#3 is bullshit, since it more depends on the definition of a right, not on the definition of theft itself.
Using the logic that ignoring someone elses artificial (its not natural nor consensual, remember) "right" on something _you_ already possess you then could also argue that William Wallace was "stealing" when he refused to hand over his wife to get fucked by the english occupying forces who installed themselves an exclusive artificial right "ius primae noctis". Also a slave running away from his owner would be "stealing" because the slave obviously does not have the "right" to run away. Marital infidelity also could be "stealing" of someones exclusive "sex right" in jurusdictions where extramarital sex is not allowed.
The right to share information with other people is inherent, it doesnt have to be explicitely granted. Like your right to have sex. You dont first need somebody to "allow" you to have it. The right you think of, the copyright, is not a real right, but a _removal_ of other peoples rights to freely exchange information (or bodily fluids) with each other, ie a communication ban, i.e. censorship. Ignoring censorship "rights" isn't stealing, no matter how much you'd like to call it so.
> The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games > and people who don't buy games.
Thats what always puzzled my about filesharing haters: Why _do_ some of them bother at all, if they make enough money, that somwhere on the other side of the world, maybe also on some other planet, two people he never knew and will never know shared their stuff?
> accept that you're a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.
And promptly, he delivers the answer himself. Just another delusionist trying to shoehorn the planet into his business model. Copying a piece of information from your neighbor is not a theft. Yes, you do get something for nothing, but thats the whole freaking point of a copying machine. Endless supply for everybody. It does not automatically imply (although he would undoubtely like the thought) that you suddendly owe the creator of the original "as if" the piece was a physical product which cost money to produce. You first have to bend your mind heavily, internalize this "as if" concept almost religiously (which happens automatically if "as if" would make you money) in order to overlook the difference. The copying machine works only one way. Yet, the delusionists still think that the money (i.e. the wealth) they should get in exchange for providing input pieces to the copying machine has either to be multiplied at the same rate (i.e. an astronomical one, no less), or else the copying machine has to be smashed in order to _not_ bring wealth to everybody.
"after 20 years of experiment, practically all arguments are now against the internet."
The quote (that didnt fit into the subject line) is a conclusion from a recent article by one of germanys largest newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine), which is usually known for lobbying heavily for tougher IP laws. I always knew our grandgrandgrandfathers were right back then! General Ludd was the man! Lets finally get breaking some damn copying machines again!
>At least in apt-based distros (e.g. Ubuntu and Debian) it's perfectly possible to install >any version of a package that you want.
It is only possible to install _any_ version thats been packaged for the installed version of the distribution, which automatically excludes packages from the previous distribution or packages newer than the distribution, since application updates usually go into the next version only.
>You can then set that package up to always be kept at that version if you wish.
This is keeping something you already have installed. Big deal. The problems come in when you want something from previous versions of the distribution or something newer than the distribution what hasnt been backported.
>most distributions that have a Long Term Support release will have a simple mechanism for >installing newer versions of important packages via a backports repository.
If backporting is done systematically, and you dont have to hope every time that "anybody has maybe just done it", then it is a good beginning. How long does a LTS usually provide backports of never application versions?
It only works if somebody happened to have prepared a backport for the application you look for. If nobody did, youre out of luck. There is no systematic and continuous backporting done, and also backports tend to disappear at the whim of the repository owner, there is no systematic archiving of backports. In the end it boild down on either having luck with someones private backport, or, again, having to update the whole system and all other installed applications.
In the fact that I still have to find an application I cant install under XP three years after Vista came out. With Linux this in general does not work because the underlying dependencies change too often and too much.
>Seriously, that's a load of FUD.
No way.
>I've had far, far less trouble getting old/obsolete software to run on new versions of Linux
You may have had no trouble, but without a proper package built and available for the new version and for the new dependencies, the Windows convert from our example would absolutely be out of luck.
>or new software to run on old/obsolete distributions of Linux than on Windows.
Absolute bullshit. Theres no way you could run anything from Debian v.N on Debian v.N-1 without total breakage.
> Saying that "...there will be no way to install any older versions..." is just wrong.
I was primarily saying that its a problem for _newer_ versions. With older versions it may work between two ubuntu releases, but I wouldnt hold my breath for anything with 2-3 years time difference. For comparison, on Windows (XP/Vista), I'm installing 15 years old applications without any problem.
The Linux ecosystem is changing damn too fast, faster than many users can bear. This may be exciting from a developer point of view, but it absolutely kills it for non-technical users and Windows converts. I would like to be able to talk people I know into Linux, but I cant, because of the backlash which would hit me sooner or later when they find out how tightly application versions are tied to and dependent on the underlying system/distribution and that the only way to update any single application is only by upgrading the whole system.
