Free (and semi-free) markets will be at disadvantage until they get their collective heads out of the sands. Eventually though, you can take heart in that it will devolve into conglomerates fighting amongst themselves, and the remaining nation-states will be mostly just bystanders getting caught in the crossfire.
If you're going to pay musicians from a pool, take the opportunity to reshape the industry. There's no sense putting a for-profit entity in charge of a tax, or a tax-like fee. RIAA and its components have done enough damage already.
Like many hearing impaired I tend to listen with my eyes as well as my ears. From experience, I can tell you that's far more dangerous than even talking on a handheld device.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Congress implements this as an economic right. By no longer distributing said book, the Author/distributor has given up their interest in the work. It no longer promotes the useful Art if it is no longer distributed. You're in the clear ethically.
Legally on the other hand -- others have addressed that, but let me just say that congress and the courts don't pay much attention to the quoted document.
Consider by analogy a crowbar. It could be used to force open someone's window or someone's head, both illegal; but it could also be used to pry off the hubcap of one's own car, an operation legal in most jurisdictions.
Let's see, legal ethical use of spyware... Hmm, that's a tough one for a civil libertarian. Logging your underage kid's IRC sessions in case you later need to find out where she's run off to meet her 40 year old "friend"?
This focus on "profitable" is disturbing. I don't have a problem with them making a profit, but movie studios have historically had a warped idea of what profitable means. Internet distribution is different enough from theater and dvd/blueray/tape/laserdisk distribution to warrant a genuine rethink.
Consider, while long term, the goal is no doubt to replace physical delivery with internet delivery, are we there yet? The market is clearly not yet mature, so the focus should be more on cost recovery than on profit. Once the market matures, economy of scale will almost certainly transform cost recovery to profit. Either way, market *development* is different than market *exploitation* (using "exploitation" in the non-pejorative sense).
Keep in mind that the idea is not to make up the entire cost of production via internet distribution, but to cover cost of distribution and make a little extra per viewer. Over time, the market will shift from physical media to pay per view, at which point the small profit per viewer will really add up.
Here are a few ways the distribution mechanisms differ:
Media cost: dvd:X/disk; inet:negligible
Manufacture cost: fixed: downscale the movie so's to not overwhelm the pipes, and perhaps to add markers for ads
Distribution costs:
dvd: shipping per disk; placement cost per title to major stores (top shelf gets more eyeballs)
inet: fixed per viewer; viewer pays half of bandwidth via ISP
Resalability:
dvd: purchaser can watch many times from the one purchase, and can resell the disk
inet: pay per view, the Holy Grael of media distribution. Purchaser will generally watch each movie only once, or sometimes twice, if you count screening it before showing it to kids or dates.
Even assuming this guy were right in his assumptions about the nature of open source and its equivalence to the "web 2.0 free economy," the GPL would save us from this greed that comes of fear.
OMG! we're running out of money, let's stop using this libre software! Let's pay for licenses and just beg for the features we need. Run! run! run!
Certainly not if I know it's the first release! It would be obvious you're jerking me around. Or was that a rhetorical question?
Just call it X, or if you're planning on sticking around long enough for a second release, call it X 08x10 like Ubuntu. Or if you really want to confuse people call it "X, the Joey release" like Apple does.
In other words, your product release name has nothing whatsoever to do with your internal version number.
Oh wait, everyone else who answered said the same thing. Never mind.
The thread model has some fundamental problems, but since they seem here to stay there are some things you should keep in mind, nicely summarized in this article(pdf).
Article also available in html if you click on the first computer.org link from google. Hmm, why does it work from google and not from slashot?
What you describe is basically Batman's mindset, "What is the worst that could happen?" So do what he does -- be miserable.
I see three alternatives: (1) Get good at compartmentalizing. Fill your non-professional life with positive things. When not required to be paranoid, live in blissful ignorance. (2) Embrace your inner cynic. You should discuss this first with your loved ones to avoid alienating them. (3) Give it up, which is easier said than done, given your innate security mindset.
