Simply make the people that are caught pay double the full retail price for each piece of stolen software. That should be discouraging enough and fits the crime.
Well, I find this proposal reasonable but it will never be adopted:
1. One cannot get ALL the freeloaders, even more -- try to sue someone for download, and the judge will likely say "NO". Downloading is bad, but de-facto only redistribution, is illegal.
2. As for software, extermination of warez will move 10% of users to legal apps and 90% to free analogs. There are many open source programs around that may have less features and be less convenient... But good enough for $0 you pay for them.
FF five years, most p2p users are trained with free/open programs, like OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. Software makers lose much money. No, they don't want the warez to go away, it's a good advertising and it holds competitors back (less users, less bug reports/interest/donations).
In the modern world, with the cost of copying and disseminating a digital work approaching zero, what value do publishers actually add?
I have found out that:
1. Linux from Mandrake is far better than the one from Stallman and Linus (fine tuned, more tools, and those nice disks instead of zillion URLs half of which works).
2. A well printed book is better than one from http://www.lib.ru/, it's nicer, it saves my eyes, and it's just a pleasure to hold it in hands. Oh yeah, and a good book contains little mistakes -- a good editor is expencive to hire!
3. When it comes to music... well... the publisher should probably just sort awailable works. So yeah, when it comes to music you're right -- and don't forget that live shows should be attended, or the musicians die from starvation.
4. Pictures... hm. Let's say a gallery is a publisher, it can keep the pictures from occasional damage for ages! And visiting a real gallery is better than viewing some pictures online.
So, I think that the value publisher adds is proven and I can got back to work:)
> why? if a copyright owner can not be found, a corporation can not buy the work. I see no corporate interest here.
Let's say a company that wrote some useful software a few years ago has gone. Now, only the competing software from Microsoft (tm) is widely awailable and supported. If the old sources went to public domain, they could easily be adopted by some new company or even a crown of hackers. And MS does not need yet another Firefox. They just don't like competition.
Consider a book that has gone to public domain. Everione can publish it at will, it's available on the net for free, etc. Unneeded competition to the new books (for which the copyright is "belong to us" (c) ).
So, the less public domain, the less competition in IP areas, the more profits.
BTW, when it comes to art, old works are usually filtered through the waters of Lethe: only the best ones remain. "Manuscripts do not burn" (c) M. Bulgakov. And they are hard to compete against.
...for no more than the original price (i.e., no "yeah, it's still available, but we'll charge 10,000,000$ for it" scams)...
I agree with the most part of your post... Except that I'd rather live in a world where copyright just cannot be taken away from one who recieved it legitimately.
One should be able to share the rights, not give them away.
Unfortunately, this is good for authors and general public, but bad for publishers (recording companies as well).
If you writing something very trouble-free and intuitive
I like my PHBs very much but when it comes to using computer there's nothing trouble-free and intuitive. What's plain easy for me is magic for most earthlings. And BTW I'm still not an IT guru.
you're not likely to get much support income
Subscription is your friend. The better the program is, the more subscribers and the less support calls. The best support is the one you will never need, why not pay for that?
Also, corporate customers are willing to pay for support because it lessens their responsibility. They pay to save neurons.
Sounds like your company needs to develop a real QA process.
Fortunately, I don't own one. I imagine it would sink immediately!:-P
I'm not even working in development, but I hope I will some day...
What I've found out from your reply is that I completely misunderstood what QA means. I thought it was... err... But that's what the article is about! (and yes, I've read it before posting, but I see it didn't help much)
Linux has just got the other half
on
QA != Testing
·
· Score: 1
Linux has the other half -- while it lacks a pre-defined QA team, the programmers are not angry with testers.
The core GNU/Linux programs are usually (re)?implementing some well-designed arch/protocol/format/whatever.
Also the docs are much better (although often require googling) -- no "competitors" to learn your secret tricks and hidden APIs.
And BTW an encountered bug is usually sQuAshed, not workarounded -- 'cause geeks and major distros will just recompile everything broken by the remedy.
Some more OSS QA starts when a freshmeater abandons his poorly designed project and joins a better one.
And yes, best open-source progs have been heavily sponsored to become as consistent as they are. But I don't see it as a "major failing"...
Even more, QuAlity != QA
on
QA != Testing
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
If design is flawed, what should QA do?
If docs are porly written, and incomplete, how does one decide what's bug an what's feature?
If the docs depict the program's behavior, not define it, what can QA do?...And more, see F. Brooks' "Mythical Man-Month" for example, or Alen Holub's "Rope Long Enough to Shoot Your Leg".
And yes, if everythign is done right from the beginning, the QA people would have enough time to do something except testing.
