Such cynicism is usually warranted. Big companies are out to make money, regardless of who they trample over in the process. So, whenever there is a big move by a big company, we must ask "who is getting trampled?"
The fact is, however, that OIN is a good thing. I think it's important to realize the significance of this: We have huge, powerful companies (IBM, Google, etc.) voluntarily participating in a project that protects FOSS and encourages the free distribution of innovative ideas and Free software. The answer to the obvious "why would these companies do something seemingly benevolent?" is that the FOSS community has done a good job of engineering the landscape that way.
Basically, the years of work by the FOSS community has created an environment where coming together and preventing patent threats against Free software is in the best interests of those big companies! The community (via legal things like the GPL, and less tangible things like "public outcry," boycotts, and "community spirit") have made it clear that business will only continue to benefit from the power and flexibility of FOSS if they play by certain rules. (Keep code open, keep software patents at bay.) The business sector has stepped up to the plate and is enforcing those FOSS requirements... not because they are benevolent, but because they recognize that the payback from the community will be "worth it."
So to those who still (in this day and age!) doubt that FOSS can be relevant to businesses, or that people can "make money from Free software"--let this be an obvious message. The free market has spoken... and it has said "This stuff has value, we want more of it, and we're prepared to do what it takes to protect your continued efforts at innovation."
This crucial win-win between FOSS and business is a result of the FOSS people having uncompromising requirements, and the business people being smart enough to see a great opportunity.
The summary is misleading... in particular the use of the word "illegal."
Automatix is a utility that automates the installation of a bunch of software that is considered "must have" for people just switching to Ubuntu. For instance, it installed Firefox, mplayer, wine, DVD playing software, and multimedia codecs. (Actually the installer would just give you a list of things you could install, you select the ones you want and click "next.")
I don't really understand why this is being characterized as "illegal software." The packages are already in the usual repositories. The utility would just automate the installation for you. If you live in a country where installing one of those packages is somehow illegal (is this actually the case?), then that's your responsibility. The tool is just an automator intended to ease the transition for new users. It really provides nothing above and beyond the standard packaging interface, except that it was easier (in some people's opinion) to tell new users "install automatix" rather than telling them to open the package manager and list the software they should install.
In any case, the whole argument seems rather pointless. Automatix was created a few years ago, at a time where installation of things like multimedia codecs was perhaps non-obvious. New users were flooding forums with repeated requests like "my mp3s don't play! why?" and "how can I play DVDs on this Ubuntu thing?" Automatix was created as a simple response to that.
In the meantime, Ubuntu has, from what I can tell, cleared up these issues. Installation of codecs is straightforward and pretty obvious. The package manager is very user friendly. In short, there is no need for Automatix. Basically, Automatix was an ugly hack. It's always been recognized as such, and developers have always discouraging people from using it. On the Ubuntu forums, the standard advice is no longer "install Automatix," since it is recognized to be a non-optimal solution.
So, in short... I think this issue has already passed us by.
I would argue that you can make MORE money because you have just offloaded your distribution costs to the consumer. Sure you would have to pay bandwidth and such, but thats nothing compared to actually having to ship physical media.
Actually with bit-torrent, the distribution cost for the content-producers really is effectively zero. They don't even have to pay for bandwidth. You're right: With so many layers of cost removed, the actual opportunity for profit is in fact increased.
You could also do it on a creative level.
Good idea. I'm sure many fans could edit a revised version of Star Wars episodes I, II, and III that is more to my liking! Economically, this is another way for the content producers to generate interest and money. For instance, they release a movie at a certain price point... and they say that they will further release all the source material (footage shot but never used, CGI models used in special effects, etc.) of the movie for an additional bounty. If the movie was good, people may be willing to pay for that further content, so that they can generate movie variants, derivative works, and so forth.
In such an environment of unblocked creativity, my suspicion is that we would see work of higher quality. As you say, there would be competition on the creativity level. Exactly the opposite of the "artists will stop making quality art" theory that the pro-status-quo-copyright group would have us believe.
Bingo. You've hit upon exactly the model that I think would work... in fact the only realistic model in a world where copying is effectively free and effortless.
The best part is that in such a model you can still have middlemen. Imagine independent companies get set up to collect these donations. Like you have a "top 20 songs consortium," a "historic drama consortium," a "sci-fi consortium," and so on. So instead of sci-fi fans going to dozens of websites and adding to the tip-jar, they just pay a lump sum to the consortium of their choice, which then distributes the money to worthy sci-fi projects (and takes a cut for themselves, obviously). If consumers find that the consortium is doing a bad job (taking too big a cut, not funding good projects), then consumers will switch to paying directly to the things they care about, or funding a different consortium.
So, basically, you will have the consortiums fighting each other for our cash. This will tend to force them to be good at picking worthy projects to fund. They may even spend money on ads and so forth, convincing us to support them. That's all fine, because unlike the monopolies that exist now, they will actually have to compete with each other (since the flow of money is voluntary... that is, anyone can circumvent the consortiums if they are doing a bad job). Another type of middleman that would develop (or remain, rather), would be producers, who gather investment money for the thing to be made (movie, album, whatever), and of course set the "release price" at a level where the investors gets some return. The free market does its optimization thing, people make money, everyone is happy.
Of course there will be a certain 'free-rider' aspect, because some people will persistently wait for others to pay for content to be released. I say: so be it. We have plenty of free-riders now, and we're surviving. Some people are never going to want to contribute, no matter how hard you try and force them. Others will always be willing to pay for the things they care about... not just so that they have access, but so that everyone does.
I am not an economist, but it seems like it would work. For those of you who don't know, the project "A Swarm of Angels" is trying to do exactly this--they are trying to get 50,000 people to contribute £25 each, so as to produce a big-budget movie that will then be released under a creative commons license. Consider becoming a subscriber! (There are >1000 subscribers so far...)
This is why everyone should take note of the file-sharing debate. Though many people do not support the plight of the file-sharers (after all, they just want to watch content for free, don't they? cheap bastards!), I think what the file-sharers are going through is really a preview of what the "fair use" crowd is going to have to deal with a few years later, and what the general public will have to deal with a few years after that.
