First of all, when you take something out from the library, a small royalty is actually paid out.
Second, you're right, I got my terminology mixed up. It's the labels I was talking about, not the studios themselves (I've been thinking about movies lately, and I got the two confused. Mea culpa).
Third, the way I sell books is that the reader goes into the bookstore, and looks at the book. Then they look at the back of the book. Then, if they're interested, they buy it. If the book is good, it will stand on its own merits.
Really? Nice to meet a fellow wordsmith. What books have you published?
I'm afraid I do have to think we're talking about cross purposes here. It is true that information has a tendency of getting out, and should indeed be public. But a novel isn't information - it's a created work. Neither is a painting by an artist or a song. It may contain elements of information, but it is not information.
You are right that once the work is released, its legacy is beyond our control. I still remember publishing a year-in-review article that used a startling traffic accident as a framework, and the first thing I got as far as feedback went was people asking about my driving (which was the last thing I expected). But there is a difference between the legacy of a work and the work itself. When we publish a book, we share our work, but it is still ours. The act of sharing doesn't give somebody the right to snatch something away from you, or bastardize your work. And it certainly doesn't give somebody the right to disregard your wishes with what you share.
I don't bother trying to control the legacy of my work. Truth be told, it's better to leave it be, as you said. But I will fight to be respected when I take the time to share it. And I will fight to have my wishes regarding how that work is distributed to be respected.
I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate. And quite frankly, I can see the basis for wanting to stop music piracy. And while recording artists are treated quite poorly in comparison to authors and actors, every time some music is pirated, it IS money that would have otherwise gone to the artist (and a lot more that would have gone to the recording studio, of which quite a bit should be going to the artist instead in my opinion, but that's another issue).
Unfortunately, the RIAA goes about it in such a thuggish way that it's just an embarassment, and makes it impossible to support them. It's like saying that guns are dangerous and some people might have some without a license, and then breaking into every house within five blocks and performing a search. The ends here just do not justify the means.
I fear you don't quite understand the issue. There was a very nice link on Groklaw explaining it that I now can't remember (which is a bit embarassing, actually).
Basically, the situation works like this. Let's say you want to create a version of Linux. To use a ridiculous example, we'll call it Cthulhu Linux (the operating system from the dawn of time!). If you want to use the name "Cthulhu Linux", you have to pay the trademark fee.
However, you can use a different name for it, say, "Tentaclix". Then, if you want to credit the base OS, you can then say "Based on Linux(R)", credit the trademark to Linus Torvalds, and you don't have to pay a cent. The only time you have to pay is if you're using "Linux" as part of the name of the product.
The reason Torvalds is doing this is to prevent somebody from using the Linux name to debase the operating system, or put it into a bad light. If people have to actually be approved to use the trademark, a Microsoft shill can't get away with passing some FUD off as a Linux magazine, etc.
Why the houseplant is not the printer's friend...
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10 Computer Mishaps
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· Score: 1
This topic made my day - I haven't laughed this hard in a while.
Okay - my story. After I got EQ Companion published and before I returned to university to go after a second degree, I worked in a local not-for-profit corporation as a front desk clerk. The setup around the computer was like this:
LCD monitor on the desk (which is an L-shaped desk), the main box below the desk, and the HP laser printer at one side beside the wall. Above the printer was a shelf, which I had put some papers on. Above that shelf was another shelf, and a houseplant is sitting there.
One of my coworkers, who was a very helpful sort, decided to take care of watering all of the office plants. This is usually something that happens during lunch, and makes no difference at all to anything.
Well, one day she wanders to my desk and waters the plant...a bit more than she should have. The water overflows on the little plate the plant is sitting on, and drips onto the shelf beneath it, and then drips directly into the tray of the laser printer. By the time I come off lunch, there's a small pool of water in the printer.
Now, I immediately unplug the printer and inform the manager. And then, since due process demands it, I contact technical support.
So here I am, part techie, talking to HP's tech support line in the most embarassing conversation in my life.
"I've got a problem with the printer, and I just want to find out if it's salvageable."
"What's happened to it?"
"Well, we, um, well, we, um, watered it."
For this next bit of the story, you have to understand that the front office had two laser printers, and one of them had just died of completely natural causes less than a week before this incident.
To make matters worse, I was also the recording secretary to the Board of Directors, AND responsible for reporting the state of the front office to them, and shortly afterwords I had to inform the Board precisely how we had lost two laser printers in less than a week...
(Amazing how much territory "attrition" can cover...)
Unfortunately, I know what it's like to deal with working with a psychopath first-hand.
