Every time a friend tells me they are going to install ADSL or a cable modem, I tell them: "do not come asking for help", and a week later, they are there asking me why it won't work. Despite twenty years hooking PCs to networks, it's still amazing how complex the process is. And that's before you get the viruses, trojans, pop-up porn spam windows, adwares, anti-adwares, etc. These low-cost ISPs generally make the Internet experience simple and painless, and don't try to sell gadgets, just a basic way to get email and surf gently. All success to them. It's a market that AOL could not hold on to, but a huge market nonetheless.
I have seen the future and it is this: set-top boxes that record everything coming in and send it back out onto a global P2P network that turns the RIAA/MPAA's hair a delicate shade of pure white. "Select 'Share All' to share your TV programmes..." Now, imagine this had the backing of a national government, TV companies, movie distributors, cable distributors and banks, and was tied into a simple payment system. Hold your breath, count to five, and you have instant pay-as-you-go TV and video and music on demand. Prediction: this will not happen legally. Shame for the media industry, it could make them so... much.... money.
Linux, linux, linux... really? Follow the money. This is about one company beating another in an important deal. The winner here is IBM, who have promised Munich a better deal than Microsoft was able to deliver. Linux is IBM's (not so) secret weapon, the product they can push as a Windows killer. Don't forget that for many large institutions and their IT departments, Microsoft is somewhat of an annoying upstart that caused havoc by giving tools like Excel and Access to people who then broke the back of centralized IT. IBM represents the comforting security of Big Iron, and with Linux, Big Iron that is Definitely Hip. This is a victory for Linux, but before we all do a dance of joy for freedom and the GPL, remember that this is about money and power and IBM, the company that taught Microsoft everything they needed about monopolies, customer extortion, and unfair competition. There is no reason to believe that this is not also the future of an IBM that once again gains a dominant position in corporate IT. If there is one crucial device that will keep Linux alive it is the GPL, which is a beautifully designed poison pill against corporate takeovers of free software. Richard Stallman, thanks again!
Indeed, individual people are very rational. Sometimes (often?) they base their decisions on incomplete information, which can reach into self-delusion. This does not make their decisions less rational. For instance, people do not flock in matters tastes because they are irrational. Indeed, accepting the tastes of a group is very rational once you understand that this is easier and more effective than trying to establish your own tastes by trying products individually. Consider the hard work that record critics do... few people can afford the time and money involved. So, following your friend's tastes is a good indicator of finding stuff you will like too. We hate Britney Spears's music because she makes music for young things who don't have time for serious pursuits like working uh, playing on/. Thinking of oneself as 'rational' and everyone else as 'irrational' just makes us blind to other people's motives and desires.
Unfortunately for LARTing fans, the use of physical violence against natural entities (even Italians) is strictly controlled by the EU Convention on Applied Interentity Violence, section 3, chapter III, articles 5 to 10. LARTing mallets are permitted but only from July 1 to July 14 (so you missed the season), and only if you hold a grade 3 license in applied LARTing.
Further (I know, this is a long post, but these conventions are very detailed), the number 20 is not a valid EU number. This may surprise some people, but in a ruling by the EU Commission on Trade and Industry in 2001 (ref. PB/221/2231) the number 20 was ruled as being "unfair" and "discriminatory". A great effort has been made to move all businesses to 19 or 21, and this has largely been successful. However, the EU is now faced with cheap imports of 20 from Eastern Europe and counterfeit 19's and 21's from China (since there is now a shortage of these numbers). There is a decision pending that will create a superfund to pay for the production of extra 19's and 21's, and some people have even suggested using 22's, but the Italians have vetoed this, saying that 22 is a fascist number. And they should know.
I remember learning "the English Language" as a child, and it was amazingly close to what is also known as, uh, "English". I believe the intent of the drafters of the EU Convention on UCE when they said "the Dutch Language" rather than "Dutch" was to stress the "language" part, because there are many things "Dutch", including cheese, hash, beer, and large annoying humans. Many EU conventions have been sabotaged by michieveous Hollanders trying to write their memos in Gouda or Edam instead of prose. Sneaky kaaskoppen.
Also I believe your posting proves conclusively that only one in three people here can actually "read English" at all.
Ah, but the EU Convention on UCE is (a) a draft convention, and (b) the choice of Italian represents the current holder of the presidency. Note that article 5 specifically allows unlimited volumes of UCE from any business owned by Berlusconi, and that includes the Cosa Nostra and associated franchises in the rest of Europe.
Article 4: any electronic communication containing more than 10% irony or thinly disguised humour shall be moderated as "informative".
