There is no subsidization going on. I make a product...
On the contrary, there is no product. The thing you're trying to sell is an idea, which is inherently impossible to contain and free for everyone. The government's act of creating a legal restriction which allows you to productize your idea, despite being non-monetary, is in fact a subsidy!
A game is a creative work in much the same way as a novel. Simply because it does not scratch your itch does not make it any less of a creative work. If a novel promotes the "useful arts," then so would a game.
What's your point? Maybe novels fail the test too!
Obsoletion is a poor reason.
Why? I happen to think obsoletion is a very good reason, for two reasons: First, it means that the work has even less value to the copyright holder than one of a different kind, and thus the justification for allowing the copyright holder to retain control is unusually low. Second, the fact that it's obsolete increases the chances of it becoming lost or unusable entirely. An old book is still readable. An old game, on the other hand, isn't usually playable (or, arguably more importantly, modifiable into derivative works) because the associated tools required (hardware, software to read the game's obsolete file formats, etc.) no longer exist either. And remember, before you say "but they do still exist," that what we're talking about has only existed for a few decades. Sure, you might be able to figure out how to get an old CP/M game or arcade circuitboard working now, but 75 years from now?
Ten years would be fine with me. Resting on one's laurels that long may even be somewhat excessive.
Like I said, that would be the absolute maximum I would accept (if I had any influence on the decision, which I sadly don't).
Never? You mean, not once did you ever write a dinky little game or implement a formula on your graphing calculator, or look at the code for gorillas.bas, or write a DOS batch script? Frankly, I find that hard to believe, considering that you're posting on Slashdot.
On my Mac, if I leave it running with Firefox open for a few days I eventually have to restart it -- the whole computer, not just the program -- because it runs completely out of disk space. I've got about 1.7GB free normally, but Firefox (at least, I think it's Firefox; I haven't done formal, rigorous tests but I'm reasonably sure) eventually churns through enough virtual memory (even though I have 2GB of RAM), temporary files, or something that it uses up that entire 1.7GB. Quitting Firefox doesn't delete the temporary files; only restarting the computer does.
I'd like to be able to write games for a living, or at least a decent chunk of my living.
What you would like to do and what society should be reasonably expected to subsidize for you are two very different things. I would like society to give me a mansion and a Ferrari, but that doesn't mean I should reasonably expect to get it!
The problem with what you say is that for games in particular it simply doesn't work.
So what? Remember, copyright law isn't about helping you, the creator, out. It's about benefiting society by "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts," and I'm not entirely convinced that protecting "games in particular" does that enough to be worth it. And I'm damn well certain that games don't need 95 years of it, since they go obsolete so quickly! For computer programs, I'd say the term length should be 10 years maximum, and would ideally be half that. (Note that actions like re-releasing an old "classic" game on a newer platform, e.g. Super Mario World on SNES -> GBA, would still be covered as the GBA version would be a modified derivative work).
A human life. It is more valuable than gold or anything known to man...
Bullshit. A human life, from an engineering perspective, is entirely quantifiable. It has to be, or else nothing would ever get built because the safety requirements to get the risk down to 0% would make the cost infinite. The dollar value used varies per industry, but a cursory search reveals this page that says the following:
The values of a human life that are commonly accepted in different
industries seem to fall in the $1M to $8M range, with something
around $2M being near the "median".
So, what's the bottom line? Multiply the value of a life (e.g. $2 million) times the risk the person was actually innocent (about 10%, according to this post further down the thread). The result ($200,000 in this particular back-of-the-envelope calculation) is the per-person risk of wrongful execution. Therefore, if the cost of imprisoning someone for life exceeds $200,000, then it's better just to execute them instead.
Sure, it may seem callous, but it's true (assuming my math is correct).
Okay, you're just an idiot now. How the fuck did you read "this device isn't ready for people to use" and manage to come to the conclusion "hey, this device is ready for me to use?!" I'm sure this will be a revelation to you, and I'll put it in bold despite the fact that you obviously can't fucking see it anyway: THEY DID NOT ADVERTISE THAT THE THING WOULD WORK. PERIOD. AT ALL. LET ALONE AS A PHONE! THAT'S WHAT "NOT SUITABLE FOR USERS" MEANS!
Note that they didn't even say "end users" (i.e., users who are not also developers). They said "users," without qualification, which includes (allegedly) knowledgable people like you who could develop on it, but weren't immediately planning to. The only thing the phase 1 hardware is suitable for is development without any use, and the site makes that abundantly clear to everyone, apparently, except you.
Oh and for the record, since everyone seems to want to malign me for "FUD", maybe I should clarify that I fully intend to buy the next release of the Neo1973, regardless of how broken or functional the GSM, GPS or WIFI receivers are.
Good for you. I'd also like to point out that I am in no way affiliated with the FIC or OpenMoko people, and that just because I think you're a moron doesn't mean they do or that you should retaliate against them for what I said. But still, as a person who intends to be a user (not a developer) of the Neo1973, I knew well enough to wait for phase 2, and you should have too.