About four years ago, I was working for a company called Verticalscope as a freelance writer, writing articles about the web hosting industry. They'd send me a contract over email, I'd sign it and send it in, and about a week later, I'd have the article in for posting. Seemed like good, regular freelance work.
However, something was wrong. Payments were late and smaller than expected, and no matter how often I asked, I couldn't get an accounting of what articles had been paid for and which ones had not. When I finally brought this up with the person who I had been dealing with, I was told that none of the contracts had ever been counter-signed. It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. At this point in time, they owed me $2,600 Canadian.
Hoping to fight him, I issued a press release, which can still be found here: http://diabloii.net/garwulfs/press-release.shtml What followed were several months of email sparring, in which the person involved attempted to intimidate me by threatening to sue me for libel. I nearly took the company to small claims court, but then I realized that even though I'd probably win, I'd never be able to collect it.
Close to a year of my life was ruined by that man, and I still see red whenever I think of it. Verticalscope has since then become fairly successful - whether the person who screwed me over is still there, I don't know. Perhaps, if there's some justice in the world, the guy who screwed me over was fired and the company cleaned up their act. But I still see red whenever I think of it, and realize that the bastard probably never cared what harm he did to me or any of the other freelance writers - he only cared about moving himself along in the company.
Moral of the story: even if an a**hole or psychopath might be good for your business, they do more harm than good in the end. Better to use the Scott Adams model of management, with no tolerance for a**holes, period.
This could be a very short lived experiment...
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Textbooks With EULAs
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· Score: 1
Well, this is an experiment that will probably not last very long. As one poster stated, publishers tried e-books before, and they didn't catch on.
I have some real world experience with this - my first published book was an e-book. It did quite well for one, selling around 1200 copies. If it had been a print book and sold that many, I would have been asked by the publisher not to come back. And, by the way, the e-book was Diablo: Demonsbane, which launched the entire Blizzard fiction line. If anything was going to be successful and had a built in audience, Demonsbane was it. I figure if it sells another 18,800 copies, I'll see a royalty cheque some day...
The fact is that e-books didn't catch on for a reason. They make a nice complement to the printed page, but they could never replace it. A print book doesn't require electricity, will last for centuries if properly cared for, and has a physical feeling that an e-book will never match.
This particular case is very problematic. Besides needing a longer time if the textbook is for a full-year course, the one computer restriction in an academic background is just suicide. What happens if the e-book is on a desktop computer and the student is required to bring the textbook to class? It can't be transfered to a laptop with the copy protection in place, and having to lug an entire desktop computer to class is just silly on a truly absurd level.
I think this will go down as one of those ideas that would never have been used if anybody had actually bothered to think it out first.
And as an odd footnote, it seems that the current set of lawsuits isn't the first time Caldera/SCO took on a major corporation in court over IP. Back in 1996, Caldera acquired the rights to DR-DOS, and then appear to have immediately sued Microsoft for unfair competition, settling for something like $150 million.
I have the funny feeling that the Caldera/SCO Board of Directors figured that if the tactic had worked once against Microsoft, it would work again against IBM.
This is by memory and a bit of help from a search engine and Distrowatch, and written a bit late at night, but here goes...
SCO stands for the Santa Cruz Operation Group, and was originally a company named Caldera. The original SCO is now known as Tarantella. The original SCO was a company founded in the 1970s which made a flavour of Unix for x86 processors.
In 2000, Caldera bought the rights to that Unix from the original SCO/Tarantella (Caldera was also making a form of Linux called Caldera Linux, and had been making it since 1998). In 2002 Caldera bought the rights to use the name SCO from Tarantella, and renamed itself the SCO Group and the version of Linux SCO Linux.
By about 2003, the SCO Group was in financial difficulties, and Darl McBride was brought in. SCO Linux was suspended, and McBride had the SCO Group begin the lawsuits and legal threats, including threatening the people who had bought Caldera/SCO Linux from them with a lawsuit if they didn't pay the legal fee (and I don't care how tired I am and how much of an aside this is, it's still a REALLY STUPID thing to do).
My understanding is that it's a technology issue. From what I've heard, NTFS is pretty complicated, and Microsoft is closely guarding the development material for it. So, any development on working with NTFS comes from reverse-engineering, and that can be slow.
From what I've heard, it is possible to write to NTFS right now if you're changing a file, but the new version of the file has to be exactly the same size as the old version.
But, I'm not a programmer, so I could be wrong in this case.
Well, now we get to watch one of the most deserved object lessons in recent history.
SCO basically threatened to sue its own clients, and now it's releasing an operating system and trying to do business. I'd be amazed if there's anybody who would even touch a product from this company now. And I somehow doubt this is going to end happily for SCO.