I and the GP were not talking about ourselves, but about possible Windows converts trying out linux first time.
>Or you could run a LTS of Ubuntu if you care about that?
Which means no way to install an newer application comming out after the LTS.
> Or compile your own local packages if you want different versions?
No Windows convert is going to do that and I dont like it either since theres no nice and clean way to uninstall them.
> Or use backports if you want to upgrade just a few packages?
Theres no "standard" (i.e. endorsed by the distribution) way to install backports, so anything you do is at your own risk. Again, not something you really would tell a Windows convert to have to do.
> Or, most importantly, don't run a stable distro if you don't want to run a stable distro.
So which one would you recommend a Windows convert then? And when you cant official "stable" distributions to Windows converts, what the heck are they then good for?
>That said, the upgrade process is quite painless (as is Windows update (including SPs) >and Mac OS X's system update). I really don't see the issue.
The issue is you _have_ to update the whole system (all applications) and get used to any changes in the system just to update one single application.
The fact that application versions are so tightly tied to system versions on Linux in general absolutely sucks. Upgrading and downgrading single applications is a pain in the ass, or practically impossible. If youre talking somebody into Linux, sooner or later he WILL find this out, and then you practically only have to hope that he is so clueless that he either never updates anything or doesnt mind his applications changing every few months without him having any say on this.
>They had a chance to explore yesterday and said they liked it so much better than Windows >it wasn't funny.
I'll bet you forgot to tell them that a few months down the road he will have no way to install an up-to-date application unless he updates the whole system. And that he will have to update (aka reinstall) the whole system every few months, since thats the usual duration his applications officially are up to date.
Free Software is usually nice and all, and I'm using it exclusively on my desktops, but inability to install newer or older software on "stable" distributions kills it for Windows converts. You really can not talk someone into linux with a calm conscience without warning him that his system is considered "obsolete" by application makers the moment its published and a new development cycle has begun, and that there will be no way to install any older versions he might be got used to.
The less-cool effects of filesharing are by far outweighted by the cool effects of filesharing.
Filesharing is a product of technological advance. As every other technical advance before that, it has a negative effect on people whose business model comprised manual production of a certain product.
That way you also can write lengthy articles seemingly fraught with meaning about the less-cool effects of refrigerators, which made thousands of hard-working and family-feeding ice-collectors and ice-sellers unemployed. You could write about the less-cool effects of mechanized looms, which made hundreds of thousands unemployed and left to starving in the 19th century. In general, you could write general pamphlets against any kind of automatisation technology since it makes manual work not needed any more.
But in the end, you also will have to face the fact that you wont in any way be able to stop and wind back the clock of time and that the general market for "copies" of any kind has ended. With today's technology, we can replicate and distribute works of any kind ourselves and do not need you and your services any more. As somebody here said, "today, we are all printers". It may be true that in such a society there will be less new content created in total, but with free filesharing, we all will have access to more total content. The sole fact that you created something does not give you any kind of imaginary right to control how people will use it and how often they will copy and share it with other people. Also we people do not in any way grant you such rights, absolutely acknowledging that you may stop creating and publishing new works. We simply value our god given rights to free speech and free echange of information and culture than your imaginary, artificial rights to censor such natural human behavior in order to give you an incentive to "increase production".
The age of artificial scarcity and for-profit censorship has ended.
Enter the age of sharing and caring. Don't worry. It's going to be alright.:-)
We're not touching them directly by sharing information amongst each other. But it happens that their business is based on artificially enforced scarcity, and is thus touched by the simple fact of nature that free information sharing removes scarcity among the people.
So your proposal basically amounts to "Do whatever they say, even if it is surrendering to large scale for-profit censorship without a slightest kind of opposition, or else." Stalin would be proud.
If youre living in europe, go out and vote for your local Pirate Party this summer in the european elections.
If youre motivated, become a paying/donating member. If youre even more motivated, donate your spare time and become a Pirate party activist, talk to people in streets, get them to care, get them to vote.
We cant win if we're state-forced to play by media industry financed/bought rules and laws. The current worldwide situation regarding copyright and for-profit censorship is absolutely unsatisfactory. The reason for this is the organisation and funding advantage the media industry has over ordinary citizens. This way, they are able to simply buy laws we as citizens then have to abide, laws designed to make them money. Its ridiculous but it works simply for the fact that they are waaaay more organized and ruthless than us.
So whatever you do, get fucking organized. Not locally, large fucking scale.
The pirate party (at least in europe, where we have a actually working multi party system, sorry US) is one possible way to reach a meaningful state of organisation, if you have a better solution, spread the word.
