The Gov. needs to stop chasing shadows when it comes to the Internet. Just because an application or Web product provides the same function as something else does not make it that something else.
Taxes are used by the government to level a playing field, reduce the impact or reduce the desirablity of something. Liquor and cigarettes are heavly taxed to help pay for the gov. services used because of those products and to reduce their desirablity.
With the Internet you have a slightly different problem. The gov wants you to be using it, for a number of reasons. But they also see it as a revenue generator for them or at least a place that revenue can be lost because of switching from other revenue generators. I.e.. sales tax and now communication taxes. But the problem is they don't understand what the Internet is, so they keep arguing about whether or not to tax this part of it, or some other part of it. But this is sheer stupidity. The 'Net has yet to fully define itself. It keeps on morphing every day into some differnet functionality. Who would have thought when the 'Web came into being, in the 80's that it would be used to affect the music industry.
The only thing certain in this life is death and taxes. The Internet or portions of the Internet are going to get taxed, but how is the big problem.
One of the reasons we get stressed in this industry is because so many new processes and possiblities are being developed every day. Every time you look around someone is coming up with a new language and a unbelievable new concept.
This means not only are we competing with our fellow employees but it seems we are competing with every other developer out there. This was actually worse in the old days, when every fricken new.Com out there had a better way to do your work. Instead we have the added stress of being "Outsourced" tomorrow.
Don't sweat it
I see so many computer jockies trying every darn new trick in the book, every new technology that comes around. Not that a good developer shouldn't stay current with what is happening, but what is far more important is to understand what you can do. What are you capable of? Stay true to that. Identify those times when you are doing something just because it can be done. Instead work on trying to make sure that what you do will fullfil the needs of your audience. The stress cannot be eliminated completely, but make sure you are stressing over the right things. Like having fun and doing the right kind of work for your company.
Don't try and do more than what you are capable of doing. If a project is going to take 6 months then tell them it is going to take 6 months. Be as honest with yourself as you can be and be as honest with your company as you can be. Eventually everyone reaches an equilibrium and then the stress just melts away.
The analogy wasn't about the drug trade per see but that the use of jail time has never fully modified social behavior when that behavior was endemic.
For instance the time of proabition, or the recent "War on Drugs". Neither one of these social experiments modified to a great extent the general behavior of the population, but they did create a thriving underworld and a huge increase in the prison population. Proablition got repealed and kids are still smoking pot as they always have.
When a company becomes as large and prevasive as Microsoft is, it has to take on a greater share of the responsiblity.
Actually, no they don't HAVE to take on a greater responsiblity; as they have shown all along. But if the market is going to get better instead of worse then they must be forced to.
Real use to be such a superior product until they thought that Microsoft was going to buy them out.
What I don't think most people get here is not whether taking/creating illeagle copies is wrong but that there is something very wrong with the whole system.
I have made my living in many different ways but mostly as an artist and a software developer. So having a right to make a living off of this work is important for me, but to what end. I need to make a living off of these works and the best way for me to make a living is not to charge one person $10,000 but to charge 100 people $100. That way the cost is spread around to many people who should be able to aford what I have (hopefully want to pay that price too) and if that is too high maybe I can get 1000 people to pay me $10 each. This keeps me happy and hopefully them happy as well.
But what is happening today is very simular to what drug dealers do. Get a hold on a drug (idea/music/movie/book) market and get everyone I can hooked on it. Destroy the competion and then contol the price, driving it ever higher to line my pockets.
Copyrights and patents are being used like weapons. Don't want more competion, kill them with lawsuits. Don't want to reduce your price, kill them with lawsuits. Want to make sure your market is not able to leave, kill them with lawsuits. Now they even have the FBI doing the work for them.
There is definately a disconnect here. We have so many people downloading and using warez. Would we have that large a group if things were an even playing field? Would so many of them feel they need to justify it if they didn't feel they had no other choice.
I realize that this is just commercialism and we don't really need these products. They are luxuries for the most part, but some of them are not. If I want to make a living as a developer I need the tools to do it with. With MS Visual Studio costing over $1000 that takes a lot of up and coming programmers right out of the picture. While a mechanic may need $10,000 worth of tools or better they can usually start out with just a couple of hundred bucks and grow. With Software products the starting price is just that a starting price, every year you need to come up with more and more money and the EULA limits even how you may resell or keep the product. At least a mechanic can resell his tools when he is done with them.
This all has to change. It isn't working for the consumer and in the long run it won't work for this country. Just look at what happen to the aviation industry in this country before WWI because of the IP lock the Wright brothers had.
I don't know how it needs to change, but change it must.
I wonder if it is mainly the lack of maturity with the OSS world that keeps it from putting that final touch to their applications? I am not talking about the age bracket here but more the length of time this idea of open source has been around. Though that may be a factor.
We talk about how we develop open source software more for ourselves or other developers, but come on, I don't care how geeky you are, nobody wants to make their life harder. Command line is easy to produce and can be quicker to execute but it definately does not promote the bliss of ignorance. How is it that it is more important to understand what is going under the hood, then it is to get to where we want to be going. When I am trying to cut a new CD or create a new document or even program a new application, I want to already be there and not running CVS or something else because I don't have the right drivers or libraries or what have you. I want to be a blissfully ignorant of those things as possible, because frankly that is not why I am doing what I doing. I am not editing a document or creating a jpeg because I want to know how that works I am creating a document or editing a jpeg because those are the things that are important to me.
To get off that rant and to actually make the point I want to: Most applications in the open source world, even the ones with a couple of years on them, are still in the beta to version 2 stage. Still trying to figure out how to do what they need to do. They haven't had the maturity to add the needed user overlay.
Perhaps this is something that falls under the same category as giving support and building packages as Redhat and Suse do. Perhaps to add a better user interface and documentation would be a salable point. An added value to the package.
