In the 80s Kurt Vonneget's work quickly moved from the fringe and into academia. Many of his novels and short stories were decades old, if copyright lasted only 10 years he probably would not have seen a dime of his 2nd wave (or first depending on your POV) of popularity. That's seems pretty wrong to me.
But you're asking the wrong question.
The only question that needs to be answered is this: would Kurt Vonnegut have refused to write those novels if copyright lasted only 10 years?
If the answer is "yes" then the 10 year copyright term is too short. If the answer is "no" then it isn't.
There may be a few types of works that would take longer than 10 years to recover the investment one makes in them, so that such works would not be created if copyright lasted only 10 years. But I know of nothing like that to which copyright applies. So the benefit of a copyright term longer than 10 years is likely to be small.
Any proposal that doesn't address the right to own work within your lifetime or at least for most of your lifetime is simply too extreme on the 'public interest' end
This is not clear at all. In any case, the sole purpose of copyright is to encourage people to create and publish their works. Without that purpose, copyright wouldn't exist at all in the United States, at least as something that is derived directly from the Constitution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it really matter? He doesn't live in the US (nor is he a citizen, IIRC), and even if he's found guilty, can we even do anything about it? I doubt anyone will make any significant effort to bring him to the US for punishment.
Oh, I'd be willing to bet they will make the effort in this case.
See, this is the DMCA we're talking about here. The media conglomerates want this law enforced throughout the world, because otherwise it doesn't have the kind of teeth it needs to be truly effective (if circumvention devices can be distributed from outside the U.S. then, as with encryption, they can be used by people within the U.S.).
If Sklyarov is detained and brought to the U.S. for punishment after being found guilty in his (in absentia) trial, that will make it clear to people throughout the world that they are not safe from the U.S. even if they live in another country entirely. More importantly, it will make it clear that the DMCA is a law that the U.S. is willing to enforce on the world through any means at its disposal.
Plus, I would hope his country would back him up and give him some sort of protection.
You can hope that all you want, but the reality is that no country will protect an individual citizen if given sufficient incentive not to. I strongly suspect the U.S. has ways of giving Russia the incentive it needs to hand Sklyarov over.
So regardless of whether Russia extradites foreigners to the US, I don't see any reason why they would hand him over.
Yes... if everything is done on the up and up.
But I'm sure Russia will make an "exception" if given the right "reasons", those reasons being under the table and off limits to public viewing... for "national security" reasons, of course...
Why? You'd have to be an idiot to ignore reality, but that's what you're advocating here.
No. What I am advocating is a change in thinking. Yes, the reality is this is how the system works right now (has worked for a long time). It does not have to continue on this course, true it would take near anarchy to make an effective change, but remember that small changes can ripple to become large shifts in thinking. You'd have to be an idiot to sit around and do nothing about the things in government that you don't like.
You imply from this that you believe that the system can be changed from within. It cannot, because it automatically rejects anyone who would change it from within.
You can't change something from the inside if you can't get inside.
And that leaves changing it from the outside. Now how do you propose to do that? You can't effectively communicate with the hundreds of millions of people it would take to make it happen except possibly through the one means that isn't available to you: the mass media.
So what are you going to do? Start a violent revolution? That worked for the founders only because their enemy had roughly (within an order of magnitude) the same amount of firepower that they did, and they still wouldn't have won without some outside assistance (the French). The government today has MILLIONS of times more firepower than the civilian population, and no country on the planet is going to be stupid enough to support the civilians in a violent revolution, lest the government of the U.S. lob a few nukes (or something) their way.
Mass media exposure is everything. Without it, the people who vote won't know a thing about you, and therefore won't be able, much less willing, to vote for you. The mass media is owned by a few large corporations with agendas.
This is another example of a status quo that we allow (to an extent...I know it exists and has, blah blah blah). I know there are necessary evils and this is one of them. It can be controlled, but enough people have to care though.
Controlled how? Through the very government that is in bed with them?? You keep saying "this is possible" and "that is possible" but you never say how it's possible. I've shown why these things are not possible. It's up to you to point out the cracks in the armor. But so far all you've done is say that the cracks exist, without even being able to point to them.
Wrong. Repeat this until you fully understand it: You cannot vote for someone you don't know about.
?!?If you allow your voting decisions to be made strictly by what a candidate says in an ad campaign, then you deserve what comes to you. There are plenty of venues online to research a candidate. Try using critical thinking for once.
You still don't understand: you cannot vote for someone whose existence you aren't even aware of.
We're not talking about me or you, we're talking about the average person, the guy whose vote you want to go towards a candidate that isn't even mentioned by the mass media. It's difficult enough just to get this person to vote at all, because his experience has shown that his vote doesn't make any difference even if the candidate he votes for wins. And now you're telling him that he has to go out of his way and spend countless hours of his time to research candidates that he doesn't even know exist? And worse, even if he takes that time, how is he to know which information to trust and which to ignore? Experience has taught the average person that the claims a candidate makes are more false than true, and that the same thing is true of the claims of a candidate's supporters. So where is the average person supposed to get solid information about a candidate? Traditionally he relied on the mass media but we know that they can't be trusted anymore.
And even if you eliminate those problems, our corporate-run economy doesn't give those people time to spend that kind of effort. It takes the income of two people just to keep the average family afloat today, and it's getting worse over time, not better. What little time people don't spend at work they spend with their families. Sorry, but almost everything takes a back seat to those two things, including political research.
And on top of that, you have to work against the common belief that a vote for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote. And on top of that, you have to work against the common belief that there are no good candidates to vote for anymore.
Fortunately, beliefs can be changed. Unfortunately, human nature cannot. And it's human nature to take the easy way out, especially when the alternative isn't even likely to succeed.
To truly address the problem, you'll have to educate an entirely new generation of people. But the public education system, which is the only one that matters because it's the only one the average family can afford, is run by the government, which is 0wn3d by the corporations. The public education system is responsible for many of the belief and behavioral problems on the part of the populace, since its primary purpose is to teach people to be good little sheep.
And all of the things I've spoken of thus far are systemic problems, things you'd have to fight against that are part of the system itself. If that's not sufficient, you'll have active opposition from those in power (not government officials: they're just puppets. I'm talking about the owners of the large multinational corporations, among other things). Opposition from people who have thousands of times more resources and connections than you. And they are willing to go to any lengths to stay in power. If you become enough of a threat to them, don't be surprised if an "unfortunate accident" somehow manages to befall you.
Final note: I would rather be naive and try to do some good than to be jaded and do nothing.
If you want to waste your resources on an exercise in futility, be my guest. But beware: ignorance is not strength. Knowledge and understanding is. Naivete is ignorance, and you'd do well to address that issue first before committing your resources to a course of action.
Despite my cynicism, I still vote for the candidates I feel best support the things that are important to me, and I still talk to the people I know about these things. It doesn't hurt to do that. But I have no illusions about the likely outcome of all that.
You are right. We, the ignorant public, just don't get it. Someone worked very hard to write the music, book, whatever. You did nothing. And yet you believe that you are entitled to the benefits of that work without paying anything for those benefits. Nope, we just don't get it.
You're right, you don't get it.
Let's perform a simple thought experiment, shall we?
