I, for one, applaud Debian for sticking to their guns in this matter. They set out for a completely free distro, and they're not going to fool around with KDE if Qt ain't free.
I'll second that. To be honest I don't even use Debian right now, but I think it's important that there is a distribution that remains "pure." There are plenty of commercial distros that include KDE so it's not as if people are being denied a choice. And as you mentioned, even if Debian isn't distributing KDE with their product, it's not as if the end user can't get it.
Personally I like to avoid packages that require QT to compile anyway. I think Licq is the only one I still use.
Thanks for the link. I'd never heard of him, so I figured that it was just some drug/alcohol induced rambling that someone scribbled on the wall. Since I made it my.sig (about a week ago) I've received 2 messages telling me that Bill Hicks wrote it and he's brilliant. So I'll be checking out that link when I get home...
I used AT&T for several years for long distance, Internet, and even local toll calls for part of a year. I ended up ditching them because they started sending me bills for services I never had with them like Wireless. The bill was only $50 or $100 and I spent at least 3 hours (no exagerration) trying to get it cleared up. Even after it was supposedly fixed I continued to be billed so I dumped AT&T for another LD company. I swore I'd never do business with AT&T again.
So now, two years later they are buying MediaOne, my Internet provider. So I'm left with no choice but to pay my hard-earned money to AT&T again (or give up my cablemodem.) This is a good example of how a company like AT&T can work to limit your choices and get away with it.
BTW, another company that I'm not to happy with is Verizon wireless. I had a PCS phone through PrimeCo for the last year and a half. Recently Verizon bought them--when I received my bill it was much higher than I expected but it didn't list any of the calls that were made so I called them up to ask for an itemized list of the calls. I was told that they no longer provide an itemized list of your calls unless you pay extra. This isn't directly related to the AT&T/M1 story, but I just wanted to express my opinion that Verizon SUCKS!
I disagree that the RIAA is doing anything good. As far as what the Offspring is doing, I think it's way cool though. Instead of attacking their fans and freedom on the Net they are quite cleverly giving Napster a hard time.
I could care less about Napster (the company), it's the software and the right to use it that is important. Go Offspring!
The comment could be stored when they click "submit", then when it is previewed back they could have the option to "keep", "delete", or "go back and edit." They might have to add an IsValid field to the comment database to do it that way.
There's another way I thought of also that wouldn't force previewing. The slashcode appears to generate a random formkey to make sure the comment doesn't get double-submitted...it won't accept 2 posts with the same formkey. They could keep track of valid formkeys possibly.
Either way you're right--the server-side needs a way to keep track of state. How much (or little) overhead it adds depends on how creatively it's implemented.
I just had a thought regarding DoubleClick. Right now most of us just block their cookies. Instead it might be interesting if false information would be returned instead. Over time, if enough people were returning false data, it would pollute their databases badly enough that they'd be useless.
To extend the idea a little further, maybe there are other ways to flood DoubleClick and collectors of private information with fake data. Maybe some kind of distributed system where people set up little daemons that run in the background, pretend to be surfing, but are really just sending cookies designed to destory the integrity of their data. Would this be legal? hmmm...
Maybe I just read it wrong, but this is really kind of silly. You download something, then execute it. If it's malicious then you get screwed. Aren't there numerous FTP clients that allow you to execute what you've downloaded from within the client? What about IE 5.0? It allows you to execute the file you've downloaded from within the browser.
This is just another VBS trojan like all the rest. It's not Gnutella's fault. Or do I misunderstand?
People talking trash about each other goes on all the time. I think the fact that this kid published something defamatory probably adds some weight though. Even if he were doing offline--distributing flyers, a newletter, whatever, I think it would still have a lot more weight than if it were just spoken word. Now that it's so easy to publish though, maybe we just have to buckle down and deal with the nasty things that people say about us--protecting freedom of speech is pretty damn important. Also, it seems pretty scary that a kid can end up in a juvey so quickly over defamatory remarks--if it had contained threats it would be a different storey.