Slashdot Mirror
Taxes are used by the government to level a playing field, reduce the impact or reduce the desirablity of something. Liquor and cigarettes are heavly taxed to help pay for the gov. services used because of those products and to reduce their desirablity.
With the Internet you have a slightly different problem. The gov wants you to be using it, for a number of reasons. But they also see it as a revenue generator for them or at least a place that revenue can be lost because of switching from other revenue generators. I.e.. sales tax and now communication taxes. But the problem is they don't understand what the Internet is, so they keep arguing about whether or not to tax this part of it, or some other part of it. But this is sheer stupidity. The 'Net has yet to fully define itself. It keeps on morphing every day into some differnet functionality. Who would have thought when the 'Web came into being, in the 80's that it would be used to affect the music industry.
The only thing certain in this life is death and taxes. The Internet or portions of the Internet are going to get taxed, but how is the big problem.
"Law suits. When you can't make money any other way"
This means not only are we competing with our fellow employees but it seems we are competing with every other developer out there. This was actually worse in the old days, when every fricken new .Com out there had a better way to do your work. Instead we have the added stress of being "Outsourced" tomorrow.
Don't sweat it
I see so many computer jockies trying every darn new trick in the book, every new technology that comes around. Not that a good developer shouldn't stay current with what is happening, but what is far more important is to understand what you can do. What are you capable of? Stay true to that. Identify those times when you are doing something just because it can be done. Instead work on trying to make sure that what you do will fullfil the needs of your audience. The stress cannot be eliminated completely, but make sure you are stressing over the right things. Like having fun and doing the right kind of work for your company.
Don't try and do more than what you are capable of doing. If a project is going to take 6 months then tell them it is going to take 6 months. Be as honest with yourself as you can be and be as honest with your company as you can be. Eventually everyone reaches an equilibrium and then the stress just melts away.
For instance the time of proabition, or the recent "War on Drugs". Neither one of these social experiments modified to a great extent the general behavior of the population, but they did create a thriving underworld and a huge increase in the prison population. Proablition got repealed and kids are still smoking pot as they always have.
That's what they said about jpeg when the gif lawsuits started.
It would be nice to have a standard that we can count on NOT to be held for ransome as soon as it gets popular enough.
Actually, no they don't HAVE to take on a greater responsiblity; as they have shown all along. But if the market is going to get better instead of worse then they must be forced to.
Real use to be such a superior product until they thought that Microsoft was going to buy them out.
Yea, I have noticed how much the threat of getting it on with bruno has stopped people from using drugs.
Billg has been complaining about piracy since the very beginning, yet he still somehow ended up being the richest man in the world.
What I don't think most people get here is not whether taking/creating illeagle copies is wrong but that there is something very wrong with the whole system. I have made my living in many different ways but mostly as an artist and a software developer. So having a right to make a living off of this work is important for me, but to what end. I need to make a living off of these works and the best way for me to make a living is not to charge one person $10,000 but to charge 100 people $100. That way the cost is spread around to many people who should be able to aford what I have (hopefully want to pay that price too) and if that is too high maybe I can get 1000 people to pay me $10 each. This keeps me happy and hopefully them happy as well. But what is happening today is very simular to what drug dealers do. Get a hold on a drug (idea/music/movie/book) market and get everyone I can hooked on it. Destroy the competion and then contol the price, driving it ever higher to line my pockets. Copyrights and patents are being used like weapons. Don't want more competion, kill them with lawsuits. Don't want to reduce your price, kill them with lawsuits. Want to make sure your market is not able to leave, kill them with lawsuits. Now they even have the FBI doing the work for them. There is definately a disconnect here. We have so many people downloading and using warez. Would we have that large a group if things were an even playing field? Would so many of them feel they need to justify it if they didn't feel they had no other choice. I realize that this is just commercialism and we don't really need these products. They are luxuries for the most part, but some of them are not. If I want to make a living as a developer I need the tools to do it with. With MS Visual Studio costing over $1000 that takes a lot of up and coming programmers right out of the picture. While a mechanic may need $10,000 worth of tools or better they can usually start out with just a couple of hundred bucks and grow. With Software products the starting price is just that a starting price, every year you need to come up with more and more money and the EULA limits even how you may resell or keep the product. At least a mechanic can resell his tools when he is done with them. This all has to change. It isn't working for the consumer and in the long run it won't work for this country. Just look at what happen to the aviation industry in this country before WWI because of the IP lock the Wright brothers had. I don't know how it needs to change, but change it must.
I wonder if it is mainly the lack of maturity with the OSS world that keeps it from putting that final touch to their applications? I am not talking about the age bracket here but more the length of time this idea of open source has been around. Though that may be a factor.
We talk about how we develop open source software more for ourselves or other developers, but come on, I don't care how geeky you are, nobody wants to make their life harder. Command line is easy to produce and can be quicker to execute but it definately does not promote the bliss of ignorance. How is it that it is more important to understand what is going under the hood, then it is to get to where we want to be going. When I am trying to cut a new CD or create a new document or even program a new application, I want to already be there and not running CVS or something else because I don't have the right drivers or libraries or what have you. I want to be a blissfully ignorant of those things as possible, because frankly that is not why I am doing what I doing. I am not editing a document or creating a jpeg because I want to know how that works I am creating a document or editing a jpeg because those are the things that are important to me.
To get off that rant and to actually make the point I want to: Most applications in the open source world, even the ones with a couple of years on them, are still in the beta to version 2 stage. Still trying to figure out how to do what they need to do. They haven't had the maturity to add the needed user overlay.
Perhaps this is something that falls under the same category as giving support and building packages as Redhat and Suse do. Perhaps to add a better user interface and documentation would be a salable point. An added value to the package.