Suppose rights to all "intellectual property" were the same as real property rights: perpetual.
Now, let's say that you create something. Because most creations are inspired or derived from older works (such is the nature of progress), your cost to invent that something is determined by the amount of labor you put into your work plus the amount of money you have to pay to the owners of the works you derived yours from.
So you publish your work. The price you charge for your work is a reflection of the total amount of money and labor you put into your work, including the fees you pay to the owners of the works you based your work on.
The people of the next generation have to do the same thing with their works. Some of them will base their work on yours, and have to pay you for it.
Repeat, ad infinitum.
The end result is that the price of creative works (whether they be inventions, artistic expressions, etc.) continuously rises over time. It must, because each generation puts some of its own efforts into creation, but must always pay all of its predecessors, either directly or indirectly. Eventually it gets so expensive that the hosting society can no longer afford progress.
That is the trap you fall into if you allow "intellectual property" rights to be perpetual, and is why such rights must be limited.
Yeah, but EP2 showed that the people who have the most of that genetic advantage aren't allowed to reproduce, at least on the Light Side.
So I guess that means that the Sith are going to kick the Jedis' ass simply due to sheer numbers...except that they limit their own numbers to two in the entire galaxy (a master an an apprentice. Guess that means they go out of their way to kill anyone else who has aspirations of becoming a Sith), unless the Jedi are simply deluding themselves about the Sith to make themselves feel better...
Looks to me like all these Force wielders are idiots. No wonder they've all but disappeared by the time of EP6...
While I agree with you in that the only people who have their hands in this are the ones with the bills (read: dollar) in their hands, we cannot continue to think that way.
Why? You'd have to be an idiot to ignore reality, but that's what you're advocating here.
The idea that the only people who are making the laws are the ones with the the money or the ones who can give the money to the lawmakers is false logic. It is only that way because we, the people, LET it get that way.
Wrong. Repeat this until you fully understand it: You cannot vote for someone you don't know about.
Mass media exposure is everything. Without it, the people who vote won't know a thing about you, and therefore won't be able, much less willing, to vote for you. The mass media is owned by a few large corporations with agendas. They demand money. Only large corporations or extremely wealthy individuals have enough money to influence the media corporations enough to give exposure to candidates that the media corporations wouldn't otherwise give exposure to.
If everyone stopped buying music, the DMCA would not be repealed. What would happen instead is that a tax would be placed on internet usage, the proceeds of which would be directed to the RIAA and MPAA members. This has happened before (to DAT and, in Canada, to CD-Rs), so it's not like it's a new idea.
It's amazing to me how naive some people seem to be...
Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems to me that the one thing even crooked politicians want more than money is to be reelected.
You are naive. Not because your belief is incorrect, but because you believe there is a difference between money and reelection.
In the United States, there is no such difference. The reason is that the only way to get enough exposure to have a chance of being reelected is through the mass media. But the mass media is owned by a few large corporations whose only concern is money. So the candidate has to pay the mass media for access, hence the strong connection between money and reelection.
More importantly, the corporations that own the mass media have their own agenda, so they will be reluctant to give exposure to a candidate that goes against their agenda. But because they are ultimately interested in money, a sufficient quantity of it will persuade them otherwise.
That money has to come from somewhere, and (with a few exceptions) the only entities that have that kind of money are large corporations, which also have their own agenda. So not only will these corporations contribute to the election campaign of any politician they believe will reciprocate once elected, they almost certainly make deals with the media corporations to give their candidate(s) exposure.
The corporations are in almost complete control of the election process in the United States today. This is why you will see very little opposition to the DMCA amongst the politicians, and why the politicians passed the DMCA to begin with (unanimously with a voice vote, at that).
I mean, the Copyright Office doesn't enforce anything. That's the job of the executive branch: the FBI, the DOJ, etc. They can, and do, enforce whatever laws they want to enforce, and in any way they want to (depending, of course, on the instructions they receive from their corporate masters).
So how can writing up and sending in your thoughts about the DMCA to the Copyright Office have any more effect on anything related to the DMCA than posting to Slashdot?
It's not like most members of Congress are going to listen to these comments, since they owe their allegience to the corporations and not the people...
What people are forgetting here is that Congress represents the people of the United States. Representatives and Senators serve at the pleasure of their constituents. If they consistently pass laws which the people of the United States hate, they will lose their jobs.
Man, how naive can you get?
Look at the voter turnout figures and start talking to people. You'll find that there is very little confidence in our elected officials on the part of the electorate. Most people don't bother to vote anymore because they feel that there's nobody good to vote for anymore.
And the politicians know this. They like this. They know that they only chance anyone has of getting in office is by getting sufficient exposure that the people who do vote know about them, and that the only way to do that is through the mass media. But the mass media is owned by large corporations whose only concern is raking in the cash. For the media, money is the only language worth speaking and the only one they'll listen to.
And what entities in this country now have most of the money? The large corporations, if you haven't guessed it. Those large corporations that don't directly own the media outlets will of course have deals going with those that do, to make sure that only the candidates that are reasonably favorable to their desires will get any real media exposure, much less favorable exposure.
This works because you can't elect someone you don't know anything about. You and other people might randomly vote for such a candidate, but such a candidate can't win because the votes of people who vote randomly will be distributed more or less evenly amongst the unknown candidates (of which there are quite a few).
And so the bottom line is that the politicians don't listen to the people anymore, except when what the people are saying happens to coincide with what their corporate masters are saying. When there's a conflict, the corporations win.
This explains the DMCA. It explains the CTEA. It explains the airline bailout. It explains why corporations were able to get away with bamboozling their investors for so long. It explains the FCC's behavior. And it nicely explains the foreign policy decisions of the United States.
You can ignore all this and continue to believe that the U.S. is the shining beacon of peace and democracy in the world. But you do so at your peril, especially in light of the recent incursions on the rights and freedoms of the people (such as the current policy of the government to indefinitely detain, on a whim, anyone it decides to label an "enemy combatant").
But the general idea that it will restrain itself, despite believing a law is stupid, is a feature, not a bug in our constitutional tradition.
On this I disagree wholeheartedly. The Supreme Court should not restrain itself in striking down laws.
I'll tell you why: because laws are, almost by definition, restrictions on an individual's freedom. In this specific case, copyright restricts the freedom of the individual to make copies of someone else's work. There are good reasons for it, of course, that have their roots in the Constitution: to promote progress in the sciences and the useful arts. But like almost all laws, copyright does restrict the freedom of individuals, and one should never forget that.
Only the laws which restrict individual freedom to the least degree possible should be allowed to stand. But that's not how things have turned out, and it's one of the reasons we have few rights and freedoms left.
The Supreme Court should be in the business of making sure that your right to swing your fist ends at my face, of balancing the rights and freedoms we have. They cannot do that well when they are so reluctant to strike down laws.
That's bullshit. I read a good portion of the thread where they first discussed this and Mr. McVoy was pretty receptive to everything that the kernel people were saying. Did you read any of the threads or are you just flaming?
I don't know shit about Larry McVoy personally. But I do know a few things about people in general.
If Microsoft approached Larry McVoy and offered to buy BitKeeper lock, stock, and barrel for $1 billion (with the provision that Larry would have to give up all rights to BitKeeper and would not be allowed to make any changes to the EULA prior to handing it over to Microsoft), do you think Larry would take the deal?