Right now the file-sharers are experiencing technical and legal roadblocks to doing what they want to do. The media companies are trying to expand this war, year by year, to include activities that were previously legal. (As Lawrence Lessig puts it, previously most actions related to media were presumptively legal... in a digital age we're now seeing most actions being presumptively illegal.) So whereas laws and technological restrictions may have been originally intended to stop file-sharing (and other "bad stuff") they will inevitably be expanded by the media companies to include things like "fair use" and other things which were previously presumptively allowed (listening to a purchased recording more than once... using the same copy of a recording in your home CD player and in your car...). These things are not even "fair use"... there was no name given to them because they were so obviously allowed! (But not anymore!)
Year by year it will get worse. You may not be breaking the law today... but don't worry, you'll be breaking the law soon enough... and it will cost you money to be "legit."
We need a model for production and distribution that gets away from this insane control and this slippery slope towards paying for every single minute fraction of "media" every single time we experience it. We need to look towards supporting creative commons, and actively reducing the scope of copyright. It should be possible to create a system where content creators are rewarded, but where the audience is not burdened. File sharing and payment to artists are not mutually exclusive.
Unless, of course, you like paying more and more for less and less.
You should have just said: "I already have those rights." As long as people think that they only have access to rights as long as they pay for access[1] and/or pay through taxes,[2] we've already lost. Rights are not commodities to be purchased.
[1] E.g. You don't have to buy a copy of content to exercise fair-use, like excerpts, etc.
[2] You don't have to pay taxes to have rights. Children, people who are unemployed, homemakers, and many other classes of people may not pay taxes but still have these rights.
Indeed. The suggestion that users will have to "listen to ads before placing a call" is wild speculation. Moreover, it's rather inconsistent with Google's usual methods. Of all the advertising sources I can think of, Google is the only one that does ads in a reasonable, elegant, and even useful way. They don't do popups and annoying flashing graphics. They tend towards text ads and high relevancy.
My guess would be that a Google-phone would have text ads put into it based on emails you're reading (just like Gmail), or things you are searching. When you're not receiving a call, it would maybe display text ads for nearby events or businesses (with location determined from cell tower or maybe just based on your registered home address). Alot of people use their cellphone to check the time, so they would see these ads. Such ads would be relatively non-intrusive. You could look at them if you wanted to, and ignore them otherwise.
I think actually quite a few people would be willing to get such a phone. The article speculates that only teenagers and others without enough money will be interested in an ad-supported phone. I think the demographic is larger than that. A certain fraction of the population can afford, but cannot justify the expense. (E.g. they make enough money, but don't really ~need~ a cellphone or wireless email.) For this demographic, an ad-supported phone would be very attractive. ("$60/month to check my email when I'm on the train? No way!.... Read a few ads while checking my email? Sure, why not!") Plus, plenty of people who now pay for cellphones think they are getting ripped off, and would be more than happy to have one less bill per month, even if it meant having ads on the phone.
The demographic exists, and there is a way to insert ads that will not be obnoxious. The part I'm not so sure about is whether people casually looking at ads is sufficiently valuable for advertisers to pay the usual network connection fees.
You make a cogent and persuasive point. As you say, a large part of our disagreement comes from balancing "personal rights" against "laws that preserve a greater good." And that balance is always difficult (and frequently nebulous).
I admit it is a "hard line" stance to say that the right to record anything I see is more important than economic concerns. I further admit that the only reason I take this stance is because of my inherent misgivings about copyright law itself. I don't see it as a law that protects the greater good very efficiently, and so I don't see transgressions against it as being all that bad. In particular, I think that when it comes to personal actions (recording what I see, modifying hardware I own, etc.), these should take priority over laws intended to protect the current economics of creative works (e.g. DMCA). So I question the laws themselves.
I don't like being treated like a criminal when I play a DVD in Linux (even though I guess I'm breaking the DMCA), and I wouldn't like being treated like a criminal for recording something I see happening.
Besides, the ethics, of course, is the pragmatic question of how useful such enforcement actually is. As with the DRM example, only one theater has to miss a camcorder (or accept a bribe), and the entire enforcement effort was wasted. The proliferation of bootlegs suggests that current enforcement is not effective (yet it still gets in the way of the lives of normal people). I don't think ever-stricter laws are an efficient way to deal with the perceived problem of widespread copyright infringement.
1.) Have recording in theaters be completely legal, or
2.) Specify the length of clips allowable, and have theaters police the length of clips recorded in theaters.
Do you really think 2.) is possible, and that 1.) is fair?
2.) is impossible, but yes, 1.) is fair. Let people record in theaters all they want. Copyright law makes it illegal to distribute content beyond the narrow margins of fair use. That is enough. Go after the bootleggers for selling their copies, bust the massive unauthorized pressing-plants... but do not hassle people with camcorders, since you can't know their intents. A business can have a policy against camcorders... that's fine. But a law that makes it illegal to activate a camcorder in a theater? You should be allowed to record things you see. That is not a violation of copyright. Redistribution is the crime, so that's what should be targeted.
Yes this makes it harder to stop other crimes, but when it's personal liberties being pitted against corporate profits, I'm going to support the protection of liberties even if it means that companies lose a bit of money due to illegal actions. (In the same way that I'd rather have a guilty man go free than put an innocent man behind bars.)
Furthermore, with increasingly ubiquitous recording technology (built into laptops, phones, etc.), a rule against "recording devices in theaters" makes less and less sense.
Your message board analogy is correct, but only so far as the only problem we are trying to solve is the minority of trolls.
The problem is much bigger. There are patent trolls, but there are also well-meaning companies who get patents for things that they shouldn't (too obvious, etc.), and there is the ensuing escalation of patenting (if company X gets an obvious patent, then we need to file obvious patents also, to keep up and be defensive). In the view of many, the problem is not a minority of trolls or bogus patents, it's that the majority of patents are bogus, which buries the legitimate patents and creates a massive legal and economic burden all over society.
In your analogy, when a message board is over-run with trolls and worthless posts, such that it is difficult to even find the good content among all the fluff (basically every post gets accepted and promoted to the same visibility status), then yes a rethink of the entire message board structure is needed. Hence why slashdot has moderation. Only a small fraction of posts are considered "worthy."
Similarly, many of us believe the patent system is now so over-run with bad patents that it has be be thrown out, or at least wildly altered, so that the productive patents get the priority they deserve, whereas the massive number of bogus patents get ignored.
