Meh, what I'm talking about is no conspiracy, it happens pretty much in the open, and is widely publicised. The mechanism is in place to do pretty much the most outrageous things legally and in the open -- global interest groups "advise", politicians accept the advice, laws are passed, and that's it.
Besides, neither Dufus Feeb, nor his colleagues need "to be on" anything, or be brainwashed, wear tinfoil and goggles. They have a vested interest in spreading this bullshit -- it directly gives them a larger paycheck. So they'll happily sell you any story to that effect.
It is not the "conspirative" part that worries me, it is the part that these efforts are now mainstream and "legitimate" that's worrying.
Actually, it has little to do with stupid. What started as random voices against the internet from various corners several years ago is now solidifying into a very firm and well-funded opposition to a the free internet.
The reasons of the different parties vary, but they are all pushing consistently for the same outcome -- a monitored and controlled internet. Most worryingly, their lobbying and scare tactics are increasingly getting results.
First, everyone under the hat of IFPI and the various Recording and Movie Ass. of wherever are in the game as their business model is evaporating. They want more restrictions and more monitoring, so that they can eat into your consumer surplus better. Most other copyright and related rights owners jump on this bangwagon, as they have strong vested interest in having their monopoly to be extended in various ways.
Then, there are the newspapers and the TV -- in addition to belonging in the first group, they feel their revenues are being eaten by a random collection of bloggers, aggregators and other uncontrollable internet evils that deliver more targeted and interesting commentary faster and at lower cost. Besides, their relevance as propaghanda tool (and their position as "the fourth power") is also threatened, and they'll fight hard to keep it.
Finally, there is the government. The establishment want to know more about you so that they can tax you (and, in general, manage you) better. Surveillance is always a boon to them, and anything that can bring more is very welcome. Especially lobbying groups like those above, who make seemingly "legitimate" cases for more surveillance and control. But it doesn't end there. The internet is also a threat to the establishment in that it allows exposure of their questionable activities; it keeps track of their past deeds. This threat makes the life of the establishment politicians hard, and they'll fight to remove it. Bribery is a big source of income, and threats to it are hardly welcome. Finally, the internet allows "fringe politicians" and large groups of people to gather behind a cause quickly and efficiently. This tends to make, among everything else, lobbying less efficient, and decrease the amount of legal bribery income.
And, this push against the free internet is happening everywhere. Draconian internet laws have sprung fast virtually everywhere in the past year or two - the US, Eastern and Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, which suggests what happens is not a random process at all.
if you were valuating property. The question in the article is an interesting one, but only as far as it (and the discussion on valuation here) shows the absurdity of the proposition that copyright and related rights can, or should be treated as "property".
In fact, the basic concepts and concerns about copyright and related rights haven't changed much since the legislation was first introduced. those rights are still best explained by the original contract -- a limited in time monopoly to the author (so that they are pressured to monetize their invention), granted by the society, in exchange for the right of the society to use the knowledge for free when the monopoly expires.
What has changed is the power of the copyright owners to lobby and do marketing with the only goal of subverting the original contract and granting perpetual monopoly. Now they push for (and sometimes successfully get) new laws that extend the monopoly at the expense of the society.
in doing so, the copyright owners have, as far as i can see so far succeeded in the following:
- make the rules of copyright and related rights complex, enforcement costly, and in the process stifle the creative process.
- extended the protection, without being able to show much increase of creativity in exchange.
( if someone can point me to findings of the opposite, i'll be interested to read it, but as far as I can see, the effects of protection have been either detrimental or neutral to creativity, not positive. )
- diverted directly a large pool of resources into non-creative initiatives, such as lobbying, litigation, "don't steal" marketing campaigns, etc.. i don't really see how all this contributes.
- caused (via paid-for legislation) a large pool of resources to be diverted from useful technological development into useless stuff like copy protection, which eventually gets broken.
- since copyright enforcement the way it is seen these days requires close surveillance of the behaviour of copyrighted work consumers, the promoters of "intellectual property" have been pushing for a climate of constant monitoring, which has (especially in the last year or two) been embraced by more and more governments all over the world. once in place, who knows what these measures will be used for.
All these facts mean that any discussion that mentions "IP" without explaining the original contract, and emphasizing that "IP" is just an effort of the large (meh, small too) copyright owners to pirate the public domain that belongs to the society is either dishonest, or misguided.