#3 is likely to get you a reservation at Arkham, so I suggest trying #2, then #1, then #0 before resorting to #3.
The article points out an apparent inconsistency between disgust with copyright and use of copyright for GPL.
The disgust is not so much with copyright as a concept, but that copyright has been horribly misused. We don't like how the rules have been warped, but we will happily turn those same rules to benefit the commons that has otherwise been all but abandoned.
Basically, if you want to play with us then you have to play fair.
Try thinking in terms of a library. You write a library, then someone else uses it in their own project, and in the process fixes a bug. They don't bother sending the fix back to you, and you later run into the same bug. Is that fair?
You might argue that library is a gift, and the giftee has no obligation to use the gift to the giver's benefit. That makes perfect sense if the gift is from one person to another person -- the spirit of giving and all.
A GPLer however would say that the library is a gift to the commons. If one walls off that part of the commons for one's own private use, then one steals from us all. You may participate in the commons or not, but if you participate then you must treat the commons as the commons, and not as your private property.
This version of the lemonade metaphor more accurately describes the intent of a GPL'd lemon. "I have a lemon tree. I'll give you lemons if you tell me and all your customers how to make lemonade."
There's an impedance mismatch between physical property and so-called "intellectual property." As such, this and any other metaphor can easily be abused. And frequently are.
Slashdot Mirror
It's economic warfare.
Free (and semi-free) markets will be at disadvantage until they get their collective heads out of the sands. Eventually though, you can take heart in that it will devolve into conglomerates fighting amongst themselves, and the remaining nation-states will be mostly just bystanders getting caught in the crossfire.
Are we there yet?
If there were a war, Congress would have declared so. And MS would've been outlawed by fiat of martial law.
Have you heard what they call music these days? I bet they have a DoD contract to produce that racket as munitions.
If you're going to pay musicians from a pool, take the opportunity to reshape the industry. There's no sense putting a for-profit entity in charge of a tax, or a tax-like fee. RIAA and its components have done enough damage already.
Like many hearing impaired I tend to listen with my eyes as well as my ears. From experience, I can tell you that's far more dangerous than even talking on a handheld device.
(Yes, hearing aids help, but only so much.)
Congress implements this as an economic right. By no longer distributing said book, the Author/distributor has given up their interest in the work. It no longer promotes the useful Art if it is no longer distributed. You're in the clear ethically.
Legally on the other hand -- others have addressed that, but let me just say that congress and the courts don't pay much attention to the quoted document.
IANAL.
Born in the 60s, after the landing.
It's the use to which it's put.
Consider by analogy a crowbar. It could be used to force open someone's window or someone's head, both illegal; but it could also be used to pry off the hubcap of one's own car, an operation legal in most jurisdictions.
Let's see, legal ethical use of spyware... Hmm, that's a tough one for a civil libertarian. Logging your underage kid's IRC sessions in case you later need to find out where she's run off to meet her 40 year old "friend"?
This focus on "profitable" is disturbing. I don't have a problem with them making a profit, but movie studios have historically had a warped idea of what profitable means. Internet distribution is different enough from theater and dvd/blueray/tape/laserdisk distribution to warrant a genuine rethink.
Consider, while long term, the goal is no doubt to replace physical delivery with internet delivery, are we there yet? The market is clearly not yet mature, so the focus should be more on cost recovery than on profit. Once the market matures, economy of scale will almost certainly transform cost recovery to profit. Either way, market *development* is different than market *exploitation* (using "exploitation" in the non-pejorative sense).
Keep in mind that the idea is not to make up the entire cost of production via internet distribution, but to cover cost of distribution and make a little extra per viewer. Over time, the market will shift from physical media to pay per view, at which point the small profit per viewer will really add up.
Here are a few ways the distribution mechanisms differ:
Media cost: dvd:X/disk; inet:negligible
Manufacture cost: fixed: downscale the movie so's to not overwhelm the pipes, and perhaps to add markers for ads
Distribution costs:
dvd: shipping per disk; placement cost per title to major stores (top shelf gets more eyeballs)
inet: fixed per viewer; viewer pays half of bandwidth via ISP
Resalability:
dvd: purchaser can watch many times from the one purchase, and can resell the disk
inet: pay per view, the Holy Grael of media distribution. Purchaser will generally watch each movie only once, or sometimes twice, if you count screening it before showing it to kids or dates.