What the heck is up with Slashdot, can't I even flame the good old EU without being praised as a savant?
It was a joke, guys. No-one would actually use Italian as one of the four main languages. And yes, Dutch is easy to decipher, vooral voor ons nederlanstalige. Nom de dieu, quelle band de connards. C'etait une blague, mes amis. T'was een grapje. Probleme eza te. Malamu, malamu.
Article 1: All unsolicted electronic communications (UCE) intended for commercial purposes, including but not exclusively for the sale of electronic products, personal services, errection-producing drugs, digital images of a pronographic nature, and percentage offers of the fortunes of deceased African dictators, shall follow the code of conduct established in Article 2.
Article 2: all business email sent to and from correspondents in the member states of the EU shall be provided in all four (4) of the following languages: English, French, German, and Italian, plus any two (2) of the following languages: Finnish, Swedish, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese. The Dutch language may only be used as an encryption device for confidential communications.
Article 3 - Sanctions. The minimum sanction for any natural entity sending emails in an illegal combination of languages shall be no less than twenty years of service in the customer service department of the European Union.....
I don't see the problem, so long as all EU countries implement this convention fully. That, and castrating spammers should take care of things.
Uhm, one is an operating system, the other a database. Compare MySQL to MSAccess, if you like. Anyhow, I disagree with the substance of your comment: there are many companies that provide Linux trainings, and there are hundreds of books and thousands of web sites providing guides. I suspect the wealth of information is significantly wider and deeper than that available for Windows. I also suspect the same is true for MySQL (for instance) compared to MS Access. The problem of training and culture is one that affects new products in their early adopter phase. Linux is past this phase. No-one seriously asks for manuals for an OS, any more than you ask for a book with Windows (last time I checked, the book was about 25 pages long of which 24 were the license). The problem of accreditation is a false one, since the 'accredited' institutions are simply ones that have paid Microsoft for a license. It is a circular argument: the vendor is simply reinforcing their own image. Most businesses choose their suppliers on cost and performance and reputation, not simple credentials. MS do a lot of marketing to push 'accreditation', but it's a sham and stops working as soon as the pressure drops.
... is simply Linux itself. We have moved from the early adopter stage to the mass market stage, and we can expect exponential growth of Linux adoption by business until only the late-adopters are still using old-fashioned stuff. For once this IT wave won't create an economic bubble: it is more like the waves of standardisation that hit new industries after their initial bubbles. Think railways in the 1850s(?) and standardized track sizes. The real economic boom will be in products and services that make use of this standard and modernised platform. If I was investing in IT today, it would be in communications systems that rely on a standard OS across multiple arbitrary systems. Think of 'your work anywhere', but relying on Linux on your PDA, mobile phone, desktop, etc.
Perhaps we can take the time to look at the root causes of the whole P2P/ music industry / RIAA debacle. We all know the context. But what are the hidden assumptions? Can we reanalyse these? And can we find a new model for buying and selling digital media that does not pit the greedy tycoons against the valiant hackers? I think so...
1. The first assumption is that consumption is completely elastic. In other words, people will pay whatever the goods they want cost. (Assumption of the media industry.)
2. The second is that value is constant. In other words, digital theft by a million people is equal to physical theft of a million CDs.(Assumption of the media industry, who come up with bizarre figures as to the "loss" sustained thanks to illegal file sharing.)
3. The third is that digital content has no value. In other words, digital theft is not theft because bits and bytes have no value. (Assumption of the file swappers.)
All these assumptions are wrong.
First, consumption is almost completely inelastic. People will spend every disposable penny they have. If goods are cheaper, they will buy more of them. Raising the price of goods simply decreases demand.
Secondly, value is not just constant, it is almost always inversely proportional to rarity. In other words, the more of an item is available, the less it is worth.
Thirdly, of course digital content has value: that people go to great lengths to aquire it demonstrates this. However, its value is subject to the law of rarity.
What does this all mean?
Firstly, whether or not people illegally share music (and the same applies to movies), the value of media is going down inexorably thanks to the huge volume produced. And I'm not speaking of the cost of manufacture, but the perceived value, the price people are willing to pay. Diamonds cost practically nothing to produce, their value comes from their rarity.
Secondly, an industry faced with this value equation has several options. They can try to restrict supply and eliminate competition, which is what the music industry has done for about 20 years since the CD eliminated the production bottleneck. In a competitive market they will lower their prices so that consumers stay loyal. We have also seen this. Finally, they can ignore reality and die.
Thirdly, one of the ironies about digital distribution is that it eliminates the rarity variable. This means that any object distributed digitally will inevitably tend towards zero. I can download music from the Net but I value my own (irreplacable) CD collection much more.
