors. How do we support them?
(yes, I am aware that Redhat writes almost 0.3% of the code in a RedHat distribution...)
When designing C++, why didn't you make less things implementation dependent, undefined, and optional? As it is, developers often have to code to the lowest common denominator in any case, or deal with code that is very difficult to port. (for example, the sizes of the basic datatypes are implemntation dependent, while the values of many expressions are undefined)
Intellectual rights are created to insure credit. Why does this have to be in a monetary form?
Uh, because "kudos" doesn't pay the rent?
It seems to me any smart capatalist would fleece consumerism by freeing and then supporting a products path into the hands of the market.
So artists should give away their work for free, and then make money by somehow "supporting" that free product? In what way does one "support" music? And what makes you think that enough "support" payments will actually be made to actually allow the artist to make up the costs of producing the initial product.
The problem here is that the open-source community and the corporations are taking to opposite extremes in this issue, when what we really need is some sort of middle ground. Developing music, or movies, or computer software has a lot of up-front costs. Hence, the corporations feel that they need to restrict copying in order to make back their investment, plus make some profit. Making "one more copy" of data is free though, so open-source extremists say that copying should be completely free.
Both of these sides are right to an extent, and also wrong to an extent. The producers of the data do deserve to make back their investment if people are really making use of that data. It's pretty obvious that the media companies are gouging consumers though. The prices are way higher than they should be, and the actual artists get a disproportionately small "piece of the pie".
The open source extremists are right in that making another copy is free, so it shouldn't cost that much to get another copy. The problem is, how do the artists get paid for all of the work they did? Open source extremists would probably say it could work like open source software. There aren't any good business models for OSS either though.
Imagine if music used the open source model, as exemplified by Red Hat, et al. Musicians would write music, and not get paid for it. They'd have to work as waiters or cashiers for a living, or maybe to some live performances if they're lucky. The music labels would sell "distros" that would have music from various artists. They would have some sound engineers on staff to do some tweaks to the sound on their distros to make them sound a bit better. You could either download the music for free, or buy the music in the store (but you're really buying a box and "technical support"). In the latter case, only the label makes any money. The musicians rarely, if ever, make a cent off of the work they did. Yup, that sure sounds like a great business model...
Before you go and say "the artists could make money in some other way", think about what that other way would be. Does it apply to all artists? (Musicians that create symphonic electronica, like Galbatron, can't exactly do "live performances", for example...)
While I do think open source software is great (yes, I've contributed code to a few projects), I'm getting a bit sick of seeing people say "the existing business models suck" and suggesting that evrything should be open source without actually proposing any business models that would be practical in the real world.
And before someone points me over to the business models on ESR's opensource.org web page, most of them are red herrings... (think about how many of them are 100% open source, and actually ensure that the developers get paid for their work)
Okay, if that thing scans depth then the software would actually be simpler than what I described, but it would probably also involve a lot less manual work.
I still don't understand how this depth scanner actually works though. If they're using ordinary visible light for the depth scanning process, wouldn't the colour of the scanned surface affect the perceived distance? (heck, even non-visible light would be affected by "colour")
I've heard of software that works much like they describe on their site. The software I've heard of has been around for a while, and the way it works is you have to specify "tacks" on the same point of the object on each photograph. The software can then solve for a 3D coordinate for each of those tacks.
Essentially, you have a vector go from the "eye point" in each photo through each tack in that photo. You then solve for where the vectors for each tack come as close as possible to intersecting at the same point. (by finding a least squares solution to a system of linear equations) This is a bit of an over simplification, because the position of the "eye" in each photo is a variable as well.
Textures are generated by actually taking pieces of each photo between the tacks, scaling and stretching them appropriatly, and then blending them together.
It's all a pretty neat process, but to use in a real-time setting you'd need multiple cameras, and some sort of AI that would place the tacks. As it is, the process has a fairly large manual component. Doing that with every frame of a video would be extremely tedious. (but could probably be similfied by the fact that each "tack" probably doesn't move very much from frame-to-frame)
I can't figure out what that extra piece of hardware is for though. This type of software normally works with ordinary photos. Even scanned polaroids or hand-drawn artwork (if reasonably accurate) would work. Does anyone know what that hardware does? Does it actually somehow scan "depth" information? If so, how?
I think the solution lies in the consumer. People should start using Open Source, and support companies that contribute to it with MONEY. Not because proprietary technologies are "evil", but because Open Source is superior and more beneficial in the end. Money is in the bloodstream of our society. People should learn that while corporations talk, money walks the walk.
That's a good idea, but here's a question for you: will the developers ever see that money? As it is, most of the "successful open source companies" don't pass the profits along to the developers, execpt for the few (if any) that they have working in-house. For example, 99% of the development effort that goes into a Red Hat CD goes unpaid for by Red Hat.