And the moral of this story, oh children at SCO, is that you don't try to sue the hand that feeds you...
If it helps, Xandros can read NTFS, but as far as I know, it can't write to it. So, what I do is this:
I've got an NTFS partition for Windows, and then the ReiserFS partition for Linux, and then a small FAT32 partition for data that both operating systems might need to use. That way, they can talk to each other, and it's worked pretty well so far.
Um, what are you talking about here? Are you sure that you're thinking of Xandros, and not Linspire (which does have a subscription-based model for repositories, last I heard)?
Xandros does have subscriptions for sale, but it's for greater technical support, as I recall. The software in the repositories that is open source you don't have to pay a cent for. You just download it and run it.
Also, Crossover is available in the Deluxe edition - in fact, it's the big difference between the Standard and Deluxe editions. The software that's new between Deluxe and Business is StarOffice, which comes bundled in Business but not Deluxe (as well as some other apps).
The two are different. In fact, the first section states:
" A. Xandros Desktop ("Software Product") is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities ("Software Programs"). The End User may install the Software Product on unlimited home computers of his or hers for non-commercial use and one commercial use computer."
And, the fact is that Xandros does have proprietary elements. Yes, it is more expensive than downloading a copy of, say, Ubuntu. However, you also get StarOffice instead of OpenOffice, and Crossover Office, a specially customized version of KDE, and a detailed printed manual, so I can't help feeling as though the money is well spent.
I have a Brother HL 1020 laser printer, which strictly speaking is a Windows printer. Xandros identified it and set it up correctly right during the installation.
Let's just say I really like this distro. I chose it very carefully, and I have yet to have an issue with it.
I use Xandros as the secondary operating system on my main box and the primary on my laptop. The license for it allows me to install it on an unlimited number of personal computers, and one commercial computer.
Sounds pretty good to me, considering I get a fine-tuned distro that I don't need to be a programmer for, as well as Crossover Office along with it.
As an author, I understand the need to combat intellectual property theft, but this is just ridiculous. And, if Longhorn actually manages to catch on, it invalidates pretty much every single existing monitor out there.
What's next? Microchips in our eyes to make sure that we close our eyes if we're reading something naughty?
Well, I wouldn't really discount Xandros or Linspire yet - right now, they're actually two of the higher profile desktop Linux distros, from what I can tell. And, it's too early to tell what will be the result of the merger between Mandrake and Lycoris.
I just wish somebody would bloody well advertise the stuff properly. I keep seeing ads for Windows on the TV set - where are the ads for Linux? Surely SOMEBODY has enough money to put out at least a couple of ads to raise awareness...
Quite frankly, now you're stretching it a bit too far. So let's finish this bit of silliness up and end this discussion.
"No, the payment is not the problem! I don't mind people asking for payment for whatever action that is requested of them. Its the limitation on the freedom after receiving a copy that I am talking about. I have no problem with someone demanding 1 million dollars for a copy of his information. After buying such a copy, my freedom should not be limited to use that copy as I wish, including helping my neighbor with it."
Except that copyright law doesn't actually forbid that. If you have a copy of my book, you can loan it to people, you can read it to people, you can use it to build a fort if you really want to. You can even photocopy a page or two (I think that's covered in fair use). What you can't do is scan the book into the computer and post it to a newsgroup and distribute it yourself. You can't compete against me using my own book.
"Huh? By copying something, I am not removing it. Or are you claiming that without copyright, there would be no creation? Because the Free Software world and the pre-copyright era disprove that easily."
True, you are not removing it from the public. However, in the here and now, authors make their money from royalties, and if you copy a book onto a newsgroup, then lots of people are going to be reading it without supporting the author through those royalties. Now - big secret for you - with very few exceptions, most authors aren't rich. A lot of writers, myself included, are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families. And for a first novel, the standard contract tends to be about a $3000 advance on 3-4% royalties - and the book takes around a year to write, produce, and publish.
Now, without copyright law, there'd be creation. But it would be paltry and pitiful in comparison to what there is now. Why don't we look at each one you listed, hmm?
The free software world. Well, you're right, the software is free. Except, it's also governed by - you guessed it - copyright law! In fact, the terms of the GPL carefully state how the software is to be copied, and under what conditions. The fact that people donated their time and effort to free software is wonderful, but they did it by choice. I think if you made it mandatory, a lot of them would give you the finger and vote with their feet. You see, like authors, they're professionals in their field, and they like being treated that way. Respect their wishes with their intellectual property, and they'll happily donate it, as they have been. Disrespect their wishes, and you'll be amazed at how quickly the movement disappears through lack of involvement.