If he's like 99.99999% of the rest of the people on the planet, he'd take the deal in a heartbeat.
Anyway, you were saying about how much he cares about open source...
[Regarding the possibility of Microsoft buying out Bitkeeper]...
There are two alternatives in this case: the kernel hackers buy a BK license
When the EULA forbids you from developing software that competes with Microsoft? Riiight...
or they stop using it....
And if the new EULA says that if you were developing software that competes with Microsoft's software, then you can't use Bitkeeper to retrieve your software from the Bitkeeper archives? Since the previous EULA probably says that the terms of the EULA can be changed at any time without notice, and that by agreeing to the current EULA you implicitly agree to all future versions of the EULA, the Linux kernel guys would be screwed by a Microsoft buyout of Bitkeeper.
In actuality, most FAA regs are to protect (a) people (and property) on the ground and (b) passengers.
And ironically, in the vast majority of air crashes, the only people hurt or killed are the pilot and any passengers, while in the vast majority of automobile injury accidents, innocent bystanders (who are usually driving their own cars) are hurt or killed.
Now given that, which would you say deserves more regulation: air travel or automobile travel?
How typical of the government that the mode of travel that's inherently safer to innocent bystanders, and therefore the least in need of regulation, gets the most regulated (so much that it's killing the personal aviation industry).
Re:Affordable personal flight is still just a drea
on
The Coming Air Age
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· Score: 2, Informative
Turbines are much more efficient than internal combustion engines. In a typical four stroke engine, there are four up and down motions for one power stroke, versus the one motion of a turbine. Now, if you replace inefficient with expensive, that statement makes more sense.
But internal combustion engines are much more efficient at trapping the expanding combustion gases and converting them to work. Turbines lose a lot of efficiency in the conversion of energy to mechanical work.
The difference isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, but turbines still aren't as efficient. They are much more reliable, however, so their overall cost of operation is less when scaled to suit airliner size aircraft.
Here's proof. One airframe design that has two variants, a piston-powered variant and a turbine-powered variant, is the Piper Malibu. The Mirage is piston powered and the Malibu is turbine powered. Here are the relevant specs:
Piper Malibu Mirage:
Engine: Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A 6-cylinder piston
Fuel burn: 18gal/hr
Useful load 1500lb
Max gross weight: 4300lb
Cruise: 213kt at 25,000ft
Piper Meridian:
Engine: Pratt & Whitney PT6A-42A
Fuel burn: 37gal/hr
Useful load: 1500lb
Max gross weight: 4900lb
Cruise speed: 262kt at 30,000ft (240kt at 25,000ft)
Now, the power requirements due to air resistance vary by the cube of the speed, and the fuel burn varies directly with the amount of power used. So at 25,000 feet, the Meridian is using 1.44 times the amount of power that the Mirage is using. But if the specific fuel consumptions were the same, then the turbine would burn 1.44 times the amount of fuel, or 26 gal/hr. But it burns 37. And even if the fuel burn were the same, kerosene has a higher energy content than gasoline. So the turbine is less efficient.
Another way to prove it is through the specific fuel consumption values. A piston engine uses about 0.45 lb/hp per hour. The PT6 uses 0.53 lb/hp per hour. So the PT6 burns more fuel, from a source that has more energy.
Oh, yeah: and the turbine is a lot more expensive. But that probably has more to do with General Electric's monopoly (or so I've heard) on the processes used to produce the fan blades than anything else.
Affordable personal flight is still just a dream..
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The Coming Air Age
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· Score: 5, Insightful
There are several reasons point-to-point personal flight isn't here yet (and may not ever be).
Technological limitations, including:
Engine technology: a flying vehicle that can't glide requires highly reliable engines. Today that means turbines, but turbines are very inefficient compared with internal combustion engines. They do produce enough power to enable aircraft to fly very high, which does a lot to offset their inefficiency, since true speeds increase as you go higher.
Form factor: without highly reliable engines, you'll need to be able to glide (or autorotate) to a landing. That means having airfoils on the vehicle, which greatly increases the overall size of the vehicle.
Navigation and collision avoidance: only recently, with high speed miniature computers, has the technology become available to make going point to point in 3D in high traffic situations a possibility. Without it, the risk of a midair collision is too high to make it feasible for everyone to own a flying vehicle and to fly them from their homes.
Regulatory problems: personal aviation would be a much more popular and widely available means of travel if it weren't for the FAA. Many believe that they are necessary to ensure safety of flight, and I don't disagree with that role, but their method of regulating the industry has all but killed off personal aviation:
Personal aircraft have increased in price in real, inflation-adjusted dollars by a factor of two or more in the last 30 years, and are not any safer despite their insane prices.
The safety of personal aircraft has not changed significantly in the last 30 years, but the safety of automobiles has changed drastically, proving that the NHTSA's method of regulating the industry (requiring that vehicles have a minimum set of equipment and requiring that they pass certain safety tests, but requiring nothing else) is far superior to the FAA's.
The FAA requires all of the following:
The manufacturer's design must be certified by the FAA. The FAA requires specific behavioral characteristics from the aircraft.
The manufacturer's manufacturing process must be certified by the FAA. The FAA must approve the materials you use, the build procedures you use, the quality control measures you use, etc.
Any design changes must be approved by the FAA
Changes to the manufacturing methods used to build the aircraft, including materials, techniques, machinery, etc., require that the entire manufacturing system go through recertification.
Aftermarket modifications, which includes installation of new navigation and communication equipment, require the same basic certification by the FAA that airplanes require.
Owners are not allowed to make any modifications themselves, nor are they allowed to do any but the most minimal maintenance (anything more requires a signoff from an FAA-approved maintenance technician, which usually means you may as well have them do the work).
The end result is that the FAA has made it almost impossible for manufacturers and aircraft owners to improve their products. That means that aircraft safety can't improve, nor can the cost. So the only way to significantly improve an airplane's safety or cost is for the manufacturer to come out with a completely new design go through the entire certification process outlined above.
Public perception of flight. Many people believe that equipment failures in the air will result in instant death. For instance, many believe that if the engine of an airplane stops, the airplane will fall out of the sky, when the reality is that the pilot will be able to glide the airplane to a landing. Loss of an engine is a life-threatening issue only over mountainous terrain.
People believe these things about aviation because the mass media (movies, news reports, etc.) has portrayed aviation in this light in order to make the news more spectacular and to make movies more exciting. But of course, that kind of excitement isn't what you're after when you're flying for real.
The bottom line is that I don't think affordable personal aviation is ever going to happen because I don't believe the FAA will ever let it happen. The trend for the past 30 years has been for airplane prices to increase while at the same time production volume has decreased. These are the symptoms of a dying market.
To resurrect affordable personal aviation, a large manufacturer (like Toyota) will have to get into the game. It will require an investment of billions (most of that will go into the mass production machinery required) and at least a couple of decades. The manufacturer will have to sell moderately capable (150 knots, 1000 mile range, 18,000 foot service ceiling, 4 seats), simple to fly airplanes for between $50,000 and $100,000. They will have to manufacture their own engines because the current manufacturers are still building engines that were designed back in the 1940's, using 1940s production techniques, for a minimum of $20,000 apiece. This will kill just about any other airplane manufacturer, who won't be able to adapt themselves to that kind of competition because the FAA won't let them. It will seriously depress the used airplane market, because nobody in their right mind would pay $70,000 for a 30-year-old 120-knot 4-seater when they can get a 150-knot brand new 4-seater for the same price.