OTOH, what if what he wrote is true? It's hard to say since we haven't seen the page. Maybe the principal is a drunk, girls in his class are "sluts", and the faculty sucks. Gee, is it possible that such a high school exists--even in Utah?
Two sides indeed, but I think I prefer to err on the side of protecting freedom of speech when it comes to this kind of dilema.
I'm not too well versed in http, but couldn't the slashdot comment submission script be patched to check for the referrer field of the browser and reject it if it isn't coming from slashdot.org?
If the slashcode just forced the post to be previewed before submitting then it wouldn't be a problem. Forcing people to preview first would also have other beneficial side effects.
It doesn't even need to be done with a CGI script. A simple redirection in a static web page is all you need to do the trick. I demonstrated this last month here on Slashdot--got about 900 posts in 48 hours (my link gave a specific warning what it would do though.) At any rate, there was some discussion of the problem here. Plus links to PHP source to do it, etc.
Near term solution--run your mouse over the link to see if it's suspicious. This offers little protection really, but it's the best you can do.
You pretty much nailed all of them. Here is another that bothers me as well:
An Internet tax to pay for RIAA "losses" due to piracy--kind of like the money they collect on blank audio CD-R's (and DATs?) Since they pulled that off it doesn't seem like such a wierd idea that they could report huge losses due to piracy on the Net...they're already doing it now at the same time as they are making record earnings. But they've got a lot of competition coming now and it'll be harder for them to maintain those earnings. If they actually experience a loss you can bet it's going to be blamed on piracy.
I know to some people it seems like we don't care about copyright law because we're so wrapped up in protecting the Net. And people are getting divided over it. It sucks that we're taking sides between protecting the Net and protecting copyright law. We should all be protecting both instead of squabbling over which is more important because in the meantime there are corporations that are working their hardest to fuck up both.
How do we protect copyright law and the Net at the same time?
"Many artists enjoy the publicity the recieve by having their songs traded on Napster"
Many artists are also suing Napster and anyone else who either trades, or facilitates the trading of illegal mp3s.
True and true. The thing I've noticed is that the artists that are suing already have their own distribution channels and publicity machines. I'm glad that more and more are turning up in support Napster despite the fact that they already already have these things.
CDs cost too much! Why should I pay them $12-$18 when CDs are so cheap?"
If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive".
I agree. I just wish it were easier to tell if a CD is too expensive or not. I have a few that I are worth at least $25 to me. The problem is, you don't get to know what you're buying except for one song--unless you want to wait for a year to go by to see what else gets played from that CD. I've been burned a bunch of times buying CD's because the one song they were playing on the radio sounded cool--then I get the CD and realize it's value to me is about $2 because every other track is crap.
"If the artists are in it for the art, they should welcome mp3 trading."
Try living off of "art". Walk into a supermarket and try to trade your mp3 collection for a loaf of bread. Art is nice, but money is a necessity. And do you really think that Metallica or [insert current teenage pop star] are doing music for "art"?
I'd suggest making money by working like every other musician out there. If you are talented enough you will make some money off of it--provided you have an efficient distribution channel to get your music to fans and potential fans. If you do well you get to make it a full time job. Also, I think Metallica does care about art even if they may (notice I said "may") care more about the money.
"All intellectual property should be free"
If this were true, most music wouldn't exist. Despite what your favorite left-wing writers might think, financial rewards still have an attraction for most people.
Sorry but I think you're way off base here. I think you're confusing the music you hear on MTV and the radio with "most music." The fact is that most music is not on MTV or your local radio stations. It's produced at a loss with a slim chance of being heavily promoted by a major label. Most music is *not* produced for the money.
"Anti-Napster 'advocates' want to destroy free music!"
No, many just think that the attitude of many Napster users is hypocritical and wrong. You don't deserve everything for free, no matter what Momma Slashdot says.