For that matter, if you get rid of copyright protection, here's what will probably happen. Open source has never been a viable business model, even when it's linked with the service industry (after all, how much service does a word processor honestly need). So, many of these programmers are working a day job at a place where they're creating proprietary software. Well, no copyright protection means that the company making that software can't compete in the market, because anybody can use their own program to compete against them, so they fold. That puts the programmers out of work. The open source model can't stand on its own economically, so it partially collapses, because the programmers need to put food on their tables, and if they can't do it with programming, they'll have to do it some other way. In the end, what you have left is a scattered few qualified people who sometimes contribute, but are probably getting disillusioned very quickly, because there's no way of even guaranteeing that they'll get the slightest credit for their work.
The pre-copyright era - well, that's an interesting situation. You see, not much worrying about copying, because most of the population can't read anyway. Those who are writing have wealthy patrons who are pro
Amazing how asking somebody to actually pay for something is "limiting the freedom of all society." Now, I thought that if something was willfully and spitefully removed so that nobody could ever use it, that would be limiting freedoms. Well, guess I was wrong. I suppose I should just go and do some looting now. There's a nice new couch I would love to have, and I don't have to pay for it, because by your argument any money they require from me is limiting my freedoms.
Oh, wait a minute! I can't do that after all - because the freedom to acquire whatever you want was never guaranteed by either the American Constitution or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the only freedom along those lines that was guaranteed was against having the property you already own unlawfully seized.
Interesting how when you're infringing somebody else's rights, it's moral, but when they try to claim or protect some rights of their own, it's immoral.
Amazing how denying somebody royalties on something they spent months working on because you downloaded it illegally instead of buying it at a bookstore is "not taking anything", and that "nothing is denied from the original author." Could have fooled me. I thought that authors needed to eat, but I guess I was wrong.
Amazing how a two hundred year old argument is used to justify illegal activity now. By that logic, nobody who hasn't been born into an aristocratic family should have the right to vote, because it was never written into the Magna Carta. After all, the original purpose of those rights was to protect the barons from abuses by the king. And if the original purpose was all that matters, well...
Oh yes, and by that logic, what are all these women doing in the workplace? They should be in arranged marriages making babies and being good little porceline dolls. After all, that was the intention for them by the society that founded the United States, wasn't it? "All MEN are created equal."
This is why I say "thank God" for the Berne Convention - it protects me from people like you, and the hypocrisy of arguments like the one you've presented. If you're going to copy music, books, or programs without giving so much as a cent towards the original author of them, there's not a whole lot I can do to stop you, but at least be honest about what you're doing. Don't try to claim some moral right to do it, because you don't have one.
Well, first of all, there is no such thing as a "natural right". Rights are earned, often a result of a struggle waged by the few for the many.
Second, copyright is not oppression of the many for the few. It is protection from oppression for the creative mind. I will grant that there are those who abuse it, but when I publish a book, story, or article and it is under my copyright, it protecting me from having my work stolen.
Third, copyright does not give the copyright owner to the right to determine how a work is used - only how it is copied (hence, "copy-right"). Not only that, but there is something called fair use, which allows for a copy of an excerpt so long as it is properly credited. So, you can quote from a book that I write, and it's perfectly legal. You can use the argument in a book that I write to prove that Dinosaurs ruled the earth a hundred years ago, and it's perfectly legal (albeit a bit silly). You can take an argument that I make, quote it, and use it to help you argue an extension, and it is perfectly legal. You cannot, however, scan the entire book into the computer and post it for free on a website. That's piracy.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, you are mistaking a created work for "information". Freedom of information is perhaps one of the most important causes one can fight for. But a novel is not information - it is the blood, sweat, and tears of its author. A computer program is not information - it is the product of the time, effort, and problem solving skill of its author. The database that holds the numbers in the phone book is information - the program you use to access it is not.
But I don't think you'll ever see that distinction - I've seen this too many times before. The minute you see the distinction, you can't justify the wholesale copying of books, music, movies, or programs anymore. It's a sort of massive self delusion. But copyright infringement is still a form of theft - you're taking what is not yours, and doing things with it you don't have permission to do. It's no different than the burglar who breaks into your house and steals your DVD player so that he can pawn it the next day.
Well, actually it is different. The burglar doesn't try to claim that he has a moral right to do it.
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First of all, when you take something out from the library, a small royalty is actually paid out.
Second, you're right, I got my terminology mixed up. It's the labels I was talking about, not the studios themselves (I've been thinking about movies lately, and I got the two confused. Mea culpa).