Of course, only third of the two ways to write bugless programs works...
This would end up designing a spherical horse in vacuum. Or a six-legged elephant... or Emacs. And yes, the result would be bugless -- after infinite time.
The quality consists of even more factors, then QA -- and one of them is limiting features (yet the other is leaving a way for new features to come in -- like it has finally been done with Firefox).
Actually it appears to work quite well. Assuming the aim is to keep various people busy and well funded. N.B. the funding goes to "both ends". So odds on the US Government is now funding "intellectual property theft". The whole idea of these "wars" is top ensure that they cannot be "won".
We've got the same with Chechnya here in Russia... While the politicans "declare war on $FOO", the citizens are fscked.
Two birds are killed with one stone:
The buck (or roubles... But they tend to like dollars more) to the "right" person, and the sh^H^Hpeople is fed and silent.
In fact, those who use terror to achieve their goals (i.e. passing a bill or getting more money) are terrorists, not blind pawns with guns.
OK, colour me not too bright, but I cannot see why pre-installed Linux is being targeted here by Gartner - their claim doesn't seems to be, pre-installing Linux is the same as shipping the machine with no OS whatsoever.
To continue with their premise, any machine sold with no OS (or Linux) installed is destined for pirated software which would imply by there logic, if you want to take it all the way down the line, that there should be an international mandate that no machine should be sold without paying the MS tax.
WOW!!!! You've made the point I just didn't get! Thanks, I'll friend you now!
I'll repeat it again for myself:
The computers that are sold without Windows are sold to pirates (in our humble opinion)
I love that kind of logic!!!!!
But... It's too late. The "MS tax" is broken down by vendors. Now they can sell Pcs with whatever OS they (and their customer) like. Good.
Whatever happened to the old days of being ethical and honest with regard to your responsibilities to the consumer.
One must be responsible and ethical to customers. The comsumers are just marketing's (re)definition for protoplasm (which still can used to make money).
Linus was programming in assembly for several years when he entered the univercity. C is just plain easy for an.asm guy, more over it was designed for that!
I WANT BADLY to see the names of those who have tested, validated, and granted this patent. Well, the suggession applies to all patents... So that the person who has considered a double-click something new in 2004 would carry the shame through the history. (At least the/. history...)
So... Is patent office responsible for what they consider novel and what not? What if someone patents "kernel"?
P.S. Didn't read the whole patent, but I tried my best to. So TMBT RTFA.
The only really interesting thing in (r)TFA (I didn't get MS but perhaps there too) is that they redesign their system to use wasted cycles for corporate purposes. Like the google scientific program or so. Also, they surely will try to make a good HPC environment but I doubt it's possible with all that GUI floating around.
BTW, why didn't they make a small kernel that loads drivers, handles processes, does TCP and basic IO, and loads API as DLL when needed... Oops... Sorry, it seems I'm a Linux user. Damn...
Second to use on a regular basis. And I feel like stick with it, even make it better maybe...
I'm too lazy to WORK with all that command line... It's good when I program/learn/toy around, but Mandrake made me typing commands into "execute" window (BTW, did it get autocopletion since 9.0?)
The thing I'm wishing for is also packages compiled with the oldest fitting library, not the bleeding edge ones. It's pain to upgrade every prog installed...
(2) GUI tools which allow to Advanced->Edit config and give help on what you type right away.
A smart user will soon understand how to get it working, configure it, and forget all his config suffering as a nightmare, 'cause his Linux will be conf'ed and ready for the work/music/mail.
It's rather good to install some old slackware (1998 with a book is nice), toy around a week, wreck it, reformat & install $distro{$deity}.
This way you'll know how system works and how to
# man >>/dev/hands
Oh, I see I'm too geeky too... Sorry,/. influence.
I've tried Mandrake 9 and it's about fine but there're some annoying things to make me Ctrl-Alt-F1 and tellinit $GeekRunlevel myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply make the people that are caught pay double the full retail price for each piece of stolen software. That should be discouraging enough and fits the crime.
Well, I find this proposal reasonable but it will never be adopted:
1. One cannot get ALL the freeloaders, even more -- try to sue someone for download, and the judge will likely say "NO". Downloading is bad, but de-facto only redistribution, is illegal.
2. As for software, extermination of warez will move 10% of users to legal apps and 90% to free analogs. There are many open source programs around that may have less features and be less convenient... But good enough for $0 you pay for them.
FF five years, most p2p users are trained with free/open programs, like OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. Software makers lose much money. No, they don't want the warez to go away, it's a good advertising and it holds competitors back (less users, less bug reports/interest/donations).