Thank you for being fair and using the word "many" instead of "all" (wrt Anti-Napster as well as Napster users.)
"Napster introduces a whole new paradigm of free information exchange which artists need to understand."
Perhaps *you* need to "understand" the current paradigm better. Most artists don't offer mp3s for sale. That is no excuse to download them illegaly. You can live without the new Britney Spears album. Trust me.
I think both things are important to understand at this point. I think the new paradigm is more important to understand than the one that's on it's way out though.
If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft's ASF format has been using MPEG4 for a while now.
That's been my understanding also. ASF's have been around since before DeCSS (and have been being used to distribute pirated movies for quite some time.) Considering the overall quality of the format it seems ridiculous to use something like DeCSS to pirate stuff--it would be a lot of extra effort that would gain you nothing in the way of quality. To sum it up--this method of DVD piracy has been available to Windows users for at least a year now.
Anyway, here's an ASF a guy I know made. It's basically a short interview one of the local stations did regarding his new electric car. (Yeah, I got to drive the thing--pretty neat.)
Hacking back may be the best way to track down the cracker. If you're lucky the cracker will turn out to be a script kiddie that wasn't smart enough to cover his identity. Then you can have the satisfaction of explaining to his/her parents that their little angel has just committed a federal crime and then discuss the best way to remedy the situation.
The point i'm trying to make is that, rather than bitch about how windows is a monopoly and begging the government to do something about it. Let's follow the examples of people like Linus, or organizations like GNOME. Time to stop complaining and just make something undeniably better. MS gets to stay intact, albeit smaller. The product that's the best wins...then we all win.
Well, everyone else has already pointed out where they think you?re wrong, but I'm going to say that I think that you?re point (at least the above paragraph) is something that I agree with. I'm fairly indifferent about what the government does to Microsoft. In fact, I prefer to leave the government out of the picture. I think your points other than what I quoted are inaccurate, but I think the best OS will win. I was already a Linux fan when Win95 beat out OS/2 Warp despite the fact that OS/2 was a stable true 32-bit OS. And I was certainly disappointed that MS was so good at marketing their OS and even more disappointed that IBM dropped the ball when they had something better. But now MS is dropping the ball. They haven?t had the ball technology-wise since we moved to 32-bit CPU?S, but now they're dropping ball in PR too.
They?re not hiding their true colors and no one wants to rely on them. Even though there are a bunch of corps buying W2k licenses, no one is using it. They stick by it, toe the MS line, swear that they?re going to dump their Novell servers for Windows, but is there anyone actually running W2k? Slashdot is news for nerds--there have to be some nerds that are using Win2k...
I'm curious:
How many of you would say that you'd recommend W2k Server for your networks?
How many of you work for a company that is using W2k for servers or end-users?
How many of you work for a company that claims to be a W2k shop, owns thousands of licenses, but are still afraid to move past NT 4.0 SP4?
I hope the best OS will win, but it already seems to me the worst OS is losing on it's own. Evolution is taking care of this one. That?s why I think you are making a good point despite the fact that I disagree with most of the rest of what you've said.
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PS: sorry bout the ?? stuff, just kind of struck me as funny reading MS's dispute and seeing a direct result of their unwillingness to maintain compatability with non-MS products.
I don't think that this is the point Lars is trying to make at all. You don't have the right to downloads Metallica's MP3s just because you can find them on the net any more than you have the right to use other people's credit card numbers to make purchases because such information can be found on the net.
The problem is that for information to be freely available over the Internet you have to accept that people will share anything they feel like. It bothers me that people would prefer to give up their rights to freely share stuff over the Internet to protect their profits. I honestly believe Metallica will profit well regardless, but who knows for sure if they will profit as well if their music is freely available? However, I think we can be fairly certain that we all lose if we can only share material that someone else has to authorize first.