Third, the way I sell books is that the reader goes into the bookstore, and looks at the book. Then they look at the back of the book. Then, if they're interested, they buy it. If the book is good, it will stand on its own merits.
Really? Nice to meet a fellow wordsmith. What books have you published?
I'm afraid I do have to think we're talking about cross purposes here. It is true that information has a tendency of getting out, and should indeed be public. But a novel isn't information - it's a created work. Neither is a painting by an artist or a song. It may contain elements of information, but it is not information.
You are right that once the work is released, its legacy is beyond our control. I still remember publishing a year-in-review article that used a startling traffic accident as a framework, and the first thing I got as far as feedback went was people asking about my driving (which was the last thing I expected). But there is a difference between the legacy of a work and the work itself. When we publish a book, we share our work, but it is still ours. The act of sharing doesn't give somebody the right to snatch something away from you, or bastardize your work. And it certainly doesn't give somebody the right to disregard your wishes with what you share.
I don't bother trying to control the legacy of my work. Truth be told, it's better to leave it be, as you said. But I will fight to be respected when I take the time to share it. And I will fight to have my wishes regarding how that work is distributed to be respected.
I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate. And quite frankly, I can see the basis for wanting to stop music piracy. And while recording artists are treated quite poorly in comparison to authors and actors, every time some music is pirated, it IS money that would have otherwise gone to the artist (and a lot more that would have gone to the recording studio, of which quite a bit should be going to the artist instead in my opinion, but that's another issue).
Unfortunately, the RIAA goes about it in such a thuggish way that it's just an embarassment, and makes it impossible to support them. It's like saying that guns are dangerous and some people might have some without a license, and then breaking into every house within five blocks and performing a search. The ends here just do not justify the means.
But Tentaclix has always been there, under the surface, waiting and sleeping...
Tentaclix - the preferred operating system of ancient tentacled horrors from the dawn of time everywhere.
In related news, I have just patented the letter "e".
Everybody in the world now owes me about $3,000,000 a piece (except for mathematicians, who owe more).
I fear you don't quite understand the issue. There was a very nice link on Groklaw explaining it that I now can't remember (which is a bit embarassing, actually).
Basically, the situation works like this. Let's say you want to create a version of Linux. To use a ridiculous example, we'll call it Cthulhu Linux (the operating system from the dawn of time!). If you want to use the name "Cthulhu Linux", you have to pay the trademark fee.
However, you can use a different name for it, say, "Tentaclix". Then, if you want to credit the base OS, you can then say "Based on Linux(R)", credit the trademark to Linus Torvalds, and you don't have to pay a cent. The only time you have to pay is if you're using "Linux" as part of the name of the product.
The reason Torvalds is doing this is to prevent somebody from using the Linux name to debase the operating system, or put it into a bad light. If people have to actually be approved to use the trademark, a Microsoft shill can't get away with passing some FUD off as a Linux magazine, etc.
This topic made my day - I haven't laughed this hard in a while.
Okay - my story. After I got EQ Companion published and before I returned to university to go after a second degree, I worked in a local not-for-profit corporation as a front desk clerk. The setup around the computer was like this:
LCD monitor on the desk (which is an L-shaped desk), the main box below the desk, and the HP laser printer at one side beside the wall. Above the printer was a shelf, which I had put some papers on. Above that shelf was another shelf, and a houseplant is sitting there.
One of my coworkers, who was a very helpful sort, decided to take care of watering all of the office plants. This is usually something that happens during lunch, and makes no difference at all to anything.
Well, one day she wanders to my desk and waters the plant...a bit more than she should have. The water overflows on the little plate the plant is sitting on, and drips onto the shelf beneath it, and then drips directly into the tray of the laser printer. By the time I come off lunch, there's a small pool of water in the printer.
Now, I immediately unplug the printer and inform the manager. And then, since due process demands it, I contact technical support.
So here I am, part techie, talking to HP's tech support line in the most embarassing conversation in my life.
"I've got a problem with the printer, and I just want to find out if it's salvageable."
"What's happened to it?"
"Well, we, um, well, we, um, watered it."
For this next bit of the story, you have to understand that the front office had two laser printers, and one of them had just died of completely natural causes less than a week before this incident.
To make matters worse, I was also the recording secretary to the Board of Directors, AND responsible for reporting the state of the front office to them, and shortly afterwords I had to inform the Board precisely how we had lost two laser printers in less than a week...
(Amazing how much territory "attrition" can cover...)
Unfortunately, I know what it's like to deal with working with a psychopath first-hand.
About four years ago, I was working for a company called Verticalscope as a freelance writer, writing articles about the web hosting industry. They'd send me a contract over email, I'd sign it and send it in, and about a week later, I'd have the article in for posting. Seemed like good, regular freelance work.