> Every story concerning piracy takes the pirates POV
Common sense suggests to, since "wait until purchase" or "true fan waits" both belong in the same cheerless category as it's namesakes "wait until marriage" and "true love waits", namely antiquated, ivory-tower bullshit ideology.
> every criticism of thepiratebay is brushed aside
Maybe because 99% of all criticism of thepirate bay (including yours) amount to nothing more than different forms of "ceterum censeo piratbayem esse delendam".
> given up all pretence of being 'news for nerds'
> now top stories are new hollywood movies, > complete with +5 modded links to copyrighted material.
If you were a real nerd, you would instinctively know that this literally IS "stuff that matters".
> What exactly is the "absurdly archaic 50's business model" you're referring to?
Making the natural usage of computers and networks (passing information and content) artificially (without actual public support) illegal in order to simulate the 50's content distribution.
> If nobody wants to pay for digital copies, that's fine too, but they'd have to say > goodbye to a very large group of creative enterprises.
I and large, large parts of the public are obviously ready to say goodbye to parts of the creative enterprises which business models rely exclusively on enforcement of artificial scarcity and for-profit censorship.
> but it wouldn't exist in the first place without support from my customers.
So find out a non-forceful way to get their support. If you can't, they obviously do not _want_ to support you, fully knowing that you wont be able to continue your art.
> How does this help the freedom of artistic expression you seem to be advocating?
Arguing against large-scale censorship, lawsuits and mass punishments of people who use their computers for what they're designed for doesnt have to do anything _at all_ with your freedom to express yourself. Youre confusing funding and freedom of expression. All I'm arguing for is, that if you can get funding for your art without relying on means of goverment-sponsored network-surveillance, censorship and mass punishments, the better for you. If you cant, better quit because it wont work in the long run, because most people value their freedom to share information and communicate freely more than the commercial viability of someones censorship-based business model.
It assumes that, since exchange of information, learning from each other, passing on of culture, sharing things you like with people you like and P2P-ing have been basic human deeds and activities from the beginning of time, they are moral by nature. Since filesharing is nothing more than an electronically amplified form of the above, it can not become morally wrong for the sole fact that someones business model (manufacturing and selling single copies of stuff like it were biscuits) based on yesterday's scarcity, breaks down today when that kind of scarcity is overcome.
Artificial scarcity, like in "you must not use your own copy machine and must pretend you didnt have one in order for someone else's yesterday's copying-based business model can still work like it were still needed" is for-profit censorship (aka ban on information exchange), on a wide scale.
> and if the rest of society thinks that it is a crime
Thats ok, since my whole point is that it actually doesn't. Only the written letter of the law does, but since it is, at least in the case of copyright, that much detached from the actual sense of right and wrong of the society around me, i do not at all have a moral urge to feel bound by it.
> artists still have to make a living to continue to make art.
And its still their job to find out how to do that. Back in the 50s, they were able to sell copies of stuff, since copying was hard. In 2009, neither copying nor distribution is hard any more, so people make their copies themselves and distribute them. If the artist completely used to rely on selling copies to make a living, he now has to adapt. IF he refuses to, he'll have to go flip burgers.
> You seem to think all the people out there illegally copying files are somehow noble
Nope, never implied that.
> and if they liked it, pay the perform(s) > or if they didn't like it, delete it never view it again.
Also never said that.
> 1) don't have permission to copy
We dont have to ask for a permission to exchange informaiton and share stuff. Everybody who thinks that, like you seem to, is mistaken.
> 2) have not paid
Since i do the copying and the distribution myself, i dont have to pay.
> 3) and are NOT exercising Fair Use
I am excercising Fair Use which _I_ defined.
> Committing a crime
I dont consider it to be a crime.
> Stealing from the artist and those who have invested money in producing/distributing > the thing you want to copy
Copying stuff and sharing information with other people is not stealing, no matter how much youd like it to be.
> Removing incentive for the producers to renew the artist due to reduced sales
Their problem. (You know, you and they can still go flip burgers if you cant cope with the fact that we have 2009 and practically everybody learned how to use a networked computer.)
> If you think differently,
Which I do
> then you have the ethics of a common thief
But I have the luck that its not you laying out our ethics code.
> and I'd love to see you in jail wedded to Bubba the ass fucker.
Since you have to call for physical violence and violent anal rape of anybody who doesnt agree to your ageing ideology, you lose.
> ripping off artists so that leeches don't have to pay for their work.
