I haven't really looked into it so I'm not disagreeing with you...but does your observation take into account the fact that all of Skype's prices are in Euro's (not US cents)?
This is a false analogy. Notice how you injected "instead of buying it" into your second scenario. You are making the assumption that someone that downloads a record does so in place of buying it. I've downloaded lots of albums that I NEVER would have bought because I just wanted to see if I liked them. Most albums I download end up in my recyle bin because they suck. Personally, I would never buy an actual album unless I knew it was great by hearing the whole thing at a friend's house, on the radio, or otherwise. I won't buy 1 dollar lottery tickets because I don't like to gamble, but you expect me to buy $15 records that I may or may not like? Dream on buddy.
When you steal a physical piece of property (ie, a CD from Best Buy), it costs REAL money to produce that particular CD, distribute and ship it to Best Buy, make room for it on a shelf, and pay some teenager to man the registers to sell it to you. Stealing real CD's actually costs money.
When you download a digital copy of somethign from the internet (ex: 1's and 0's that string together to make musical sounds), it doesn't cost anyone anything (except what we pay for bandwidth and electricity). Unless you specifically planned on purchasing an album, but decided not to because you got it for free off the internet, you are not depriving the artists of any revenue. Am I a "thief" because I decide to read books instead of buying albums? After all, by buying books instead of buying albums, I am depriving the musician of his/her royalty...
The point is, stealing is different from copyright infringement. If you photocopy a book from the library so you can use it as a source in an essay, are you a thief? Nope, just a copyright violator.
This has nothing to do with honor by the way. It has to do with market forces attempting to find an equilibrium. Until music prices are drastically torn down from their artificially high (and absurd) levels, alot people are going to say "screw you record companies, I'll download it instead until you get your act togehter." It's sort of a form of civil disobedience. Hell, now that I'm old enough to be able to afford all the music I want, I still say "screw you record companies" because I refuse to be overcharged. I just don't think today's music is worth the money. I wouldn't be buying music today whether the internet existed or not, because it mostly sucks, and even the "good" stuff just doesn't seem worth 15 bucks compared to other means of entertainment (like video games, books, terrorism, the great outdoors, etc).
So, you say "dishonorable," I say "market adjustment."
Perhaps that's because the "vast majortiy" of computers run closed source software. As soon as 95% of the world uses open source operating systems, then we'll start comparing security.
Actually, when you really buy quickbooks, you get free tech support. Have your serial number handy though. But god knows what kind of problems you'll have. I've been running the newest versions of quickbooks pro for the last 10 years and I've never encountered any tech problems. Most "problems" people have aren't really technical. They just don't "get" the program, which is understandable because Intuit makes shitty software that masquerades as adware for all their other shitty services (Try setting up payroll in quickbooks without signing up for some other BS intuit service).
Man I hate Intuit, but I definately do not endorse not paying for the software by downloading it for free on the ed2k network using the search term "Quickbooks Pro 2005"...
I fail to see how this is about "control." Just because a company wants to join a market doesn't mean they can control it (unless they provide a vastly superior solution). When Honda watches Toyota create a successful hybrid car (the prius) and they start producing their own hybrid cars, I don't hear people screaming that honda wants to "control" the market like a bunch of "control freaks."
It's called competition, my friend, and competition drives prices down. That's good for the consumer, not bad.
I don't see how if you set up your IIS servers correctly you will succumb to dos attacks any more than if you used a *nix solution. Any server can be a victim of DoS attacks if you have not made proper precautions, or simply haven't invested in enough hardware or bandwidth. While I prefer *nix solutions for my web servers, I can easily make a windows machine just as secure...but there is nothing I can do about massive DoS attacks against either solution unless I'm willing to bone up the big bucks for more hardware and fatter pipes. IIS vs *nix is irrelevant with regard to DoS attacks. Both solutions will fail if you set them up poorly.
Yes, but that's not the direction VOIP will be taking. The whole point of VOIP is to use the "public" internet to reduce costs that a private networks entail.