They are being actively promoted by a powerful international lobbying group with a huge marketing budget, which has found a very very attentive listeners in the crowd of control-freak nanny-state trotting politicians all over the world. It is a very good symbiosis for both groups -- both want the same thing - total surveillance; and the government control-freaks find it very helpful that the "intellectual property" proponents give them a good reason to introduce it.
But, actually, they are the same group of people -- or at least became one since the publishers and movie makers got into the business of political propaganda anyway. Or was it the other way around?
Yes, everything could be dangerous to people, and the degree of regulation is roughly related to how many people at once the thing endangers and by how much.
that would be true if, as a result of bad security, only the passengers on the plane are in danger. being, as it is, that a plane can be used as a vehicle to deliver harmful stuff, and as a bomb, things aren't so simple. unless you suggest airports are moved far enough for a potential plot to be detected, and that the government is authorised in advance to shoot some planes;)
Here's da first one, straight from da license (haven't read past that yet;)):
3.3 You agree that the form and nature of the SDK that Google provides may change without prior notice to you and that future versions of the SDK may be incompatible with applications developed on previous versions of the SDK. You agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the SDK (or any features within the SDK) to you or to users generally at Google's sole discretion, without prior notice to you.
Spin: Opensource? Ya. Open? Not so much. They can pull out the rug from under you at any time. Once it becomes successful (which it ain't right now), they'll make you pay.
Spin #2. Without hardware, it is still vaporware. Cool, but developing for it is like developing for any other emulator. It'll run on my PC, very cool.
Spin #3. Even with hardware available, the carrier will use the API to lock you in. Want to use your own map service? Tough luck. Want to connect to your alternative search? Sorry, me unpossible. Google will still look good, providers will still look evil, and they will all share revenue nevertheless.
Spin #4. now that I've started you up, please go on yerself, I suppose I've spun it fast enough;)
what people donate is their choice. to me it is worth that much, besides TANSTAAFL.
what i recomment is giving, not "giving as much as google does", or "giving at least XXXX". people who write the software donate their time. if i use it, and it does me good, i could chip in a bit. that way, i get to be a stakeholder, and i value this ability for the software i use.
plus, if the good folks are rewarded, they may reward me in turn.
That is why I donate to various software projects -- not much, but about as much as I would pay for an OS if I had to buy one -- that gives me more right to have an opinion on what they are doing.
If you (and I mean the general slashdot reader, not the GP) want to have more input on the decision-making process when necessary, participate in the funidng. Any software project will treat you better if you show more commitment than just downloading and using the software, and many sources of funding make the power of any one large donor smaller. Besides, it will be a better use of the slashdot community than just slashdotting websites.
Not to mention that when you have more of a stake, you can request and get things like more transparent reporting on funding and business models.
yeah, that is true in the theoretical case where there is unlimited competition. in the real world you can only buy what is on offer, and sometimes big companies are known to stand in the way of unlimited competition.
but this is all theoretical -- i guess we'll see what happens in a few months anyway.
yeah, i read the propaganda, but the question remains open. who decides what runs on your phone? you, google, the maker or the service provider? there is no answer to that question in the paragraph above, nor in the apache license. the makers/carriers are obviously free; it not so obvious if the end user will be.
incidentally, how come something which is GPL2-based (if it really is off the linux kernel) can be released as Apache2. as far as i remember, the two licenses aren't really compatible.
Google have been running (on a small scale) something conceptually similar in Japan with one of the major carriers -- KDDI -- for a while now. KDDI have integrated google search as the default search system, and google mail as one of the "official" mail options for that service. In effect there is a KDDI co-branded Google.
As far as I see it, Google mobile platform is the same thing inside an OS package. The platform will be "open" to carriers and makers who are participants of the Google alliance. However, nowhere in the Google materials have i seen a commitment to make the phone open to the outside developers. Nor does it make any sense for them to open it.
Depending on how it is rolled out, we may see some sources, but likely we'll never have a chance to apply a patch to the OS actually in the device, or build an application outside of whatever sandbox they put in the OS. There will likely be APIs and widgets tied to the google servers and services, but hardly much freedom beyond that.
Obviously that is very good for google, if they pull it off. It is less obviously good for the carriers or the makers, but the carriers will eventually agree to this in exchange for revenue-sharing, and because they have nowhere to go, and the makers will be arm-twisted by the carriers. The end result may be that only the "google internet" will be available on the mobile phones that use android. Sorta like an enhanced WAP, imode or EZ web.
I see no problem with this if one is very-very happy about storing their data on a google server and accessing it via the google phone OS. But I wouldn't call it free in any of the senses of that word we're accustomed to on/.