Dude. Come. Fucking. On. We have 2009. Everybody and their dog has a computer, which is designed to copy stuff. Also we have broadband which is, again, designed to... move stuff around the world. So is what youre actually pointlessly advocating is that we collectively should... actually what? Abstain from using a common technology in order to make absurdly archaic 50's business models of "manufacturing and selling single copies" viable in day and age when everybody _can_ manufacture and distribute those copies themselves? Yawn.
If you and your fellow artists cannot bear the thought of your works becomming part of our culture and shared with other people, then stop producing and publishing them. If you cant manage to make money from the fact that people actually like your works and actively share them with their friends, go flip burgers, maybe thats where your real talent lies. However, wide-scale censorship, which is what you and your likes are proposing all the fucking time, wont work, so forget that idea really fast.
> I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution.
Because it renders their centuries-old theories of god's active engagement on earth pretty redundant and makes the contents of their holy human-centeric scriptures eqally wrong and redundant. Humans got their special staus only because of the claim that god personally created them and that they were specifically created to be god-like. Any removal of fucus from the humans during the creation, as evolution practically does, questions the strict focus on humans in the scriptures.
Since the teachings of their scriptures usually claim to be absolute and infailable, making them redundant in one matter (THE essential point) weakens the claim of infailability in all other matters.
If it cant be shown that neither the time of apperance nor the looks of todays humans was in any way predetermined by god and was thus pure chance, this implies that humans are in no way "gods plan" and gods preferred species on earth, which is what the scripture teaches.
> can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect".
They can't, since theres no way to actually show that evolution/selection is architectured in any meaningful way, like you cant show that god architectured the number Pi.
All in all, wasting time discussing _why_ those people actually oppose evolution practically ends the moment you actually take a deeper look at what those people claim to actually _believe_ within their religions. This stuff is that off-the-wall, that their dogged denegation of a rather specific, non-intuitive, modern scientific theory seems like the very least of their problems you (and they) should care about.
>there is no much chance to become popular for small companies.
There is no much chance because....
1. they bring absolutely nothing new to the table. 2. No webcam support. 3. Windows only. 4. Proprietary. 5. Costs money.
> but unfortunately near skype/msn/yahoo marketing
Oh, no, probably its solely the fact that it costs more and provides less than any of the freeware alternatives you named. (And that the GUI is kinda ugly.)
> There are many SIP clients out there Quetcom or Twinkle are two interesting examples.
Without checking, I suppose they have no webcam support, haven't they? Skype is no way as prevalent as it is just for its Voip capablities.
> Problem is the lock-in: If all your friends use Skype, you have to use fucking Skype. Or > you ditch your friends.
No, the problem is that every other competing system (especially the free software ones) lacks one or more of the features I use daily with skype and therefore am one of those "friends" you would have to ditch in order to get me to switch to some suboptimal solution just because its free or something.
In order to make it short, just name a (preferably Free Software) client (not just a meaningless protocol name) that enables me and my computer illiterate friends and relatives to do three simple things we do every day with Skype:
1. Use Webcams easily. 2. Deal with NATs easily, which means not having to deal with them at all. 3. Use the client across all major platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac) or have interoperable clients across those platforms.
As of my knowledge, there are just no other clients (whatever protocol) supporting those few really really basic and indispensable features at this time.
They mad it big news a few weeks ago when Empathy finally hacked some kind of really basic webcam support together, but its neither near usable for the masses, nor has hope to get any kind of cross platform support soon in order to be relevant in a heterogeneous world.
I'd really like to use free software for my daily communication, but, sadly, IT JUST ISNT THERE YET. Even RMS and the FSF acknowledge this, and have put the development of a free Skype replacement high up their priority list. If you know better, this is your moment to tell me, since I would be switching overnight.
> but the fact people can safely and effectively take to the streets in protest
Your post doesnt contradict my question at all. All youre saying is that the sole fact that you can roam the streets and call politicians names without anybody shooting at you, makes up a democracy, which couldnt be more wrong.
The word itself actually implies that the will of the people is imaged onto the actions of their elected goverment and that the election every few years is a kind of a correction factor and a way to readjust the official policy to peoples wishes.
How exactly is roaming the streets and calling politicians names a part of this mechanism, when it still stays at the politician's sole disposal if he's going to react or not to react to the protests? Until youre actually allowed to vote again a few years down the road, the protests may be as (in)effective as a collection of someones meaningless tweets.
How is demonstrating and protesting outside of a election process (and not being shot at) to beg the politician to change his policy any more relevant than demonstrating in a dictatorship (and... not being shot at) to beg a dictator to change his policy?
> makes it the most effective system we've found yet
In Soviet Russia, they made you believe that too!;)
> The changes were hours away from being signed but a series of online protests > (...) Government changing course and respecting the wishes of the IT industry.