I believe that even the 'pay as you go' model is doomed to failure. The only sustainable model is one in which prices are set by the market and production by the producers.
So, what I propose (or rather, predict, for this is almost inevitable) is a media market that works as follows:
1. The producer of a work creates a specific number of instances of the work. This can be as large or small as they want, but they cannot change the quantity afterwards.
2. The instances are individually serialized so as to be traceable to their owner. They can be copied freely.
3. These instances are now auctioned and can be resold in an open market.
This scheme can be applied to music, writing, photographs, almost any digital creation. Imagine a famous writer produces a short story. They issue a series of 1000. Now, you can buy one of these copies. It will be, forever, an original that is certified and unlosable. The price is set by auction, and the rights to these copies can be traded in an open market. What's the cost of a 2003 Madonna? Around $1.20, these days. And a 1998 Leftfield? Up to $30, if you can get them. In fact, you have paid not for a real thing, but for a slice of rarity. Sound strange? What about shares and options...?
There is only one requirement for such a market, and that is the market place. All the rest follows from the natural laws of supply and demand.
First, if webcasting is "so expensive that the small guys are forced out", how come the same price structure is so cool for playing songs legally?
Second, what's with the missing zeroes. I mean, just proofread the damn article once, and make sure 0.0007 is not 0.07 or whatever.
Thirdly, good journalists do not mix emotion and reporting. Yes, you touch a chord with those who feel like you, but they're listening anyhow. And the rest of us simply say "immature shit" and stop reading. Every sentence you write is the weakest chain in your argument.
The article defeats its own logic, starting with "web casting is too expensive" and concluding with "everyone become a web caster".
It works like this. Bunch of people sit around saying, "wouldn't it be cool if...", and soon come up with a bunch of ideas. Unnoticed, the hard facts of reality gather round and start to ask for attention. "But will it sell?" "Does anyone actually want it?" "Did you check the current market for this product". >SPLOIT!SPLOIT!wicked thoughts.
Sad news when AOL has to be the innovator
on
AOL: Amazon Who?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The music industry is really in dire straits when AOL can take the lead in selling music. But it is a good move, and probably good for consumers. selling music on disc and as downloads makes sense. I suspect we are seeing the slow but real migration of music distribution from offline retail to online retail. When Walmart start selling tracks you know it's finally happened. The more companies do this, the more competition and the better the choice for the consumer. If there is one single way to eliminate those pesky P2P people, this is it. Oh, and AOL, while you're at it, please start planning to sell TV series and movies the same way.
Ten products all based on the same model is much less costly than ten different products. Don't try to innovate and standardise. If it's the first time you do something, do it quick and dirty and be prepared to throw it away. Quick and dirty is OK, even excellent, the first time, and it will be garbage-grade material. Quick and dirty is wasteful the second and later times. Conversely, slow & excellent is stupid when you don't know the terrain, and essential once you do. Lastly, try to ignore the marketroids and listen to the client. (S)he will usually know exactly what they need, but be unable to express themselves.
Taggers can't resist a blank wall and hackers can't resist a DRM system. Let me guess the ways the Phantom PC will phall: 1. Someone will hack the network protocol and find a way to stream those downloaded games to unprotected media. 2. Someone will find a bug in part of the DRM (the loader, maybe) that allows code to be inserted into the stack and WHAM. 3. Someone will make the inevitable mod chip and inevitably be sued. 4. Someone will... heck this is getting boring. Did no-one learn a lesson from the 1980's? Guys, you CANNOT COPY PROTECT SOFTWARE!!! Jeez. It's like the movie where the bad guy says to the cop: "to stay alive, you have to have a good day, every day. If I (the crook) have just one good day, you're dead and I win." Aw, let the games begin!
Why Kudos and not Profit? Easy, and this is the key to OSS: you need money when you trade with strangers. When you trade with people you know, reciprocity is enough. OSS is possible because of community. The community is possible because of cheap communications.
This is excellent
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Opengroupware
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Slowly, slowly, one step at a time. A position taken by OSS can never be captured back, and the enemy does not have an infinite ground to fall back on. The circle widens, and there are only two kinds of protagonist: 'us' within the circle, and 'them' outside. No apologies for my use of the language of aggression - this is the way of human affairs. But seriously, this will drive OSS into the heart of mid-sized businesses.
Much the same battle, it seems. On the one side we have the incumbents using market control to milk a public with inferior but oversold goods, on the other we have the small independents using new technology to provide the public with the stuff they really want. Presumably Hollywood will go through the classic cycle: denial, arrogant dismissmal, panic, protectionism, decay, death. Don't you just love the way these things go?