But I guess we'll see what it really is when they release the SDK.
IMHO this is pretty good for people who can do calligraphy reasonably well.
For example, to write Chinese characters properly, you need to remember the correct "stroke order" for each dash or dot in the character, and repeat it every time you write. The position where each stroke begins and ends is also fixed. It takes some training, discipline and drilling to learn writing like this though. For sloppy writers like me (I even had trouble writing pretty letters in school, mostly due to lazitude), this may not be such a good idea after all.
Especially if you have to do it with a mouse on a shiny surface;)
no, this isn't business, unless you mean they get busy doing it. imho business is when you make and sell a superior product to customers who are willing to buy because said product is useful to them for what it does.
this, on the other hand, is... errm.. a financial service, a re-distribution of tax revenues by the crook in the government and the crooks working for the software vendor. the paying customers have no idea what they are buying.
what you probably mean is this is a wide-spread practice. but spreaditude don't necessarily make it right.
But I'll give you another perspective, by necessity pure fiction, of how it could work. Suppose there is this small Eastern European country, nevermind which one. It has a minister in charge for the state administration. He could be a small, nerdy guy with heavy glasses on a big nose. His salary isn't great, and he has a lot of expenses.
So, what has he gotta do? He's gotta make some money on the side. But how? Well, he figures, he'll get a "commission" on what his department pays. He doesn't know much about IT, he doesn't care much about his department. But he knows how much his expenses are. So, he makes a calculation. He needs X. His commission rate is Y. The total budget he needs is Z = X/Y or thereabouts. Then, he goes shopping.
What does shopping look like? He has some people he trusts, very few. They make some calls, private. They talk about lotsa things, but one thing is repeated. "We have budget Z, and we need an offer". The people being called of course know what Y is, so they figure out they got Z-Y. They make some offers. The minister picks his candidates. Then real work begins.
The suppliers can only be chosen by winning a bid. So, the already agreed offer is then carefully drafted into the conditions for the bidding, in such way that only the chosen can win. Then, after all preparations, the bid is announced, applications are gathered by all -- suckers and winners, and, after a procedure, a winner is announced.
Sometimes suckers try hard. Real hard. They do a lot of work (including some trash-digging and what you not), and even manage to win. But they win the public auction. They never win the one the minister has set up, because they have never had the minister's offer -- it is not for everyone. So, if they win, the minister loses.
That is why even if they win, they never win. There is always a change afterwards, and they kicked out. On a technicality, or a new rule, or just on a whim -- it doesn't matter. They can't win, because they don't even compete. That's how it could work on one side.
Consider the other side now. A big software company is determined not to let go of the market in that country. But what is the market there? First of all, there are the home installs. These are all pirated, and collection is not possible. So, the software vendor scratches them out. For now. There is the business sector. They are also kinda semi-legal, and need to be squeezed, but for that the vendor needs the helping hand from the government. So, the vendor scratches em out... for now. Finally, there is the government. First, they gotta be legal. They have reputation to mind, besides, there are always those "free trade" incentives the vendor can play. Besides, there is the Z - Y thingy.
So, the vendor invests a (small) amount in an office, hires some very shrewd local staff. Pays big salary, taxis, etc. All they need to do is get the government deal. So they do. The vendor doesn't want to know how, of course. So they play the "we're so blind" game. Somehow someone in the vendor's office gets the call. Then they are on it. They give the offer. They win.
Then the fun begins. The vendor's formula is usually setup so that from the first (Z - Y) they get enough to finance their operations in that country for a decade. Then another deal comes. And another. The more, the merrier. Until the budget is used up, it is all Z - Y. Relations improve. Then, the government starts to squeeze on the businesses. Then on the home users. And the vendor keeps profiting. The relationship can expand publicly -- and it could be "free" sometimes. Like, all government employees receive "free" licenses for home use. Or some schools get "free" licenses. Or some instiutions. There maybe some protests from other interested parties.
But, whatever happens on the surface, the game is the same. There is always the Z - Y equation in the background. Those who don't compete in that auction never win. Even when they do. And so it goes.
It's good to see the Russians regaining their natural strength after having it sapped by carpetbaggers from abroad.
Come on, Russian strength have been sapped by their Communist leaders much more than by foreign "carpetbaggers". The only really huge recent "sapping" of foreign origin was the German Nazi invasion in WW2. The rest -- especially since then -- the hundreds of thousands dead in labor camps, the near destruction of their economy caused by inefficient economic policies, their environmental and demographic problems etc. etc. is purely a doing of their ruling class.