(So, the question comes down to a matter of degree... it all depends on what percent of patents you think are illegitimate.)
Well of course the "blurred line" won't appear when you counterpoint two extremes: short clips on the one hand (clearly fair use) versus distributing full copies to millions of people on the other hand (clearly copyright infringement, according to current laws).
However, your implication that there is no "blurred line" isn't fair. The example given in the summary is DJ Danger Mouse, who mixed two different works to create something totally original. The music labels said that this was "clearly infringement" whereas many artists and fans said this work was novel and original, and clearly something that should be allowed under fair use (whether or not it actually is fair use is for courts to decide, I suppose, but the arguments regarding copyright are not so much about what the law is, but rather what it should be). This is one case where there is disagreement about how to interpret the actions, hence a "blurred line."
Lawrence Lessig (in his books, blog entries, talks, etc.) provides many other examples of activities which straddle this line (e.g. a film-maker begin told to pay thousands of dollars because a Simpsons clip was playing in the background of one of the scenes in a documentary). Sometimes they are legal yet still legally persecuted by the big-labels. Sometimes they are illegal yet many people feel they are legitimate personal uses, or important creative uses. These fringe cases are very interesting.
Now, I have not watched the documentary under discussion, so I can't say whether they tackle these fringe cases in a thoughtful way. However, I can honestly say that there is a dangerous blurred line between what you are allowed to do according to "fair use" and what you are going to get in trouble for doing according to "copyright law." The fact that this line is so ill-defined is what leads to all the questionable lawsuits against artists and end-users... and to a chilling effect in the production of creative works (which Lessig worries about constantly).
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to buy an Apple and not have the Apple-chip installed into your brain. I'm living proof.
I'm proof too. I have a Macbook Pro, and it's a fantastic machine. However overall I prefer Linux and use Kubuntu on my desktop machine. Macs are great, but they are far from perfect.
I think, though, that there are lots of happy Mac users who are not "Mac zealots." As usual, though, the "zealots" (for lack of a better word) are inherently more vocal, and so there is a bias towards their viewpoints being represented. Thus a myth of "Mac zealotry" is formed, but it is based on a vocal minority. I would argue that the majority of Mac users have a reasonable, balanced view of Macs (though, presumably if they are using Mac they think it has some overall advantages).
It's the same thing with Linux, of course. There is this stereotype of Linux users being rabid zealots and evangelists. Although some Linux users fit that mold, I would argue it's actually a small percentage of the millions of Linux users out there. But, again, the more extreme users tend to be more vocal, and inherently gather more attention.
Frankly I get very tired of the constant over-generalizations about "Linux users" and "Mac users" and other types of "fanbois," because such statements completely ignore the selection effect inherent to only listening to the vocal users, rather than seeking out the opinion of the more moderate users as well.
Exactly. Google is upping the bid, because they know that they will be out-bid by the entrenched telcos that can't afford to lose that spectrum. If they call Google's bluff, Google will happily buy the spectrum for a few billion and make a killing. But, since the entrenched telcos will certainly continue out-bidding until they win, it's in Google's best interests to at least put some pressure on them to make the eventual spectrum a bit more open--that way Google can capitalize on that spectrum in some way. (A nice by-product is that this is way better for consumers.)
I'm not so naive as to think that Google is doing this for purely philanthropic reasons... however it's really nice to see a powerful company putting pressure on entrenched monopolies, with an end result that the people get high-quality, more fair access to a public resource.
According to the article, one of the main issues with Linux was Evolution:
Evolution, his e-mail client, took six minutes to start up.... Novell's SUSE engineers created a patch for Evolution that makes the application start more quickly, in about 20 seconds.
6 minutes? 20 seconds? Is that true? I use Thunderbird (on Kubuntu), and it starts up in a second. I can't imagine waiting that long for an email client to load up. What is it doing that takes so long? Is this typical behavior for Evolution?
Since this was one of his major complaints with Linux (and it's a valid one: six minutes is much too long to wait!), it seems like it's something that should be fixed ASAP if it is a widespread issue.
Seriously, though, it seems that what he's calling the difference between SuSE and Ubuntu is actually the difference between KDE and GNOME. At a minimum, it's the difference between their default desktop configurations. I'm not sure I'd trust this guy as a Linux expert, however "well-known" he may be.
I don't think he's claiming to be a Linux expert. Moreover, his target audience is not Linux enthusiasts who are trying to pick the best distro. His audience is other corporate-types who want to know how these operating systems work "out of the box." That one can customize any Linux distro to act like any other is not really the point--the discussion is about how much functionality (and retraining costs, etc.) corporations can expect if they migrate from one OS to another.
Though I don't agree with every single point he makes, I find the discussion remarkably fair and balanced. You'll notice, in fact, that the analysis mentions more than once than some of the problems encountered, or features available, would be there on any Linux distribution, not just the ones tested.
Yeah the users can probably circumvent it... but will they bother?
My impression is that most of the unauthorized clips on YouTube are put there by fans of the shows in question. They do it because it is easy and fun, and they want to share the thing they like with others. I don't think they will continue to bother if it becomes onerous to post the clips (requiring constant editing, posting, re-editing, re-posting, etc.). This is different from P2P networks, where once someone goes to the effort of making a nice copy, it can spread indefinitely. Because YouTube is a closed system, people will get bored with constantly over-coming it. (Or just get the content on P2P, where you can get full-length, full-quality versions.)
Of course, given that these clips are posted by enthusiastic fans, I really wonder why companies are so worried. It seems like they generate more ill-will than anything. From my random sampling, the number of full-length shows posted on YouTube has decreased significantly. What I see now are short clips from shows. I suppose someone who watches 20 random clips from Family Guy may be less inclined to buy the DVD ("I've seen all the best jokes!"), but I suspect the opposite: that it increases exposure and hence increases sales.
Anyways, my suspicion is that by making it annoying to post clips from shows, they will indeed succeed in decreasing the number of such clips. However I believe this will ultimately back-fire (from the point of view of the big media companies), because this will just make the huge YouTube viewer base switch to watching more "original YouTube" content, and the growing number of shows that actively post material on YouTube... with a corresponding decreased reliance on "old media" to fill our need for art and entertainment.