It'll be opposed by everyone: the FAA because they're 0wn3d by the airlines, the airlines because they'll lose a lot of short to medium range business, and many current aircraft owners, who view their aircraft as investments (used aircraft currently appreciate, not depreciate).
But that's what it'll take to make affordable personal aviation a reality.
You don't seem to be listening. Software licensing is a recurring charge in the same sense that real estate is a recurring charge: buildings fail (burn down, get old, whatever) or stop being sufficient, and must be replaced from time to time. That doesn't make real estate a recurring charge. It's a capital expense. The same is true of computer hardware and software. Why don't you understand this?
You seem to like comparing computer equipment and software with real estate.
Let's say you buy an office building. During the life of your
business, there are three possible things that can happen:
You can outgrow (or become too small for) the office building. Now you sell it. How much
is it worth? Chances are very good that you'll recover all of
your initial investment, and you'll probably actually make a modest
amount of money on top of that due to appreciation of the
property.
It burns down or is otherwise lost. Do you think your business
takes a loss on the entire building? Not a chance! You have
insurance, right? So the insurance pays you the value of the
building, and you still don't take a loss beyond the moving
expenses.
Your business is stable and there's no need to move out of the
building for the lifetime of the business. The building retains its
value both in terms of its functionality and its selling price.
Now, compare that with what can happen with computer equipment and software:
You outgrow the capabilities of the hardware/software. That
requires an upgrade, so you buy the upgrades as needed. What happens
to the old software and equipment? If you used it long enough (5
years or longer), it's worthless. You won't get a dime for it
because it's commodity equipment and nobody wants it. Current low-end
equipment and software would provide a much better value to any
potential buyer for the price than the equipment you're trying to
sell. And the end result is that you take a complete loss on it. The best you can do is donate it to charity and take the tax write-off (because at least then you can fudge the "value" of the equipment).
The equipment and software is destroyed in a fire (or something).
Your insurance pays up, but chances are they pay for the depreciated
value of the equipment (i.e., what you could get for it on the used
market). If you've operated it long enough, you're back to the same
situation you'd have if you outgrew it.
You don't ever outgrow the capabilities of the hardware and
software. That's fine, except that your hardware has a limited life.
When components fail, they have to be replaced, but success at that
depends on your ability to find replacement hardware that is
compatible both with the hardware that remains and the software
you're running on it. The longer you keep your existing systems, the
more difficult it will be to find such replacement hardware.
Eventually the replacement hardware will become impossible to find or
so expensive to acquire that you'll be forced to upgrade. And keep in
mind that since your business depends on your computers being
operational, the longer it takes to find replacement parts the more it
costs you.
Now, you tell me: from the standpoint of actually operating a
business, does computer hardware and software behave more like an
office building than office supplies, or vice versa? In the above,
the office building and computers differed on two of the three points,
and the one point on which they don't completely differ is conditional
on how long you had the equipment before it was destroyed.
An accountant will tell me that computer hardware and software is a
capital expense. But he's talking about how it would be classified
for tax purposes, not for future planning or total
cost of ownership. If I own a business, my interest in the fact
that my accountant wants to classify my hardware and software
purchases as capital expenditures is limited to the tax implications.
But my primary concern is going to be the overall impact of those
purchases on my business, and for that it makes more sense to
model it as a recurring expense or as an expendable item than as a
capital asset. An owner of a business should be much more interested
in the reality of his finances than in the accounting games he can
play to make the books look good.
Oh, and your confusion over what a Vesa Local Bus RAID controller is
illustrates my point about long term computer equipment ownership more
eloquently than words. Vesa Local Bus is the precursor to PCI. It
was found on Intel 486 class equipment back around 1993. PCI is not
backwards compatible with VLB -- it's a different standard entirely.
The reason this illustrates my point so well is that VLB was very
common less than 10 years ago, yet you've never even heard of
it. If you haven't even heard of it, how likely do you think it
is that you'd be able to find a VLB RAID controller, any VLB
RAID controller, for sale today? And given that, how likely do you
think it is that you'd be able to find a particular make and model?
And 10 years is a short to medium timeframe for the life of a
successful business. Now let's talk about a 20 year time frame.
In 20 years, your office building will almost certainly still be standing and
if you haven't totally screwed up it'll still be in good condition.
Even your automobiles might still be running (there are plenty of
1980's vintage cars on the road still). But where will your original
commodity computer equipment be?
Now do you understand why I think it makes more sense to treat
computer equipment and software as expendable items instead of capital
assets? The lifetime of the average successful business is much longer than the lifetime of the average commodity PC, but is shorter than the lifetime of the average office building or other capital investment. And that's what makes the difference.
The reason why we're talking past each other here is because you're not using the phrase "recurring charge" correctly. A recurring charge is something like a lease payment, or payroll: something that occurs more than once in a regular cycle and for which money is budgeted in advance. That's a recurring charge. If Company X charges you $10 per year to use their software-- using time-based nodelocked licensing, so the software stops working if you don't renew it-- that's a recurring charge.
Fair enough. My (possibly incorrect) usage of the term "recurring charge" doesn't change the facts, which are:
Hardware fails, or stops being sufficient, and must be replaced periodically.
Hardware replacement will eventually require an upgrade of the operating system.
Operating systems and the applications that run underneath them have flaws that are sometimes corrected only in a new release of the software or operating system, thus requiring an upgrade of the software and/or operating system to avoid said flaws.
Therefore, software and operating systems for which license fees are paid are not one-time purchases, but are recurring ("to happen, come up, or show up again or repeatedly") purchases. And therefore, from the standpoint of the business, license fees are recurring in reality if not in name.
Therefore, free software's financial advantage is greater than the initial purchase price difference might imply.
Call it what you want, but the nature of licensed software is the same: you are forced by the real world to pay for it repeatedly over time.
That's fine and good. But it's a terrible way to run a business; replacing the failed component would certainly have been the more cost effective solution to your problem, once you figure in the time and energy needed to deploy new software on the new hardware. But if that's the path you choose to take, so be it. But it's not a recurring charge. It's a capital expenditure.
This ignores reality, which is that computer technology improves fast enough that the replacement hardware you're after probably won't be available anymore, at least if you're talking about commodity PC equipment (which we are, since we're talking about Microsoft software here). That Vesa Local Bus RAID controller you were using isn't being made or sold anymore. How, then, are you going to get a replacement for it when it fails?
No, the reality is that when major components in commodity computer equipment fail, their replacement often requires replacement of much more.
The fact that you might plan to buy new software to replace existing software as the years go by doesn't mean software licensing fees-- a one-time capital expenditure-- are suddenly recurring charges. It just means that your software "wore out," so to speak, so you replaced or augmented it.
To call software or hardware a "one-time capital expenditure" is to completely ignore my point, which is that they are not one-time expenditures: they are recurring expenditures, because you have to pay the money for the same thing (a computer, an operating system, an application, whatever) periodically. The period is irregular, but it is still there.