Also, it is very questionable if Russia would have regained much strength just by itself, without the huge spike in oil prices Mr. Bush brought about with his Middle East policies. Just 5 years ago Russia was virtually broke, and the only significant increase in government revenue since then has been the windfall of oil profits.
Don't assume that what Russian government does is beneficial to the majority of Russian people. Little in their history suggest it has ever been so, and little in what Putin has done so far suggest a break with tradition.
Beside the very obvious fact that the average salary and life expectancy in Russia is still at third-world levels while they spend money on more weaponry, there is the interesting issue of how Putin government manages their oil production capacity.
Even in that super-important area the record of Putin's government is far from stellar according to many people in the know, and the recent developments of nationalizing the industry have seemingly resulted in gas shortages at home. (Look up for example what Vladimir Milov's has to say on the matter -- he ought to know as he is the chair of the _Russian_ energy policy institute).
Of course, you may hear little in terms of dissent from Russia. I'll let you guess why.
The Japanese phones have most of the share. The most popular seem to be sharp, panasonic, NEC and toshiba. Nokia isn't even in the top 10, and I rarely see a non-Japanese phone for sale except in catalogs. I have seen some samsung phones in a shop recently, but that's about it.
Since all Japanese phones are locked to the service provider (and are not GSM), i need a separate phone for Europe (i visit often, and even a prepaid card is cheaper than a Japanese roaming plan;)). I've noticed that if you compare a Japanese and a non-Japanese phone feature for feature, you can find a match easily.
If you compare them side by side it is a different story. Usually the camera of the jp phone makes better pictures, the pixels on the LCD are smaller, the sound quality is much better, the battery lasts longer, etc. In general I find that European phones are bigger and clunkier -- but that may be partly because Europeans are in general larger, and too small a phone could be a pain to use. Besides, I am not much of a cellphone maniac, and rarely go for the newest model anyway; I guess top of the line models would be comparable.
Unfortunately, because of the lock-in with providers it is not all cream and honey. There are almost no phones with wi-fi, bluetooth was a relatively new 'discovery' (still lot of phones here without), and development for the phones is either closed (and you need a contract with the service provider), or java with lots of limitations.
I look forward to the SP lock-in phase-out in two years -- it promises interesting developments.
i suppose it is the cut-throat competition. the market is big, so a popular product is guaranteed to make a killing, but it has to be very good; wow-good is not good enough most of the time, and gadgets age very quickly.
i got a new mobile phone some weeks ago. it has brilliant 800x480 screen, can take better video than my 4-year old camcorder, make better pictures than a 2 year old digital camera and has a ton of other features -- like tv reception, gps, blah blah blah -- but it was a "2007 summer" model (i.e. very old marketing-wise;)), so i got it for free with the service contract.
regretfully, the quality of the marketing is orthogonal to the quality of the gadgets, and generally very poor, so few of them ever get out of the country. this is especially true for mobile phones. this is very surprising, because some of the makers (say toshiba, panasonic, etc.) have success with other gadgets abroad.
Not without the OS, I suppose. Besides, I am not sure why I would want one -- they are vastly inferior to many of the Windows models available in Japan.
but so far all I got is an offer to get a refund for the whole unit, not just the OS. i suppose the reasoning goes that the PC is not a product by itself without the OS or something. since i buy notebooks, and there is practically no choice of cool notebooks without Windows, in the end i had to swallow it.
"A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
Key assumption for the existence of efficient economy is absence of information asymmetries. Intellectual property is an artificially created asymmetry -- information cannot be used to allocate resources efficiently, even if it is available.
Allegedly this 'compensates' the inventor and increases 'knowledge production', but I have yet to see a convincing theory as to why it would happen, and especially why "intellectual property" is the most efficient way to go about it. Conventional economic theory suggests otherwise -- information asymmetries tend to result in inefficient resource allocation, or raise transaction costs in the economy (which is the same thing anyway).
And, btw, as far as I know Hernando de Soto doesn't talk about "intellectual property". He is talking about informal property, as opposed to property based on strict laws, his argument being that the underdeveloped economies have no widespread formal framework to protect material property, which works against the poorest members of society.
I am not aware of his works focusing explicitly on "intellectual property" at all, so if you have some, please throw a link.
Slashdot Mirror
Meh, what I'm talking about is no conspiracy, it happens pretty much in the open, and is widely publicised. The mechanism is in place to do pretty much the most outrageous things legally and in the open -- global interest groups "advise", politicians accept the advice, laws are passed, and that's it.