Unfortunately, the academic world I grew up believing in no longer really exists;
It still exists. Maybe it's "fighting to survive"... but it is not dead. In fact many academics are carrying-on with the tradition of working towards open sharing of information. For instance a large number of academics are actively pushing for Open Access to all scholarly content. It will no doubt be a long struggle, but progress is already being made, such as preprint archives (e.g. arXiv), a growing number of open-access journals (e.g. PLoS), and even some big-name traditional journals are now offering authors the option to pay for their articles to be open-access.
The new generation of academics have grown up with the internet and are accustomed to easy online access to every journal imaginable. As this generation takes over more academic positions, I think this intellectual freedom will spread. In short, I'm hopeful that academia will undergo a mini-renaissance and re-emphasize its roots of "spreading knowledge."
I use Google search, which is produced by Google Inc., a for-profit company. I use the search "for free," but then again I "pay" with my eyeballs, since the search pages have ads. This is a trade-off that I (and many others) are willing to make.
So why is it so crazy to think that users would be willing to participate in a search engine where you "pay" with your spare CPU cycles? If the search engine generates useful results, it seems like a fair trade-off for me.
I'm not sure what Wikia's business model is here. It's probably not ads, since it would be difficult to reliably enforce and bill an ad-pushing system using software that is open-source and a network that is peer-to-peer. Probably they hope that this will drive more traffic to Wikia projects, or somesuch.
But, ultimately, I don't see what's so crazy about a for-profit company and end users coming to a mutually beneficial agreement. I donate CPU cycles and bandwidth, and get access to search results. Sounds fair to me. If the result is useful and the terms-of-use not onerous, most users will happily use it.
Is it just me or do these guys find it impossible to speak english in a plain and simple fashion?
As part of the marketing department for a major corporation on the cutting-edge of deploying Web 2.0 applications, allow me to explain how best to interpret press releases. First, it is important to realize that the press release is not trying to merely inform you about upcoming product releases, it is trying to enlighten you about how you can best capitalize on your financial holdings by investing them in efficient products that deliver value-added productivity to your workforce. Essentially, it is a dialog between the customers and the product engineers. By encouraging this kind of customer engagement, the marketing team is able to create a synergistic expenditure of resources, where the customer needs are balanced against the fiduciary responsibilities of the product-developing company. This allows the company to recoup fixed costs while helping the customer achieve their full potential in a vital, thriving ecosystem of commercial activities.
vi vs. emacs, command line vs. GUI, BSD vs GPL, BSD vs Linux, the language arguments and so on.
I think it's crucially important to distinguish between "pointless flamewar" and "productive debate." For each of the "vs." you described (and for the ones from TFA), we can find examples of both kinds of disputes. Arguing the subtle differences between BSD and Linux (or trying to prove that one is "better" in some way or for some task) is crucial to the continual improvement in these things. The FOSS movement is about many things--and open debate is certainly one of them. This open discussion leads to alot of "productive debate"... although it also leads to the occasional "pointless flamewar."
The implication in your post was that the various arguments in the open-source community do more harm than good. I would argue just the opposite: although flamewars are not a good thing, overall the open debate that the open-source crowd engages in is a productive way to "get it right" and improve the state of the art. I should also note that despite the intensity of these debates, no one (that I'm aware of) actually takes them to the extreme of violence. At worst, people get their feelings hurt.
I should also note that the egregious examples of flamewars and trolling are not unique to the FOSS movement--those trolls don't even care about the topic at hand, and just switch to some other "hot topic" when on another discussion board. You can't really blame FOSS for the universal existence of assholes.
Similarly, I just don't see the disagreement in space enthusiasts and scientists. They debate, sure... but that is precisely what is needed to determine optimal solutions.
I think getting beyond the arguments is the mature thing to do, but that's not an easy thing either.
No... Avoiding debate is not the answer. I would rather argue that the mature thing to do is to not get overly emotional in the debates. Arguments are a good thing--that's how progress is made. Maturity is knowing how to think rationally in a debate, and to change your mind when others have presented compelling evidence or logic.
You're right. The author is pointing to some sort of nebulous conflict, without actually citing any examples, and frankly I'm not sure such a conflict exists. Everyone I know who is keen on space exploration supports both robotic and manned missions, for instance. They tend to cheer-on both NASA and space tourism.
Where heated debate does sometimes arise is specifically in those instances where it is zero-sum: for instance when NASA is considering its budget, trying to decide how many dollars to spend on manned missions and how many dollars to spend on robotic missions. This heated debate is not usually conflict, but rather the very process by which scientific and technical consensus is reached. I'm not saying that there is no such thing as conflict in these domains, or that everyone always gets along... but I don't see massive ill-will, either. Most of the people debating want the same thing: expansion of knowledge.
TFA makes curious statements like:
What would a non-zero-sum future look like? More joint activities between the interest groups would be a good beginning.
I'm no expert in the politics of space exploration... but who are these "interest groups" really? As far as I know, NASA pursues both manned and robotic missions... and so NASA is composed of people from both "interest groups." So, really, isn't NASA very much a "joint activity" between these "interest groups" ?? Everytime that NASA uses humans to effectuate repairs on automated space systems (e.g. Hubble), it is a joint activity between the human-exploration and robot-exploration projects.
This is a subtle issue that has been debated by many smart people for a long time... so perhaps there are issues that I'm not fully grasping. However there is a subtle assumption in your argument that I do not agree with, namely that humans are able to "know" something beyond what formal logic can prove... and so that we must not be Turing machines.
This process can go on ad naseum into infinity. A human mind can perceive this foray into eternity, but the Turing machine has no way of proving it.
The implication here is that the human "perceiving this foray into eternity" has formally proved (to himself) this truth... and since a Turing machine cannot prove such a thing, the human is not a Turing machine. However I dispute the notion that a human coming to understand a Godel theorem has actually proved (to himself) the infinite recursion of Godel theorems (in the formal sense of proof). As you noted, Turing machines can also prove Godel's theorem... so the fact that we have proven one instance of it doesn't mean we have proven the infinite recursion. We may "feel" that we've proven it to ourselves, but we cannot really know if there are truths that are unprovable to us. So it's entirely possible that there are truths that cannot be proved to us. Alternately, it's possible that we believe that we have proven these things, but only because our minds are incomplete and/or inconsistent formal systems. Such systems are Turing machines, as far as I understand it.