It's because of this that most open source developers need to have a "day job". Think of how much better open source software would be if those developers could actually afford to work on it full time. That will only happen when those developers are actually paid (in money) for the work they do. None of the "successful open source companies" actually do this, and I have yet to see a business model where this could be done. We can't all live off grants and charity like RMS.
I have already heard that assumption that a compiler can generate better code than a programmer a thousand of times, but it does not get more true by repeating it - it is false. At least until compilers are able to understand the program. In every program there are things the compiler simply doesnt know. For example, in x86 assembler it is possible to save some cycles (and memory accesses) by using 16-bit or even 8-bit registers instead of 32 bit registers. You can double the number of registers by doing it. You need to be sure that the values in the registers are below 65536 or 256 to use these tricks, and the programmer can know this, but the compiler cant. The compiler might profile the possible value range if it is a really advanced compiler (I never heard of any compiler actually doing this), but it cannot be sure so it must at least check the values before for the case that they arent.
I agree with what you're saying to an extent. Compilers do generate worse code than a good programmer in some cases, because the compiler doesn't necessarily know which corners are safe to cut. You picked a very poor example though. If I know my value will always be between 0 and 255, or 0 and 65535, I'll pick an appropriate data type. Then the compiler knows what the range will be, and can choose appropriate registers. Some languages (Pascal, and Ada I believe) even allow you to specify a range of numbers as a type.
Some high-level languages often don't let you describe problem solutions in certain domains very well. For example, the array summing thing that was brought up yesterday. In C, you'd typically use a for-loop. That implies doing things sequentially, even though it doesn't matter. It takes a fairly sophisticated compiler to realize that the order of the additions isn't important, and so vector addition instructions could be used.
The problem is that we're telling the compiler a lot of stuff that isn't really important, and it has to figure out which parts are safe to ignore. This is why specialized high-level languages tend to do so well in their domain. You tell them only what's important, which is easier on the you, and they can generate highly optimal code because they don't have to second-guess what you said.
Nonsense. Being able to legally duplicate videotapes and DVDs doesn't necessarily mean that you can see movies for free. It's hilarious that you choose James Dean as an example, considering that during his life, not a single one of his movies was released on consumer media - VCRs and DVD players weren't around back then.
And that's what would happen if you were allowed to legally copy DVD's and video tapes. Movies would simply not be released in that format. If you wanted to watch a movie at home, you'd have to get a tape someone made by smuggling a camcorder into a theatre, or wait for it to maybe show on TV. Cable would probably cost more, advertizing would increase drastically, etc. If you remove the income gained through IP, media companies will find someway to squeeze profit out of you, and most of them will be a lot more unpleasant than the current situation.
Down the line, if "creators become fewer" as you say, what would there be to copy? Nothing? But people need software, music, entertainment, so.... software, music, and entertainment would still get created.
How about we make a law saying that all food must be given away free. People need food, and so it would still get produced, right?
If all information were free then musicians, artists, software developers and authors would all be to busy doing their "day job" to be able to do much work on creating information. Very few people would be able to afford to work on creating full-time. Quality would go down significantly. A musician who plays music 8 hours per day is generally much better than one who plays 1 hour every couple of days.
Look at Linux. I can download it for free. Repackage and sell it for free. Build a business on it (Red Hat) for free. The very existance of GNU, FSF, Open Source, Linux, BSD, invalidates your theory.
No, actually they provide evidence to support my theory. Look at Linux. Look at how much profit the average Linux developer makes off of Linux. Zero. Most Linux developers either have a day job (most likly writing proprietary software, doing tech support, or acting as a sys-admin), while the remaining are generally students. The same is true for most other open-source/free software projects.
I've contributed to several free software projects myself. I have a day job writing proprietary software. Before that I was a student, living off student loans an co-op (writing proprietary software).
If I could make a decent living writing free software full time I would. As it is, there are only a few types of software for which a sensible open source business model exists. Device drivers, for example. I'm not interested in writing device drivers, nor are most musicians, painters or sculptors, I would imagine.
Painters and sculptors can at least make money off the originals. Musicians could theoretically make money from their live performances, but the ticket prices would skyrocket. Creators of digital media, have no such "originals" (since a copy is just as good), and there's no such thing as a "live performance", unless you mean tech support. I don't want to be doing tech support, I want to write code.
Incidently, has it occurred to you that having support sellers fund open source development is really a conflict of interests?
Can you copy these freely? How can the authors get compesated if you use their stuff but don't pay them? Well... it's already happening. It would happen for movies too.
Um, the authors of free software generally aren't compensated, except with "fame" for a few. Most authors of free software have "day jobs" where they write proprietary software, or do something else (tech support, etc.).