In the modern world, with the cost of copying and disseminating a digital work approaching zero, what value do publishers actually add?
:)
I have found out that:
1. Linux from Mandrake is far better than the one from Stallman and Linus (fine tuned, more tools, and those nice disks instead of zillion URLs half of which works).
2. A well printed book is better than one from http://www.lib.ru/, it's nicer, it saves my eyes, and it's just a pleasure to hold it in hands. Oh yeah, and a good book contains little mistakes -- a good editor is expencive to hire!
3. When it comes to music... well... the publisher should probably just sort awailable works. So yeah, when it comes to music you're right -- and don't forget that live shows should be attended, or the musicians die from starvation.
4. Pictures... hm. Let's say a gallery is a publisher, it can keep the pictures from occasional damage for ages! And visiting a real gallery is better than viewing some pictures online.
So, I think that the value publisher adds is proven and I can got back to work
> why? if a copyright owner can not be found, a corporation can not buy the work. I see no corporate interest here.
Let's say a company that wrote some useful software a few years ago has gone. Now, only the competing software from Microsoft (tm) is widely awailable and supported. If the old sources went to public domain, they could easily be adopted by some new company or even a crown of hackers. And MS does not need yet another Firefox. They just don't like competition.
Consider a book that has gone to public domain. Everione can publish it at will, it's available on the net for free, etc. Unneeded competition to the new books (for which the copyright is "belong to us" (c) ).
So, the less public domain, the less competition in IP areas, the more profits.
BTW, when it comes to art, old works are usually filtered through the waters of Lethe: only the best ones remain. "Manuscripts do not burn" (c) M. Bulgakov. And they are hard to compete against.
I agree with the most part of your post... Except that I'd rather live in a world where copyright just cannot be taken away from one who recieved it legitimately.
One should be able to share the rights, not give them away.
Unfortunately, this is good for authors and general public, but bad for publishers (recording companies as well).
If you writing something very trouble-free and intuitive
I like my PHBs very much but when it comes to using computer there's nothing trouble-free and intuitive. What's plain easy for me is magic for most earthlings. And BTW I'm still not an IT guru.
you're not likely to get much support income
Subscription is your friend. The better the program is, the more subscribers and the less support calls. The best support is the one you will never need, why not pay for that?
Also, corporate customers are willing to pay for support because it lessens their responsibility. They pay to save neurons.
Mod parent up, btw
:-P
Sounds like your company needs to develop a real QA process.
Fortunately, I don't own one. I imagine it would sink immediately!
I'm not even working in development, but I hope I will some day...
What I've found out from your reply is that I completely misunderstood what QA means. I thought it was... err... But that's what the article is about! (and yes, I've read it before posting, but I see it didn't help much)
Linux has the other half -- while it lacks a pre-defined QA team, the programmers are not angry with testers.
The core GNU/Linux programs are usually (re)?implementing some well-designed arch/protocol/format/whatever.
Also the docs are much better (although often require googling) -- no "competitors" to learn your secret tricks and hidden APIs.
And BTW an encountered bug is usually sQuAshed, not workarounded -- 'cause geeks and major distros will just recompile everything broken by the remedy.
Some more OSS QA starts when a freshmeater abandons his poorly designed project and joins a better one.
And yes, best open-source progs have been heavily sponsored to become as consistent as they are. But I don't see it as a "major failing"...
If design is flawed, what should QA do?
...And more, see F. Brooks' "Mythical Man-Month" for example, or Alen Holub's "Rope Long Enough to Shoot Your Leg".
If docs are porly written, and incomplete, how does one decide what's bug an what's feature?
If the docs depict the program's behavior, not define it, what can QA do?
And yes, if everythign is done right from the beginning, the QA people would have enough time to do something except testing.
Of course, only third of the two ways to write bugless programs works...
IME, Quality = Knowledgeable_Staff_On_Good_Salary + No_Deadlines.
This would end up designing a spherical horse in vacuum. Or a six-legged elephant... or Emacs. And yes, the result would be bugless -- after infinite time.
The quality consists of even more factors, then QA -- and one of them is limiting features (yet the other is leaving a way for new features to come in -- like it has finally been done with Firefox).
It's a mathematical problem: if you're bad, you win, if all people are bad, they all lose.
Google "prisoners dilemma"
Well, I'm in Russia (*strange* things with copyrights here), but I've heard about Dostoevsky who had to sign a "slavery" contract because of gambling.
Why can't the Copyright laws be fixed? Like this:
* No one can sign a copyright away. You can share it, not get rid of it.
It BTW can be applied to patents (Buying patents away to stop unwanted innovations? No, impossible.)