What we seem to have that the Turing machine doesn't is meta-knowledge.
Again, I dispute that. We have this meta-knowledge, but not in a provable sense. I guess our disagreement is that you assert that humans display evidence of behavior that no Turing-machine can display. But I have not encountered a proof of that. A Turing machine can indeed display the same level of "meta-knowledge" that a human displays: it can prove some Godel theorems, but there will always be other truths that it cannot prove. There are some truths that humans cannot prove.
The reason I mentioned the idea of a human mind operating based on "physical law" is that if you accept that a human mind/brain is a physical object, and operates based on physics that can be simulated, then I can build a powerful Turing machine, run a simulation of a brain, and that brain will exhibit all the meta-knowledge and insight that you attribute to humans. So if a Turing machine can exhibit all human insights, I argue that our minds must be Turing-machines, and not some other kind of machine.
Again, this is a subtle question that I'm perhaps not qualified to discuss... but my reading of Godel's theorem was not that it proved we were not Turing-machines... but rather that it proved that we are either incomplete or inconsistent (or both).
Would you not agree that if the problem requires intelligence to solve, that the speed at which exactly the same, and entirely correct, answer is delivered is not a valid metric one could use to say intelligent or not?
Yes, I agree with everything you've said. My comment about "faster hardware and better algorithms" was more a matter of practicality. Since I agree that AI can, in principle, be solved on a Turing machine, I agree that any Turing-complete hardware is up to the task.
The field of evolutionary psychology is attempting to do just that: to deduce what algorithms are working in the human brain. One of the end-goals of such research is of course to be able to generate artificial versions of those algorithms. If you're interested in such things, Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" is a fantastic and accessible read. It describes how things like vision are optimized for environments we evolved from, and tend to fail when put in contrived situations (like optical illusions). It also tackles the "adaptive advantage" of having emotions, and so forth.
Of course, it's easier said than done to actually transplant a biological algorithm into a computer. Even when you figure out the basic strategy ("it seems to be a neural net that responds to edges in a visual image and passes shape information along to the next module"), it turns out that the details are difficult (millions of years of evolution have adjusted the exact "weighting factors" to very specific values!).
Your implication is that the human mind cannot be reduced to a Turing machine. I am in the other camp--who believe that the mind is subject to rigorous physical law, and that physical law can be expressed arithmetically (in principle), and so the human mind is a Turing machine.
Godel's theorem says that a consistent arithmetic system will contain unprovable truths. Put otherwise, such a system cannot be both consistent and complete. Thus the Godel counterargument to Strong AI (that human minds and computers are not fundamentally different) is that humans (e.g. mathematicians) can prove things like Godel's theorem, so we are able to "rise above" the arithmetic and exist in states of full proof and full consistency.
But I think there is a flaw in that logic (note: I am not a mathematician). The theorem doesn't preclude that a given arithmetic system (e.g. human mind) will be able to prove a truth that a weaker system ignored. Thus our ability to see certain truths doesn't mean that there are not other truths that are unprovable to us.
More fundamentally, no one has actually shown that the human mind is either consistent or complete (proving both would be required to show that we are not subject to Godel's theorem). The human mind is a computational device evolved to solve real-world problems, like escaping predators, rather than contrived ones, like mathematical proofs. It is thus in fact likely to be an inconsistent (internally contradictory) computational system. The human mind may be incomplete and inconsistent.
I agree that "true AI" will require vastly more computer power, and much more sophisticated algorithms than we have today. But the emerging evidence, from what I've seen, is that "true AI" can be achieved, at least in principle, by a Turing machine.
Slashdot Mirror
Such cynicism is usually warranted. Big companies are out to make money, regardless of who they trample over in the process. So, whenever there is a big move by a big company, we must ask "who is getting trampled?"
The fact is, however, that OIN is a good thing. I think it's important to realize the significance of this: We have huge, powerful companies (IBM, Google, etc.) voluntarily participating in a project that protects FOSS and encourages the free distribution of innovative ideas and Free software. The answer to the obvious "why would these companies do something seemingly benevolent?" is that the FOSS community has done a good job of engineering the landscape that way.
Basically, the years of work by the FOSS community has created an environment where coming together and preventing patent threats against Free software is in the best interests of those big companies! The community (via legal things like the GPL, and less tangible things like "public outcry," boycotts, and "community spirit") have made it clear that business will only continue to benefit from the power and flexibility of FOSS if they play by certain rules. (Keep code open, keep software patents at bay.) The business sector has stepped up to the plate and is enforcing those FOSS requirements... not because they are benevolent, but because they recognize that the payback from the community will be "worth it."
So to those who still (in this day and age!) doubt that FOSS can be relevant to businesses, or that people can "make money from Free software"--let this be an obvious message. The free market has spoken... and it has said "This stuff has value, we want more of it, and we're prepared to do what it takes to protect your continued efforts at innovation."
This crucial win-win between FOSS and business is a result of the FOSS people having uncompromising requirements, and the business people being smart enough to see a great opportunity.
The summary is misleading... in particular the use of the word "illegal."
Automatix is a utility that automates the installation of a bunch of software that is considered "must have" for people just switching to Ubuntu. For instance, it installed Firefox, mplayer, wine, DVD playing software, and multimedia codecs. (Actually the installer would just give you a list of things you could install, you select the ones you want and click "next.")
I don't really understand why this is being characterized as "illegal software." The packages are already in the usual repositories. The utility would just automate the installation for you. If you live in a country where installing one of those packages is somehow illegal (is this actually the case?), then that's your responsibility. The tool is just an automator intended to ease the transition for new users. It really provides nothing above and beyond the standard packaging interface, except that it was easier (in some people's opinion) to tell new users "install automatix" rather than telling them to open the package manager and list the software they should install.
In any case, the whole argument seems rather pointless. Automatix was created a few years ago, at a time where installation of things like multimedia codecs was perhaps non-obvious. New users were flooding forums with repeated requests like "my mp3s don't play! why?" and "how can I play DVDs on this Ubuntu thing?" Automatix was created as a simple response to that.
In the meantime, Ubuntu has, from what I can tell, cleared up these issues. Installation of codecs is straightforward and pretty obvious. The package manager is very user friendly. In short, there is no need for Automatix. Basically, Automatix was an ugly hack. It's always been recognized as such, and developers have always discouraging people from using it. On the Ubuntu forums, the standard advice is no longer "install Automatix," since it is recognized to be a non-optimal solution.