One guy mentioned how SDMI would be a great method of distribution, but I think the truth is that it's not really a solution at all. If I can get the music to my ears, I can assure you I can make a hi-quality MP3 of it regardless of the original format (assuming the original format is hi-quality.)
Metallica has given us a lot music-wise, and I'm glad they've profitted from it. If they produce any more good music I truly want them to profit from that as well. If we could all just work on the honor system here, and pay them for the music we like, and not pay them for the music we don't listen to, then we're all set. I don't think this is going to happen though. Some people just won't pay.
So, in order to guarantee that they get paid we have to guarantee that people aren't passing around their music without permission. One way to do this would be to monitor everyone's Internet connections, arrest anyone that encrypts stuff so the authorities can't see it, and have someone in charge verify that each transfer falls in line with local regulations. That doesn't work for me.
Another option is to have everyone pay the RIAA a tax for their Internet connections to make up for any lost profits the RIAA and its artists may experience. I don't think this is fair to all the other artists and don't really like this idea either. However, this is the scenario that I expect the RIAA to support. Mandatory payment regardless of quality of production--not a bad deal for the RIAA. We'll probably see some lobbying for this.
Metallica and every other producer of audio, images, and data are releasing their products into an environment where it can propogate regardless of our wishes. This is what we have to deal with. The Open Source crowd is the furthest ahead in dealing with this new fact of life.
In the meantime I release my creations for free unless I'm commissioned to create them in advance. One thing I have realized due to this whole Metallica thing is that I don't know where the fair middle ground in all this is yet--I'm not even sure if there is one. I'll be thinking about though. Lars isn't the only one who's still got a lot to figure out about what the Internet makes possible.
A Jane's Addiction cover of 'Sypathy for the Devil', unreleased.
This was off of Jane's Addiction's first album which IIRC was only available by import initially. I was able to find a non-import version in a store 8 or 9 years ago and it's a great CD--all high-quality live recordings. Not sure if it's still available It's self-titled, available from XXX records. Also has a great version of Pigs in Zen and a cover of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll."
I had a crowd of friends around my computer the other night that were amazed at how much impossible (or nearly-impossible) to find stuff they could find on Napster. Yeah, the bulk of what's available on Napster is so pervasive it's disgusting, but the only reason there's so much of it on there in the first place is that it's so pervasive to begin with.
I really like the ideas about Value-Adds. I do think this is the way to go. I hope that Lars & Co read your message. If they are going to try to make any software that allows the free distribution of media illegal, then I'm going to fight. It's not that I don't care about copyright, I do care, it's purely that it's so important to have software that allows such easy distribution. You've given Metallica some options to work within the current (and future) framework and I hope they're listening.
Also, I'm very glad that emmett did a verbatim transcription of the conversation. It's a little hard to read an unedited transcription, but it definately gives a better feel for where Lars is coming from. It definately makes me feel a lot better to have an honest idea of Metallica's motivations. Any chance we'll be hearing this interview on the Geek radio?
I still think Lars and the rest involved have a lot to learn, but I'm glad that they are learning something. Hopefully they'll learn not to fuck with our freedom to write software. I would stand up for their right to say whatever they want on their albums, so I hope they will learn to respect our rights to develop software for distributing music and to use it. I still get the impression that Lars does not realize that none of us gets to control what we write once it's available digitally. I suppose I've just had a lot longer to get used to that idea.
Sheesh! They didn't get a patent, they got a trademark. And it only applies to tennis balls, so you're free to get a trademark on computers that smell of newly-mown grass, if you want.
Doh, you're right. So I'd have to patent paper that smells like horseshit. No chance I could get a royalty on electronicly published releases then, even if they still smell like horseshit?
Slashdot Mirror
I, for one, applaud Debian for sticking to their guns in this matter. They set out for a completely free distro, and they're not going to fool around with KDE if Qt ain't free.
I'll second that. To be honest I don't even use Debian right now, but I think it's important that there is a distribution that remains "pure." There are plenty of commercial distros that include KDE so it's not as if people are being denied a choice. And as you mentioned, even if Debian isn't distributing KDE with their product, it's not as if the end user can't get it.