Besides, neither Dufus Feeb, nor his colleagues need "to be on" anything, or be brainwashed, wear tinfoil and goggles. They have a vested interest in spreading this bullshit -- it directly gives them a larger paycheck. So they'll happily sell you any story to that effect.
It is not the "conspirative" part that worries me, it is the part that these efforts are now mainstream and "legitimate" that's worrying.
Actually, it has little to do with stupid. What started as random voices against the internet from various corners several years ago is now solidifying into a very firm and well-funded opposition to a the free internet.
The reasons of the different parties vary, but they are all pushing consistently for the same outcome -- a monitored and controlled internet. Most worryingly, their lobbying and scare tactics are increasingly getting results.
First, everyone under the hat of IFPI and the various Recording and Movie Ass. of wherever are in the game as their business model is evaporating. They want more restrictions and more monitoring, so that they can eat into your consumer surplus better. Most other copyright and related rights owners jump on this bangwagon, as they have strong vested interest in having their monopoly to be extended in various ways.
Then, there are the newspapers and the TV -- in addition to belonging in the first group, they feel their revenues are being eaten by a random collection of bloggers, aggregators and other uncontrollable internet evils that deliver more targeted and interesting commentary faster and at lower cost. Besides, their relevance as propaghanda tool (and their position as "the fourth power") is also threatened, and they'll fight hard to keep it.
Finally, there is the government. The establishment want to know more about you so that they can tax you (and, in general, manage you) better. Surveillance is always a boon to them, and anything that can bring more is very welcome. Especially lobbying groups like those above, who make seemingly "legitimate" cases for more surveillance and control. But it doesn't end there. The internet is also a threat to the establishment in that it allows exposure of their questionable activities; it keeps track of their past deeds. This threat makes the life of the establishment politicians hard, and they'll fight to remove it. Bribery is a big source of income, and threats to it are hardly welcome. Finally, the internet allows "fringe politicians" and large groups of people to gather behind a cause quickly and efficiently. This tends to make, among everything else, lobbying less efficient, and decrease the amount of legal bribery income.
And, this push against the free internet is happening everywhere. Draconian internet laws have sprung fast virtually everywhere in the past year or two - the US, Eastern and Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, which suggests what happens is not a random process at all.
if you were valuating property. The question in the article is an interesting one, but only as far as it (and the discussion on valuation here) shows the absurdity of the proposition that copyright and related rights can, or should be treated as "property".
In fact, the basic concepts and concerns about copyright and related rights haven't changed much since the legislation was first introduced. those rights are still best explained by the original contract -- a limited in time monopoly to the author (so that they are pressured to monetize their invention), granted by the society, in exchange for the right of the society to use the knowledge for free when the monopoly expires.
What has changed is the power of the copyright owners to lobby and do marketing with the only goal of subverting the original contract and granting perpetual monopoly. Now they push for (and sometimes successfully get) new laws that extend the monopoly at the expense of the society.
in doing so, the copyright owners have, as far as i can see so far succeeded in the following:
- make the rules of copyright and related rights complex, enforcement costly, and in the process stifle the creative process.
- extended the protection, without being able to show much increase of creativity in exchange.
( if someone can point me to findings of the opposite, i'll be interested to read it, but as far as I can see, the effects of protection have been either detrimental or neutral to creativity, not positive. )
- diverted directly a large pool of resources into non-creative initiatives, such as lobbying, litigation, "don't steal" marketing campaigns, etc.. i don't really see how all this contributes.
- caused (via paid-for legislation) a large pool of resources to be diverted from useful technological development into useless stuff like copy protection, which eventually gets broken.
- since copyright enforcement the way it is seen these days requires close surveillance of the behaviour of copyrighted work consumers, the promoters of "intellectual property" have been pushing for a climate of constant monitoring, which has (especially in the last year or two) been embraced by more and more governments all over the world. once in place, who knows what these measures will be used for.
All these facts mean that any discussion that mentions "IP" without explaining the original contract, and emphasizing that "IP" is just an effort of the large (meh, small too) copyright owners to pirate the public domain that belongs to the society is either dishonest, or misguided.
so, what's wrong with prosecuting the guys for each crime they have committed using the correct approach?
They are being actively promoted by a powerful international lobbying group with a huge marketing budget, which has found a very very attentive listeners in the crowd of control-freak nanny-state trotting politicians all over the world. It is a very good symbiosis for both groups -- both want the same thing - total surveillance; and the government control-freaks find it very helpful that the "intellectual property" proponents give them a good reason to introduce it.