So whats the point in going to vote in the first place if theres no guarantee that the will of the people will be mirrored in the actions of the elected goverment until mass protests fill up the streets (or tubes)?
It seems that we easily could just appoint a dictator for life once and then keep protesting against his decisions we dont like, it wouldnt in practice be any different to the current situation.
Either we have a democracy, in which case demonstrations and protests again the democratically elected goverment shouldnt be needed, or we dont, in which case we dont need elections.
Probably not, since they could have done so for years, if they wanted to, but they didnt. The Pidgin developers collectively suffered the "we want Pidgin to stay lean and mean, but cam and voice would bring bloat" mental illnes. So they wholeheartedly drove all of their potential users into Skype/MSN/YIM/ICQ/AIM. A decade older, they probably would have been the people who opposed IRC colors as "bloat"and fought them tooth and nail until practically everybody except them moved along.
Well, you probably would mod down a nazi elaborating the need to exterminate jews, no matter what his arguments were.
We too systematically mod down copyright nazis whenever they elaborate the need to exterminate information exchange or on the internet and wet dream about large scale for-profit censorship and mass punishments of filesharers.
>would know that science simply can't prove something doesn't exist.
It doesn't even have to absolutely bullet-proof prove something doesnt exist. But after an analysis of available data, the scientific approach can give a probability of the existance of something. The probability of the existance of santa clause, the tooth fairy, god, bigfoot or harvey the rabbit is small enough for real life applications that you can "almost certainly" consider them non existant.
You missed to answer my question why any kind of science should put more weight in analysing god (which one, there are literally hundreds of them) than in analysing the existance of harvey the rabbit?
> The question of whether a god exists is simply something that science cannot answer.
It absolutely is, sonce as long as you cant show he exists, he doesnt. Its like saying science cannot answer whether bigfoot, the tooth fairy, santa clause, freddie krueger or unicorns exists, because the only way to prove it would be them to physically show up. God really belongs to this category. If you cant prove it, and nobody else can, youve just made it up.
It may hurt that you lived youre whole life under the presumption that you had a mighty "buddy" somwhere above the clouds which will help and protect you like a father when you feel small and insecure, but you will have to swallow the fact that theres just nobody there. I mean, as you were twelve at the latest, you accepted the fact that theres no santa clause. You maybe cried a little at first, but eventually you accepted it without requiring any kind "scientific proof". Whats so special about god that you still dont want to cross him off the list of imaginary superhero buddies you had once as a child?
Slashdot Mirror
#3 is bullshit, since it more depends on the definition of a right, not on the definition of theft itself.
Using the logic that ignoring someone elses artificial (its not natural nor consensual, remember) "right" on something _you_ already possess you then could also argue that William Wallace was "stealing" when he refused to hand over his wife to get fucked by the english occupying forces who installed themselves an exclusive artificial right "ius primae noctis". Also a slave running away from his owner would be "stealing" because the slave obviously does not have the "right" to run away. Marital infidelity also could be "stealing" of someones exclusive "sex right" in jurusdictions where extramarital sex is not allowed.
The right to share information with other people is inherent, it doesnt have to be explicitely granted. Like your right to have sex. You dont first need somebody to "allow" you to have it. The right you think of, the copyright, is not a real right, but a _removal_ of other peoples rights to freely exchange information (or bodily fluids) with each other, ie a communication ban, i.e. censorship. Ignoring censorship "rights" isn't stealing, no matter how much you'd like to call it so.
> The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games
> and people who don't buy games.
Thats what always puzzled my about filesharing haters: Why _do_ some of them bother at all, if they make enough money, that somwhere on the other side of the world, maybe also on some other planet, two people he never knew and will never know shared their stuff?
> accept that you're a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.
And promptly, he delivers the answer himself. Just another delusionist trying to shoehorn the planet into his business model. Copying a piece of information from your neighbor is not a theft. Yes, you do get something for nothing, but thats the whole freaking point of a copying machine. Endless supply for everybody. It does not automatically imply (although he would undoubtely like the thought) that you suddendly owe the creator of the original "as if" the piece was a physical product which cost money to produce. You first have to bend your mind heavily, internalize this "as if" concept almost religiously (which happens automatically if "as if" would make you money) in order to overlook the difference. The copying machine works only one way. Yet, the delusionists still think that the money (i.e. the wealth) they should get in exchange for providing input pieces to the copying machine has either to be multiplied at the same rate (i.e. an astronomical one, no less), or else the copying machine has to be smashed in order to _not_ bring wealth to everybody.
"after 20 years of experiment, practically all arguments are now against the internet."