(a) Chapter 2 of Title 1, United States Code, shall be amended by inserting at the end of the first sentence of Section 106, the following: "provided however, that no bill -- including, but not limited to, any bill produced by conference between the two houses of Congress and any bill or resolution extending, modifying, or otherwise affecting the expiration date of a bill previously passed and enacted into law by Congress -- shall pass either house of Congress: (a) without the full text of said bill, and the full text of each and every amendment thereto and -- if the bill or resolution extends, modifies, or in any way affects the expiration date of a bill previously passed and enacted into law -- without the full text of such bill or resolution and the full text of the bill previously passed and enacted into law having first been individually read verbatim by the Clerk of each house to the body of each house called to order and physically assembled with a quorum present throughout the time of the full textual reading of said bill, and of the full text of any bill previously passed and enacted into law, if any, that is the subject of a bill or resolution extending, modifying or in any way affecting the expiration date of such previously passed bill enacted into law; and (b) without the full text of said bill, and the full text of each and every amendment thereto, and the full text of the previously passed bill and enacted into law, if any, having been published verbatim on the official Internet web site of each house at least seven days prior to a final vote thereon in each house, together with an official notice of the date and time on which the vote on the final version of said bill and its amendments will take place."
(b) Chapter 2, Title 1, United States Code, shall be further amended by striking the last sentence of Section 106, and substituting therefor: "With respect to each bill and each and every amendment thereto, and each bill previously passed and enacted into law, the expiration date having been extended, modified or in any way changed by a bill or resolution, each house of Congress shall cause to be recorded in its journal of proceedings: (a) that the reading, printing, and publishing requirements of this section have been met; and (b) the names of those members of the Senate and of the House present during the reading of each bill and each and every amendment thereto. Each member of the Senate and each member of the House shall execute a sworn affidavit, such affidavit being executed under penalty of perjury as provided in Section 1621, Title 18, United States Code, that the member either was present throughout the entire reading of each bill, each and every amendment thereto, and listened attentively to such reading, or, prior to any vote on passage of the bill, and each and every amendment thereto, personally read attentively each bill, and each and every amendment thereto, in their entirety. Neither house of Congress, nor Congress jointly -- by concurrent resolution, or by unanimous consent, or by any other order, resolution, vote, or other means -- may dispense with, or otherwise waive or modify, the printing, reading, entry, publishing, recording, or affidavit requirements set forth herein."
(c) Chapter 2, Title 1, United States Code, shall be further amended by renumbering Sections 106a and 106b to 106b and 106c respectively and adding a new Section 106a as follows: "Enforcement Clause. No bill shall become law, nor enforced or applied as law, without Congress having complied fully with the printing, reading, entry, publishing, recording, and affidavit requirements of Section 106, Title 2, United States Code and any person against whom such a bill is enforced or applied may invoke such noncompliance
I don't think the poseters point was to make an argument proving open source's superiority. He was paraphrasing the article. But if you really want to be technical about it, the premises are that open source is superior, closed source is not, GPL makes open source less "open", therefore eliminating the GPL will make open source even more superior to closed source. It is NOT a flawed argument so long as you agree with the premises.
I agree with you. The entire "open" source movement is pretty damn closed in my opinion. Real open source is BSD, or even more, public domain. Telling people under the GPL what they can and can't do doesn't emenate with any openess in my book.
My question is: what does it matter? If it is the intention of a company to release a closed source product, they are going to do just that. Why does it matter whether the code inside their program is proprietary or open?
It just seems to me that GPL people aren't really interested in opening up their code, they are just interested in boxing everyone and everything into their rather closed ideology.
If you really wanted to open up your code, you would just release it to the public domain without any expectations whatsoever. That's what I do, and believe it or not, I get more business from companies asking me to customize it for them that I would if it were under some "open" license. As for everyone else that downloads it without so much as a thanks, I don't care. And why should I? At the end of the day, I'm helping people out unconditionally and helping to promote a REAL open source ideology. That's enough for me.
I'm baffled that so many of us have to keep repeating ourselves: There is a big difference between taking private property under "eminent domain" and using it for public use and taking private property and giving it to another private party. This is NOT covered under "eminent domain" and it is definately NOT allowed in the Constitution.
I hope I'm not the only one here that realizes that Mark Twain was being satirical when he wrote that piece. It was a joke people! Our language, even with its inconsistancies, is awesome. It is also known to be the language that boasts the most words (mostly because we borrow so many words from other languages), but still. I love English. And I know it's rather imperialistic of me, but I do hope it becomes ubiquitous in the future so we can all talk with each other.