Since at least the mid-1980's my Advanced Projects Reasearch Team has been trying to build computers that will produce espresso coffee. We have managed to build an espresso coffee machine that can compute, but that is not enough. Besides, it gets depressed and decided to make tea instead. Now we can simultaneously cool the mobile computing platform _and_ generate the 100 bars of pressurized steam required to produce a foamy, rich espresso. I just hope HP and Lexmark do not sell the coffee capsules, or they will end up costing more than luxury champagne.
Question: SCO has declared itself a victim of breach of contract by IBM, specifically WRT AIX. Why, then, is it attacking Linux so specifically and directly? Answer: the goal of this exercise is to attack Linux, nothing else.
Question: why is IBM saying nothing? Answer: they believe SCO might win, and are willing to sacrifice Linux if necessary.
Question: why is Microsoft saying nothing? Answer: everyone knows they hate Linux, so no-one believes their propaganda any longer. They need a fresh mouthpiece. SCO is that mouthpiece.
Question: why is Microsoft so intent on harming Linux? Answer: the goals of Linux and all OSS are nothing less than the total anhilation of Microsoft. War is not a nice thing. This is not a metaphor: we are talking about the lives of people you know.
Question: if it is war, how do we win? Answer: this is a good question, and timely. You win wars by avoiding the battles you cannot win and by winning those you can.
Question: what is the ultimate goal of Microsoft? Answer: the closure of the "development gap", in which the right to create code still lies in the hands of the individual. Ultimately, this power must be restricted to licensed programmers only. Nothing less than that makes sense. If your think this is exageration, look at other professions, then think about the public's perception of hackers, Linux kernel hackers, and virus writers.
(Sumamrized from a lecture by Richard M. Stallman).
The argument against software patents is made on three grounds:
1. the products of the software industry are so large and complex (because of the lack of physical constraints) that the scale of 'invention' is hundreds times greater than in the physical world.
2. patents are expensive (10k Euro in Europe) and rarely can small businesses or individuals afford to aquire them.
3. even when people overcome point 2, they find that the large patent portfolios of large companies render their patents useless.
Conclusion: large companies purchase patents in order to protect not their inventions, but their competitive advantage. Since innovation comes from smaller teams, patents thus work against innovation.
Software patents exaggerate what is a manageable problem with physical patents, and turn it into a serious problem for smaller designers. Basically patents allow large businesses to collaborate with burocracy to create barriers against the entrance of smaller groups.
The notion that we can significantly improve people by strictly feeding them one or other social diet has been the basis of much misery inflicted in the name of social progress. Children need, above all, to be free to play the way they want to, in a varied and challenging environment that includes many other people. Children learn best and most from other children, not from games or books, and yet role of child culture in the learning process is almost totally ignored by this kind of pronouncement. Games - even well-designed educational games - cannot replace a robust and healthy child cultural, and I would suspect they actually damage this culture. If there is one lesson that the last century taught us, it is that a dogmatic approach to human nature inevitably screws us in the worst ways possible. Yes, you may raise a generation of children who understand subtle rules about social interaction. Or you may simply raise a generation of kids who are out of synch with the world around them because while this was changing and moving, they had their faces in a simulation.
Question: SCO has declared itself a victim of breach of contract by IBM, specifically WRT AIX. Why, then, is it attacking Linux so specifically and directly? Answer: the goal of this exercise is to attack Linux, nothing else. Question: why is IBM saying nothing? Answer: they believe SCO might win, and are willing to sacrifice Linux if necessary. Question: why is Microsoft saying nothing? Answer: everyone knows they hate Linux, so no-one believes their propaganda any longer. They need a fresh mouthpiece. SCO is that mouthpiece. Question: why is Microsoft so intent on harming Linux? Answer: the goals of Linux and all OSS are nothing less than the total anhilation of Microsoft. War is not a nice thing. This is not a metaphor: we are talking about the lives of people you know. Question: if it is war, how do we win? Answer: this is a good question, and timely. You win wars by avoiding the battles you cannot win and by winning those you can. Question: what is the ultimate goal of Microsoft? Answer: the closure of the "development gap", in which the right to create code still lies in the hands of the individual. Ultimately, this power must be restricted to licensed programmers only. Nothing less than that makes sense. If your think this is exageration, look at other professions, then think about the public's perception of hackers, Linux kernel hackers, and virus writers. Still feel safe?
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Every time a friend tells me they are going to install ADSL or a cable modem, I tell them: "do not come asking for help", and a week later, they are there asking me why it won't work.