But, actually, they are the same group of people -- or at least became one since the publishers and movie makers got into the business of political propaganda anyway. Or was it the other way around?
Yes, everything could be dangerous to people, and the degree of regulation is roughly related to how many people at once the thing endangers and by how much.
So what is your point?
that would be true if, as a result of bad security, only the passengers on the plane are in danger. being, as it is, that a plane can be used as a vehicle to deliver harmful stuff, and as a bomb, things aren't so simple. unless you suggest airports are moved far enough for a potential plot to be detected, and that the government is authorised in advance to shoot some planes ;)
there you go:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1742
the rest of the links are in there.
And risk the troll moderation.
;)):
;)
Here's da first one, straight from da license (haven't read past that yet
3.3 You agree that the form and nature of the SDK that Google provides may change without prior notice to you and that future versions of the SDK may be incompatible with applications developed on previous versions of the SDK. You agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the SDK (or any features within
the SDK) to you or to users generally at Google's sole discretion, without prior notice to you.
Spin: Opensource? Ya. Open? Not so much. They can pull out the rug from under you at any time. Once it becomes successful (which it ain't right now), they'll make you pay.
Spin #2. Without hardware, it is still vaporware. Cool, but developing for it is like developing for any other emulator. It'll run on my PC, very cool.
Spin #3. Even with hardware available, the carrier will use the API to lock you in. Want to use your own map service? Tough luck. Want to connect to your alternative search? Sorry, me unpossible. Google will still look good, providers will still look evil, and they will all share revenue nevertheless.
Spin #4. now that I've started you up, please go on yerself, I suppose I've spun it fast enough
what people donate is their choice. to me it is worth that much, besides TANSTAAFL.
what i recomment is giving, not "giving as much as google does", or "giving at least XXXX". people who write the software donate their time. if i use it, and it does me good, i could chip in a bit. that way, i get to be a stakeholder, and i value this ability for the software i use.
plus, if the good folks are rewarded, they may reward me in turn.
That is why I donate to various software projects -- not much, but about as much as I would pay for an OS if I had to buy one -- that gives me more right to have an opinion on what they are doing.
If you (and I mean the general slashdot reader, not the GP) want to have more input on the decision-making process when necessary, participate in the funidng. Any software project will treat you better if you show more commitment than just downloading and using the software, and many sources of funding make the power of any one large donor smaller. Besides, it will be a better use of the slashdot community than just slashdotting websites.
Not to mention that when you have more of a stake, you can request and get things like more transparent reporting on funding and business models.
yeah, that is true in the theoretical case where there is unlimited competition. in the real world you can only buy what is on offer, and sometimes big companies are known to stand in the way of unlimited competition.
but this is all theoretical -- i guess we'll see what happens in a few months anyway.
yeah, i read the propaganda, but the question remains open. who decides what runs on your phone? you, google, the maker or the service provider? there is no answer to that question in the paragraph above, nor in the apache license. the makers/carriers are obviously free; it not so obvious if the end user will be.
incidentally, how come something which is GPL2-based (if it really is off the linux kernel) can be released as Apache2. as far as i remember, the two licenses aren't really compatible.
Google have been running (on a small scale) something conceptually similar in Japan with one of the major carriers -- KDDI -- for a while now. KDDI have integrated google search as the default search system, and google mail as one of the "official" mail options for that service. In effect there is a KDDI co-branded Google.
/.
As far as I see it, Google mobile platform is the same thing inside an OS package. The platform will be "open" to carriers and makers who are participants of the Google alliance. However, nowhere in the Google materials have i seen a commitment to make the phone open to the outside developers. Nor does it make any sense for them to open it.
Depending on how it is rolled out, we may see some sources, but likely we'll never have a chance to apply a patch to the OS actually in the device, or build an application outside of whatever sandbox they put in the OS. There will likely be APIs and widgets tied to the google servers and services, but hardly much freedom beyond that.
Obviously that is very good for google, if they pull it off. It is less obviously good for the carriers or the makers, but the carriers will eventually agree to this in exchange for revenue-sharing, and because they have nowhere to go, and the makers will be arm-twisted by the carriers. The end result may be that only the "google internet" will be available on the mobile phones that use android. Sorta like an enhanced WAP, imode or EZ web.
I see no problem with this if one is very-very happy about storing their data on a google server and accessing it via the google phone OS. But I wouldn't call it free in any of the senses of that word we're accustomed to on
But I guess we'll see what it really is when they release the SDK.