So, in short... I think this issue has already passed us by.
In such an environment of unblocked creativity, my suspicion is that we would see work of higher quality. As you say, there would be competition on the creativity level. Exactly the opposite of the "artists will stop making quality art" theory that the pro-status-quo-copyright group would have us believe.
Bingo. You've hit upon exactly the model that I think would work... in fact the only realistic model in a world where copying is effectively free and effortless.
The best part is that in such a model you can still have middlemen. Imagine independent companies get set up to collect these donations. Like you have a "top 20 songs consortium," a "historic drama consortium," a "sci-fi consortium," and so on. So instead of sci-fi fans going to dozens of websites and adding to the tip-jar, they just pay a lump sum to the consortium of their choice, which then distributes the money to worthy sci-fi projects (and takes a cut for themselves, obviously). If consumers find that the consortium is doing a bad job (taking too big a cut, not funding good projects), then consumers will switch to paying directly to the things they care about, or funding a different consortium.
So, basically, you will have the consortiums fighting each other for our cash. This will tend to force them to be good at picking worthy projects to fund. They may even spend money on ads and so forth, convincing us to support them. That's all fine, because unlike the monopolies that exist now, they will actually have to compete with each other (since the flow of money is voluntary... that is, anyone can circumvent the consortiums if they are doing a bad job). Another type of middleman that would develop (or remain, rather), would be producers, who gather investment money for the thing to be made (movie, album, whatever), and of course set the "release price" at a level where the investors gets some return. The free market does its optimization thing, people make money, everyone is happy.
Of course there will be a certain 'free-rider' aspect, because some people will persistently wait for others to pay for content to be released. I say: so be it. We have plenty of free-riders now, and we're surviving. Some people are never going to want to contribute, no matter how hard you try and force them. Others will always be willing to pay for the things they care about... not just so that they have access, but so that everyone does.
I am not an economist, but it seems like it would work. For those of you who don't know, the project "A Swarm of Angels" is trying to do exactly this--they are trying to get 50,000 people to contribute £25 each, so as to produce a big-budget movie that will then be released under a creative commons license. Consider becoming a subscriber! (There are >1000 subscribers so far...)
This is why everyone should take note of the file-sharing debate. Though many people do not support the plight of the file-sharers (after all, they just want to watch content for free, don't they? cheap bastards!), I think what the file-sharers are going through is really a preview of what the "fair use" crowd is going to have to deal with a few years later, and what the general public will have to deal with a few years after that.
Right now the file-sharers are experiencing technical and legal roadblocks to doing what they want to do. The media companies are trying to expand this war, year by year, to include activities that were previously legal. (As Lawrence Lessig puts it, previously most actions related to media were presumptively legal... in a digital age we're now seeing most actions being presumptively illegal.) So whereas laws and technological restrictions may have been originally intended to stop file-sharing (and other "bad stuff") they will inevitably be expanded by the media companies to include things like "fair use" and other things which were previously presumptively allowed (listening to a purchased recording more than once... using the same copy of a recording in your home CD player and in your car...). These things are not even "fair use"... there was no name given to them because they were so obviously allowed! (But not anymore!)
Year by year it will get worse. You may not be breaking the law today... but don't worry, you'll be breaking the law soon enough... and it will cost you money to be "legit."
We need a model for production and distribution that gets away from this insane control and this slippery slope towards paying for every single minute fraction of "media" every single time we experience it. We need to look towards supporting creative commons, and actively reducing the scope of copyright. It should be possible to create a system where content creators are rewarded, but where the audience is not burdened. File sharing and payment to artists are not mutually exclusive.
Unless, of course, you like paying more and more for less and less.
[1] E.g. You don't have to buy a copy of content to exercise fair-use, like excerpts, etc.
[2] You don't have to pay taxes to have rights. Children, people who are unemployed, homemakers, and many other classes of people may not pay taxes but still have these rights.
Indeed. The suggestion that users will have to "listen to ads before placing a call" is wild speculation. Moreover, it's rather inconsistent with Google's usual methods. Of all the advertising sources I can think of, Google is the only one that does ads in a reasonable, elegant, and even useful way. They don't do popups and annoying flashing graphics. They tend towards text ads and high relevancy.
My guess would be that a Google-phone would have text ads put into it based on emails you're reading (just like Gmail), or things you are searching. When you're not receiving a call, it would maybe display text ads for nearby events or businesses (with location determined from cell tower or maybe just based on your registered home address). Alot of people use their cellphone to check the time, so they would see these ads. Such ads would be relatively non-intrusive. You could look at them if you wanted to, and ignore them otherwise.
I think actually quite a few people would be willing to get such a phone. The article speculates that only teenagers and others without enough money will be interested in an ad-supported phone. I think the demographic is larger than that. A certain fraction of the population can afford, but cannot justify the expense. (E.g. they make enough money, but don't really ~need~ a cellphone or wireless email.) For this demographic, an ad-supported phone would be very attractive. ("$60/month to check my email when I'm on the train? No way!.... Read a few ads while checking my email? Sure, why not!") Plus, plenty of people who now pay for cellphones think they are getting ripped off, and would be more than happy to have one less bill per month, even if it meant having ads on the phone.
The demographic exists, and there is a way to insert ads that will not be obnoxious. The part I'm not so sure about is whether people casually looking at ads is sufficiently valuable for advertisers to pay the usual network connection fees.
You make a cogent and persuasive point. As you say, a large part of our disagreement comes from balancing "personal rights" against "laws that preserve a greater good." And that balance is always difficult (and frequently nebulous).
I admit it is a "hard line" stance to say that the right to record anything I see is more important than economic concerns. I further admit that the only reason I take this stance is because of my inherent misgivings about copyright law itself. I don't see it as a law that protects the greater good very efficiently, and so I don't see transgressions against it as being all that bad. In particular, I think that when it comes to personal actions (recording what I see, modifying hardware I own, etc.), these should take priority over laws intended to protect the current economics of creative works (e.g. DMCA). So I question the laws themselves.
I don't like being treated like a criminal when I play a DVD in Linux (even though I guess I'm breaking the DMCA), and I wouldn't like being treated like a criminal for recording something I see happening.