Please explain how creators of information (computer software, books, music, movies, etc.) would be compensated for their work in a world where IP did not exist.
Without IP, copying would become the norm, rather than the exception. A very small percentage of users would pay for the information. The price of the information would increase, and the salaries of the creators would decrease. Creators would become fewer due to the lower salaries (there are many in it for the money, though I'm not one of them). Paying customers would also decrease, since the price of the software would go through the stratosphere.
And the correct question to ask is, why people who only need to read E-mails and surf the web need to pay $100 every now and then for each of their computers just to run an operating system which cost nothing to make a copy for running on their computers?
How else do you expect development to get paid for? Should companies that develop software charge the first customer the entire development cost, or should they amortize it over many consumers? Because that's what it is when commercial software companies charge a price for their software.
As for not wanting you to copy it, that's because they would naturally get less sales, and would hence have to charge more per copy they do sell in order to make a profit.
A lot of free software zealots don't seem to get this. I know what you're going to say, you're going to say "a lot of people that copy it wouldn't have bought it in the first place". Maybe true, but many of them would have. I would have bought an official copy of Red Hat Linux if that was the only way I could get Linux. Of course it isn't, so I have several free Linux CD's (RH 6.0, Mandrake 6.0, Redhat 4.0, and really old Slackware and Debian's I don't even remember the numbers of)
I hate Windows too, but the reason I use Linux is not for political reasons, it's for technical reasons. I think free software is great, mind you. I use lots of free software, and I've made numerous contributions to various free software projects. I've even got more than one project of my own that I've been planning on releasing under an open license (probably GPL or Artistic), once they get into a usable state.
But the belief that all software should be "free" is as absurd as saying "all beverages should be Cola". I believe that if someone does some work, they should be entitled to whatever compensation they desire if someone else desires to benefit from that work. The fact that it doesn't cost the developer any more to make an additional copy is inconsequential. If you want to use that software, the developer of that software is entitled to get whatever price they ask. If you aren't willing to pay, you don't get to use the software. (There are additional complications when you get into monopolies, because they you aren't really asking to use the product, your essentially being forced to use it.)
Think of it this way: suppose you were going to hire someone to shovel your driveway while you're away at work. Suppose one guy told you he would use a teaspoon, and it'll take him all day, in sub-zero temperatures, to clean the driveway. Another guy says he'll use his snow plow, and it'll take him 3 minutes. Both will get the job done while you're at work, and the quality of the work will be identical. What price would you be willing to pay each guy?
Should the price depend on how hard it was to do the job? No, of course not. The price should be based how useful the job is to you, ie: the utility. Both guys are giving you the same end result, so you should be willing to pay each the same amount. The fact that it's very easy for the second guy to clear your driveway doesn't mean he should be paid less.
In the same way, why should software developers not get paid for another copy of their software? Sure, it costs them very little to make one more copy, or even nothing if your make the copy yourself, but you're benefitting from their work. If they want to give that work away for free, that's fine, but you don't have the right to demand that they allow you to make copies, just as you have no right to "borrow" the guy's snow plow while he's on his lunch break to clear your own driveway.
Besides, end users will probably still end up paying $60-$100 even if they were using Linux. The difference is, with Linux the distributor gets all of the money, and the developers get none. It's so ironic that people point out Red Hat as an "Open Source success story" when: 1. Red Hat is losing money. (yes, I know their stock is doing well, but so is Yahoo's) 2. Red Hat doesn't develop the vast majority of the software in their distribution.
Yes, people "in the know" will go and either download Linux, or buy it from cheapbytes, or burn their own copy of a friend's CD, but for "end users", Linux will seem to have basically the same price as Windows. The whole supposed "freedom" issue is virtually irrelevant for end-users. They have no use for source code. They already make copies of Windows, despite what the law says.
The reason Linux would be good for end users is for technical reasons, not political ones. Personally, I think an OS is a lot more "user friendly" if it doesn't blue-screen, destroying the document the user was working on. Performance and reliability are both things that end-users can benefit from, and they are both areas where Linux is superior to Windows. Linux is also quickly becoming much better in terms of having a usable GUI environment. In many ways, GNOME is better than the Win9X/NT GUI (though it's still got a few rough edges to clean up).
I do, actually, think that software should come with source code. But again, for technical, not political reasons. There are many technical reasons why it's good to have source. But having the source available doesn't imply that people should be allowed to make copies for others. Also, forcing companies to release source isn't the answer. Included source is a feature. Mandating that all software should include source is like mandating that all software should include a pretty splash screen. Some users might like it, but it's useless for the vast majority. I'm one of those people who would like source, and I bet you would too. But most users don't care.