Personally, I'm holding out for whenever it can reliably make phone calls with a GUI (AFAIK, at the moment it can make one phone call per reboot cycle, from the command-line, because the software isn't finished yet).
If you already have the phone, it meant you bought a phase 1 device, about which the site clearly states (in bold, on the front page) that "currently it is not suitable for users". I'm sorry, but your complaints are entirely your own fault.
I know OpenMoko "runs" on the neo1973, and I assume QTopia "runs" on the Greenphone and whatever else, but are either of them actually usable to make calls yet, in the same way my current proprietary cellphone is?
Really? How would one go about using GD or ImageMagick (or anything else, for that matter) to straighten freehand drawings quickly enough to keep up with the teacher when taking notes in class?
Wait a second, I think I just understood what you're saying. Are you trying to claim that MATLAB and an imaging library is equivalent to the stylus-driven CAD/analysis software I was proposing? I sure hope not, because that's not even slightly what I meant.
It doesn't matter if the issues are legal or technological; if something doesn't work, it's an issue.
While that's true to an extent, blaming Ubuntu for not supporting non-Free codecs -- which it's not legally allowed to do and thus is not Ubuntu's fault -- is a lot like, say, blaming a rape victim for having been unable to resist the attacker. It may be technically true, but it's also both extremely unfair and unhelpful.
They don't want you to get your music anywhere but from a very narrow distribution channel... The iPod is a very nice gizmo for people who are ready to sign on to the whole Apple/Record Label "program" and not deviate in any way.
Way to take my quote out of context! What part of "not necessarily the store" did you not understand? Aside from the "free music Tuesday" stuff and a few Pepsi caps, I've never used the store and I don't intend to start!
if I make it recognize my iPod as a hard drive, I lose all the playlist functionality
That's not true. If you enable disk use it has to be unmounted before it's unplugged, but it still functions as an iPod.
It doesn't recognize my ogg files, or my flac files
That's the only complaint in your post that makes sense.
You just can't effectively do a free body diagram on a notebook...
That's literally exactly why I got a Tablet PC (I'm a civil engineering student). It works about as well as paper, but would be a lot better if some purpose-built software existed (imagine drawing a free body and having the software straighten out your lines, or even analyze and draw the deformed shape for you!).
The problem for them is not the fine, but instead, from now on, the compliance to the ruling...
Microsoft: "Oh no! Now we'd better comply, or the EU might fine us a pittance again!"
Microsoft could afford to ignore the ruling the first time; why would subsequent times be any different? Mark my words: the only thing that'll get Microsoft to actually comply will be to either bar it from doing business in the EU, revoke its copyrights, or both.
No, what we need is a punishment with teeth. Even half a billion euros, for Microsoft, is apparently cheaper than stopping their anticompetitive bullshit. It's obviously not enough of a deterrent.
Now, imagine instead that the penalty was being barred from doing business in the EU and having all of their copyrights revoked so that Windows (and every other piece of MS software) became Public Domain. Would that be enough to make MS open its specs? I think that maybe, just maybe, it would!
Slashdot Mirror
I HATE that damn dialog box!!!!
On the contrary, there is no product. The thing you're trying to sell is an idea, which is inherently impossible to contain and free for everyone. The government's act of creating a legal restriction which allows you to productize your idea, despite being non-monetary, is in fact a subsidy!
What's your point? Maybe novels fail the test too!
Why? I happen to think obsoletion is a very good reason, for two reasons: First, it means that the work has even less value to the copyright holder than one of a different kind, and thus the justification for allowing the copyright holder to retain control is unusually low. Second, the fact that it's obsolete increases the chances of it becoming lost or unusable entirely. An old book is still readable. An old game, on the other hand, isn't usually playable (or, arguably more importantly, modifiable into derivative works) because the associated tools required (hardware, software to read the game's obsolete file formats, etc.) no longer exist either. And remember, before you say "but they do still exist," that what we're talking about has only existed for a few decades. Sure, you might be able to figure out how to get an old CP/M game or arcade circuitboard working now, but 75 years from now?
Like I said, that would be the absolute maximum I would accept (if I had any influence on the decision, which I sadly don't).
Never? You mean, not once did you ever write a dinky little game or implement a formula on your graphing calculator, or look at the code for gorillas.bas, or write a DOS batch script? Frankly, I find that hard to believe, considering that you're posting on Slashdot.
On my Mac, if I leave it running with Firefox open for a few days I eventually have to restart it -- the whole computer, not just the program -- because it runs completely out of disk space. I've got about 1.7GB free normally, but Firefox (at least, I think it's Firefox; I haven't done formal, rigorous tests but I'm reasonably sure) eventually churns through enough virtual memory (even though I have 2GB of RAM), temporary files, or something that it uses up that entire 1.7GB. Quitting Firefox doesn't delete the temporary files; only restarting the computer does.
No, they're paid for serving advertisements. Keeping track of people's email is just something they incidentally do to further that end.
What you would like to do and what society should be reasonably expected to subsidize for you are two very different things. I would like society to give me a mansion and a Ferrari, but that doesn't mean I should reasonably expect to get it!