Besides, the ethics, of course, is the pragmatic question of how useful such enforcement actually is. As with the DRM example, only one theater has to miss a camcorder (or accept a bribe), and the entire enforcement effort was wasted. The proliferation of bootlegs suggests that current enforcement is not effective (yet it still gets in the way of the lives of normal people). I don't think ever-stricter laws are an efficient way to deal with the perceived problem of widespread copyright infringement.
Yes this makes it harder to stop other crimes, but when it's personal liberties being pitted against corporate profits, I'm going to support the protection of liberties even if it means that companies lose a bit of money due to illegal actions. (In the same way that I'd rather have a guilty man go free than put an innocent man behind bars.)
Furthermore, with increasingly ubiquitous recording technology (built into laptops, phones, etc.), a rule against "recording devices in theaters" makes less and less sense.
Your message board analogy is correct, but only so far as the only problem we are trying to solve is the minority of trolls.
The problem is much bigger. There are patent trolls, but there are also well-meaning companies who get patents for things that they shouldn't (too obvious, etc.), and there is the ensuing escalation of patenting (if company X gets an obvious patent, then we need to file obvious patents also, to keep up and be defensive). In the view of many, the problem is not a minority of trolls or bogus patents, it's that the majority of patents are bogus, which buries the legitimate patents and creates a massive legal and economic burden all over society.
In your analogy, when a message board is over-run with trolls and worthless posts, such that it is difficult to even find the good content among all the fluff (basically every post gets accepted and promoted to the same visibility status), then yes a rethink of the entire message board structure is needed. Hence why slashdot has moderation. Only a small fraction of posts are considered "worthy."
Similarly, many of us believe the patent system is now so over-run with bad patents that it has be be thrown out, or at least wildly altered, so that the productive patents get the priority they deserve, whereas the massive number of bogus patents get ignored.
(So, the question comes down to a matter of degree... it all depends on what percent of patents you think are illegitimate.)
Well of course the "blurred line" won't appear when you counterpoint two extremes: short clips on the one hand (clearly fair use) versus distributing full copies to millions of people on the other hand (clearly copyright infringement, according to current laws).
However, your implication that there is no "blurred line" isn't fair. The example given in the summary is DJ Danger Mouse, who mixed two different works to create something totally original. The music labels said that this was "clearly infringement" whereas many artists and fans said this work was novel and original, and clearly something that should be allowed under fair use (whether or not it actually is fair use is for courts to decide, I suppose, but the arguments regarding copyright are not so much about what the law is, but rather what it should be). This is one case where there is disagreement about how to interpret the actions, hence a "blurred line."
Lawrence Lessig (in his books, blog entries, talks, etc.) provides many other examples of activities which straddle this line (e.g. a film-maker begin told to pay thousands of dollars because a Simpsons clip was playing in the background of one of the scenes in a documentary). Sometimes they are legal yet still legally persecuted by the big-labels. Sometimes they are illegal yet many people feel they are legitimate personal uses, or important creative uses. These fringe cases are very interesting.
Now, I have not watched the documentary under discussion, so I can't say whether they tackle these fringe cases in a thoughtful way. However, I can honestly say that there is a dangerous blurred line between what you are allowed to do according to "fair use" and what you are going to get in trouble for doing according to "copyright law." The fact that this line is so ill-defined is what leads to all the questionable lawsuits against artists and end-users... and to a chilling effect in the production of creative works (which Lessig worries about constantly).
I think, though, that there are lots of happy Mac users who are not "Mac zealots." As usual, though, the "zealots" (for lack of a better word) are inherently more vocal, and so there is a bias towards their viewpoints being represented. Thus a myth of "Mac zealotry" is formed, but it is based on a vocal minority. I would argue that the majority of Mac users have a reasonable, balanced view of Macs (though, presumably if they are using Mac they think it has some overall advantages).
It's the same thing with Linux, of course. There is this stereotype of Linux users being rabid zealots and evangelists. Although some Linux users fit that mold, I would argue it's actually a small percentage of the millions of Linux users out there. But, again, the more extreme users tend to be more vocal, and inherently gather more attention.
Frankly I get very tired of the constant over-generalizations about "Linux users" and "Mac users" and other types of "fanbois," because such statements completely ignore the selection effect inherent to only listening to the vocal users, rather than seeking out the opinion of the more moderate users as well.
Exactly. Google is upping the bid, because they know that they will be out-bid by the entrenched telcos that can't afford to lose that spectrum. If they call Google's bluff, Google will happily buy the spectrum for a few billion and make a killing. But, since the entrenched telcos will certainly continue out-bidding until they win, it's in Google's best interests to at least put some pressure on them to make the eventual spectrum a bit more open--that way Google can capitalize on that spectrum in some way. (A nice by-product is that this is way better for consumers.)
I'm not so naive as to think that Google is doing this for purely philanthropic reasons... however it's really nice to see a powerful company putting pressure on entrenched monopolies, with an end result that the people get high-quality, more fair access to a public resource.
Since this was one of his major complaints with Linux (and it's a valid one: six minutes is much too long to wait!), it seems like it's something that should be fixed ASAP if it is a widespread issue.
Though I don't agree with every single point he makes, I find the discussion remarkably fair and balanced. You'll notice, in fact, that the analysis mentions more than once than some of the problems encountered, or features available, would be there on any Linux distribution, not just the ones tested.
Yeah the users can probably circumvent it... but will they bother?
My impression is that most of the unauthorized clips on YouTube are put there by fans of the shows in question. They do it because it is easy and fun, and they want to share the thing they like with others. I don't think they will continue to bother if it becomes onerous to post the clips (requiring constant editing, posting, re-editing, re-posting, etc.). This is different from P2P networks, where once someone goes to the effort of making a nice copy, it can spread indefinitely. Because YouTube is a closed system, people will get bored with constantly over-coming it. (Or just get the content on P2P, where you can get full-length, full-quality versions.)
Of course, given that these clips are posted by enthusiastic fans, I really wonder why companies are so worried. It seems like they generate more ill-will than anything. From my random sampling, the number of full-length shows posted on YouTube has decreased significantly. What I see now are short clips from shows. I suppose someone who watches 20 random clips from Family Guy may be less inclined to buy the DVD ("I've seen all the best jokes!"), but I suspect the opposite: that it increases exposure and hence increases sales.