I don't think the fact that the NYPD was called is such a big deal. About 3 months ago I read a story in the paper. Famous chellist Yo-Yo Ma left her 3000000 stradivarius chello in the back of a cab and the NYPD were called to help track it down. I think the value of the object lost/misplaced means the police can get involved.
That's true, there's a story about it here. (BTW, Yo-Yo Ma is a he)
I guess it isn't such a big deal that the NYPD was called in, considering the supposed cost of the prototype. Now whether the prototype was really worth $1,000,000 is another story. The parts were probably worth less than $1000. Once MS assembled them, they were probably worth about $3.58. MS is no doubt including their R&D costs, but if the prototype was lost, the R&D would not have been lost with it.
Re:Why is LISP superior?
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RMS The Coder
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I think the relative ease with which one can make radical changes to the *language itself*, all on the fly no less, and without resorting to language or code outside the standard, sets Lisp apart from e.g. C or Java or Python.
Yes, but is that a good thing? If everyone goes and makes "radical changes to the language", it would probably make maintenance a nightmare. Even when people use C's preprocessor (which, as you mentioned, is much less powerful than Lisp's) to make radical changes, it tends to piss off the maintainers of the code more than anything else...
What license does Guile have?
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RMS The Coder
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Guile was mentioned in the article, and so I decided to check it out. It seems to be using plain GPL, rather than LGPL. Is this right?
Slashdot Mirror
Read Why Software Should Not Have Owners and Why Software Should Be Free. RMS makes the argument that creators should not have any special rights to the works they create, which completely goes against the idea that creators have the right to be compensated for their work on their terms. So for him, it's actually a bit stronger than what I said. He doesn't just want to force creators to give away their work -- he denies that they even owned it to begin with.
I can't see why I should be paid when someone listens to a recording of my music. I just can't see it. I get paid when I perform. People come to hear me play (or I'm paid by the owner of the venue). WHYINHELL should I expect to be paid when I'm not doing anything?
/. viewpoint" when it comes to fair use, I don't think that I should be able to keep copies of, or distribute copies of, things that I don't have to rights to. That means music, movies, or whatever. If people want to give their work away for free, that's great. But forcing them to do so isn't right. This is my big gripe about RMS, incidently. (well, that, and his ego) While I do think that free software is wonderful, which is why I've contributed to several projects, I don't think software developers should be forced to release their code as free if they don't want to. If you write the code, you can choose the terms. If I don't like your terms, I'll go elsewhere.
/. whiners will complain that "it isn't free (like speech)!", which has effectively become a euphemism for "it isn't free (like beer)". [sigh]
What about artists who simply can't do live performances? For example, electronica groups. Galbatron has been working for many months on their latest album. Shouldn't they get compensated for that work if others benefit from it? They can't do live performances, but they put huge amounts of effort into producing music that others enjoy listening to. If I want to have a copy of their music to enjoy, aren't I morally obligated to repay them on their terms?
And the thing is, this applies not just to music, but other forms of art as well. Take visual art. How can someone who makes digital imagery (stills, or animations, movies...) make a living by doing "live performances"? What about software developers? These are all really special cases of the same thing: digital media.
And now that I've brought up software developers, I know someone is going to say "look how well open source software is doing. People are making money off that...". Yes, people are. Distributors like RedHat are. Not developers though. RedHat is like a record label, in a sense (except musicians at least try and get money from their labels, while software developer just hand over their work for free). Look at the ideas Katz suggests. A lot of those ideas can very easily be economically controlled by labels, just as open source software is economically controlled by distributors like RedHat. Think about it: if anyone can distribute the same data, it's the one with the best distribution channel that wins. Technological superiority is no longer an issue, because if you improve your product, your competitor will have it out the door the next day in a prettier box than you. If you're a little guy, people won't even know about the cool stuff you've added until the bigger distributors have made it available.
But I digress...
I believe that when someone does some work, and others benefit from that work, the people who benefit have a moral obligation to compensate the provider on their terms. If you don't like their terms, go elsewhere. That said, I do disagree with DMCA, an I think that both the RIAA and MPAA are getting out of hand.
While I do think it's wrong to keep an MP3 of a song that you don't have rights to (ie: didn't pay for, on the producer's terms), I think it should be fine to have MP3's of songs that you do have rights to (no matter what channels you got the MP3's through). That's fair use. It also seems that it should count as fair use when you download an MP3 of a song you don't own rights to, but you just want to listen to it a couple of times to see if you like it.
Likewise, the whole DeCSS thing seems pretty ridiculous to me. Yes, I think people shouldn't be copying DVD's and giving them to all of their friends. But if I buy a DVD, and want to play it on my Linux box, or over at my friend's house (even if my friend lives in a different region) I shouldn't be prevented from doing that. Heck, if I want to copy all of my DVD's to my 40Tb RAID in my basement (heh, I wish...) then I should be allowed to do that.