The quote (that didnt fit into the subject line) is a conclusion from a recent article by one of germanys largest newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine), which is usually known for lobbying heavily for tougher IP laws. I always knew our grandgrandgrandfathers were right back then! General Ludd was the man! Lets finally get breaking some damn copying machines again!
>At least in apt-based distros (e.g. Ubuntu and Debian) it's perfectly possible to install
>any version of a package that you want.
It is only possible to install _any_ version thats been packaged for the installed version of the distribution, which automatically excludes packages from the previous distribution or packages newer than the distribution, since application updates usually go into the next version only.
>You can then set that package up to always be kept at that version if you wish.
This is keeping something you already have installed. Big deal. The problems come in when you want something from previous versions of the distribution or something newer than the distribution what hasnt been backported.
>most distributions that have a Long Term Support release will have a simple mechanism for
>installing newer versions of important packages via a backports repository.
If backporting is done systematically, and you dont have to hope every time that "anybody has maybe just done it", then it is a good beginning. How long does a LTS usually provide backports of never application versions?
It only works if somebody happened to have prepared a backport for the application you look for. If nobody did, youre out of luck. There is no systematic and continuous backporting done, and also backports tend to disappear at the whim of the repository owner, there is no systematic archiving of backports. In the end it boild down on either having luck with someones private backport, or, again, having to update the whole system and all other installed applications.
>And that's different from Windows how?
In the fact that I still have to find an application I cant install under XP three years after Vista came out. With Linux this in general does not work because the underlying dependencies change too often and too much.
>Seriously, that's a load of FUD.
No way.
>I've had far, far less trouble getting old/obsolete software to run on new versions of Linux
You may have had no trouble, but without a proper package built and available for the new version and for the new dependencies, the Windows convert from our example would absolutely be out of luck.
>or new software to run on old/obsolete distributions of Linux than on Windows.
Absolute bullshit. Theres no way you could run anything from Debian v.N on Debian v.N-1 without total breakage.
> Saying that "...there will be no way to install any older versions..." is just wrong.
I was primarily saying that its a problem for _newer_ versions. With older versions it may work between two ubuntu releases, but I wouldnt hold my breath for anything with 2-3 years time difference. For comparison, on Windows (XP/Vista), I'm installing 15 years old applications without any problem.
The Linux ecosystem is changing damn too fast, faster than many users can bear. This may be exciting from a developer point of view, but it absolutely kills it for non-technical users and Windows converts. I would like to be able to talk people I know into Linux, but I cant, because of the backlash which would hit me sooner or later when they find out how tightly application versions are tied to and dependent on the underlying system/distribution and that the only way to update any single application is only by upgrading the whole system.
I and the GP were not talking about ourselves, but about possible Windows converts trying out linux first time.
>Or you could run a LTS of Ubuntu if you care about that?
Which means no way to install an newer application comming out after the LTS.
> Or compile your own local packages if you want different versions?
No Windows convert is going to do that and I dont like it either since theres no nice and clean way to uninstall them.
> Or use backports if you want to upgrade just a few packages?
Theres no "standard" (i.e. endorsed by the distribution) way to install backports, so anything you do is at your own risk. Again, not something you really would tell a Windows convert to have to do.
> Or, most importantly, don't run a stable distro if you don't want to run a stable distro.
So which one would you recommend a Windows convert then? And when you cant official "stable" distributions to Windows converts, what the heck are they then good for?
>That said, the upgrade process is quite painless (as is Windows update (including SPs)
>and Mac OS X's system update). I really don't see the issue.
The issue is you _have_ to update the whole system (all applications) and get used to any changes in the system just to update one single application.
The fact that application versions are so tightly tied to system versions on Linux in general absolutely sucks. Upgrading and downgrading single applications is a pain in the ass, or practically impossible. If youre talking somebody into Linux, sooner or later he WILL find this out, and then you practically only have to hope that he is so clueless that he either never updates anything or doesnt mind his applications changing every few months without him having any say on this.
>They had a chance to explore yesterday and said they liked it so much better than Windows
>it wasn't funny.
I'll bet you forgot to tell them that a few months down the road he will have no way to install an up-to-date application unless he updates the whole system. And that he will have to update (aka reinstall) the whole system every few months, since thats the usual duration his applications officially are up to date.
Free Software is usually nice and all, and I'm using it exclusively on my desktops, but inability to install newer or older software on "stable" distributions kills it for Windows converts. You really can not talk someone into linux with a calm conscience without warning him that his system is considered "obsolete" by application makers the moment its published and a new development cycle has begun, and that there will be no way to install any older versions he might be got used to.
The less-cool effects of filesharing are by far outweighted by the cool effects of filesharing.