Historically, too, almost nobody objected to the use of it to, for instance, build the interstate highway system or the railroad system, even though large parts of those were turned over to private companies (everyone from turnpike authorities to robber barons).
Historically, "almost nobody" objected to enslaving blacks, forcing children to work in factories for 14 hours a day, and not giving women a vote. Historically [some moronic behavior] was legal, but now because we've progressed, that [moronic behavior] is now outlawed.
I think any rational "sane" person knows that it is no one's right, least of all the government's, to take away YOUR property so that it can boost tax revenues! F you and your "historical"/backwoods interpretation of MY rights. If you want to give away your property to the government for what they consider "reasonable" compensation, then be my guest. As for the rest of us, we feel property ownernship and our freedom to own it without fear of it being stolen from us by big brother is far more reasonable than the unjust determinations made by corporate pawns masquerading as "justices" for the supreme court.
That's just wrong. I happen to agree with you that these transfers to private parties should be illegal, but having the Court make that change would a horrible example of what the neocons call "activist judges".
The supreme court was intituted specifically so they could make changes or completely reverse unjust laws or misinterpretations of laws! They are supposed to make sure that all laws passed by congress or states do not contradict the Constitution, and giving away someone's private property to another private party is a clear violation of the constitution, and if I may say so, is sickening. What is even more sickening is that there wasn't a unaninimous decision against these unconstitutional laws. I'm even more flabergasted with this ruling than I was with the Grokster case.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
I agree that it should offend everyone, but it is usually only the Libertarians that ever actually do something about protecting people's freedoms unconditionally. By this I mean, it is Libertarians that will protect your personal and economic freedoms. Democrats and Republicans usually only support one brand of "freedom", and they do a piss poor job at that.
Anyone that knows and understands the 9th and 10th ammendments is a friend of mine.
With regard to 9 & 10, almost every law passed by congress violates them. Since I get to dream, while we change how the supreme court justices are appointed, I'd also like a constitutional ammendment added that actively enforces the Constitution and punishes all politicians that violate or attempt to violate any of the ammendments by prosecuting them for treason.
While I can see how you might draw this conclusion, let me clarify a few key differences:
First of all, real businesses have to compete with each other (as long as the government doesn't give a particular business special priveledges, subsidies, etc). The government doesn't have to compete. Governments are the only real monopolies in the world. I define a "real" monopoly as an entity that increases prices, increases inefficiency, increases its market share and power...but doesn't have to be accountable for any of its failures (failure being a government's defining characteristic). When a businessman fails, he is fired or made irrelevant by a better competing businessman. When a politician fails, he not only doesn't get fired, he asks for more money and usually gets it!
Secondly, and this is really a corollary of the first point about competition, businesses offer choices, whereas governments use coercion. With businesses, you have the choice to buy a product or service. With government, you HAVE to buy (pay taxes) and obey their laws. Governments use force, businesses use marketing and persuasion.
So no, government is not business. It may be run like a business (a very very bad one that would be bankrupt before it even started), but governments are definately not businesses. And until I can choose whether or not to pay taxes it will never be a business.
I was pretty amused by being tagged flamebait as well, but I just figured it was because alot of people that visit this site are socialists/communists etc that don't understand what freedom really means. I almost stopped visiting this site because of this fact, but then I read a few really intelligent comments by some logical thinkers that overshadowed all the absurdity and lended the situation some hope.
It's good to discuss these things I think, because at the very least, it might give people with more flexible minds the ammunition necessary to begin caring about how much power they are willing to give the government, and how much freedom they are willing to give away.
I for one am not going to blindly accept that companies should be allowed to tie up my tax money in the courtroom simply because their marketing or business model is secondary to their chief competitor. The free market rules, and the less interference by the government, the better it is for consumers. Let businesses compete! Let the consumer choose! Leave the goddamned government out of it, I say. The government has NEVER given me anything that a business in the free market couldn't give me cheaper, faster, and better.
I hate to state the obvious...but you should have some fun doing a google search for MAME and dozens of other emulators out there. If you're into eMule, you can find EVERY MAME, atari, NES, SNES, etc rom in the known universe. I personally have over 10,000, yes 10,000 MAME games on one of my computers. A friend of mine has even converted an old arcade stand into a MAME machine that can play thousands of MAME and NES games.
