What's becoming apparent, as the world's population increases and becomes increasingly interconnected, and individual products become increasingly complex with things like DRM, spyware and rootkits, for each individual it becomes harder to be fully informed about each purchase. This can lead to an increasing disconnect between buying/selling price the GP mentioned and reduced market efficiency.
On the other hand, there's a lot of information on the internet now that allows people to be informed. I've bought DVD players after reading newsgroups and getting a mass of information before purchasing. Reading places like Slashdot keeps me informed about what's in new products - like the proprietary standards in some products.
Doing product research, whether on the internet or via print media/friends is not a new thing, though. A lot of people just don't bother. Of course, you then have to watch out for biased print/internet media posting kind reviews.
It's hard to legislate in these areas. How do you prove that someone posting a good review for a movie did so because they are getting an exclusive interview with the co-star? You can't. What you can do is learn whether the reviewer is generally trustworthy or not over time.
Well, I have no interest arguing with people who don't want to listen to alternative views and just want people to accept what they have to say as THE TRUTH.
Come back when you're ready to have a rational discussion on a subject - you might learn something from talking to people with an alternative view.
Perhaps I'm jumping to the conclusion, but I think you should designate me as a "foe" and we can merrily ignore each other forever. I really have much better things to do with my time.
Let me just check what you are saying in your post...
"Curse... Generalise... Insult... Self-righteousness. And now I've run out of cohesive arguments, I'd like no replies and to take my ball away because I'm not winning".
Come back when you've got a cohesive argument with regards to intrinsic value beyond "I remain confident that there is such a thing as intrinsic value".
I think that biometrics are dangerous because they give people the false belief in a perfect security system, an extension of when I've heard people in a company tell me that "the computer says so".
People will trust these systems to the point that they will disengage their critical faculties, because they have been told how reliable they are.
When biometric ID cards come in to the UK, I believe we will see more fraud because of this. Once someone works out how to break it (by gummi bear, play-doh) or whatever, they will pass and be able to pull off bigger frauds.
It's its simplest term, an IT professional is someone who gets paid for doing IT. That can mean a useless guy who's crammed up to pass some exams, or a guy who can proverbially make square pegs fit round holes with software.
A lot of IT pros that I know take a professional view of software. They want to build the best solution. That can mean OSS or closed, paid for software. I concur with what you say - many are now looking at OSS solutions.
There's also no conflict between profit and OSS. I built a site for someone and used OSS for profitable reasons. All the software (Apache, PHP, MySQL) was free, hosting was a lot less of a struggle to set up and the support costs have been almost nil. Not only that, but OSS development changes based on developer needs. Languages like PERL and PHP evolve over time. That means that your investment in them as a developer is not wasted, where a closed-source solution can mean a company deciding that they want to ditch a tool and rewrite the world, leaving developers with no choice but to climb a steep ladder of learning of cost and risk, for no real-world benefit.
The other thing I like with OSS - tools don't become expired with the new version of an OS or the next version requires an OS upgrade - these mean I can keep a stable environment that I am used to - reducing downtime/retraining time and raising productivity. I partly do this to reduce the frustration of development, but this also means I can develop faster and with more stability - and that's good for the bottom line.
People should add up all the lost time with certain closed solutions compared with the advertised productivity gains. Having to replace developer skills in one language with another language costs the equivalent of months of lost time in retraining (retraining takes a lot longer than just the two weeks on a training course - it takes time to get used to all the ways that the new environment "works" in all it's subtle little ways.
The thing is that Microsoft is playing a game of whack-a-mole with OpenOffice.org, and all the time, it's getting faster and harder for them as more people see the merits of the alternative.
Companies are harder to influence than government, because the people running them have a direct self-interest in cutting costs. This is particularly so for small companies.
I'm starting to wonder how soon it will be that it will be acceptable to start sending out ODF files to people on the assumption that there's a 70+% chance of them having OpenOffice.org. Or maybe we need a lightweight ODF viewer.
It's become difficult to tell the difference between the "good" stuff and the cheap "imitations" because a lot of it is the same product, made in the same factories by the same people. When you buy certain premium brands, you are often paying for a name sticker and a sense that you are not going to buy a dud.
Look around the web, and you can often find out which products are the same.
Let's forget what people did in the past and focus on WHY I believe it's reached it's peak.
In every one of those cases, they were superceded by something that offered something more to people. Reel-to-reel was never a format for sold music. 8-track gave people convenience over records (they could play them in cars). Compact cassette shrunk things further. CD gave people higher quality, and didn't have the problems of records.