However, something was wrong. Payments were late and smaller than expected, and no matter how often I asked, I couldn't get an accounting of what articles had been paid for and which ones had not. When I finally brought this up with the person who I had been dealing with, I was told that none of the contracts had ever been counter-signed. It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. At this point in time, they owed me $2,600 Canadian.
Hoping to fight him, I issued a press release, which can still be found here: http://diabloii.net/garwulfs/press-release.shtml What followed were several months of email sparring, in which the person involved attempted to intimidate me by threatening to sue me for libel. I nearly took the company to small claims court, but then I realized that even though I'd probably win, I'd never be able to collect it.
Close to a year of my life was ruined by that man, and I still see red whenever I think of it. Verticalscope has since then become fairly successful - whether the person who screwed me over is still there, I don't know. Perhaps, if there's some justice in the world, the guy who screwed me over was fired and the company cleaned up their act. But I still see red whenever I think of it, and realize that the bastard probably never cared what harm he did to me or any of the other freelance writers - he only cared about moving himself along in the company.
Moral of the story: even if an a**hole or psychopath might be good for your business, they do more harm than good in the end. Better to use the Scott Adams model of management, with no tolerance for a**holes, period.
Well, this is an experiment that will probably not last very long. As one poster stated, publishers tried e-books before, and they didn't catch on.
I have some real world experience with this - my first published book was an e-book. It did quite well for one, selling around 1200 copies. If it had been a print book and sold that many, I would have been asked by the publisher not to come back. And, by the way, the e-book was Diablo: Demonsbane, which launched the entire Blizzard fiction line. If anything was going to be successful and had a built in audience, Demonsbane was it. I figure if it sells another 18,800 copies, I'll see a royalty cheque some day...
The fact is that e-books didn't catch on for a reason. They make a nice complement to the printed page, but they could never replace it. A print book doesn't require electricity, will last for centuries if properly cared for, and has a physical feeling that an e-book will never match.
This particular case is very problematic. Besides needing a longer time if the textbook is for a full-year course, the one computer restriction in an academic background is just suicide. What happens if the e-book is on a desktop computer and the student is required to bring the textbook to class? It can't be transfered to a laptop with the copy protection in place, and having to lug an entire desktop computer to class is just silly on a truly absurd level.
I think this will go down as one of those ideas that would never have been used if anybody had actually bothered to think it out first.
I stand corrected, then. Thanks for catching that.
And as an odd footnote, it seems that the current set of lawsuits isn't the first time Caldera/SCO took on a major corporation in court over IP. Back in 1996, Caldera acquired the rights to DR-DOS, and then appear to have immediately sued Microsoft for unfair competition, settling for something like $150 million.
I have the funny feeling that the Caldera/SCO Board of Directors figured that if the tactic had worked once against Microsoft, it would work again against IBM.
This is by memory and a bit of help from a search engine and Distrowatch, and written a bit late at night, but here goes...
SCO stands for the Santa Cruz Operation Group, and was originally a company named Caldera. The original SCO is now known as Tarantella. The original SCO was a company founded in the 1970s which made a flavour of Unix for x86 processors.
In 2000, Caldera bought the rights to that Unix from the original SCO/Tarantella (Caldera was also making a form of Linux called Caldera Linux, and had been making it since 1998). In 2002 Caldera bought the rights to use the name SCO from Tarantella, and renamed itself the SCO Group and the version of Linux SCO Linux.
By about 2003, the SCO Group was in financial difficulties, and Darl McBride was brought in. SCO Linux was suspended, and McBride had the SCO Group begin the lawsuits and legal threats, including threatening the people who had bought Caldera/SCO Linux from them with a lawsuit if they didn't pay the legal fee (and I don't care how tired I am and how much of an aside this is, it's still a REALLY STUPID thing to do).
And you know the rest.
I hope this helped.
My understanding is that it's a technology issue. From what I've heard, NTFS is pretty complicated, and Microsoft is closely guarding the development material for it. So, any development on working with NTFS comes from reverse-engineering, and that can be slow.
From what I've heard, it is possible to write to NTFS right now if you're changing a file, but the new version of the file has to be exactly the same size as the old version.
But, I'm not a programmer, so I could be wrong in this case.
Well, now we get to watch one of the most deserved object lessons in recent history.
SCO basically threatened to sue its own clients, and now it's releasing an operating system and trying to do business. I'd be amazed if there's anybody who would even touch a product from this company now. And I somehow doubt this is going to end happily for SCO.
And the moral of this story, oh children at SCO, is that you don't try to sue the hand that feeds you...