Despite twenty years hooking PCs to networks, it's still amazing how complex the process is. And that's before you get the viruses, trojans, pop-up porn spam windows, adwares, anti-adwares, etc.
These low-cost ISPs generally make the Internet experience simple and painless, and don't try to sell gadgets, just a basic way to get email and surf gently.
All success to them. It's a market that AOL could not hold on to, but a huge market nonetheless.
I have seen the future and it is this: set-top boxes that record everything coming in and send it back out onto a global P2P network that turns the RIAA/MPAA's hair a delicate shade of pure white.
"Select 'Share All' to share your TV programmes..."
Now, imagine this had the backing of a national government, TV companies, movie distributors, cable distributors and banks, and was tied into a simple payment system. Hold your breath, count to five, and you have instant pay-as-you-go TV and video and music on demand.
Prediction: this will not happen legally.
Shame for the media industry, it could make them so... much.... money.
Linux, linux, linux... really?
Follow the money. This is about one company beating another in an important deal. The winner here is IBM, who have promised Munich a better deal than Microsoft was able to deliver.
Linux is IBM's (not so) secret weapon, the product they can push as a Windows killer.
Don't forget that for many large institutions and their IT departments, Microsoft is somewhat of an annoying upstart that caused havoc by giving tools like Excel and Access to people who then broke the back of centralized IT. IBM represents the comforting security of Big Iron, and with Linux, Big Iron that is Definitely Hip.
This is a victory for Linux, but before we all do a dance of joy for freedom and the GPL, remember that this is about money and power and IBM, the company that taught Microsoft everything they needed about monopolies, customer extortion, and unfair competition.
There is no reason to believe that this is not also the future of an IBM that once again gains a dominant position in corporate IT.
If there is one crucial device that will keep Linux alive it is the GPL, which is a beautifully designed poison pill against corporate takeovers of free software. Richard Stallman, thanks again!
Indeed, individual people are very rational. /.
Sometimes (often?) they base their decisions on incomplete information, which can reach into self-delusion. This does not make their decisions less rational.
For instance, people do not flock in matters tastes because they are irrational. Indeed, accepting the tastes of a group is very rational once you understand that this is easier and more effective than trying to establish your own tastes by trying products individually.
Consider the hard work that record critics do... few people can afford the time and money involved. So, following your friend's tastes is a good indicator of finding stuff you will like too.
We hate Britney Spears's music because she makes music for young things who don't have time for serious pursuits like working uh, playing on
Thinking of oneself as 'rational' and everyone else as 'irrational' just makes us blind to other people's motives and desires.
Unfortunately for LARTing fans, the use of physical violence against natural entities (even Italians) is strictly controlled by the EU Convention on Applied Interentity Violence, section 3, chapter III, articles 5 to 10. LARTing mallets are permitted but only from July 1 to July 14 (so you missed the season), and only if you hold a grade 3 license in applied LARTing.
Further (I know, this is a long post, but these conventions are very detailed), the number 20 is not a valid EU number. This may surprise some people, but in a ruling by the EU Commission on Trade and Industry in 2001 (ref. PB/221/2231) the number 20 was ruled as being "unfair" and "discriminatory". A great effort has been made to move all businesses to 19 or 21, and this has largely been successful. However, the EU is now faced with cheap imports of 20 from Eastern Europe and counterfeit 19's and 21's from China (since there is now a shortage of these numbers). There is a decision pending that will create a superfund to pay for the production of extra 19's and 21's, and some people have even suggested using 22's, but the Italians have vetoed this, saying that 22 is a fascist number. And they should know.
--- Brussels, July 15th, 2003.
I remember learning "the English Language" as a child, and it was amazingly close to what is also known as, uh, "English". I believe the intent of the drafters of the EU Convention on UCE when they said "the Dutch Language" rather than "Dutch" was to stress the "language" part, because there are many things "Dutch", including cheese, hash, beer, and large annoying humans. Many EU conventions have been sabotaged by michieveous Hollanders trying to write their memos in Gouda or Edam instead of prose. Sneaky kaaskoppen.
Also I believe your posting proves conclusively that only one in three people here can actually "read English" at all.
> Perhaps somebody can elaborate or correct me...
Ah, but the EU Convention on UCE is (a) a draft convention, and (b) the choice of Italian represents the current holder of the presidency. Note that article 5 specifically allows unlimited volumes of UCE from any business owned by Berlusconi, and that includes the Cosa Nostra and associated franchises in the rest of Europe.
Article 4: any electronic communication containing more than 10% irony or thinly disguised humour shall be moderated as "informative".
What the heck is up with Slashdot, can't I even flame the good old EU without being praised as a savant?