My point is that we have reached a stage where the sound quality is good enough for people, and size of format is irrelevant. Sound quality is good enough because attempts to create a more advanced format have gone nowhere. Other than audiophile shops, you'll struggle to find DVD-A and SACD, and that's not because they've just come out - no-one wants them.
If the music companies were so powerful at replacing consumers options, they'd have tried to bring in the better protected SACD and stop producing CDs. As for size, that's irrelevant.
Make it the size of a postage stamp - it doesn't matter because where size matters - portable music - it is all going iPod, which can just be transferred.
For most people, 2 channels is plenty. Especially as a lot of music is in-car and on headphones. There are multi-channel formats (some DVDs of operas use various surround options). It's limited in how many people want it.
Videos, commentary, unreleased songs can easily be done with enhanced CD.
There's also the question of upgrades. Now, there is no upgrade. Where CD gave a difference in quality, there's nothing to add to it now. The last thing would have been to have made it smaller, but that's been solved by the iPod.
People will upgrade if they perceive something better. And for most people, CD is good enough, and it always will be.
I seem to recall reading something about a high-end radio manufacturer in the UK making their first DAB and saying that if you can get an excellent FM signal, it's better.
DAB is good from the point of view that there are a lot more channels.
My guess is that the first things to get HDTV will be the PPV movies. I don't think anyone's in a hurry to see QVC in HDTV.
I remember HDTV first coming out and people talking about it being 2000 lines. Now, the maximum is about 1000, and my guess is that the maximum that's going to be broadcast is the 720 resolution.
Then again, I only want HDTV for movies, where right now, cinema still offers a considerable benefit in detail. 720 still won't come close to a cinema experience.
It's like saying that you can patent a car wheel because it's no longer just a wheel, but one that has spokes and helps a car go round.
Patents should require lateral thinking, should reward true innovation. Where someone looks at a problem and thinks "I have another way". And it's a way that's never been visited before. And if you asked a dozen engineers, they wouldn't think of it, and if then shown the alternative would either dismiss it as ludicrous or scratch their heads, smile and say "cool".
Things like the jet engine, the transistor, Dyson's cleaner, the biro, the paperclip. These deserve patents, not doing what almost any software engineer would have done given the option.
Sometimes, patents are truly a great invention, and deserve protection.
A patent should be non-obvious, something like the Dyson cyclone cleaner or the way that John Harrison worked out for measuring longtitude. Typically where someone applies some lateral thinking to the problem in a way that other skilled people in the same field would miss.
Unlike many other inventions, software ones are either functionally possible, or not. It is simply a matter of functional decomposition. The constraints are known. When an inventor builds a new type of machine, they do not, and there are many attempts at inventions that simply fail. Likewise, for drug companies. They may pursue an idea and go down many blind alleys before succeeding. Then, there are the costs of drug testing. For these, I think that patents have a place. If you didn't have patents, you'd have to rely on charities or government to create new drugs.
Consumer devices like this may have R&D costs, but it's also about being first to market, getting a lead on other companies to have to write software to do something similar. This is not the same as copying a drug, where formulations have to be public, and therefore, get no market lead. That's the equivalent of saying "no copyright on software" - people would not produce commercial software.
I've always avoided "exit interviews". The reason I'm probably leaving is because I've already raised issues that weren't resolved, so, as you didn't listen to me before, why should I bother?
And secondly... I'M LEAVING. Exit interviews are designed to help a company learn some lessons, to avoid people leaving, but it serves no purpose to me - they are purely about helping my soon-to-be-ex-employer.
I agree about the risk POV. Someone who's worked for you loyally for a few years is going to all of a sudden wreck your systems on their way out?
Everywhere I've worked (nearly 20 years), people work their notice, and no-one ever decided to throw a spanner in the works. Ever. Even if hacked off, they just want out. They might want a job somewhere and a referral from a co-worker. If someone maliciously damaged a system on their way out, I wouldn't want to work with them again.
All that said, most people I've spoken to are just glad to get marched out the door. In most cases, they phoned their next employer and asked if they could start Monday, resulting in a nice bonus of an additional month of salary.
I think that the problem is that they are always getting a new bunch of wide-eyed teenagers looking for fame, fortune, fun and girls. There's plenty of stories of more mature musicians that eventually went independent, but I doubt most musicians think about where they will be 5 years after signing.
Music will never be uncool. People who don't care for the majors will do what they always did, and sign with an independent label. They may not make the same sort of money, but they often have a lot more freedom.
Make a video about it and keep it short, bold and simple. The tactics of anti-piracy groups in the UK is basically to keep it simple with messages like "copying=theft" and "copying=supporting drug dealers/terrorists/bogeyman-of-the-month".