A one-time expenditure is money that you only have to pay once and can reasonably expect to not have to pay again during the lifetime of your business. The purchase of an office building, for instance. As you state, the building might burn down and you might outgrow it, but the difference between that and computer software and hardware is that if you outgrow your building, you can sell it and recover the money you spent on its purchase. Not so with software and most computer hardware: they are expendable, just like office supplies.
You don't treat the purchase of office supplies such as paper, staples, etc., as one-time capital expenditures, do you? Nor should you: those are things you have to replace from time to time because they get used up. And the same thing is true of computer equipment and licensed software. If the way you treat them financially ends up being the same, why don't you categorize them the same way?
How will Palladium suddenly change this philosophy of the manufacters? Won't they be tempted to go the "dirty" path (of course not officially; they'll just "not include Palladium support") by looking into the enormous public interest that will arise in hardware not supporting hardware copy protections?
They will, initially, but the reason is that people need to be able to run the currently available operating systems on new hardware. So hardware manufacturers will implement Palladium in their hardware but will make it possible to disable it.
For now.
Once most people are running Palladium-capable operating systems (Microsoft will see to that), hardware manufacturers can get away with removing the ability to turn Palladium off. Only the fringe will care, and those people don't represent a large enough population to make the difference.
Understand this: the hardware manufacturers only care about their bottom line. If they can force people to upgrade their hardware, thereby generating more business than they would have had otherwise, they'll do it, and it doesn't matter how bad for the customer the method they use is.
If other interests (the MPAA, the RIAA) pay them more than enough to offset the loss in business, they'll do it.
But my bet is that Palladium-required hardware will come at exactly the same time that legislation requiring its use is passed. Since the large corporations control our government, this will happen.
Stop right there. What is it, exactly, about Windows 2000 that makes Windows NT 4.0 servers stop working? You say Windows 2000 includes "bugfixes... that I require for continued operation," but you don't give any hint as to what that means.
If you believe that Microsoft fixed all the security bugs in NT4, or that they will continue to fix such bugs, then I have some Enron stock to sell you...
you believe Windows 2000 is more secure than Windows NT 4.0, and you have cheerfully overlooked the more appropriate solution of keeping your servers behind a robust firewall
And if you believe that all security issues are internet related, and that there aren't any vulnerabilities in non-internet-related services (think domain controller, for instance), then I have more Enron stock to sell you. I have even more for you if you believe that a firewall can protect all the services you may have to expose (such as DNS).
or you see new features or changes in Windows 2000 that you want, and are calling that a need.
This I'm not doing, at least not directly. But see below.
I hate to keep bringing up this example, but my girlfriend's laptop hasn't been upgraded or changed in any way since 1999, when I bought it for her. She's happy with the laptop just the way it is; from the looks of things, she'll never upgrade.
She'll never upgrade... riiight...
And just what, pray tell, are you going to do when her laptop dies? Are you going to load NT 4.0 onto her new laptop? That'll work, for a while.
Think it'll work 10 years from now when USB keyboard and mouse interfaces are the only ones available? Think it'll work on Palladium hardware that requires a valid digital signature in the OS image?
Well?
You've gone and done it again. A product upgrade is just that; an upgrade.
We seem to be talking past each other here. I don't deny that an upgrade is an upgrade. But you don't seem to get my main point, which is that in the real world, upgrades are unavoidable and must be done, and that it's only a matter of time, and that is why OS license fees are in reality recurring.
In the real world, many such upgrades are done in order to improve security or reliability (or both). Changes that improve reliability definitely are not "added features", they're bugfixes (an operating system should never crash or hang due to a software error). The same can usually be said for security fixes. When the vendor will not fix a vulnerability or deficiency in their old operating system but have fixed it in their new one, what choice do you have but to upgrade?
But often such upgrades are done to make replacing the hardware possible.
For instance, let's say that you're running NT 3.51 and SQL Server 6.5 (I honestly don't know if such a combination is possible, but assume it is for this argument), but you're finding that the hardware it's running on just isn't cutting it anymore because your business has grown and changed. Or perhaps the box just died and you have no choice but to replace the hardware. But NT 3.51 doesn't support one of the big reasons you bought the particular replacement hardware you want to deploy: the RAID controller (the old one was a Vesa Local Bus controller, so it won't work in your new hardware). Only Win2k and above does.
Now, you may try to argue that support of newer hardware is a "new feature". But I argue differently: providing an interface to the hardware in your system is the main purpose of the operating system. When it doesn't do so, it's deficient. This argument has been used against Linux many times and has some truth to it (the Linux guys generally understand the validity of the argument but reply that Linux would support the hardware if the developers could lay their hands on the programming specs). So support of modern hardware doesn't really count as a "new feature" in my book.
And so, in the above example, you have no choice but to replace the operating system. You'd prefer not to but you have no alternative.
Your assertion that nobody forces you to upgrade is patently false. The real world forces you to upgrade. Hardware dies. Businesses grow. Requirements change. Because of all that, upgrades are inevitable, and that is why OS license fees are in reality a recurring charge.
If your girlfriend's laptop dies, you will be forced to upgrade if the current OS she's running won't support the replacement hardware (and that could be for any number of reasons, from lack of an old PS/2 style keyboard controller to an implementation of Palladium that refuses to run anything other than a digitally signed OS). And that's exactly the kind of situation that supports my position.
Slashdot Mirror
But you're asking the wrong question.
The only question that needs to be answered is this: would Kurt Vonnegut have refused to write those novels if copyright lasted only 10 years?
If the answer is "yes" then the 10 year copyright term is too short. If the answer is "no" then it isn't.
There may be a few types of works that would take longer than 10 years to recover the investment one makes in them, so that such works would not be created if copyright lasted only 10 years. But I know of nothing like that to which copyright applies. So the benefit of a copyright term longer than 10 years is likely to be small.
This is not clear at all. In any case, the sole purpose of copyright is to encourage people to create and publish their works. Without that purpose, copyright wouldn't exist at all in the United States, at least as something that is derived directly from the Constitution.
The current state of the Microsoft anti-trust trial isn't sufficient proof for you? (!!)
Where have you been living all this time??
Oh, I'd be willing to bet they will make the effort in this case.
See, this is the DMCA we're talking about here. The media conglomerates want this law enforced throughout the world, because otherwise it doesn't have the kind of teeth it needs to be truly effective (if circumvention devices can be distributed from outside the U.S. then, as with encryption, they can be used by people within the U.S.).
If Sklyarov is detained and brought to the U.S. for punishment after being found guilty in his (in absentia) trial, that will make it clear to people throughout the world that they are not safe from the U.S. even if they live in another country entirely. More importantly, it will make it clear that the DMCA is a law that the U.S. is willing to enforce on the world through any means at its disposal.
You can hope that all you want, but the reality is that no country will protect an individual citizen if given sufficient incentive not to. I strongly suspect the U.S. has ways of giving Russia the incentive it needs to hand Sklyarov over.
Yes ... if everything is done on the up and up.
But I'm sure Russia will make an "exception" if given the right "reasons", those reasons being under the table and off limits to public viewing ... for "national security" reasons, of course...