Despite the fact that I share the "common
Heck, I'd write more free software myself, if someone would tell me a viable business model. I've been actively looking for one for a couple of years now. I still haven't found a business model for open source software where the developers actually make money, rather than the middle-men (distros). If you can think of such a model, it could probably be applied to other forms of digital media as well. The problem is, if you ask for money at virtually any point, most of the
Funny, it displys in Netscape 4.7 just fine for me. What version are you using? It doesn't seem to work with Internet Exploiter though...
BTW, It's not a "data tag". That's an "A" tag that points at a "data scheme" URL.
See A Realization of "data" URL scheme by DeleGate for some other neat examples of this.
The biggest problem with portable devices (like MP3 players) is that storage is so expensive, because leaving a conventional HDD in a cold car can demagnitize and permanently damage it.
Huh? I know excessive heat can demagnetize, but excessive cold? IANAP, but I don't think so. At least not the kind of cold your car is likely to experience on the surface of the Earth...
Anecdotal evidence: I left an IBM 20GB HDD in a car at -20C (that's about -5F, for the uncivilized) for several hours, and it's had no problems. Of course, maybe I was just lucky, but I've never heard anything before that suggested that cold could demagnetize something.
Of course, cars can get very hot in the summer when parked in the sun, and portable MP3 players probably also take quite a beating. So I'd think heat and vibration would be the two big issues.
I don't know how the heat issue could be avoided with a magnetic drive, except perhaps building a themos-like heat shield around the thing. I doubt that there exists any material that can remain magnetic at very high temperatures and which is also suitable for high-density data storage.
Anybody see the movie Gattica?
Actually, it's Gattaca . The title only has four letters: G, A, T and C.
But the trouble in Gattaca wasn't with corporations misusing the technology. It was with society not accepting those who weren't altered by the technology.
Maybe we should have a central site, where we can mention which patches (kernel/user space) should be applied to get the most out of insert_your_hardware_here. I would rather see people running Redhat than Redhat_clone. Support the vendors that do the work!
Um, I think the developers do more work than the distro vendors. How do we support them?
(yes, I am aware that Redhat writes almost 0.3% of the code in a RedHat distribution...)
When designing C++, why didn't you make less things implementation dependent, undefined, and optional? As it is, developers often have to code to the lowest common denominator in any case, or deal with code that is very difficult to port. (for example, the sizes of the basic datatypes are implemntation dependent, while the values of many expressions are undefined)
PNG isn't properly supported by most browsers yet though. I have yet to see proper support of alpha channel, or even simple transparency.
Intellectual rights are created to insure credit. Why does this have to be in a monetary form?
Uh, because "kudos" doesn't pay the rent?
It seems to me any smart capatalist would fleece consumerism by freeing and then supporting a products path into the hands of the market.
So artists should give away their work for free, and then make money by somehow "supporting" that free product? In what way does one "support" music? And what makes you think that enough "support" payments will actually be made to actually allow the artist to make up the costs of producing the initial product.
The problem here is that the open-source community and the corporations are taking to opposite extremes in this issue, when what we really need is some sort of middle ground. Developing music, or movies, or computer software has a lot of up-front costs. Hence, the corporations feel that they need to restrict copying in order to make back their investment, plus make some profit. Making "one more copy" of data is free though, so open-source extremists say that copying should be completely free.
Both of these sides are right to an extent, and also wrong to an extent. The producers of the data do deserve to make back their investment if people are really making use of that data. It's pretty obvious that the media companies are gouging consumers though. The prices are way higher than they should be, and the actual artists get a disproportionately small "piece of the pie".
The open source extremists are right in that making another copy is free, so it shouldn't cost that much to get another copy. The problem is, how do the artists get paid for all of the work they did? Open source extremists would probably say it could work like open source software. There aren't any good business models for OSS either though.
Imagine if music used the open source model, as exemplified by Red Hat, et al. Musicians would write music, and not get paid for it. They'd have to work as waiters or cashiers for a living, or maybe to some live performances if they're lucky. The music labels would sell "distros" that would have music from various artists. They would have some sound engineers on staff to do some tweaks to the sound on their distros to make them sound a bit better. You could either download the music for free, or buy the music in the store (but you're really buying a box and "technical support"). In the latter case, only the label makes any money. The musicians rarely, if ever, make a cent off of the work they did. Yup, that sure sounds like a great business model...
Before you go and say "the artists could make money in some other way", think about what that other way would be. Does it apply to all artists? (Musicians that create symphonic electronica, like Galbatron, can't exactly do "live performances", for example...)