Something like "if your CD doesn't have the compact disc logo, it may contain dangerous programs. Always ask for a real compact disc"
Utterly, utterly stupid. I can't think of why the EU and South Korea think this is so great.
The issue is not about the availability of the software so much as the awareness of alternatives and the opening of protocols.
Anyone who wants to open a WMV will just buy the bundled version, and people who take a political view against WMV will simply choose not to download the WMV.
On occassion, Google ads have done me a few favours. I've gone onto Google searching for a piece of software and found something via an ad and bought it.
Even if it doesn't, it doesn't get in my way and annoy me.
It used to be that once Yahoo had exhausted its own directory results, it would switch to Google. It was a good combination. Once they dropped Google, I dropped Yahoo and went direct to Google, simple as that. I imagine lots of others followed too.
A lot of publishers should take a look around. When someone launches a new snack bar, there's a reason why there are people standing outside shops giving away samples. Or when a bar opens, it gives out flyers with free drinks.
The content market is completely saturated. Pick something obscure and check out its sales rank on Amazon to see just how much stuff is out there. Getting something noticed is far more important. Record and book companies spend ludicrous amounts on getting something noticed.
A band in the UK called The Arctic Monkeys recently had a number 1 which was mostly the result of giving some of their music away on their site (like session recordings) and building up a following.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, there's a lot of information on the internet now that allows people to be informed. I've bought DVD players after reading newsgroups and getting a mass of information before purchasing. Reading places like Slashdot keeps me informed about what's in new products - like the proprietary standards in some products.
Doing product research, whether on the internet or via print media/friends is not a new thing, though. A lot of people just don't bother. Of course, you then have to watch out for biased print/internet media posting kind reviews.
It's hard to legislate in these areas. How do you prove that someone posting a good review for a movie did so because they are getting an exclusive interview with the co-star? You can't. What you can do is learn whether the reviewer is generally trustworthy or not over time.
Come back when you're ready to have a rational discussion on a subject - you might learn something from talking to people with an alternative view.
Let me just check what you are saying in your post...
"Curse... Generalise... Insult... Self-righteousness. And now I've run out of cohesive arguments, I'd like no replies and to take my ball away because I'm not winning".
Come back when you've got a cohesive argument with regards to intrinsic value beyond "I remain confident that there is such a thing as intrinsic value".
People will trust these systems to the point that they will disengage their critical faculties, because they have been told how reliable they are.
When biometric ID cards come in to the UK, I believe we will see more fraud because of this. Once someone works out how to break it (by gummi bear, play-doh) or whatever, they will pass and be able to pull off bigger frauds.
It's its simplest term, an IT professional is someone who gets paid for doing IT. That can mean a useless guy who's crammed up to pass some exams, or a guy who can proverbially make square pegs fit round holes with software.
A lot of IT pros that I know take a professional view of software. They want to build the best solution. That can mean OSS or closed, paid for software. I concur with what you say - many are now looking at OSS solutions.
There's also no conflict between profit and OSS. I built a site for someone and used OSS for profitable reasons. All the software (Apache, PHP, MySQL) was free, hosting was a lot less of a struggle to set up and the support costs have been almost nil. Not only that, but OSS development changes based on developer needs. Languages like PERL and PHP evolve over time. That means that your investment in them as a developer is not wasted, where a closed-source solution can mean a company deciding that they want to ditch a tool and rewrite the world, leaving developers with no choice but to climb a steep ladder of learning of cost and risk, for no real-world benefit.
The other thing I like with OSS - tools don't become expired with the new version of an OS or the next version requires an OS upgrade - these mean I can keep a stable environment that I am used to - reducing downtime/retraining time and raising productivity. I partly do this to reduce the frustration of development, but this also means I can develop faster and with more stability - and that's good for the bottom line.
People should add up all the lost time with certain closed solutions compared with the advertised productivity gains. Having to replace developer skills in one language with another language costs the equivalent of months of lost time in retraining (retraining takes a lot longer than just the two weeks on a training course - it takes time to get used to all the ways that the new environment "works" in all it's subtle little ways.
Companies are harder to influence than government, because the people running them have a direct self-interest in cutting costs. This is particularly so for small companies.
I'm starting to wonder how soon it will be that it will be acceptable to start sending out ODF files to people on the assumption that there's a 70+% chance of them having OpenOffice.org. Or maybe we need a lightweight ODF viewer.
Look around the web, and you can often find out which products are the same.
Let's forget what people did in the past and focus on WHY I believe it's reached it's peak.
In every one of those cases, they were superceded by something that offered something more to people. Reel-to-reel was never a format for sold music. 8-track gave people convenience over records (they could play them in cars). Compact cassette shrunk things further. CD gave people higher quality, and didn't have the problems of records.