It was a joke, guys. No-one would actually use Italian as one of the four main languages. And yes, Dutch is easy to decipher, vooral voor ons nederlanstalige. Nom de dieu, quelle band de connards. C'etait une blague, mes amis. T'was een grapje. Probleme eza te. Malamu, malamu.
Section 3, Chapter II:
....
Article 1: All unsolicted electronic communications (UCE) intended for commercial purposes, including but not exclusively for the sale of electronic products, personal services, errection-producing drugs, digital images of a pronographic nature, and percentage offers of the fortunes of deceased African dictators, shall follow the code of conduct established in Article 2.
Article 2: all business email sent to and from correspondents in the member states of the EU shall be provided in all four (4) of the following languages: English, French, German, and Italian, plus any two (2) of the following languages: Finnish, Swedish, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese. The Dutch language may only be used as an encryption device for confidential communications.
Article 3 - Sanctions. The minimum sanction for any natural entity sending emails in an illegal combination of languages shall be no less than twenty years of service in the customer service department of the European Union.
I don't see the problem, so long as all EU countries implement this convention fully. That, and castrating spammers should take care of things.
Uhm, one is an operating system, the other a database. Compare MySQL to MSAccess, if you like. Anyhow, I disagree with the substance of your comment: there are many companies that provide Linux trainings, and there are hundreds of books and thousands of web sites providing guides. I suspect the wealth of information is significantly wider and deeper than that available for Windows. I also suspect the same is true for MySQL (for instance) compared to MS Access.
The problem of training and culture is one that affects new products in their early adopter phase. Linux is past this phase. No-one seriously asks for manuals for an OS, any more than you ask for a book with Windows (last time I checked, the book was about 25 pages long of which 24 were the license).
The problem of accreditation is a false one, since the 'accredited' institutions are simply ones that have paid Microsoft for a license. It is a circular argument: the vendor is simply reinforcing their own image. Most businesses choose their suppliers on cost and performance and reputation, not simple credentials. MS do a lot of marketing to push 'accreditation', but it's a sham and stops working as soon as the pressure drops.
... is simply Linux itself. We have moved from the early adopter stage to the mass market stage, and we can expect exponential growth of Linux adoption by business until only the late-adopters are still using old-fashioned stuff.
For once this IT wave won't create an economic bubble: it is more like the waves of standardisation that hit new industries after their initial bubbles. Think railways in the 1850s(?) and standardized track sizes.
The real economic boom will be in products and services that make use of this standard and modernised platform.
If I was investing in IT today, it would be in communications systems that rely on a standard OS across multiple arbitrary systems. Think of 'your work anywhere', but relying on Linux on your PDA, mobile phone, desktop, etc.
Perhaps we can take the time to look at the root causes of the whole P2P/ music industry / RIAA debacle. We all know the context. But what are the hidden assumptions? Can we reanalyse these? And can we find a new model for buying and selling digital media that does not pit the greedy tycoons against the valiant hackers? I think so...
1. The first assumption is that consumption is completely elastic. In other words, people will pay whatever the goods they want cost. (Assumption of the media industry.)
2. The second is that value is constant. In other words, digital theft by a million people is equal to physical theft of a million CDs.(Assumption of the media industry, who come up with bizarre figures as to the "loss" sustained thanks to illegal file sharing.)
3. The third is that digital content has no value. In other words, digital theft is not theft because bits and bytes have no value. (Assumption of the file swappers.)
All these assumptions are wrong.
First, consumption is almost completely inelastic. People will spend every disposable penny they have. If goods are cheaper, they will buy more of them. Raising the price of goods simply decreases demand.
Secondly, value is not just constant, it is almost always inversely proportional to rarity. In other words, the more of an item is available, the less it is worth.
Thirdly, of course digital content has value: that people go to great lengths to aquire it demonstrates this. However, its value is subject to the law of rarity.
What does this all mean?
Firstly, whether or not people illegally share music (and the same applies to movies), the value of media is going down inexorably thanks to the huge volume produced. And I'm not speaking of the cost of manufacture, but the perceived value, the price people are willing to pay. Diamonds cost practically nothing to produce, their value comes from their rarity.
Secondly, an industry faced with this value equation has several options. They can try to restrict supply and eliminate competition, which is what the music industry has done for about 20 years since the CD eliminated the production bottleneck. In a competitive market they will lower their prices so that consumers stay loyal. We have also seen this. Finally, they can ignore reality and die.
Thirdly, one of the ironies about digital distribution is that it eliminates the rarity variable. This means that any object distributed digitally will inevitably tend towards zero. I can download music from the Net but I value my own (irreplacable) CD collection much more.