While I do think open source software is great (yes, I've contributed code to a few projects), I'm getting a bit sick of seeing people say "the existing business models suck" and suggesting that evrything should be open source without actually proposing any business models that would be practical in the real world.
And before someone points me over to the business models on ESR's opensource.org web page, most of them are red herrings... (think about how many of them are 100% open source, and actually ensure that the developers get paid for their work)
Okay, if that thing scans depth then the software would actually be simpler than what I described, but it would probably also involve a lot less manual work.
I still don't understand how this depth scanner actually works though. If they're using ordinary visible light for the depth scanning process, wouldn't the colour of the scanned surface affect the perceived distance? (heck, even non-visible light would be affected by "colour")
I've heard of software that works much like they describe on their site. The software I've heard of has been around for a while, and the way it works is you have to specify "tacks" on the same point of the object on each photograph. The software can then solve for a 3D coordinate for each of those tacks.
Essentially, you have a vector go from the "eye point" in each photo through each tack in that photo. You then solve for where the vectors for each tack come as close as possible to intersecting at the same point. (by finding a least squares solution to a system of linear equations) This is a bit of an over simplification, because the position of the "eye" in each photo is a variable as well.
Textures are generated by actually taking pieces of each photo between the tacks, scaling and stretching them appropriatly, and then blending them together.
It's all a pretty neat process, but to use in a real-time setting you'd need multiple cameras, and some sort of AI that would place the tacks. As it is, the process has a fairly large manual component. Doing that with every frame of a video would be extremely tedious. (but could probably be similfied by the fact that each "tack" probably doesn't move very much from frame-to-frame)
I can't figure out what that extra piece of hardware is for though. This type of software normally works with ordinary photos. Even scanned polaroids or hand-drawn artwork (if reasonably accurate) would work. Does anyone know what that hardware does? Does it actually somehow scan "depth" information? If so, how?
I think the solution lies in the consumer. People should start using Open Source, and support companies that contribute to it with MONEY. Not because proprietary technologies are "evil", but because Open Source is superior and more beneficial in the end. Money is in the bloodstream of our society. People should learn that while corporations talk, money walks the walk.
That's a good idea, but here's a question for you: will the developers ever see that money? As it is, most of the "successful open source companies" don't pass the profits along to the developers, execpt for the few (if any) that they have working in-house. For example, 99% of the development effort that goes into a Red Hat CD goes unpaid for by Red Hat.
It's because of this that most open source developers need to have a "day job". Think of how much better open source software would be if those developers could actually afford to work on it full time. That will only happen when those developers are actually paid (in money) for the work they do. None of the "successful open source companies" actually do this, and I have yet to see a business model where this could be done. We can't all live off grants and charity like RMS.
I have already heard that assumption that a compiler can generate better code than a programmer a thousand of times, but it does not get more true by repeating it - it is false. At least until compilers are able to understand the program. In every program there are things the compiler simply doesnt know. For example, in x86 assembler it is possible to save some cycles (and memory accesses) by using 16-bit or even 8-bit registers instead of 32 bit registers. You can double the number of registers by doing it. You need to be sure that the values in the registers are below 65536 or 256 to use these tricks, and the programmer can know this, but the compiler cant. The compiler might profile the possible value range if it is a really advanced compiler (I never heard of any compiler actually doing this), but it cannot be sure so it must at least check the values before for the case that they arent.
I agree with what you're saying to an extent. Compilers do generate worse code than a good programmer in some cases, because the compiler doesn't necessarily know which corners are safe to cut. You picked a very poor example though. If I know my value will always be between 0 and 255, or 0 and 65535, I'll pick an appropriate data type. Then the compiler knows what the range will be, and can choose appropriate registers. Some languages (Pascal, and Ada I believe) even allow you to specify a range of numbers as a type.
Some high-level languages often don't let you describe problem solutions in certain domains very well. For example, the array summing thing that was brought up yesterday. In C, you'd typically use a for-loop. That implies doing things sequentially, even though it doesn't matter. It takes a fairly sophisticated compiler to realize that the order of the additions isn't important, and so vector addition instructions could be used.
The problem is that we're telling the compiler a lot of stuff that isn't really important, and it has to figure out which parts are safe to ignore. This is why specialized high-level languages tend to do so well in their domain. You tell them only what's important, which is easier on the you, and they can generate highly optimal code because they don't have to second-guess what you said.
It's not US-specific - even here in Australia we use the term "humpday" to refer to Wednesday (ie., the middle of the work week).
I'm an (English speaking) Canadian, and I've lived in the US for a while, and I've never heard this term before.
At 128*128*32bpp, each icon would be half a meg.
You mean "half a megabit", not "megabyte", right?