Personally I like to avoid packages that require QT to compile anyway. I think Licq is the only one I still use.
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Verizon == Bell Atlantic Mobile
It figures. BA was another company I was thrilled to get away from. Not that BellSouth is any better.
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Thanks for the link. I'd never heard of him, so I figured that it was just some drug/alcohol induced rambling that someone scribbled on the wall. Since I made it my .sig (about a week ago) I've received 2 messages telling me that Bill Hicks wrote it and he's brilliant. So I'll be checking out that link when I get home...
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I used AT&T for several years for long distance, Internet, and even local toll calls for part of a year. I ended up ditching them because they started sending me bills for services I never had with them like Wireless. The bill was only $50 or $100 and I spent at least 3 hours (no exagerration) trying to get it cleared up. Even after it was supposedly fixed I continued to be billed so I dumped AT&T for another LD company. I swore I'd never do business with AT&T again.
So now, two years later they are buying MediaOne, my Internet provider. So I'm left with no choice but to pay my hard-earned money to AT&T again (or give up my cablemodem.) This is a good example of how a company like AT&T can work to limit your choices and get away with it.
BTW, another company that I'm not to happy with is Verizon wireless. I had a PCS phone through PrimeCo for the last year and a half. Recently Verizon bought them--when I received my bill it was much higher than I expected but it didn't list any of the calls that were made so I called them up to ask for an itemized list of the calls. I was told that they no longer provide an itemized list of your calls unless you pay extra. This isn't directly related to the AT&T/M1 story, but I just wanted to express my opinion that Verizon SUCKS!
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Thanks so much for clearing that up. So is FUCKING an adjective or an adverb?
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I disagree that the RIAA is doing anything good. As far as what the Offspring is doing, I think it's way cool though. Instead of attacking their fans and freedom on the Net they are quite cleverly giving Napster a hard time.
I could care less about Napster (the company), it's the software and the right to use it that is important. Go Offspring!
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The comment could be stored when they click "submit", then when it is previewed back they could have the option to "keep", "delete", or "go back and edit." They might have to add an IsValid field to the comment database to do it that way.
There's another way I thought of also that wouldn't force previewing. The slashcode appears to generate a random formkey to make sure the comment doesn't get double-submitted...it won't accept 2 posts with the same formkey. They could keep track of valid formkeys possibly.
Either way you're right--the server-side needs a way to keep track of state. How much (or little) overhead it adds depends on how creatively it's implemented.
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I just had a thought regarding DoubleClick. Right now most of us just block their cookies. Instead it might be interesting if false information would be returned instead. Over time, if enough people were returning false data, it would pollute their databases badly enough that they'd be useless.
To extend the idea a little further, maybe there are other ways to flood DoubleClick and collectors of private information with fake data. Maybe some kind of distributed system where people set up little daemons that run in the background, pretend to be surfing, but are really just sending cookies designed to destory the integrity of their data. Would this be legal? hmmm...
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Maybe I just read it wrong, but this is really kind of silly. You download something, then execute it. If it's malicious then you get screwed. Aren't there numerous FTP clients that allow you to execute what you've downloaded from within the client? What about IE 5.0? It allows you to execute the file you've downloaded from within the browser.
This is just another VBS trojan like all the rest. It's not Gnutella's fault. Or do I misunderstand?
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People talking trash about each other goes on all the time. I think the fact that this kid published something defamatory probably adds some weight though. Even if he were doing offline--distributing flyers, a newletter, whatever, I think it would still have a lot more weight than if it were just spoken word. Now that it's so easy to publish though, maybe we just have to buckle down and deal with the nasty things that people say about us--protecting freedom of speech is pretty damn important. Also, it seems pretty scary that a kid can end up in a juvey so quickly over defamatory remarks--if it had contained threats it would be a different storey.