Anyways, my suspicion is that by making it annoying to post clips from shows, they will indeed succeed in decreasing the number of such clips. However I believe this will ultimately back-fire (from the point of view of the big media companies), because this will just make the huge YouTube viewer base switch to watching more "original YouTube" content, and the growing number of shows that actively post material on YouTube... with a corresponding decreased reliance on "old media" to fill our need for art and entertainment.
The new generation of academics have grown up with the internet and are accustomed to easy online access to every journal imaginable. As this generation takes over more academic positions, I think this intellectual freedom will spread. In short, I'm hopeful that academia will undergo a mini-renaissance and re-emphasize its roots of "spreading knowledge."
I use Google search, which is produced by Google Inc., a for-profit company. I use the search "for free," but then again I "pay" with my eyeballs, since the search pages have ads. This is a trade-off that I (and many others) are willing to make.
So why is it so crazy to think that users would be willing to participate in a search engine where you "pay" with your spare CPU cycles? If the search engine generates useful results, it seems like a fair trade-off for me.
I'm not sure what Wikia's business model is here. It's probably not ads, since it would be difficult to reliably enforce and bill an ad-pushing system using software that is open-source and a network that is peer-to-peer. Probably they hope that this will drive more traffic to Wikia projects, or somesuch.
But, ultimately, I don't see what's so crazy about a for-profit company and end users coming to a mutually beneficial agreement. I donate CPU cycles and bandwidth, and get access to search results. Sounds fair to me. If the result is useful and the terms-of-use not onerous, most users will happily use it.
I hope that clears things up!
The implication in your post was that the various arguments in the open-source community do more harm than good. I would argue just the opposite: although flamewars are not a good thing, overall the open debate that the open-source crowd engages in is a productive way to "get it right" and improve the state of the art. I should also note that despite the intensity of these debates, no one (that I'm aware of) actually takes them to the extreme of violence. At worst, people get their feelings hurt. I should also note that the egregious examples of flamewars and trolling are not unique to the FOSS movement--those trolls don't even care about the topic at hand, and just switch to some other "hot topic" when on another discussion board. You can't really blame FOSS for the universal existence of assholes.
Similarly, I just don't see the disagreement in space enthusiasts and scientists. They debate, sure... but that is precisely what is needed to determine optimal solutions. No... Avoiding debate is not the answer. I would rather argue that the mature thing to do is to not get overly emotional in the debates. Arguments are a good thing--that's how progress is made. Maturity is knowing how to think rationally in a debate, and to change your mind when others have presented compelling evidence or logic.
Where heated debate does sometimes arise is specifically in those instances where it is zero-sum: for instance when NASA is considering its budget, trying to decide how many dollars to spend on manned missions and how many dollars to spend on robotic missions. This heated debate is not usually conflict, but rather the very process by which scientific and technical consensus is reached. I'm not saying that there is no such thing as conflict in these domains, or that everyone always gets along... but I don't see massive ill-will, either. Most of the people debating want the same thing: expansion of knowledge.
TFA makes curious statements like: I'm no expert in the politics of space exploration... but who are these "interest groups" really? As far as I know, NASA pursues both manned and robotic missions... and so NASA is composed of people from both "interest groups." So, really, isn't NASA very much a "joint activity" between these "interest groups" ?? Everytime that NASA uses humans to effectuate repairs on automated space systems (e.g. Hubble), it is a joint activity between the human-exploration and robot-exploration projects.
So... where is this conflict of which TFA speaks?
The reason I mentioned the idea of a human mind operating based on "physical law" is that if you accept that a human mind/brain is a physical object, and operates based on physics that can be simulated, then I can build a powerful Turing machine, run a simulation of a brain, and that brain will exhibit all the meta-knowledge and insight that you attribute to humans. So if a Turing machine can exhibit all human insights, I argue that our minds must be Turing-machines, and not some other kind of machine.
Again, this is a subtle question that I'm perhaps not qualified to discuss... but my reading of Godel's theorem was not that it proved we were not Turing-machines... but rather that it proved that we are either incomplete or inconsistent (or both).
The field of evolutionary psychology is attempting to do just that: to deduce what algorithms are working in the human brain. One of the end-goals of such research is of course to be able to generate artificial versions of those algorithms. If you're interested in such things, Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" is a fantastic and accessible read. It describes how things like vision are optimized for environments we evolved from, and tend to fail when put in contrived situations (like optical illusions). It also tackles the "adaptive advantage" of having emotions, and so forth.
Of course, it's easier said than done to actually transplant a biological algorithm into a computer. Even when you figure out the basic strategy ("it seems to be a neural net that responds to edges in a visual image and passes shape information along to the next module"), it turns out that the details are difficult (millions of years of evolution have adjusted the exact "weighting factors" to very specific values!).
Your implication is that the human mind cannot be reduced to a Turing machine. I am in the other camp--who believe that the mind is subject to rigorous physical law, and that physical law can be expressed arithmetically (in principle), and so the human mind is a Turing machine.
Godel's theorem says that a consistent arithmetic system will contain unprovable truths. Put otherwise, such a system cannot be both consistent and complete. Thus the Godel counterargument to Strong AI (that human minds and computers are not fundamentally different) is that humans (e.g. mathematicians) can prove things like Godel's theorem, so we are able to "rise above" the arithmetic and exist in states of full proof and full consistency.
But I think there is a flaw in that logic (note: I am not a mathematician). The theorem doesn't preclude that a given arithmetic system (e.g. human mind) will be able to prove a truth that a weaker system ignored. Thus our ability to see certain truths doesn't mean that there are not other truths that are unprovable to us.
More fundamentally, no one has actually shown that the human mind is either consistent or complete (proving both would be required to show that we are not subject to Godel's theorem). The human mind is a computational device evolved to solve real-world problems, like escaping predators, rather than contrived ones, like mathematical proofs. It is thus in fact likely to be an inconsistent (internally contradictory) computational system. The human mind may be incomplete and inconsistent.
I agree that "true AI" will require vastly more computer power, and much more sophisticated algorithms than we have today. But the emerging evidence, from what I've seen, is that "true AI" can be achieved, at least in principle, by a Turing machine.