32 bits = 4 bytes, so:
128*128*32b = 128*128*4B = 65536B = 64kB
Nonsense. Being able to legally duplicate videotapes and DVDs doesn't necessarily mean that you can see movies for free. It's hilarious that you choose James Dean as an example, considering that during his life, not a single one of his movies was released on consumer media - VCRs and DVD players weren't around back then.
And that's what would happen if you were allowed to legally copy DVD's and video tapes. Movies would simply not be released in that format. If you wanted to watch a movie at home, you'd have to get a tape someone made by smuggling a camcorder into a theatre, or wait for it to maybe show on TV. Cable would probably cost more, advertizing would increase drastically, etc. If you remove the income gained through IP, media companies will find someway to squeeze profit out of you, and most of them will be a lot more unpleasant than the current situation.
Down the line, if "creators become fewer" as you say, what would there be to copy? Nothing? But people need software, music, entertainment, so.... software, music, and entertainment would still get created.
How about we make a law saying that all food must be given away free. People need food, and so it would still get produced, right?
If all information were free then musicians, artists, software developers and authors would all be to busy doing their "day job" to be able to do much work on creating information. Very few people would be able to afford to work on creating full-time. Quality would go down significantly. A musician who plays music 8 hours per day is generally much better than one who plays 1 hour every couple of days.
Look at Linux. I can download it for free. Repackage and sell it for free. Build a business on it (Red Hat) for free. The very existance of GNU, FSF, Open Source, Linux, BSD, invalidates your theory.
No, actually they provide evidence to support my theory. Look at Linux. Look at how much profit the average Linux developer makes off of Linux. Zero. Most Linux developers either have a day job (most likly writing proprietary software, doing tech support, or acting as a sys-admin), while the remaining are generally students. The same is true for most other open-source/free software projects.
I've contributed to several free software projects myself. I have a day job writing proprietary software. Before that I was a student, living off student loans an co-op (writing proprietary software).
If I could make a decent living writing free software full time I would. As it is, there are only a few types of software for which a sensible open source business model exists. Device drivers, for example. I'm not interested in writing device drivers, nor are most musicians, painters or sculptors, I would imagine.
Painters and sculptors can at least make money off the originals. Musicians could theoretically make money from their live performances, but the ticket prices would skyrocket. Creators of digital media, have no such "originals" (since a copy is just as good), and there's no such thing as a "live performance", unless you mean tech support. I don't want to be doing tech support, I want to write code.
Incidently, has it occurred to you that having support sellers fund open source development is really a conflict of interests?
Can you copy these freely? How can the authors get compesated if you use their stuff but don't pay them? Well... it's already happening. It would happen for movies too.
Um, the authors of free software generally aren't compensated, except with "fame" for a few. Most authors of free software have "day jobs" where they write proprietary software, or do something else (tech support, etc.).
Please explain how creators of information (computer software, books, music, movies, etc.) would be compensated for their work in a world where IP did not exist.
Without IP, copying would become the norm, rather than the exception. A very small percentage of users would pay for the information. The price of the information would increase, and the salaries of the creators would decrease. Creators would become fewer due to the lower salaries (there are many in it for the money, though I'm not one of them). Paying customers would also decrease, since the price of the software would go through the stratosphere.
That is, unless you can think of some other way for the creators to be compensated. I have yet to hear a suitable alternative. Hint: all four business models on ESR's Business Case for Open Source page are bogus (except for widget frosting, which really only applies to hardware vendors).
Hmm, I wonder whether this'll get "Flamebait", "Troll", or "Offtopic"?
Didn't IBM try to release the PS2 about 10 years ago, and fail miserably? Why does Sony think they'll do any better?
(for the humour impaired: it's a joke!)
If someone can tell me WTF "FU-U-DI-N" (#65) is a reference to, I'd appreciate it.
It's Houdini, of course.
See The Origin of Japanese Pokemon for the Pokemon names in English and Japanese, as well as some translations of the Japanese names.
And the correct question to ask is, why people who only need to read E-mails and surf the web need to pay $100 every now and then for each of their computers just to run an operating system which cost nothing to make a copy for running on their computers?
How else do you expect development to get paid for? Should companies that develop software charge the first customer the entire development cost, or should they amortize it over many consumers? Because that's what it is when commercial software companies charge a price for their software.
As for not wanting you to copy it, that's because they would naturally get less sales, and would hence have to charge more per copy they do sell in order to make a profit.