But those are pretend dollars, so they don't count.
Two of which are gnumeric and abiword. They don't have quite all the features as their behemoth cousins, but that's usually a good thing.
Also, not so great for tablets, but for battery life where you have a keyboard, sc and oleo are text-mode spreadsheets.
Please post an URL to your notes...
Even assuming this guy were right in his assumptions about the nature of open source and its equivalence to the "web 2.0 free economy," the GPL would save us from this greed that comes of fear.
OMG! we're running out of money, let's stop using this libre software! Let's pay for licenses and just beg for the features we need. Run! run! run!
Do you have a better idea of what to do with those books?
C'mon, at least he recycles to offset some of his CO2 footprint.
Do you mean "compliant" or "conformant"? There is a difference.
Certainly not if I know it's the first release! It would be obvious you're jerking me around. Or was that a rhetorical question?
Just call it X, or if you're planning on sticking around long enough for a second release, call it X 08x10 like Ubuntu. Or if you really want to confuse people call it "X, the Joey release" like Apple does.
In other words, your product release name has nothing whatsoever to do with your internal version number.
Oh wait, everyone else who answered said the same thing. Never mind.
(Just don't call it "X11" -- that's taken.)
http://www.oticonusa.com/Oticon/Consumers/Products/Epoq/Streamer.html
Hearing aids are getting better. This one does bluetooth audio for use with phones and ogg players.
Better though, I think, would be to have my glasses provide subtitles.
The thread model has some fundamental problems, but since they seem here to stay there are some things you should keep in mind, nicely summarized in this article(pdf).
Article also available in html if you click on the first computer.org link from google. Hmm, why does it work from google and not from slashot?
China is all behind a firewall anyway, so they could just allocate from 10.0.0.0/24.
Note also, this interview with Welte on the same topic:
http://lwn.net/Articles/291636/
What you describe is basically Batman's mindset, "What is the worst that could happen?" So do what he does -- be miserable.
I see three alternatives: (1) Get good at compartmentalizing. Fill your non-professional life with positive things. When not required to be paranoid, live in blissful ignorance. (2) Embrace your inner cynic. You should discuss this first with your loved ones to avoid alienating them. (3) Give it up, which is easier said than done, given your innate security mindset.
#3 is likely to get you a reservation at Arkham, so I suggest trying #2, then #1, then #0 before resorting to #3.
I find white on this green quite readable, though for me it would be most readable as white on black. At least it's not yellow on blue.
The italics however, must go. Or at least italicize the editorial comments instead of the quoted material.
K&R style is all you ever really need.
The article points out an apparent inconsistency between disgust with copyright and use of copyright for GPL.
The disgust is not so much with copyright as a concept, but that copyright has been horribly misused. We don't like how the rules have been warped, but we will happily turn those same rules to benefit the commons that has otherwise been all but abandoned.
Basically, if you want to play with us then you have to play fair.
Try thinking in terms of a library. You write a library, then someone else uses it in their own project, and in the process fixes a bug. They don't bother sending the fix back to you, and you later run into the same bug. Is that fair?
You might argue that library is a gift, and the giftee has no obligation to use the gift to the giver's benefit. That makes perfect sense if the gift is from one person to another person -- the spirit of giving and all.
A GPLer however would say that the library is a gift to the commons. If one walls off that part of the commons for one's own private use, then one steals from us all. You may participate in the commons or not, but if you participate then you must treat the commons as the commons, and not as your private property.
This version of the lemonade metaphor more accurately describes the intent of a GPL'd lemon. "I have a lemon tree. I'll give you lemons if you tell me and all your customers how to make lemonade."
There's an impedance mismatch between physical property and so-called "intellectual property." As such, this and any other metaphor can easily be abused. And frequently are.