One of my biggest problems with online music stores is music only being available in formats such as protected WMA files. First, this limits me to a proprietary OS. The real beef is that I don't feel like I am getting a good value for my money. By that, I mean that I purchase a song and download it only to find that someone else still owns it. It's like buying a car only to find that the dealer still owns the title... you pay nearly a full retail price and only have permission to use it (retrictions apply, so our web site for details, etc., etc., etc...).
So, getting onto the subject, the perfect music store would allow me actually to own the music for which I pay. I suppose that I can see why they protect content as to deter pirating (remedied by burning onto an audio CD, and then ripping as mp3... but still a hassle). And yes, I would like to see other formats such as Ogg.
I would like to see subscriptions for people with high speed connections. A flat rate, unlimited. People who either have slow connections or would choose only to download a few songs every now and then can have the option to pay per song.
Has anyone ever heard of World Share ISP? http://www.worldshare.net/ I don't know f they still do this, but a long while ago, they used to donate a portion of the proceeds of their Internet service sales to a charity of each user's choice. I think that that would be great. If people knew that at least some of the money that they were spending on music was going out to help others and not simply to line the pockets of wealthy people, then I think that people would have an incentive to purchase the music rather than pirate it.
There aren't any buyers for the feature, so it's not enabled. If a company isn't going to be able to turn a profit, then they don't waste resources. Otherwise, they cut their losses and move on.
servognome brings up a good point. It's economics. If they big players don't want the expense, then they will not be willing to pay for it. Some ideas may have merit in principle, but you must have a buyer to make money from it.
I really do not see how your post is considered trolling since you bring up an interesting point of view.
I suppose it all depends on what you want to be able to do with the source. I think from the aspect of QA, it is good that one is able to veiw the source to ensure compatibility and to ensure the quality of the software which a company is considering implenting. Likewise, people are even given the liberty to modify the code as they need to for their own internal purposes.
Companies' willingness to work with the Open Source community is a good thing. That they are reluctant to let go completely of their intellectual property is at the least understandable. We should be open to proprietary software for open systems such as Linux. The truth is that some companies are simply unwilling to release their property for a variety of reasons. The prorietary software is their property - they can do as they please. Since the GPL does not prohibit the running of proprietary software on an open system, then it is all legal. I think being open to encouraging proprietary software vendors to port their software to Linux only allows for more choice. A greater selection of software will make a migration to Linux even more enticing.
That Sun is willing to open their code even though they want to maintain control of the stanard shows that they are at least willing to work with us vice trying to stomp us out. They recognize the growing influence of open source and they wish to find a reasonable compromise. That's fair.
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One of my biggest problems with online music stores is music only being available in formats such as protected WMA files. First, this limits me to a proprietary OS. The real beef is that I don't feel like I am getting a good value for my money. By that, I mean that I purchase a song and download it only to find that someone else still owns it. It's like buying a car only to find that the dealer still owns the title... you pay nearly a full retail price and only have permission to use it (retrictions apply, so our web site for details, etc., etc., etc...).
So, getting onto the subject, the perfect music store would allow me actually to own the music for which I pay. I suppose that I can see why they protect content as to deter pirating (remedied by burning onto an audio CD, and then ripping as mp3... but still a hassle). And yes, I would like to see other formats such as Ogg.
I would like to see subscriptions for people with high speed connections. A flat rate, unlimited. People who either have slow connections or would choose only to download a few songs every now and then can have the option to pay per song.
Has anyone ever heard of World Share ISP? http://www.worldshare.net/ I don't know f they still do this, but a long while ago, they used to donate a portion of the proceeds of their Internet service sales to a charity of each user's choice. I think that that would be great. If people knew that at least some of the money that they were spending on music was going out to help others and not simply to line the pockets of wealthy people, then I think that people would have an incentive to purchase the music rather than pirate it.
There aren't any buyers for the feature, so it's not enabled. If a company isn't going to be able to turn a profit, then they don't waste resources. Otherwise, they cut their losses and move on.
servognome brings up a good point. It's economics. If they big players don't want the expense, then they will not be willing to pay for it. Some ideas may have merit in principle, but you must have a buyer to make money from it.
I really do not see how your post is considered trolling since you bring up an interesting point of view.
I suppose it all depends on what you want to be able to do with the source. I think from the aspect of QA, it is good that one is able to veiw the source to ensure compatibility and to ensure the quality of the software which a company is considering implenting. Likewise, people are even given the liberty to modify the code as they need to for their own internal purposes.
Companies' willingness to work with the Open Source community is a good thing. That they are reluctant to let go completely of their intellectual property is at the least understandable. We should be open to proprietary software for open systems such as Linux. The truth is that some companies are simply unwilling to release their property for a variety of reasons. The prorietary software is their property - they can do as they please. Since the GPL does not prohibit the running of proprietary software on an open system, then it is all legal. I think being open to encouraging proprietary software vendors to port their software to Linux only allows for more choice. A greater selection of software will make a migration to Linux even more enticing.
That Sun is willing to open their code even though they want to maintain control of the stanard shows that they are at least willing to work with us vice trying to stomp us out. They recognize the growing influence of open source and they wish to find a reasonable compromise. That's fair.