As much as I love Gnome and its friendly rival KDE, I dislike how bloated it has become. It seems to tax my machine more than
parliament (a little joke). I cried when I found my machine was running better under Win2000 than it was under Mandrake (I personally have switched to
DSL
) . Now, I am hardly advertising that to use a windows manager such as Fluxbox or IceWM would be the most intelligent alternative, since a lot of the 'bloat' in these window managers are features which makes said windows manager easier for those new to linux. But something has to be done; along the lines of a group to go through the source, and throwing-out weight. Removing redundant code, unnecessary code, and getting rid of as many memory-hogging resources as possible. What I am advocating is a 'slim-fast' project, to try to modify KDE or gnome to the point that it is smaller, faster, and yet still useable by Linux newbies. A true challenge, and just as important as adding features. Remember the Soviet stance in technology - The more complex an object, the more likely it is to fail.
The prospect of apple computers creating its own record label is hardly far fetched. The only way for apple, or anyone else for that mater, to make a profit in this industry is to create its own label, and sign its own artists. If an artist is given the choice of signing over all its rights to the RIAA or Foreign equivalent - which will offer an instant pay out of a fraction of the sales the music is likely to generate, or signing a record exclusively to apples ilabel - which will pay it by sale of song, what will the artist choose?
From an economic perspective, the parent seems quite insightful. I for one am willing to wager that within the next five years apple will release its own publishing label, to combat the high fees that they are forced to pay by the recording industry. As long as Apple plays the music game, its got to play by the rules. That means it has to pay to a label, and to the artist, and still charge enough to make enough money to support itself. Now, Allofmp3.com is a great place, but its far from legal. And it hardly "supports" the artists that "contributes" to the network. It has about as much legitimacy as the original Napster, but with a provisional phony sense of moral righteousness because you are 'paying' for it.
Apple would most defiantly increase its sales if it reduces its price, thats basic economics. But you do have to take in to account that they still need to pay their costs. Servers, bandwidth, pay-outs, employees, etc. The only way that they would be able to maintain the same income-per-song is if they found a way to reduce the cost per song. With the amounts given, they would have to either reduce employ pay, find a way to dramatically reduce power consumption, or find a way to pay less money to the RIAA. If apple started its own label, everything published under it will be $.50 cents less. The backlog of $.99 songs will still be there, but hopefully it will have a negative growth as more people start to use apple exclusive publication.
This is a change towards the destabilization, and eventual destruction, of the RIAA and similar institutions. This will eventually evolve with the consumer crazes, to incorporate coffee-shops and other places to have public terminals, where people can download music into a file, pay for it, and have the machine press a high quality CD/load into favorite format for sinking to favored portable music player. To summarize, it is a brave new world coming.
*Sigh* And now the realization of this improbability sets in. Still, if you see the logic in this argument, then the parent is entitled to as much support as this is.
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As much as I love Gnome and its friendly rival KDE, I dislike how bloated it has become. It seems to tax my machine more than parliament (a little joke). I cried when I found my machine was running better under Win2000 than it was under Mandrake (I personally have switched to DSL ) .
Now, I am hardly advertising that to use a windows manager such as Fluxbox or IceWM would be the most intelligent alternative, since a lot of the 'bloat' in these window managers are features which makes said windows manager easier for those new to linux. But something has to be done; along the lines of a group to go through the source, and throwing-out weight. Removing redundant code, unnecessary code, and getting rid of as many memory-hogging resources as possible.
What I am advocating is a 'slim-fast' project, to try to modify KDE or gnome to the point that it is smaller, faster, and yet still useable by Linux newbies. A true challenge, and just as important as adding features. Remember the Soviet stance in technology - The more complex an object, the more likely it is to fail.
The prospect of apple computers creating its own record label is hardly far fetched. The only way for apple, or anyone else for that mater, to make a profit in this industry is to create its own label, and sign its own artists. If an artist is given the choice of signing over all its rights to the RIAA or Foreign equivalent - which will offer an instant pay out of a fraction of the sales the music is likely to generate, or signing a record exclusively to apples ilabel - which will pay it by sale of song, what will the artist choose?
From an economic perspective, the parent seems quite insightful. I for one am willing to wager that within the next five years apple will release its own publishing label, to combat the high fees that they are forced to pay by the recording industry. As long as Apple plays the music game, its got to play by the rules. That means it has to pay to a label, and to the artist, and still charge enough to make enough money to support itself. Now, Allofmp3.com is a great place, but its far from legal. And it hardly "supports" the artists that "contributes" to the network. It has about as much legitimacy as the original Napster, but with a provisional phony sense of moral righteousness because you are 'paying' for it.
Apple would most defiantly increase its sales if it reduces its price, thats basic economics. But you do have to take in to account that they still need to pay their costs. Servers, bandwidth, pay-outs, employees, etc. The only way that they would be able to maintain the same income-per-song is if they found a way to reduce the cost per song. With the amounts given, they would have to either reduce employ pay, find a way to dramatically reduce power consumption, or find a way to pay less money to the RIAA. If apple started its own label, everything published under it will be $.50 cents less. The backlog of $.99 songs will still be there, but hopefully it will have a negative growth as more people start to use apple exclusive publication.
This is a change towards the destabilization, and eventual destruction, of the RIAA and similar institutions. This will eventually evolve with the consumer crazes, to incorporate coffee-shops and other places to have public terminals, where people can download music into a file, pay for it, and have the machine press a high quality CD/load into favorite format for sinking to favored portable music player. To summarize, it is a brave new world coming.
*Sigh* And now the realization of this improbability sets in. Still, if you see the logic in this argument, then the parent is entitled to as much support as this is.