A lot of free software zealots don't seem to get this. I know what you're going to say, you're going to say "a lot of people that copy it wouldn't have bought it in the first place". Maybe true, but many of them would have. I would have bought an official copy of Red Hat Linux if that was the only way I could get Linux. Of course it isn't, so I have several free Linux CD's (RH 6.0, Mandrake 6.0, Redhat 4.0, and really old Slackware and Debian's I don't even remember the numbers of)
I hate Windows too, but the reason I use Linux is not for political reasons, it's for technical reasons. I think free software is great, mind you. I use lots of free software, and I've made numerous contributions to various free software projects. I've even got more than one project of my own that I've been planning on releasing under an open license (probably GPL or Artistic), once they get into a usable state.
But the belief that all software should be "free" is as absurd as saying "all beverages should be Cola". I believe that if someone does some work, they should be entitled to whatever compensation they desire if someone else desires to benefit from that work. The fact that it doesn't cost the developer any more to make an additional copy is inconsequential. If you want to use that software, the developer of that software is entitled to get whatever price they ask. If you aren't willing to pay, you don't get to use the software. (There are additional complications when you get into monopolies, because they you aren't really asking to use the product, your essentially being forced to use it.)
Think of it this way: suppose you were going to hire someone to shovel your driveway while you're away at work. Suppose one guy told you he would use a teaspoon, and it'll take him all day, in sub-zero temperatures, to clean the driveway. Another guy says he'll use his snow plow, and it'll take him 3 minutes. Both will get the job done while you're at work, and the quality of the work will be identical. What price would you be willing to pay each guy?
Should the price depend on how hard it was to do the job? No, of course not. The price should be based how useful the job is to you, ie: the utility. Both guys are giving you the same end result, so you should be willing to pay each the same amount. The fact that it's very easy for the second guy to clear your driveway doesn't mean he should be paid less.
In the same way, why should software developers not get paid for another copy of their software? Sure, it costs them very little to make one more copy, or even nothing if your make the copy yourself, but you're benefitting from their work. If they want to give that work away for free, that's fine, but you don't have the right to demand that they allow you to make copies, just as you have no right to "borrow" the guy's snow plow while he's on his lunch break to clear your own driveway.
Besides, end users will probably still end up paying $60-$100 even if they were using Linux. The difference is, with Linux the distributor gets all of the money, and the developers get none. It's so ironic that people point out Red Hat as an "Open Source success story" when: 1. Red Hat is losing money. (yes, I know their stock is doing well, but so is Yahoo's) 2. Red Hat doesn't develop the vast majority of the software in their distribution.
Yes, people "in the know" will go and either download Linux, or buy it from cheapbytes, or burn their own copy of a friend's CD, but for "end users", Linux will seem to have basically the same price as Windows. The whole supposed "freedom" issue is virtually irrelevant for end-users. They have no use for source code. They already make copies of Windows, despite what the law says.
The reason Linux would be good for end users is for technical reasons, not political ones. Personally, I think an OS is a lot more "user friendly" if it doesn't blue-screen, destroying the document the user was working on. Performance and reliability are both things that end-users can benefit from, and they are both areas where Linux is superior to Windows. Linux is also quickly becoming much better in terms of having a usable GUI environment. In many ways, GNOME is better than the Win9X/NT GUI (though it's still got a few rough edges to clean up).
I do, actually, think that software should come with source code. But again, for technical, not political reasons. There are many technical reasons why it's good to have source. But having the source available doesn't imply that people should be allowed to make copies for others. Also, forcing companies to release source isn't the answer. Included source is a feature. Mandating that all software should include source is like mandating that all software should include a pretty splash screen. Some users might like it, but it's useless for the vast majority. I'm one of those people who would like source, and I bet you would too. But most users don't care.
I don't think the fact that the NYPD was called is such a big deal. About 3 months ago I read a story in the paper. Famous chellist Yo-Yo Ma left her 3000000 stradivarius chello in the back of a cab and the NYPD were called to help track it down. I think the value of the object lost/misplaced means the police can get involved.
That's true, there's a story about it here. (BTW, Yo-Yo Ma is a he)
I guess it isn't such a big deal that the NYPD was called in, considering the supposed cost of the prototype. Now whether the prototype was really worth $1,000,000 is another story. The parts were probably worth less than $1000. Once MS assembled them, they were probably worth about $3.58. MS is no doubt including their R&D costs, but if the prototype was lost, the R&D would not have been lost with it.
I think the relative ease with which one can make radical changes to the *language itself*, all on the fly no less, and without resorting to language or code outside the standard, sets Lisp apart from e.g. C or Java or Python.
Yes, but is that a good thing? If everyone goes and makes "radical changes to the language", it would probably make maintenance a nightmare. Even when people use C's preprocessor (which, as you mentioned, is much less powerful than Lisp's) to make radical changes, it tends to piss off the maintainers of the code more than anything else...
Guile was mentioned in the article, and so I decided to check it out. It seems to be using plain GPL, rather than LGPL. Is this right?