OTOH, what if what he wrote is true? It's hard to say since we haven't seen the page. Maybe the principal is a drunk, girls in his class are "sluts", and the faculty sucks. Gee, is it possible that such a high school exists--even in Utah?
Two sides indeed, but I think I prefer to err on the side of protecting freedom of speech when it comes to this kind of dilema.
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I'm not too well versed in http, but couldn't the slashdot comment submission script be patched to check for the referrer field of the browser and reject it if it isn't coming from slashdot.org?
If the slashcode just forced the post to be previewed before submitting then it wouldn't be a problem. Forcing people to preview first would also have other beneficial side effects.
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It doesn't even need to be done with a CGI script. A simple redirection in a static web page is all you need to do the trick. I demonstrated this last month here on Slashdot--got about 900 posts in 48 hours (my link gave a specific warning what it would do though.) At any rate, there was some discussion of the problem here. Plus links to PHP source to do it, etc.
Near term solution--run your mouse over the link to see if it's suspicious. This offers little protection really, but it's the best you can do.
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You pretty much nailed all of them. Here is another that bothers me as well:
An Internet tax to pay for RIAA "losses" due to piracy--kind of like the money they collect on blank audio CD-R's (and DATs?) Since they pulled that off it doesn't seem like such a wierd idea that they could report huge losses due to piracy on the Net...they're already doing it now at the same time as they are making record earnings. But they've got a lot of competition coming now and it'll be harder for them to maintain those earnings. If they actually experience a loss you can bet it's going to be blamed on piracy.
I know to some people it seems like we don't care about copyright law because we're so wrapped up in protecting the Net. And people are getting divided over it. It sucks that we're taking sides between protecting the Net and protecting copyright law. We should all be protecting both instead of squabbling over which is more important because in the meantime there are corporations that are working their hardest to fuck up both.
How do we protect copyright law and the Net at the same time?
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"Many artists enjoy the publicity the recieve by having their songs traded on Napster"
Many artists are also suing Napster and anyone else who either trades, or facilitates the trading of illegal mp3s.
True and true. The thing I've noticed is that the artists that are suing already have their own distribution channels and publicity machines. I'm glad that more and more are turning up in support Napster despite the fact that they already already have these things.
CDs cost too much! Why should I pay them $12-$18 when CDs are so cheap?"
If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive".
I agree. I just wish it were easier to tell if a CD is too expensive or not. I have a few that I are worth at least $25 to me. The problem is, you don't get to know what you're buying except for one song--unless you want to wait for a year to go by to see what else gets played from that CD. I've been burned a bunch of times buying CD's because the one song they were playing on the radio sounded cool--then I get the CD and realize it's value to me is about $2 because every other track is crap.
"If the artists are in it for the art, they should welcome mp3 trading."
Try living off of "art". Walk into a supermarket and try to trade your mp3 collection for a loaf of bread. Art is nice, but money is a necessity. And do you really think that Metallica or [insert current teenage pop star] are doing music for "art"?
I'd suggest making money by working like every other musician out there. If you are talented enough you will make some money off of it--provided you have an efficient distribution channel to get your music to fans and potential fans. If you do well you get to make it a full time job. Also, I think Metallica does care about art even if they may (notice I said "may") care more about the money.
"All intellectual property should be free"
If this were true, most music wouldn't exist. Despite what your favorite left-wing writers might think, financial rewards still have an attraction for most people.
Sorry but I think you're way off base here. I think you're confusing the music you hear on MTV and the radio with "most music." The fact is that most music is not on MTV or your local radio stations. It's produced at a loss with a slim chance of being heavily promoted by a major label. Most music is *not* produced for the money.
"Anti-Napster 'advocates' want to destroy free music!"
No, many just think that the attitude of many Napster users is hypocritical and wrong. You don't deserve everything for free, no matter what Momma Slashdot says.
Thank you for being fair and using the word "many" instead of "all" (wrt Anti-Napster as well as Napster users.)