You imply from this that you believe that the system can be changed from within. It cannot, because it automatically rejects anyone who would change it from within.
You can't change something from the inside if you can't get inside.
And that leaves changing it from the outside. Now how do you propose to do that? You can't effectively communicate with the hundreds of millions of people it would take to make it happen except possibly through the one means that isn't available to you: the mass media.
So what are you going to do? Start a violent revolution? That worked for the founders only because their enemy had roughly (within an order of magnitude) the same amount of firepower that they did, and they still wouldn't have won without some outside assistance (the French). The government today has MILLIONS of times more firepower than the civilian population, and no country on the planet is going to be stupid enough to support the civilians in a violent revolution, lest the government of the U.S. lob a few nukes (or something) their way.
Controlled how? Through the very government that is in bed with them?? You keep saying "this is possible" and "that is possible" but you never say how it's possible. I've shown why these things are not possible. It's up to you to point out the cracks in the armor. But so far all you've done is say that the cracks exist, without even being able to point to them.
You still don't understand: you cannot vote for someone whose existence you aren't even aware of.
We're not talking about me or you, we're talking about the average person, the guy whose vote you want to go towards a candidate that isn't even mentioned by the mass media. It's difficult enough just to get this person to vote at all, because his experience has shown that his vote doesn't make any difference even if the candidate he votes for wins. And now you're telling him that he has to go out of his way and spend countless hours of his time to research candidates that he doesn't even know exist? And worse, even if he takes that time, how is he to know which information to trust and which to ignore? Experience has taught the average person that the claims a candidate makes are more false than true, and that the same thing is true of the claims of a candidate's supporters. So where is the average person supposed to get solid information about a candidate? Traditionally he relied on the mass media but we know that they can't be trusted anymore.
And even if you eliminate those problems, our corporate-run economy doesn't give those people time to spend that kind of effort. It takes the income of two people just to keep the average family afloat today, and it's getting worse over time, not better. What little time people don't spend at work they spend with their families. Sorry, but almost everything takes a back seat to those two things, including political research.
And on top of that, you have to work against the common belief that a vote for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote. And on top of that, you have to work against the common belief that there are no good candidates to vote for anymore.
Fortunately, beliefs can be changed. Unfortunately, human nature cannot. And it's human nature to take the easy way out, especially when the alternative isn't even likely to succeed.
To truly address the problem, you'll have to educate an entirely new generation of people. But the public education system, which is the only one that matters because it's the only one the average family can afford, is run by the government, which is 0wn3d by the corporations. The public education system is responsible for many of the belief and behavioral problems on the part of the populace, since its primary purpose is to teach people to be good little sheep.
And all of the things I've spoken of thus far are systemic problems, things you'd have to fight against that are part of the system itself. If that's not sufficient, you'll have active opposition from those in power (not government officials: they're just puppets. I'm talking about the owners of the large multinational corporations, among other things). Opposition from people who have thousands of times more resources and connections than you. And they are willing to go to any lengths to stay in power. If you become enough of a threat to them, don't be surprised if an "unfortunate accident" somehow manages to befall you.
If you want to waste your resources on an exercise in futility, be my guest. But beware: ignorance is not strength. Knowledge and understanding is. Naivete is ignorance, and you'd do well to address that issue first before committing your resources to a course of action.
Despite my cynicism, I still vote for the candidates I feel best support the things that are important to me, and I still talk to the people I know about these things. It doesn't hurt to do that. But I have no illusions about the likely outcome of all that.
You're right, you don't get it.
Let's perform a simple thought experiment, shall we?
Suppose rights to all "intellectual property" were the same as real property rights: perpetual.
Now, let's say that you create something. Because most creations are inspired or derived from older works (such is the nature of progress), your cost to invent that something is determined by the amount of labor you put into your work plus the amount of money you have to pay to the owners of the works you derived yours from.
So you publish your work. The price you charge for your work is a reflection of the total amount of money and labor you put into your work, including the fees you pay to the owners of the works you based your work on.
The people of the next generation have to do the same thing with their works. Some of them will base their work on yours, and have to pay you for it.
Repeat, ad infinitum.
The end result is that the price of creative works (whether they be inventions, artistic expressions, etc.) continuously rises over time. It must, because each generation puts some of its own efforts into creation, but must always pay all of its predecessors, either directly or indirectly. Eventually it gets so expensive that the hosting society can no longer afford progress.
That is the trap you fall into if you allow "intellectual property" rights to be perpetual, and is why such rights must be limited.
So I guess that means that the Sith are going to kick the Jedis' ass simply due to sheer numbers...except that they limit their own numbers to two in the entire galaxy (a master an an apprentice. Guess that means they go out of their way to kill anyone else who has aspirations of becoming a Sith), unless the Jedi are simply deluding themselves about the Sith to make themselves feel better...
Looks to me like all these Force wielders are idiots. No wonder they've all but disappeared by the time of EP6...
Why? You'd have to be an idiot to ignore reality, but that's what you're advocating here.
Wrong. Repeat this until you fully understand it: You cannot vote for someone you don't know about.
Mass media exposure is everything. Without it, the people who vote won't know a thing about you, and therefore won't be able, much less willing, to vote for you. The mass media is owned by a few large corporations with agendas. They demand money. Only large corporations or extremely wealthy individuals have enough money to influence the media corporations enough to give exposure to candidates that the media corporations wouldn't otherwise give exposure to.
If everyone stopped buying music, the DMCA would not be repealed. What would happen instead is that a tax would be placed on internet usage, the proceeds of which would be directed to the RIAA and MPAA members. This has happened before (to DAT and, in Canada, to CD-Rs), so it's not like it's a new idea.
It's amazing to me how naive some people seem to be...
You are naive. Not because your belief is incorrect, but because you believe there is a difference between money and reelection.
In the United States, there is no such difference. The reason is that the only way to get enough exposure to have a chance of being reelected is through the mass media. But the mass media is owned by a few large corporations whose only concern is money. So the candidate has to pay the mass media for access, hence the strong connection between money and reelection.
More importantly, the corporations that own the mass media have their own agenda, so they will be reluctant to give exposure to a candidate that goes against their agenda. But because they are ultimately interested in money, a sufficient quantity of it will persuade them otherwise.
That money has to come from somewhere, and (with a few exceptions) the only entities that have that kind of money are large corporations, which also have their own agenda. So not only will these corporations contribute to the election campaign of any politician they believe will reciprocate once elected, they almost certainly make deals with the media corporations to give their candidate(s) exposure.
The corporations are in almost complete control of the election process in the United States today. This is why you will see very little opposition to the DMCA amongst the politicians, and why the politicians passed the DMCA to begin with (unanimously with a voice vote, at that).
So how can writing up and sending in your thoughts about the DMCA to the Copyright Office have any more effect on anything related to the DMCA than posting to Slashdot?
It's not like most members of Congress are going to listen to these comments, since they owe their allegience to the corporations and not the people...
Man, how naive can you get?
Look at the voter turnout figures and start talking to people. You'll find that there is very little confidence in our elected officials on the part of the electorate. Most people don't bother to vote anymore because they feel that there's nobody good to vote for anymore.