IMHO this is pretty good for people who can do calligraphy reasonably well.
;)
For example, to write Chinese characters properly, you need to remember the correct "stroke order" for each dash or dot in the character, and repeat it every time you write. The position where each stroke begins and ends is also fixed. It takes some training, discipline and drilling to learn writing like this though. For sloppy writers like me (I even had trouble writing pretty letters in school, mostly due to lazitude), this may not be such a good idea after all.
Especially if you have to do it with a mouse on a shiny surface
no, this isn't business, unless you mean they get busy doing it. imho business is when you make and sell a superior product to customers who are willing to buy because said product is useful to them for what it does.
... errm .. a financial service, a re-distribution of tax revenues by the crook in the government and the crooks working for the software vendor. the paying customers have no idea what they are buying.
this, on the other hand, is
what you probably mean is this is a wide-spread practice. but spreaditude don't necessarily make it right.
But I'll give you another perspective, by necessity pure fiction, of how it could work. Suppose there is this small Eastern European country, nevermind which one. It has a minister in charge for the state administration. He could be a small, nerdy guy with heavy glasses on a big nose. His salary isn't great, and he has a lot of expenses.
... for now. Finally, there is the government. First, they gotta be legal. They have reputation to mind, besides, there are always those "free trade" incentives the vendor can play. Besides, there is the Z - Y thingy.
So, what has he gotta do? He's gotta make some money on the side. But how? Well, he figures, he'll get a "commission" on what his department pays. He doesn't know much about IT, he doesn't care much about his department. But he knows how much his expenses are. So, he makes a calculation. He needs X. His commission rate is Y. The total budget he needs is Z = X/Y or thereabouts. Then, he goes shopping.
What does shopping look like? He has some people he trusts, very few. They make some calls, private. They talk about lotsa things, but one thing is repeated. "We have budget Z, and we need an offer". The people being called of course know what Y is, so they figure out they got Z-Y. They make some offers. The minister picks his candidates. Then real work begins.
The suppliers can only be chosen by winning a bid. So, the already agreed offer is then carefully drafted into the conditions for the bidding, in such way that only the chosen can win. Then, after all preparations, the bid is announced, applications are gathered by all -- suckers and winners, and, after a procedure, a winner is announced.
Sometimes suckers try hard. Real hard. They do a lot of work (including some trash-digging and what you not), and even manage to win. But they win the public auction. They never win the one the minister has set up, because they have never had the minister's offer -- it is not for everyone. So, if they win, the minister loses.
That is why even if they win, they never win. There is always a change afterwards, and they kicked out. On a technicality, or a new rule, or just on a whim -- it doesn't matter. They can't win, because they don't even compete. That's how it could work on one side.
Consider the other side now. A big software company is determined not to let go of the market in that country. But what is the market there? First of all, there are the home installs. These are all pirated, and collection is not possible. So, the software vendor scratches them out. For now. There is the business sector. They are also kinda semi-legal, and need to be squeezed, but for that the vendor needs the helping hand from the government. So, the vendor scratches em out
So, the vendor invests a (small) amount in an office, hires some very shrewd local staff. Pays big salary, taxis, etc. All they need to do is get the government deal. So they do. The vendor doesn't want to know how, of course. So they play the "we're so blind" game. Somehow someone in the vendor's office gets the call. Then they are on it. They give the offer. They win.
Then the fun begins. The vendor's formula is usually setup so that from the first (Z - Y) they get enough to finance their operations in that country for a decade. Then another deal comes. And another. The more, the merrier. Until the budget is used up, it is all Z - Y. Relations improve. Then, the government starts to squeeze on the businesses. Then on the home users. And the vendor keeps profiting. The relationship can expand publicly -- and it could be "free" sometimes. Like, all government employees receive "free" licenses for home use. Or some schools get "free" licenses. Or some instiutions. There maybe some protests from other interested parties.
But, whatever happens on the surface, the game is the same. There is always the Z - Y equation in the background. Those who don't compete in that auction never win. Even when they do. And so it goes.
It's good to see the Russians regaining their natural strength after having it sapped by carpetbaggers from abroad.
Come on, Russian strength have been sapped by their Communist leaders much more than by foreign "carpetbaggers". The only really huge recent "sapping" of foreign origin was the German Nazi invasion in WW2. The rest -- especially since then -- the hundreds of thousands dead in labor camps, the near destruction of their economy caused by inefficient economic policies, their environmental and demographic problems etc. etc. is purely a doing of their ruling class.