I believe that even the 'pay as you go' model is doomed to failure. The only sustainable model is one in which prices are set by the market and production by the producers.
So, what I propose (or rather, predict, for this is almost inevitable) is a media market that works as follows:
1. The producer of a work creates a specific number of instances of the work. This can be as large or small as they want, but they cannot change the quantity afterwards.
2. The instances are individually serialized so as to be traceable to their owner. They can be copied freely.
3. These instances are now auctioned and can be resold in an open market.
This scheme can be applied to music, writing, photographs, almost any digital creation. Imagine a famous writer produces a short story. They issue a series of 1000. Now, you can buy one of these copies. It will be, forever, an original that is certified and unlosable. The price is set by auction, and the rights to these copies can be traded in an open market. What's the cost of a 2003 Madonna? Around $1.20, these days. And a 1998 Leftfield? Up to $30, if you can get them. In fact, you have paid not for a real thing, but for a slice of rarity. Sound strange? What about shares and options...?
There is only one requirement for such a market, and that is the market place. All the rest follows from the natural laws of supply and demand.
Or maybe it's just coincidence.
First, if webcasting is "so expensive that the small guys are forced out", how come the same price structure is so cool for playing songs legally?
Second, what's with the missing zeroes. I mean, just proofread the damn article once, and make sure 0.0007 is not 0.07 or whatever.
Thirdly, good journalists do not mix emotion and reporting. Yes, you touch a chord with those who feel like you, but they're listening anyhow. And the rest of us simply say "immature shit" and stop reading. Every sentence you write is the weakest chain in your argument.
The article defeats its own logic, starting with "web casting is too expensive" and concluding with "everyone become a web caster".
Sigh. OK, it is Sunday, I guess.
It works like this. Bunch of people sit around saying, "wouldn't it be cool if...", and soon come up with a bunch of ideas. Unnoticed, the hard facts of reality gather round and start to ask for attention. "But will it sell?" "Does anyone actually want it?" "Did you check the current market for this product". >SPLOIT!SPLOIT!wicked thoughts.
The music industry is really in dire straits when AOL can take the lead in selling music. But it is a good move, and probably good for consumers. selling music on disc and as downloads makes sense. I suspect we are seeing the slow but real migration of music distribution from offline retail to online retail. When Walmart start selling tracks you know it's finally happened.
The more companies do this, the more competition and the better the choice for the consumer. If there is one single way to eliminate those pesky P2P people, this is it.
Oh, and AOL, while you're at it, please start planning to sell TV series and movies the same way.
Ten products all based on the same model is much less costly than ten different products.
Don't try to innovate and standardise. If it's the first time you do something, do it quick and dirty and be prepared to throw it away.
Quick and dirty is OK, even excellent, the first time, and it will be garbage-grade material. Quick and dirty is wasteful the second and later times. Conversely, slow & excellent is stupid when you don't know the terrain, and essential once you do.
Lastly, try to ignore the marketroids and listen to the client. (S)he will usually know exactly what they need, but be unable to express themselves.
Taggers can't resist a blank wall and hackers can't resist a DRM system.
Let me guess the ways the Phantom PC will phall:
1. Someone will hack the network protocol and find a way to stream those downloaded games to unprotected media.
2. Someone will find a bug in part of the DRM (the loader, maybe) that allows code to be inserted into the stack and WHAM.
3. Someone will make the inevitable mod chip and inevitably be sued.
4. Someone will... heck this is getting boring.
Did no-one learn a lesson from the 1980's? Guys, you CANNOT COPY PROTECT SOFTWARE!!! Jeez. It's like the movie where the bad guy says to the cop: "to stay alive, you have to have a good day, every day. If I (the crook) have just one good day, you're dead and I win."
Aw, let the games begin!
1. Blood, sweat and tears
2. ???
3. Kudos!!
Why Kudos and not Profit? Easy, and this is the key to OSS: you need money when you trade with strangers. When you trade with people you know, reciprocity is enough. OSS is possible because of community. The community is possible because of cheap communications.
Slowly, slowly, one step at a time. A position taken by OSS can never be captured back, and the enemy does not have an infinite ground to fall back on. The circle widens, and there are only two kinds of protagonist: 'us' within the circle, and 'them' outside.
No apologies for my use of the language of aggression - this is the way of human affairs.
But seriously, this will drive OSS into the heart of mid-sized businesses.
Much the same battle, it seems. On the one side we have the incumbents using market control to milk a public with inferior but oversold goods, on the other we have the small independents using new technology to provide the public with the stuff they really want.