If it helps, Xandros can read NTFS, but as far as I know, it can't write to it. So, what I do is this:
I've got an NTFS partition for Windows, and then the ReiserFS partition for Linux, and then a small FAT32 partition for data that both operating systems might need to use. That way, they can talk to each other, and it's worked pretty well so far.
Um, what are you talking about here? Are you sure that you're thinking of Xandros, and not Linspire (which does have a subscription-based model for repositories, last I heard)?
Xandros does have subscriptions for sale, but it's for greater technical support, as I recall. The software in the repositories that is open source you don't have to pay a cent for. You just download it and run it.
Also, Crossover is available in the Deluxe edition - in fact, it's the big difference between the Standard and Deluxe editions. The software that's new between Deluxe and Business is StarOffice, which comes bundled in Business but not Deluxe (as well as some other apps).
Um...the license you're referring to is the license for the Open Circulation edition, which is the free one.
d sk_bus_license.html
The license for the Business edition the article was referring to can be found here: http://www.xandros.com/products/business/desktop/
The two are different. In fact, the first section states:
" A. Xandros Desktop ("Software Product") is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities ("Software Programs"). The End User may install the Software Product on unlimited home computers of his or hers for non-commercial use and one commercial use computer."
And, the fact is that Xandros does have proprietary elements. Yes, it is more expensive than downloading a copy of, say, Ubuntu. However, you also get StarOffice instead of OpenOffice, and Crossover Office, a specially customized version of KDE, and a detailed printed manual, so I can't help feeling as though the money is well spent.
Actually, the answer is yes there.
I have a Brother HL 1020 laser printer, which strictly speaking is a Windows printer. Xandros identified it and set it up correctly right during the installation.
Let's just say I really like this distro. I chose it very carefully, and I have yet to have an issue with it.
Sigh - have you ever READ the Xandros license?
I use Xandros as the secondary operating system on my main box and the primary on my laptop. The license for it allows me to install it on an unlimited number of personal computers, and one commercial computer.
Sounds pretty good to me, considering I get a fine-tuned distro that I don't need to be a programmer for, as well as Crossover Office along with it.
As an author, I understand the need to combat intellectual property theft, but this is just ridiculous. And, if Longhorn actually manages to catch on, it invalidates pretty much every single existing monitor out there.
What's next? Microchips in our eyes to make sure that we close our eyes if we're reading something naughty?
Well, I wouldn't really discount Xandros or Linspire yet - right now, they're actually two of the higher profile desktop Linux distros, from what I can tell. And, it's too early to tell what will be the result of the merger between Mandrake and Lycoris.
I just wish somebody would bloody well advertise the stuff properly. I keep seeing ads for Windows on the TV set - where are the ads for Linux? Surely SOMEBODY has enough money to put out at least a couple of ads to raise awareness...
Um, actually Xandros recently released Service Pack 2 for Xandros Desktop 3, as well as the kernel update to 2.6.11, so they are updating.
Quite frankly, now you're stretching it a bit too far. So let's finish this bit of silliness up and end this discussion.
"No, the payment is not the problem! I don't mind people asking for payment for whatever action that is requested of them. Its the limitation on the freedom after receiving a copy that I am talking about. I have no problem with someone demanding 1 million dollars for a copy of his information. After buying such a copy, my freedom should not be limited to use that copy as I wish, including helping my neighbor with it."
Except that copyright law doesn't actually forbid that. If you have a copy of my book, you can loan it to people, you can read it to people, you can use it to build a fort if you really want to. You can even photocopy a page or two (I think that's covered in fair use). What you can't do is scan the book into the computer and post it to a newsgroup and distribute it yourself. You can't compete against me using my own book.
"Huh? By copying something, I am not removing it. Or are you claiming that without copyright, there would be no creation? Because the Free Software world and the pre-copyright era disprove that easily."
True, you are not removing it from the public. However, in the here and now, authors make their money from royalties, and if you copy a book onto a newsgroup, then lots of people are going to be reading it without supporting the author through those royalties. Now - big secret for you - with very few exceptions, most authors aren't rich. A lot of writers, myself included, are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families. And for a first novel, the standard contract tends to be about a $3000 advance on 3-4% royalties - and the book takes around a year to write, produce, and publish.
Now, without copyright law, there'd be creation. But it would be paltry and pitiful in comparison to what there is now. Why don't we look at each one you listed, hmm?