Filesharing is a product of technological advance. As every other technical advance before that, it has a negative effect on people whose business model comprised manual production of a certain product.
That way you also can write lengthy articles seemingly fraught with meaning about the less-cool effects of refrigerators, which made thousands of hard-working and family-feeding ice-collectors and ice-sellers unemployed. You could write about the less-cool effects of mechanized looms, which made hundreds of thousands unemployed and left to starving in the 19th century. In general, you could write general pamphlets against any kind of automatisation technology since it makes manual work not needed any more.
But in the end, you also will have to face the fact that you wont in any way be able to stop and wind back the clock of time and that the general market for "copies" of any kind has ended. With today's technology, we can replicate and distribute works of any kind ourselves and do not need you and your services any more. As somebody here said, "today, we are all printers". It may be true that in such a society there will be less new content created in total, but with free filesharing, we all will have access to more total content. The sole fact that you created something does not give you any kind of imaginary right to control how people will use it and how often they will copy and share it with other people. Also we people do not in any way grant you such rights, absolutely acknowledging that you may stop creating and publishing new works. We simply value our god given rights to free speech and free echange of information and culture than your imaginary, artificial rights to censor such natural human behavior in order to give you an incentive to "increase production".
The age of artificial scarcity and for-profit censorship has ended.
Enter the age of sharing and caring. Don't worry. It's going to be alright. :-)
> Don't touch them and they can't touch you.
We're not touching them directly by sharing information amongst each other. But it happens that their business is based on artificially enforced scarcity, and is thus touched by the simple fact of nature that free information sharing removes scarcity among the people.
So your proposal basically amounts to "Do whatever they say, even if it is surrendering to large scale for-profit censorship without a slightest kind of opposition, or else." Stalin would be proud.
If youre living in europe, go out and vote for your local Pirate Party this summer in the european elections.
If youre motivated, become a paying/donating member. If youre even more motivated, donate your spare time and become a Pirate party activist, talk to people in streets, get them to care, get them to vote.
We cant win if we're state-forced to play by media industry financed/bought rules and laws. The current worldwide situation regarding copyright and for-profit censorship is absolutely unsatisfactory. The reason for this is the organisation and funding advantage the media industry has over ordinary citizens. This way, they are able to simply buy laws we as citizens then have to abide, laws designed to make them money. Its ridiculous but it works simply for the fact that they are waaaay more organized and ruthless than us.
So whatever you do, get fucking organized. Not locally, large fucking scale.
The pirate party (at least in europe, where we have a actually working multi party system, sorry US) is one possible way to reach a meaningful state of organisation, if you have a better solution, spread the word.
> Every story concerning piracy takes the pirates POV
Common sense suggests to, since "wait until purchase" or "true fan waits" both belong in the same cheerless category as it's namesakes "wait until marriage" and "true love waits", namely antiquated, ivory-tower bullshit ideology.
> every criticism of thepiratebay is brushed aside
Maybe because 99% of all criticism of thepirate bay (including yours) amount to nothing more than different forms of "ceterum censeo piratbayem esse delendam".
> given up all pretence of being 'news for nerds'
> now top stories are new hollywood movies,
> complete with +5 modded links to copyrighted material.
If you were a real nerd, you would instinctively know that this literally IS "stuff that matters".
> +5 hyprocrites
Olde bitter man, stop fighting the windmills.
> What exactly is the "absurdly archaic 50's business model" you're referring to?
Making the natural usage of computers and networks (passing information and content) artificially (without actual public support) illegal in order to simulate the 50's content distribution.
> If nobody wants to pay for digital copies, that's fine too, but they'd have to say
> goodbye to a very large group of creative enterprises.
I and large, large parts of the public are obviously ready to say goodbye to parts of the creative enterprises which business models rely exclusively on enforcement of artificial scarcity and for-profit censorship.
> but it wouldn't exist in the first place without support from my customers.
So find out a non-forceful way to get their support. If you can't, they obviously do not _want_ to support you, fully knowing that you wont be able to continue your art.
> How does this help the freedom of artistic expression you seem to be advocating?
Arguing against large-scale censorship, lawsuits and mass punishments of people who use their computers for what they're designed for doesnt have to do anything _at all_ with your freedom to express yourself. Youre confusing funding and freedom of expression. All I'm arguing for is, that if you can get funding for your art without relying on means of goverment-sponsored network-surveillance, censorship and mass punishments, the better for you. If you cant, better quit because it wont work in the long run, because most people value their freedom to share information and communicate freely more than the commercial viability of someones censorship-based business model.