If you have the internet, you can have everything.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent. I'll keep using skype then. I love it when other people do my research for me. Thanks.
I agree. As an professional industrial spy, this is exactly what I do.
I haven't really looked into it so I'm not disagreeing with you...but does your observation take into account the fact that all of Skype's prices are in Euro's (not US cents)?
When you steal a physical piece of property (ie, a CD from Best Buy), it costs REAL money to produce that particular CD, distribute and ship it to Best Buy, make room for it on a shelf, and pay some teenager to man the registers to sell it to you. Stealing real CD's actually costs money.
When you download a digital copy of somethign from the internet (ex: 1's and 0's that string together to make musical sounds), it doesn't cost anyone anything (except what we pay for bandwidth and electricity). Unless you specifically planned on purchasing an album, but decided not to because you got it for free off the internet, you are not depriving the artists of any revenue. Am I a "thief" because I decide to read books instead of buying albums? After all, by buying books instead of buying albums, I am depriving the musician of his/her royalty...
The point is, stealing is different from copyright infringement. If you photocopy a book from the library so you can use it as a source in an essay, are you a thief? Nope, just a copyright violator.
This has nothing to do with honor by the way. It has to do with market forces attempting to find an equilibrium. Until music prices are drastically torn down from their artificially high (and absurd) levels, alot people are going to say "screw you record companies, I'll download it instead until you get your act togehter." It's sort of a form of civil disobedience. Hell, now that I'm old enough to be able to afford all the music I want, I still say "screw you record companies" because I refuse to be overcharged. I just don't think today's music is worth the money. I wouldn't be buying music today whether the internet existed or not, because it mostly sucks, and even the "good" stuff just doesn't seem worth 15 bucks compared to other means of entertainment (like video games, books, terrorism, the great outdoors, etc).
So, you say "dishonorable," I say "market adjustment."
Perhaps that's because the "vast majortiy" of computers run closed source software. As soon as 95% of the world uses open source operating systems, then we'll start comparing security.
Well, I already knew about it, but still, I found your post informative. I hope it gets modded as such.
Man I hate Intuit, but I definately do not endorse not paying for the software by downloading it for free on the ed2k network using the search term "Quickbooks Pro 2005"...
It's called competition, my friend, and competition drives prices down. That's good for the consumer, not bad.
I don't see how if you set up your IIS servers correctly you will succumb to dos attacks any more than if you used a *nix solution. Any server can be a victim of DoS attacks if you have not made proper precautions, or simply haven't invested in enough hardware or bandwidth. While I prefer *nix solutions for my web servers, I can easily make a windows machine just as secure...but there is nothing I can do about massive DoS attacks against either solution unless I'm willing to bone up the big bucks for more hardware and fatter pipes. IIS vs *nix is irrelevant with regard to DoS attacks. Both solutions will fail if you set them up poorly.
Yes, but that's not the direction VOIP will be taking. The whole point of VOIP is to use the "public" internet to reduce costs that a private networks entail.
That's true. But I think the issue was littering. if you throw out a candy wrapper, 10K is excessive.
From Draft Legislation:
I don't think the poseters point was to make an argument proving open source's superiority. He was paraphrasing the article. But if you really want to be technical about it, the premises are that open source is superior, closed source is not, GPL makes open source less "open", therefore eliminating the GPL will make open source even more superior to closed source. It is NOT a flawed argument so long as you agree with the premises.
I agree with you. The entire "open" source movement is pretty damn closed in my opinion. Real open source is BSD, or even more, public domain. Telling people under the GPL what they can and can't do doesn't emenate with any openess in my book.
It just seems to me that GPL people aren't really interested in opening up their code, they are just interested in boxing everyone and everything into their rather closed ideology.
If you really wanted to open up your code, you would just release it to the public domain without any expectations whatsoever. That's what I do, and believe it or not, I get more business from companies asking me to customize it for them that I would if it were under some "open" license. As for everyone else that downloads it without so much as a thanks, I don't care. And why should I? At the end of the day, I'm helping people out unconditionally and helping to promote a REAL open source ideology. That's enough for me.