* The only exception is deliberately releasing *your* work to public domain, one must be proven author to do so.
* Inexistent works have nothing to do with copyright law.
I understand noone is going to be sponsored by PHBs for voting for such things, but seriously -- does it get the legal system into trouble?
Actually it appears to work quite well. Assuming the aim is to keep various people busy and well funded. N.B. the funding goes to "both ends". So odds on the US Government is now funding "intellectual property theft". The whole idea of these "wars" is top ensure that they cannot be "won".
We've got the same with Chechnya here in Russia... While the politicans "declare war on $FOO", the citizens are fscked.
Two birds are killed with one stone:
The buck (or roubles... But they tend to like dollars more) to the "right" person, and the sh^H^Hpeople is fed and silent.
In fact, those who use terror to achieve their goals (i.e. passing a bill or getting more money) are terrorists, not blind pawns with guns.
The SCOX has a secret goal to
/.
(1) Take as much MS money as possible
(2) Advertize Linux
(3) Harden GNU/Linux's legal position and warn the developers
(4) Employ PJ (not directly, of course). And also make some noise here on
OK, colour me not too bright, but I cannot see why pre-installed Linux is being targeted here by Gartner - their claim doesn't seems to be, pre-installing Linux is the same as shipping the machine with no OS whatsoever.
To continue with their premise, any machine sold with no OS (or Linux) installed is destined for pirated software which would imply by there logic, if you want to take it all the way down the line, that there should be an international mandate that no machine should be sold without paying the MS tax.
WOW!!!! You've made the point I just didn't get! Thanks, I'll friend you now!
I'll repeat it again for myself:
The computers that are sold without Windows are sold to pirates (in our humble opinion)
I love that kind of logic!!!!!
But... It's too late. The "MS tax" is broken down by vendors. Now they can sell Pcs with whatever OS they (and their customer) like. Good.
Whatever happened to the old days of being ethical and honest with regard to your responsibilities to the consumer.
One must be responsible and ethical to customers. The comsumers are just marketing's (re)definition for protoplasm (which still can used to make money).
AI is also very-very bad at bughouse
Linus was programming in assembly for several years when he entered the univercity. C is just plain easy for an .asm guy, more over it was designed for that!
Wanna facts? Google "Just for fun" (with qoutes).
I'm just wondering ... how effective are Windoze adds on MS-bashing sites ? IMHO it's more of a problem with the advertising company, not linuxtoday.
Very effective. It's not about IT, it's about marketing. No PHB will ever-ever respect you if you allow your competitor to advertize on *YOUR* site.
Remember: Billy is a marketing genius, who has screwed IBM. And it's really tough for us OSS guys to compete with him!
I WANT BADLY to see the names of those who have tested, validated, and granted this patent. Well, the suggession applies to all patents... So that the person who has considered a double-click something new in 2004 would carry the shame through the history. (At least the /. history...)
So... Is patent office responsible for what they consider novel and what not? What if someone patents "kernel"?
P.S. Didn't read the whole patent, but I tried my best to. So TMBT RTFA.
Not so bad after cooling my head down, but...
The only really interesting thing in (r)TFA (I didn't get MS but perhaps there too) is that they redesign their system to use wasted cycles for corporate purposes. Like the google scientific program or so. Also, they surely will try to make a good HPC environment but I doubt it's possible with all that GUI floating around.
BTW, why didn't they make a small kernel that loads drivers, handles processes, does TCP and basic IO, and loads API as DLL when needed... Oops... Sorry, it seems I'm a Linux user. Damn...
....when I'm at home. Just haven't installed it here...
Second to use on a regular basis. And I feel like stick with it, even make it better maybe...
I'm too lazy to WORK with all that command line... It's good when I program/learn/toy around, but Mandrake made me typing commands into "execute" window (BTW, did it get autocopletion since 9.0?)
The thing I'm wishing for is also packages compiled with the oldest fitting library, not the bleeding edge ones. It's pain to upgrade every prog installed...
No, the point is that the /. crowd must now post their IMHO, not their dogmas ;)
(1) more commented out alternatives into uncomment them when needed;
(2) GUI tools which allow to Advanced->Edit config and give help on what you type right away.
A smart user will soon understand how to get it working, configure it, and forget all his config suffering as a nightmare, 'cause his Linux will be conf'ed and ready for the work/music/mail.
It's rather good to install some old slackware (1998 with a book is nice), toy around a week, wreck it, reformat & install $distro{$deity}.
This way you'll know how system works and how to
Oh, I see I'm too geeky too... Sorry,
No matter, I'm home-linuxed. Cheers, OSS guys!