Also, it is very questionable if Russia would have regained much strength just by itself, without the huge spike in oil prices Mr. Bush brought about with his Middle East policies. Just 5 years ago Russia was virtually broke, and the only significant increase in government revenue since then has been the windfall of oil profits.
Don't assume that what Russian government does is beneficial to the majority of Russian people. Little in their history suggest it has ever been so, and little in what Putin has done so far suggest a break with tradition.
Beside the very obvious fact that the average salary and life expectancy in Russia is still at third-world levels while they spend money on more weaponry, there is the interesting issue of how Putin government manages their oil production capacity.
Even in that super-important area the record of Putin's government is far from stellar according to many people in the know, and the recent developments of nationalizing the industry have seemingly resulted in gas shortages at home. (Look up for example what Vladimir Milov's has to say on the matter -- he ought to know as he is the chair of the _Russian_ energy policy institute).
Of course, you may hear little in terms of dissent from Russia. I'll let you guess why.
around 25-30 seconds on a mobile pentium @ 1.5GHz (and 1GB RAM).
why?
The Japanese phones have most of the share. The most popular seem to be sharp, panasonic, NEC and toshiba. Nokia isn't even in the top 10, and I rarely see a non-Japanese phone for sale except in catalogs. I have seen some samsung phones in a shop recently, but that's about it.
;)). I've noticed that if you compare a Japanese and a non-Japanese phone feature for feature, you can find a match easily.
Since all Japanese phones are locked to the service provider (and are not GSM), i need a separate phone for Europe (i visit often, and even a prepaid card is cheaper than a Japanese roaming plan
If you compare them side by side it is a different story. Usually the camera of the jp phone makes better pictures, the pixels on the LCD are smaller, the sound quality is much better, the battery lasts longer, etc. In general I find that European phones are bigger and clunkier -- but that may be partly because Europeans are in general larger, and too small a phone could be a pain to use. Besides, I am not much of a cellphone maniac, and rarely go for the newest model anyway; I guess top of the line models would be comparable.
Unfortunately, because of the lock-in with providers it is not all cream and honey. There are almost no phones with wi-fi, bluetooth was a relatively new 'discovery' (still lot of phones here without), and development for the phones is either closed (and you need a contract with the service provider), or java with lots of limitations.
I look forward to the SP lock-in phase-out in two years -- it promises interesting developments.
i suppose it is the cut-throat competition. the market is big, so a popular product is guaranteed to make a killing, but it has to be very good; wow-good is not good enough most of the time, and gadgets age very quickly.
;)), so i got it for free with the service contract.
i got a new mobile phone some weeks ago. it has brilliant 800x480 screen, can take better video than my 4-year old camcorder, make better pictures than a 2 year old digital camera and has a ton of other features -- like tv reception, gps, blah blah blah -- but it was a "2007 summer" model (i.e. very old marketing-wise
regretfully, the quality of the marketing is orthogonal to the quality of the gadgets, and generally very poor, so few of them ever get out of the country. this is especially true for mobile phones. this is very surprising, because some of the makers (say toshiba, panasonic, etc.) have success with other gadgets abroad.
Not without the OS, I suppose. Besides, I am not sure why I would want one -- they are vastly inferior to many of the Windows models available in Japan.
but so far all I got is an offer to get a refund for the whole unit, not just the OS. i suppose the reasoning goes that the PC is not a product by itself without the OS or something. since i buy notebooks, and there is practically no choice of cool notebooks without Windows, in the end i had to swallow it.
has anyone got any other experience in Japan?
igdmlgd writes:
"A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
Key assumption for the existence of efficient economy is absence of information asymmetries. Intellectual property is an artificially created asymmetry -- information cannot be used to allocate resources efficiently, even if it is available.
Allegedly this 'compensates' the inventor and increases 'knowledge production', but I have yet to see a convincing theory as to why it would happen, and especially why "intellectual property" is the most efficient way to go about it. Conventional economic theory suggests otherwise -- information asymmetries tend to result in inefficient resource allocation, or raise transaction costs in the economy (which is the same thing anyway).
And, btw, as far as I know Hernando de Soto doesn't talk about "intellectual property". He is talking about informal property, as opposed to property based on strict laws, his argument being that the underdeveloped economies have no widespread formal framework to protect material property, which works against the poorest members of society.
I am not aware of his works focusing explicitly on "intellectual property" at all, so if you have some, please throw a link.