"Napster introduces a whole new paradigm of free information exchange which artists need to understand."
Perhaps *you* need to "understand" the current paradigm better. Most artists don't offer mp3s for sale. That is no excuse to download them illegaly. You can live without the new Britney Spears album. Trust me.
I think both things are important to understand at this point. I think the new paradigm is more important to understand than the one that's on it's way out though.
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Um, yeah. And you can also find some discussion about it on Slashdot at this link.
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If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft's ASF format has been using MPEG4 for a while now.
That's been my understanding also. ASF's have been around since before DeCSS (and have been being used to distribute pirated movies for quite some time.) Considering the overall quality of the format it seems ridiculous to use something like DeCSS to pirate stuff--it would be a lot of extra effort that would gain you nothing in the way of quality. To sum it up--this method of DVD piracy has been available to Windows users for at least a year now.
Anyway, here's an ASF a guy I know made. It's basically a short interview one of the local stations did regarding his new electric car. (Yeah, I got to drive the thing--pretty neat.)
http://drive.to/mysparrow -- Click "Movies"
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First digit is five
Second digit is seven
Third digit is five
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Hacking back may be the best way to track down the cracker. If you're lucky the cracker will turn out to be a script kiddie that wasn't smart enough to cover his identity. Then you can have the satisfaction of explaining to his/her parents that their little angel has just committed a federal crime and then discuss the best way to remedy the situation.
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The point i'm trying to make is that, rather than bitch about how windows is a monopoly and begging the government to do something about it. Let's follow the examples of people like Linus, or organizations like GNOME. Time to stop complaining and just make something undeniably better. MS gets to stay intact, albeit smaller. The product that's the best wins...then we all win.
Well, everyone else has already pointed out where they think you?re wrong, but I'm going to say that I think that you?re point (at least the above paragraph) is something that I agree with. I'm fairly indifferent about what the government does to Microsoft. In fact, I prefer to leave the government out of the picture. I think your points other than what I quoted are inaccurate, but I think the best OS will win. I was already a Linux fan when Win95 beat out OS/2 Warp despite the fact that OS/2 was a stable true 32-bit OS. And I was certainly disappointed that MS was so good at marketing their OS and even more disappointed that IBM dropped the ball when they had something better. But now MS is dropping the ball. They haven?t had the ball technology-wise since we moved to 32-bit CPU?S, but now they're dropping ball in PR too.
They?re not hiding their true colors and no one wants to rely on them. Even though there are a bunch of corps buying W2k licenses, no one is using it. They stick by it, toe the MS line, swear that they?re going to dump their Novell servers for Windows, but is there anyone actually running W2k? Slashdot is news for nerds--there have to be some nerds that are using Win2k...
I'm curious:
How many of you would say that you'd recommend W2k Server for your networks?
How many of you work for a company that is using W2k for servers or end-users?
How many of you work for a company that claims to be a W2k shop, owns thousands of licenses, but are still afraid to move past NT 4.0 SP4?
I hope the best OS will win, but it already seems to me the worst OS is losing on it's own. Evolution is taking care of this one. That?s why I think you are making a good point despite the fact that I disagree with most of the rest of what you've said.
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PS: sorry bout the ?? stuff, just kind of struck me as funny reading MS's dispute and seeing a direct result of their unwillingness to maintain compatability with non-MS products.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of openCOLA! It could quench the thirstiest finite-element analysis researcher!
Image is nothing. Source is everything...
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I don't think that this is the point Lars is trying to make at all. You don't have the right to downloads Metallica's MP3s just because you can find them on the net any more than you have the right to use other people's credit card numbers to make purchases because such information can be found on the net.
The problem is that for information to be freely available over the Internet you have to accept that people will share anything they feel like. It bothers me that people would prefer to give up their rights to freely share stuff over the Internet to protect their profits. I honestly believe Metallica will profit well regardless, but who knows for sure if they will profit as well if their music is freely available? However, I think we can be fairly certain that we all lose if we can only share material that someone else has to authorize first.