And the politicians know this. They like this. They know that they only chance anyone has of getting in office is by getting sufficient exposure that the people who do vote know about them, and that the only way to do that is through the mass media. But the mass media is owned by large corporations whose only concern is raking in the cash. For the media, money is the only language worth speaking and the only one they'll listen to.
And what entities in this country now have most of the money? The large corporations, if you haven't guessed it. Those large corporations that don't directly own the media outlets will of course have deals going with those that do, to make sure that only the candidates that are reasonably favorable to their desires will get any real media exposure, much less favorable exposure.
This works because you can't elect someone you don't know anything about. You and other people might randomly vote for such a candidate, but such a candidate can't win because the votes of people who vote randomly will be distributed more or less evenly amongst the unknown candidates (of which there are quite a few).
And so the bottom line is that the politicians don't listen to the people anymore, except when what the people are saying happens to coincide with what their corporate masters are saying. When there's a conflict, the corporations win.
This explains the DMCA. It explains the CTEA. It explains the airline bailout. It explains why corporations were able to get away with bamboozling their investors for so long. It explains the FCC's behavior. And it nicely explains the foreign policy decisions of the United States.
You can ignore all this and continue to believe that the U.S. is the shining beacon of peace and democracy in the world. But you do so at your peril, especially in light of the recent incursions on the rights and freedoms of the people (such as the current policy of the government to indefinitely detain, on a whim, anyone it decides to label an "enemy combatant").
On this I disagree wholeheartedly. The Supreme Court should not restrain itself in striking down laws.
I'll tell you why: because laws are, almost by definition, restrictions on an individual's freedom. In this specific case, copyright restricts the freedom of the individual to make copies of someone else's work. There are good reasons for it, of course, that have their roots in the Constitution: to promote progress in the sciences and the useful arts. But like almost all laws, copyright does restrict the freedom of individuals, and one should never forget that.
Only the laws which restrict individual freedom to the least degree possible should be allowed to stand. But that's not how things have turned out, and it's one of the reasons we have few rights and freedoms left.
The Supreme Court should be in the business of making sure that your right to swing your fist ends at my face, of balancing the rights and freedoms we have. They cannot do that well when they are so reluctant to strike down laws.
This is true. But they should give those who criticize incentive to make damned sure their criticisms are valid and well thought out.
I don't know shit about Larry McVoy personally. But I do know a few things about people in general.
If Microsoft approached Larry McVoy and offered to buy BitKeeper lock, stock, and barrel for $1 billion (with the provision that Larry would have to give up all rights to BitKeeper and would not be allowed to make any changes to the EULA prior to handing it over to Microsoft), do you think Larry would take the deal?
If he's like 99.99999% of the rest of the people on the planet, he'd take the deal in a heartbeat.
Anyway, you were saying about how much he cares about open source...
When the EULA forbids you from developing software that competes with Microsoft? Riiight...
And if the new EULA says that if you were developing software that competes with Microsoft's software, then you can't use Bitkeeper to retrieve your software from the Bitkeeper archives? Since the previous EULA probably says that the terms of the EULA can be changed at any time without notice, and that by agreeing to the current EULA you implicitly agree to all future versions of the EULA, the Linux kernel guys would be screwed by a Microsoft buyout of Bitkeeper.
"Oh, that's just my computer taking a dump again. Been doing that a lot ever since Microsoft bought that bathroom patent from IBM..."
I think this is the first time I've ever seen the misspelled version of "lose" actually be applicable in its misspelled form...
And ironically, in the vast majority of air crashes, the only people hurt or killed are the pilot and any passengers, while in the vast majority of automobile injury accidents, innocent bystanders (who are usually driving their own cars) are hurt or killed.
Now given that, which would you say deserves more regulation: air travel or automobile travel?
How typical of the government that the mode of travel that's inherently safer to innocent bystanders, and therefore the least in need of regulation, gets the most regulated (so much that it's killing the personal aviation industry).
But internal combustion engines are much more efficient at trapping the expanding combustion gases and converting them to work. Turbines lose a lot of efficiency in the conversion of energy to mechanical work.
The difference isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, but turbines still aren't as efficient. They are much more reliable, however, so their overall cost of operation is less when scaled to suit airliner size aircraft.
Here's proof. One airframe design that has two variants, a piston-powered variant and a turbine-powered variant, is the Piper Malibu. The Mirage is piston powered and the Malibu is turbine powered. Here are the relevant specs:
Piper Malibu Mirage:
Piper Meridian:
Now, the power requirements due to air resistance vary by the cube of the speed, and the fuel burn varies directly with the amount of power used. So at 25,000 feet, the Meridian is using 1.44 times the amount of power that the Mirage is using. But if the specific fuel consumptions were the same, then the turbine would burn 1.44 times the amount of fuel, or 26 gal/hr. But it burns 37. And even if the fuel burn were the same, kerosene has a higher energy content than gasoline. So the turbine is less efficient.
Another way to prove it is through the specific fuel consumption values. A piston engine uses about 0.45 lb/hp per hour. The PT6 uses 0.53 lb/hp per hour. So the PT6 burns more fuel, from a source that has more energy.
Oh, yeah: and the turbine is a lot more expensive. But that probably has more to do with General Electric's monopoly (or so I've heard) on the processes used to produce the fan blades than anything else.
The FAA requires all of the following:
The end result is that the FAA has made it almost impossible for manufacturers and aircraft owners to improve their products. That means that aircraft safety can't improve, nor can the cost. So the only way to significantly improve an airplane's safety or cost is for the manufacturer to come out with a completely new design go through the entire certification process outlined above.
People believe these things about aviation because the mass media (movies, news reports, etc.) has portrayed aviation in this light in order to make the news more spectacular and to make movies more exciting. But of course, that kind of excitement isn't what you're after when you're flying for real.
The bottom line is that I don't think affordable personal aviation is ever going to happen because I don't believe the FAA will ever let it happen. The trend for the past 30 years has been for airplane prices to increase while at the same time production volume has decreased. These are the symptoms of a dying market.
To resurrect affordable personal aviation, a large manufacturer (like Toyota) will have to get into the game. It will require an investment of billions (most of that will go into the mass production machinery required) and at least a couple of decades. The manufacturer will have to sell moderately capable (150 knots, 1000 mile range, 18,000 foot service ceiling, 4 seats), simple to fly airplanes for between $50,000 and $100,000. They will have to manufacture their own engines because the current manufacturers are still building engines that were designed back in the 1940's, using 1940s production techniques, for a minimum of $20,000 apiece. This will kill just about any other airplane manufacturer, who won't be able to adapt themselves to that kind of competition because the FAA won't let them. It will seriously depress the used airplane market, because nobody in their right mind would pay $70,000 for a 30-year-old 120-knot 4-seater when they can get a 150-knot brand new 4-seater for the same price.
It'll be opposed by everyone: the FAA because they're 0wn3d by the airlines, the airlines because they'll lose a lot of short to medium range business, and many current aircraft owners, who view their aircraft as investments (used aircraft currently appreciate, not depreciate).
But that's what it'll take to make affordable personal aviation a reality.
You seem to like comparing computer equipment and software with real estate.