Presumably Hollywood will go through the classic cycle: denial, arrogant dismissmal, panic, protectionism, decay, death.
Don't you just love the way these things go?
Since at least the mid-1980's my Advanced Projects Reasearch Team has been trying to build computers that will produce espresso coffee. We have managed to build an espresso coffee machine that can compute, but that is not enough. Besides, it gets depressed and decided to make tea instead. Now we can simultaneously cool the mobile computing platform _and_ generate the 100 bars of pressurized steam required to produce a foamy, rich espresso.
I just hope HP and Lexmark do not sell the coffee capsules, or they will end up costing more than luxury champagne.
Question: SCO has declared itself a victim of breach of contract by IBM, specifically WRT AIX. Why, then, is it attacking Linux so specifically and directly?
Answer: the goal of this exercise is to attack Linux, nothing else.
Question: why is IBM saying nothing?
Answer: they believe SCO might win, and are willing to sacrifice Linux if necessary.
Question: why is Microsoft saying nothing?
Answer: everyone knows they hate Linux, so no-one believes their propaganda any longer. They need a fresh mouthpiece. SCO is that mouthpiece.
Question: why is Microsoft so intent on harming Linux?
Answer: the goals of Linux and all OSS are nothing less than the total anhilation of Microsoft. War is not a nice thing. This is not a metaphor: we are talking about the lives of people you know.
Question: if it is war, how do we win?
Answer: this is a good question, and timely. You win wars by avoiding the battles you cannot win and by winning those you can.
Question: what is the ultimate goal of Microsoft?
Answer: the closure of the "development gap", in which the right to create code still lies in the hands of the individual. Ultimately, this power must be restricted to licensed programmers only. Nothing less than that makes sense. If your think this is exageration, look at other professions, then think about the public's perception of hackers, Linux kernel hackers, and virus writers.
(Sumamrized from a lecture by Richard M. Stallman).
The argument against software patents is made on three grounds:
1. the products of the software industry are so large and complex (because of the lack of physical constraints) that the scale of 'invention' is hundreds times greater than in the physical world.
2. patents are expensive (10k Euro in Europe) and rarely can small businesses or individuals afford to aquire them.
3. even when people overcome point 2, they find that the large patent portfolios of large companies render their patents useless.
Conclusion: large companies purchase patents in order to protect not their inventions, but their competitive advantage. Since innovation comes from smaller teams, patents thus work against innovation.
Software patents exaggerate what is a manageable problem with physical patents, and turn it into a serious problem for smaller designers. Basically patents allow large businesses to collaborate with burocracy to create barriers against the entrance of smaller groups.
This is bad, corrupt, and economically stupid.
End of argument.
The notion that we can significantly improve people by strictly feeding them one or other social diet has been the basis of much misery inflicted in the name of social progress.
Children need, above all, to be free to play the way they want to, in a varied and challenging environment that includes many other people.
Children learn best and most from other children, not from games or books, and yet role of child culture in the learning process is almost totally ignored by this kind of pronouncement. Games - even well-designed educational games - cannot replace a robust and healthy child cultural, and I would suspect they actually damage this culture.
If there is one lesson that the last century taught us, it is that a dogmatic approach to human nature inevitably screws us in the worst ways possible.
Yes, you may raise a generation of children who understand subtle rules about social interaction. Or you may simply raise a generation of kids who are out of synch with the world around them because while this was changing and moving, they had their faces in a simulation.
Question: SCO has declared itself a victim of breach of contract by IBM, specifically WRT AIX. Why, then, is it attacking Linux so specifically and directly?
Answer: the goal of this exercise is to attack Linux, nothing else.
Question: why is IBM saying nothing?
Answer: they believe SCO might win, and are willing to sacrifice Linux if necessary.
Question: why is Microsoft saying nothing?
Answer: everyone knows they hate Linux, so no-one believes their propaganda any longer. They need a fresh mouthpiece. SCO is that mouthpiece.
Question: why is Microsoft so intent on harming Linux?
Answer: the goals of Linux and all OSS are nothing less than the total anhilation of Microsoft. War is not a nice thing. This is not a metaphor: we are talking about the lives of people you know.
Question: if it is war, how do we win?
Answer: this is a good question, and timely. You win wars by avoiding the battles you cannot win and by winning those you can.
Question: what is the ultimate goal of Microsoft?
Answer: the closure of the "development gap", in which the right to create code still lies in the hands of the individual. Ultimately, this power must be restricted to licensed programmers only. Nothing less than that makes sense. If your think this is exageration, look at other professions, then think about the public's perception of hackers, Linux kernel hackers, and virus writers. Still feel safe?