The free software world. Well, you're right, the software is free. Except, it's also governed by - you guessed it - copyright law! In fact, the terms of the GPL carefully state how the software is to be copied, and under what conditions. The fact that people donated their time and effort to free software is wonderful, but they did it by choice. I think if you made it mandatory, a lot of them would give you the finger and vote with their feet. You see, like authors, they're professionals in their field, and they like being treated that way. Respect their wishes with their intellectual property, and they'll happily donate it, as they have been. Disrespect their wishes, and you'll be amazed at how quickly the movement disappears through lack of involvement.
For that matter, if you get rid of copyright protection, here's what will probably happen. Open source has never been a viable business model, even when it's linked with the service industry (after all, how much service does a word processor honestly need). So, many of these programmers are working a day job at a place where they're creating proprietary software. Well, no copyright protection means that the company making that software can't compete in the market, because anybody can use their own program to compete against them, so they fold. That puts the programmers out of work. The open source model can't stand on its own economically, so it partially collapses, because the programmers need to put food on their tables, and if they can't do it with programming, they'll have to do it some other way. In the end, what you have left is a scattered few qualified people who sometimes contribute, but are probably getting disillusioned very quickly, because there's no way of even guaranteeing that they'll get the slightest credit for their work.
The pre-copyright era - well, that's an interesting situation. You see, not much worrying about copying, because most of the population can't read anyway. Those who are writing have wealthy patrons who are pro
Amazing how asking somebody to actually pay for something is "limiting the freedom of all society." Now, I thought that if something was willfully and spitefully removed so that nobody could ever use it, that would be limiting freedoms. Well, guess I was wrong. I suppose I should just go and do some looting now. There's a nice new couch I would love to have, and I don't have to pay for it, because by your argument any money they require from me is limiting my freedoms.
Oh, wait a minute! I can't do that after all - because the freedom to acquire whatever you want was never guaranteed by either the American Constitution or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the only freedom along those lines that was guaranteed was against having the property you already own unlawfully seized.
Interesting how when you're infringing somebody else's rights, it's moral, but when they try to claim or protect some rights of their own, it's immoral.
Amazing how denying somebody royalties on something they spent months working on because you downloaded it illegally instead of buying it at a bookstore is "not taking anything", and that "nothing is denied from the original author." Could have fooled me. I thought that authors needed to eat, but I guess I was wrong.
Amazing how a two hundred year old argument is used to justify illegal activity now. By that logic, nobody who hasn't been born into an aristocratic family should have the right to vote, because it was never written into the Magna Carta. After all, the original purpose of those rights was to protect the barons from abuses by the king. And if the original purpose was all that matters, well...
Oh yes, and by that logic, what are all these women doing in the workplace? They should be in arranged marriages making babies and being good little porceline dolls. After all, that was the intention for them by the society that founded the United States, wasn't it? "All MEN are created equal."
This is why I say "thank God" for the Berne Convention - it protects me from people like you, and the hypocrisy of arguments like the one you've presented. If you're going to copy music, books, or programs without giving so much as a cent towards the original author of them, there's not a whole lot I can do to stop you, but at least be honest about what you're doing. Don't try to claim some moral right to do it, because you don't have one.
Well, first of all, there is no such thing as a "natural right". Rights are earned, often a result of a struggle waged by the few for the many.
Second, copyright is not oppression of the many for the few. It is protection from oppression for the creative mind. I will grant that there are those who abuse it, but when I publish a book, story, or article and it is under my copyright, it protecting me from having my work stolen.
Third, copyright does not give the copyright owner to the right to determine how a work is used - only how it is copied (hence, "copy-right"). Not only that, but there is something called fair use, which allows for a copy of an excerpt so long as it is properly credited. So, you can quote from a book that I write, and it's perfectly legal. You can use the argument in a book that I write to prove that Dinosaurs ruled the earth a hundred years ago, and it's perfectly legal (albeit a bit silly). You can take an argument that I make, quote it, and use it to help you argue an extension, and it is perfectly legal. You cannot, however, scan the entire book into the computer and post it for free on a website. That's piracy.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, you are mistaking a created work for "information". Freedom of information is perhaps one of the most important causes one can fight for. But a novel is not information - it is the blood, sweat, and tears of its author. A computer program is not information - it is the product of the time, effort, and problem solving skill of its author. The database that holds the numbers in the phone book is information - the program you use to access it is not.
But I don't think you'll ever see that distinction - I've seen this too many times before. The minute you see the distinction, you can't justify the wholesale copying of books, music, movies, or programs anymore. It's a sort of massive self delusion. But copyright infringement is still a form of theft - you're taking what is not yours, and doing things with it you don't have permission to do. It's no different than the burglar who breaks into your house and steals your DVD player so that he can pawn it the next day.
Well, actually it is different. The burglar doesn't try to claim that he has a moral right to do it.