Let's say you buy an office building. During the life of your business, there are three possible things that can happen:
Now, compare that with what can happen with computer equipment and software:
Now, you tell me: from the standpoint of actually operating a business, does computer hardware and software behave more like an office building than office supplies, or vice versa? In the above, the office building and computers differed on two of the three points, and the one point on which they don't completely differ is conditional on how long you had the equipment before it was destroyed.
An accountant will tell me that computer hardware and software is a capital expense. But he's talking about how it would be classified for tax purposes, not for future planning or total cost of ownership. If I own a business, my interest in the fact that my accountant wants to classify my hardware and software purchases as capital expenditures is limited to the tax implications. But my primary concern is going to be the overall impact of those purchases on my business, and for that it makes more sense to model it as a recurring expense or as an expendable item than as a capital asset. An owner of a business should be much more interested in the reality of his finances than in the accounting games he can play to make the books look good.
Oh, and your confusion over what a Vesa Local Bus RAID controller is illustrates my point about long term computer equipment ownership more eloquently than words. Vesa Local Bus is the precursor to PCI. It was found on Intel 486 class equipment back around 1993. PCI is not backwards compatible with VLB -- it's a different standard entirely.
The reason this illustrates my point so well is that VLB was very common less than 10 years ago, yet you've never even heard of it. If you haven't even heard of it, how likely do you think it is that you'd be able to find a VLB RAID controller, any VLB RAID controller, for sale today? And given that, how likely do you think it is that you'd be able to find a particular make and model?
And 10 years is a short to medium timeframe for the life of a successful business. Now let's talk about a 20 year time frame.
In 20 years, your office building will almost certainly still be standing and if you haven't totally screwed up it'll still be in good condition. Even your automobiles might still be running (there are plenty of 1980's vintage cars on the road still). But where will your original commodity computer equipment be?
Now do you understand why I think it makes more sense to treat computer equipment and software as expendable items instead of capital assets? The lifetime of the average successful business is much longer than the lifetime of the average commodity PC, but is shorter than the lifetime of the average office building or other capital investment. And that's what makes the difference.
Fair enough. My (possibly incorrect) usage of the term "recurring charge" doesn't change the facts, which are:
Call it what you want, but the nature of licensed software is the same: you are forced by the real world to pay for it repeatedly over time.
This ignores reality, which is that computer technology improves fast enough that the replacement hardware you're after probably won't be available anymore, at least if you're talking about commodity PC equipment (which we are, since we're talking about Microsoft software here). That Vesa Local Bus RAID controller you were using isn't being made or sold anymore. How, then, are you going to get a replacement for it when it fails?
No, the reality is that when major components in commodity computer equipment fail, their replacement often requires replacement of much more.
To call software or hardware a "one-time capital expenditure" is to completely ignore my point, which is that they are not one-time expenditures: they are recurring expenditures, because you have to pay the money for the same thing (a computer, an operating system, an application, whatever) periodically. The period is irregular, but it is still there.
A one-time expenditure is money that you only have to pay once and can reasonably expect to not have to pay again during the lifetime of your business. The purchase of an office building, for instance. As you state, the building might burn down and you might outgrow it, but the difference between that and computer software and hardware is that if you outgrow your building, you can sell it and recover the money you spent on its purchase. Not so with software and most computer hardware: they are expendable, just like office supplies.
You don't treat the purchase of office supplies such as paper, staples, etc., as one-time capital expenditures, do you? Nor should you: those are things you have to replace from time to time because they get used up. And the same thing is true of computer equipment and licensed software. If the way you treat them financially ends up being the same, why don't you categorize them the same way?
They will, initially, but the reason is that people need to be able to run the currently available operating systems on new hardware. So hardware manufacturers will implement Palladium in their hardware but will make it possible to disable it.
For now.
Once most people are running Palladium-capable operating systems (Microsoft will see to that), hardware manufacturers can get away with removing the ability to turn Palladium off. Only the fringe will care, and those people don't represent a large enough population to make the difference.
Understand this: the hardware manufacturers only care about their bottom line. If they can force people to upgrade their hardware, thereby generating more business than they would have had otherwise, they'll do it, and it doesn't matter how bad for the customer the method they use is. If other interests (the MPAA, the RIAA) pay them more than enough to offset the loss in business, they'll do it.
But my bet is that Palladium-required hardware will come at exactly the same time that legislation requiring its use is passed. Since the large corporations control our government, this will happen.
If you believe that Microsoft fixed all the security bugs in NT4, or that they will continue to fix such bugs, then I have some Enron stock to sell you...
And if you believe that all security issues are internet related, and that there aren't any vulnerabilities in non-internet-related services (think domain controller, for instance), then I have more Enron stock to sell you. I have even more for you if you believe that a firewall can protect all the services you may have to expose (such as DNS).
This I'm not doing, at least not directly. But see below.
She'll never upgrade ... riiight ...
And just what, pray tell, are you going to do when her laptop dies? Are you going to load NT 4.0 onto her new laptop? That'll work, for a while.
Think it'll work 10 years from now when USB keyboard and mouse interfaces are the only ones available? Think it'll work on Palladium hardware that requires a valid digital signature in the OS image?
Well?
We seem to be talking past each other here. I don't deny that an upgrade is an upgrade. But you don't seem to get my main point, which is that in the real world, upgrades are unavoidable and must be done, and that it's only a matter of time, and that is why OS license fees are in reality recurring.
In the real world, many such upgrades are done in order to improve security or reliability (or both). Changes that improve reliability definitely are not "added features", they're bugfixes (an operating system should never crash or hang due to a software error). The same can usually be said for security fixes. When the vendor will not fix a vulnerability or deficiency in their old operating system but have fixed it in their new one, what choice do you have but to upgrade?
But often such upgrades are done to make replacing the hardware possible.
For instance, let's say that you're running NT 3.51 and SQL Server 6.5 (I honestly don't know if such a combination is possible, but assume it is for this argument), but you're finding that the hardware it's running on just isn't cutting it anymore because your business has grown and changed. Or perhaps the box just died and you have no choice but to replace the hardware. But NT 3.51 doesn't support one of the big reasons you bought the particular replacement hardware you want to deploy: the RAID controller (the old one was a Vesa Local Bus controller, so it won't work in your new hardware). Only Win2k and above does.
Now, you may try to argue that support of newer hardware is a "new feature". But I argue differently: providing an interface to the hardware in your system is the main purpose of the operating system. When it doesn't do so, it's deficient. This argument has been used against Linux many times and has some truth to it (the Linux guys generally understand the validity of the argument but reply that Linux would support the hardware if the developers could lay their hands on the programming specs). So support of modern hardware doesn't really count as a "new feature" in my book.
And so, in the above example, you have no choice but to replace the operating system. You'd prefer not to but you have no alternative.
Your assertion that nobody forces you to upgrade is patently false. The real world forces you to upgrade. Hardware dies. Businesses grow. Requirements change. Because of all that, upgrades are inevitable, and that is why OS license fees are in reality a recurring charge.
If your girlfriend's laptop dies, you will be forced to upgrade if the current OS she's running won't support the replacement hardware (and that could be for any number of reasons, from lack of an old PS/2 style keyboard controller to an implementation of Palladium that refuses to run anything other than a digitally signed OS). And that's exactly the kind of situation that supports my position.
"Nobel Peace prize awarded to ... er ... peaceful people".