One guy mentioned how SDMI would be a great method of distribution, but I think the truth is that it's not really a solution at all. If I can get the music to my ears, I can assure you I can make a hi-quality MP3 of it regardless of the original format (assuming the original format is hi-quality.)
Metallica has given us a lot music-wise, and I'm glad they've profitted from it. If they produce any more good music I truly want them to profit from that as well. If we could all just work on the honor system here, and pay them for the music we like, and not pay them for the music we don't listen to, then we're all set. I don't think this is going to happen though. Some people just won't pay.
So, in order to guarantee that they get paid we have to guarantee that people aren't passing around their music without permission. One way to do this would be to monitor everyone's Internet connections, arrest anyone that encrypts stuff so the authorities can't see it, and have someone in charge verify that each transfer falls in line with local regulations. That doesn't work for me.
Another option is to have everyone pay the RIAA a tax for their Internet connections to make up for any lost profits the RIAA and its artists may experience. I don't think this is fair to all the other artists and don't really like this idea either. However, this is the scenario that I expect the RIAA to support. Mandatory payment regardless of quality of production--not a bad deal for the RIAA. We'll probably see some lobbying for this.
Metallica and every other producer of audio, images, and data are releasing their products into an environment where it can propogate regardless of our wishes. This is what we have to deal with. The Open Source crowd is the furthest ahead in dealing with this new fact of life.
In the meantime I release my creations for free unless I'm commissioned to create them in advance. One thing I have realized due to this whole Metallica thing is that I don't know where the fair middle ground in all this is yet--I'm not even sure if there is one. I'll be thinking about though. Lars isn't the only one who's still got a lot to figure out about what the Internet makes possible.
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A Jane's Addiction cover of 'Sypathy for the Devil', unreleased.
This was off of Jane's Addiction's first album which IIRC was only available by import initially. I was able to find a non-import version in a store 8 or 9 years ago and it's a great CD--all high-quality live recordings. Not sure if it's still available It's self-titled, available from XXX records. Also has a great version of Pigs in Zen and a cover of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll."
I had a crowd of friends around my computer the other night that were amazed at how much impossible (or nearly-impossible) to find stuff they could find on Napster. Yeah, the bulk of what's available on Napster is so pervasive it's disgusting, but the only reason there's so much of it on there in the first place is that it's so pervasive to begin with.
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I really like the ideas about Value-Adds. I do think this is the way to go. I hope that Lars & Co read your message. If they are going to try to make any software that allows the free distribution of media illegal, then I'm going to fight. It's not that I don't care about copyright, I do care, it's purely that it's so important to have software that allows such easy distribution. You've given Metallica some options to work within the current (and future) framework and I hope they're listening.
Also, I'm very glad that emmett did a verbatim transcription of the conversation. It's a little hard to read an unedited transcription, but it definately gives a better feel for where Lars is coming from. It definately makes me feel a lot better to have an honest idea of Metallica's motivations. Any chance we'll be hearing this interview on the Geek radio?
I still think Lars and the rest involved have a lot to learn, but I'm glad that they are learning something. Hopefully they'll learn not to fuck with our freedom to write software. I would stand up for their right to say whatever they want on their albums, so I hope they will learn to respect our rights to develop software for distributing music and to use it. I still get the impression that Lars does not realize that none of us gets to control what we write once it's available digitally. I suppose I've just had a lot longer to get used to that idea.
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Sheesh! They didn't get a patent, they got a trademark. And it only applies to tennis balls, so you're free to get a trademark on computers that smell of newly-mown grass, if you want.
Doh, you're right. So I'd have to patent paper that smells like horseshit. No chance I could get a royalty on electronicly published releases then, even if they still smell like horseshit?
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So, if I patent the smell of horseshit, will Microsoft owe my a royalty for each of their press releases?
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