I'm baffled that so many of us have to keep repeating ourselves: There is a big difference between taking private property under "eminent domain" and using it for public use and taking private property and giving it to another private party. This is NOT covered under "eminent domain" and it is definately NOT allowed in the Constitution.
I hope I'm not the only one here that realizes that Mark Twain was being satirical when he wrote that piece. It was a joke people! Our language, even with its inconsistancies, is awesome. It is also known to be the language that boasts the most words (mostly because we borrow so many words from other languages), but still. I love English. And I know it's rather imperialistic of me, but I do hope it becomes ubiquitous in the future so we can all talk with each other.
You couldn't have phrased it more accurately or with more entertainment value. Thank you!
Historically, "almost nobody" objected to enslaving blacks, forcing children to work in factories for 14 hours a day, and not giving women a vote. Historically [some moronic behavior] was legal, but now because we've progressed, that [moronic behavior] is now outlawed.
I think any rational "sane" person knows that it is no one's right, least of all the government's, to take away YOUR property so that it can boost tax revenues! F you and your "historical"/backwoods interpretation of MY rights. If you want to give away your property to the government for what they consider "reasonable" compensation, then be my guest. As for the rest of us, we feel property ownernship and our freedom to own it without fear of it being stolen from us by big brother is far more reasonable than the unjust determinations made by corporate pawns masquerading as "justices" for the supreme court.
That's just wrong. I happen to agree with you that these transfers to private parties should be illegal, but having the Court make that change would a horrible example of what the neocons call "activist judges".
The supreme court was intituted specifically so they could make changes or completely reverse unjust laws or misinterpretations of laws! They are supposed to make sure that all laws passed by congress or states do not contradict the Constitution, and giving away someone's private property to another private party is a clear violation of the constitution, and if I may say so, is sickening. What is even more sickening is that there wasn't a unaninimous decision against these unconstitutional laws. I'm even more flabergasted with this ruling than I was with the Grokster case.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
I think it's about that time.
I agree that it should offend everyone, but it is usually only the Libertarians that ever actually do something about protecting people's freedoms unconditionally. By this I mean, it is Libertarians that will protect your personal and economic freedoms. Democrats and Republicans usually only support one brand of "freedom", and they do a piss poor job at that.
With regard to 9 & 10, almost every law passed by congress violates them. Since I get to dream, while we change how the supreme court justices are appointed, I'd also like a constitutional ammendment added that actively enforces the Constitution and punishes all politicians that violate or attempt to violate any of the ammendments by prosecuting them for treason.
At the very least, I'd like to dramatically slow down the rate with which politicians can violate the Constitutional Ammendments by forcing them to read all the laws they try to pass
First of all, real businesses have to compete with each other (as long as the government doesn't give a particular business special priveledges, subsidies, etc). The government doesn't have to compete. Governments are the only real monopolies in the world. I define a "real" monopoly as an entity that increases prices, increases inefficiency, increases its market share and power...but doesn't have to be accountable for any of its failures (failure being a government's defining characteristic). When a businessman fails, he is fired or made irrelevant by a better competing businessman. When a politician fails, he not only doesn't get fired, he asks for more money and usually gets it!
Secondly, and this is really a corollary of the first point about competition, businesses offer choices, whereas governments use coercion. With businesses, you have the choice to buy a product or service. With government, you HAVE to buy (pay taxes) and obey their laws. Governments use force, businesses use marketing and persuasion.
So no, government is not business. It may be run like a business (a very very bad one that would be bankrupt before it even started), but governments are definately not businesses. And until I can choose whether or not to pay taxes it will never be a business.
It's good to discuss these things I think, because at the very least, it might give people with more flexible minds the ammunition necessary to begin caring about how much power they are willing to give the government, and how much freedom they are willing to give away.
I for one am not going to blindly accept that companies should be allowed to tie up my tax money in the courtroom simply because their marketing or business model is secondary to their chief competitor. The free market rules, and the less interference by the government, the better it is for consumers. Let businesses compete! Let the consumer choose! Leave the goddamned government out of it, I say. The government has NEVER given me anything that a business in the free market couldn't give me cheaper, faster, and better.
Homage to Contra 3
Seven reasons why Xbox can suck it
If you have the internet, you can have everything.