My point is that we have reached a stage where the sound quality is good enough for people, and size of format is irrelevant. Sound quality is good enough because attempts to create a more advanced format have gone nowhere. Other than audiophile shops, you'll struggle to find DVD-A and SACD, and that's not because they've just come out - no-one wants them.
If the music companies were so powerful at replacing consumers options, they'd have tried to bring in the better protected SACD and stop producing CDs. As for size, that's irrelevant.
Make it the size of a postage stamp - it doesn't matter because where size matters - portable music - it is all going iPod, which can just be transferred.
Videos, commentary, unreleased songs can easily be done with enhanced CD.
People will upgrade if they perceive something better. And for most people, CD is good enough, and it always will be.
DAB is good from the point of view that there are a lot more channels.
I remember HDTV first coming out and people talking about it being 2000 lines. Now, the maximum is about 1000, and my guess is that the maximum that's going to be broadcast is the 720 resolution.
Then again, I only want HDTV for movies, where right now, cinema still offers a considerable benefit in detail. 720 still won't come close to a cinema experience.
The most important aspect of a password is that it is obscure and would take cracking tools a long time to break (so has numeric characters).
It's like saying that you can patent a car wheel because it's no longer just a wheel, but one that has spokes and helps a car go round.
Patents should require lateral thinking, should reward true innovation. Where someone looks at a problem and thinks "I have another way". And it's a way that's never been visited before. And if you asked a dozen engineers, they wouldn't think of it, and if then shown the alternative would either dismiss it as ludicrous or scratch their heads, smile and say "cool".
Things like the jet engine, the transistor, Dyson's cleaner, the biro, the paperclip. These deserve patents, not doing what almost any software engineer would have done given the option.
A patent should be non-obvious, something like the Dyson cyclone cleaner or the way that John Harrison worked out for measuring longtitude. Typically where someone applies some lateral thinking to the problem in a way that other skilled people in the same field would miss.
Unlike many other inventions, software ones are either functionally possible, or not. It is simply a matter of functional decomposition. The constraints are known. When an inventor builds a new type of machine, they do not, and there are many attempts at inventions that simply fail. Likewise, for drug companies. They may pursue an idea and go down many blind alleys before succeeding. Then, there are the costs of drug testing. For these, I think that patents have a place. If you didn't have patents, you'd have to rely on charities or government to create new drugs.
Consumer devices like this may have R&D costs, but it's also about being first to market, getting a lead on other companies to have to write software to do something similar. This is not the same as copying a drug, where formulations have to be public, and therefore, get no market lead. That's the equivalent of saying "no copyright on software" - people would not produce commercial software.
And secondly... I'M LEAVING. Exit interviews are designed to help a company learn some lessons, to avoid people leaving, but it serves no purpose to me - they are purely about helping my soon-to-be-ex-employer.
Everywhere I've worked (nearly 20 years), people work their notice, and no-one ever decided to throw a spanner in the works. Ever. Even if hacked off, they just want out. They might want a job somewhere and a referral from a co-worker. If someone maliciously damaged a system on their way out, I wouldn't want to work with them again.
All that said, most people I've spoken to are just glad to get marched out the door. In most cases, they phoned their next employer and asked if they could start Monday, resulting in a nice bonus of an additional month of salary.
Music will never be uncool. People who don't care for the majors will do what they always did, and sign with an independent label. They may not make the same sort of money, but they often have a lot more freedom.
Something like "if your CD doesn't have the compact disc logo, it may contain dangerous programs. Always ask for a real compact disc"
No, in Soviet Russia, rat brains must think in Russian.
The issue is not about the availability of the software so much as the awareness of alternatives and the opening of protocols.
Anyone who wants to open a WMV will just buy the bundled version, and people who take a political view against WMV will simply choose not to download the WMV.
Even if it doesn't, it doesn't get in my way and annoy me.
It used to be that once Yahoo had exhausted its own directory results, it would switch to Google. It was a good combination. Once they dropped Google, I dropped Yahoo and went direct to Google, simple as that. I imagine lots of others followed too.
A lot of publishers should take a look around. When someone launches a new snack bar, there's a reason why there are people standing outside shops giving away samples. Or when a bar opens, it gives out flyers with free drinks.
The content market is completely saturated. Pick something obscure and check out its sales rank on Amazon to see just how much stuff is out there. Getting something noticed is far more important. Record and book companies spend ludicrous amounts on getting something noticed.
A band in the UK called The Arctic Monkeys recently had a number 1 which was mostly the result of giving some of their music away on their site (like session recordings) and building up a following.
Then again, I wonder if building databases as web-based with something like RoR is a better option.