So what? Remember, copyright law isn't about helping you, the creator, out. It's about benefiting society by "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts," and I'm not entirely convinced that protecting "games in particular" does that enough to be worth it. And I'm damn well certain that games don't need 95 years of it, since they go obsolete so quickly! For computer programs, I'd say the term length should be 10 years maximum, and would ideally be half that. (Note that actions like re-releasing an old "classic" game on a newer platform, e.g. Super Mario World on SNES -> GBA, would still be covered as the GBA version would be a modified derivative work).
Bullshit. A human life, from an engineering perspective, is entirely quantifiable. It has to be, or else nothing would ever get built because the safety requirements to get the risk down to 0% would make the cost infinite. The dollar value used varies per industry, but a cursory search reveals this page that says the following:
So, what's the bottom line? Multiply the value of a life (e.g. $2 million) times the risk the person was actually innocent (about 10%, according to this post further down the thread). The result ($200,000 in this particular back-of-the-envelope calculation) is the per-person risk of wrongful execution. Therefore, if the cost of imprisoning someone for life exceeds $200,000, then it's better just to execute them instead.
Sure, it may seem callous, but it's true (assuming my math is correct).
Exactly: the terrorists won.
They're not getting rid of the copper, you know -- they can still transmit the power over that.
Okay, you're just an idiot now. How the fuck did you read "this device isn't ready for people to use" and manage to come to the conclusion "hey, this device is ready for me to use?!" I'm sure this will be a revelation to you, and I'll put it in bold despite the fact that you obviously can't fucking see it anyway: THEY DID NOT ADVERTISE THAT THE THING WOULD WORK. PERIOD. AT ALL. LET ALONE AS A PHONE! THAT'S WHAT "NOT SUITABLE FOR USERS" MEANS!
Note that they didn't even say "end users" (i.e., users who are not also developers). They said "users," without qualification, which includes (allegedly) knowledgable people like you who could develop on it, but weren't immediately planning to. The only thing the phase 1 hardware is suitable for is development without any use, and the site makes that abundantly clear to everyone, apparently, except you.
Good for you. I'd also like to point out that I am in no way affiliated with the FIC or OpenMoko people, and that just because I think you're a moron doesn't mean they do or that you should retaliate against them for what I said. But still, as a person who intends to be a user (not a developer) of the Neo1973, I knew well enough to wait for phase 2, and you should have too.
Personally, I'm holding out for whenever it can reliably make phone calls with a GUI (AFAIK, at the moment it can make one phone call per reboot cycle, from the command-line, because the software isn't finished yet).
If you already have the phone, it meant you bought a phase 1 device, about which the site clearly states (in bold, on the front page) that "currently it is not suitable for users". I'm sorry, but your complaints are entirely your own fault.
I know OpenMoko "runs" on the neo1973, and I assume QTopia "runs" on the Greenphone and whatever else, but are either of them actually usable to make calls yet, in the same way my current proprietary cellphone is?
Really? How would one go about using GD or ImageMagick (or anything else, for that matter) to straighten freehand drawings quickly enough to keep up with the teacher when taking notes in class?
Wait a second, I think I just understood what you're saying. Are you trying to claim that MATLAB and an imaging library is equivalent to the stylus-driven CAD/analysis software I was proposing? I sure hope not, because that's not even slightly what I meant.
Keyword: accessory. Not software.
What is "GD?"
No, iPods come with a copy of iTunes on CD.
While that's true to an extent, blaming Ubuntu for not supporting non-Free codecs -- which it's not legally allowed to do and thus is not Ubuntu's fault -- is a lot like, say, blaming a rape victim for having been unable to resist the attacker. It may be technically true, but it's also both extremely unfair and unhelpful.
Way to take my quote out of context! What part of "not necessarily the store" did you not understand? Aside from the "free music Tuesday" stuff and a few Pepsi caps, I've never used the store and I don't intend to start!
That's not true. If you enable disk use it has to be unmounted before it's unplugged, but it still functions as an iPod.
That's the only complaint in your post that makes sense.
That's literally exactly why I got a Tablet PC (I'm a civil engineering student). It works about as well as paper, but would be a lot better if some purpose-built software existed (imagine drawing a free body and having the software straighten out your lines, or even analyze and draw the deformed shape for you!).
You just restated point #2.
As I understand it, it has been tested and is known not to work because the new iPods have completely different hardware than the old ones.
Microsoft: "Oh no! Now we'd better comply, or the EU might fine us a pittance again!"
Microsoft could afford to ignore the ruling the first time; why would subsequent times be any different? Mark my words: the only thing that'll get Microsoft to actually comply will be to either bar it from doing business in the EU, revoke its copyrights, or both.
No, what we need is a punishment with teeth. Even half a billion euros, for Microsoft, is apparently cheaper than stopping their anticompetitive bullshit. It's obviously not enough of a deterrent.
Now, imagine instead that the penalty was being barred from doing business in the EU and having all of their copyrights revoked so that Windows (and every other piece of MS software) became Public Domain. Would that be enough to make MS open its specs? I think that maybe, just maybe, it would!