It assumes that, since exchange of information, learning from each other, passing on of culture, sharing things you like with people you like and P2P-ing have been basic human deeds and activities from the beginning of time, they are moral by nature. Since filesharing is nothing more than an electronically amplified form of the above, it can not become morally wrong for the sole fact that someones business model (manufacturing and selling single copies of stuff like it were biscuits) based on yesterday's scarcity, breaks down today when that kind of scarcity is overcome.
Artificial scarcity, like in "you must not use your own copy machine and must pretend you didnt have one in order for someone else's yesterday's copying-based business model can still work like it were still needed" is for-profit censorship (aka ban on information exchange), on a wide scale.
> and if the rest of society thinks that it is a crime
Thats ok, since my whole point is that it actually doesn't. Only the written letter of the law does, but since it is, at least in the case of copyright, that much detached from the actual sense of right and wrong of the society around me, i do not at all have a moral urge to feel bound by it.
> artists still have to make a living to continue to make art.
And its still their job to find out how to do that. Back in the 50s, they were able to sell copies of stuff, since copying was hard. In 2009, neither copying nor distribution is hard any more, so people make their copies themselves and distribute them. If the artist completely used to rely on selling copies to make a living, he now has to adapt. IF he refuses to, he'll have to go flip burgers.
> You seem to think all the people out there illegally copying files are somehow noble
Nope, never implied that.
> and if they liked it, pay the perform(s)
> or if they didn't like it, delete it never view it again.
Also never said that.
> 1) don't have permission to copy
We dont have to ask for a permission to exchange informaiton and share stuff. Everybody who thinks that, like you seem to, is mistaken.
> 2) have not paid
Since i do the copying and the distribution myself, i dont have to pay.
> 3) and are NOT exercising Fair Use
I am excercising Fair Use which _I_ defined.
> Committing a crime
I dont consider it to be a crime.
> Stealing from the artist and those who have invested money in producing/distributing
> the thing you want to copy
Copying stuff and sharing information with other people is not stealing, no matter how much youd like it to be.
> Removing incentive for the producers to renew the artist due to reduced sales
Their problem. (You know, you and they can still go flip burgers if you cant cope with the fact that we have 2009 and practically everybody learned how to use a networked computer.)
> If you think differently,
Which I do
> then you have the ethics of a common thief
But I have the luck that its not you laying out our ethics code.
> and I'd love to see you in jail wedded to Bubba the ass fucker.
Since you have to call for physical violence and violent anal rape of anybody who doesnt agree to your ageing ideology, you lose.
> ripping off artists so that leeches don't have to pay for their work.
Dude. Come. Fucking. On. We have 2009. Everybody and their dog has a computer, which is designed to copy stuff. Also we have broadband which is, again, designed to... move stuff around the world. So is what youre actually pointlessly advocating is that we collectively should... actually what? Abstain from using a common technology in order to make absurdly archaic 50's business models of "manufacturing and selling single copies" viable in day and age when everybody _can_ manufacture and distribute those copies themselves? Yawn.
If you and your fellow artists cannot bear the thought of your works becomming part of our culture and shared with other people, then stop producing and publishing them. If you cant manage to make money from the fact that people actually like your works and actively share them with their friends, go flip burgers, maybe thats where your real talent lies. However, wide-scale censorship, which is what you and your likes are proposing all the fucking time, wont work, so forget that idea really fast.
> I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution.
Because it renders their centuries-old theories of god's active engagement on earth pretty redundant and makes the contents of their holy human-centeric scriptures eqally wrong and redundant. Humans got their special staus only because of the claim that god personally created them and that they were specifically created to be god-like. Any removal of fucus from the humans during the creation, as evolution practically does, questions the strict focus on humans in the scriptures.
Since the teachings of their scriptures usually claim to be absolute and infailable, making them redundant in one matter (THE essential point) weakens the claim of infailability in all other matters.
If it cant be shown that neither the time of apperance nor the looks of todays humans was in any way predetermined by god and was thus pure chance, this implies that humans are in no way "gods plan" and gods preferred species on earth, which is what the scripture teaches.
> can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect".
They can't, since theres no way to actually show that evolution/selection is architectured in any meaningful way, like you cant show that god architectured the number Pi.
All in all, wasting time discussing _why_ those people actually oppose evolution practically ends the moment you actually take a deeper look at what those people claim to actually _believe_ within their religions. This stuff is that off-the-wall, that their dogged denegation of a rather specific, non-intuitive, modern scientific theory seems like the very least of their problems you (and they) should care about.
>there is no much chance to become popular for small companies.
There is no much chance because....
1. they bring absolutely nothing new to the table.
2. No webcam support.
3. Windows only.
4. Proprietary.
5. Costs money.
> but unfortunately near skype/msn/yahoo marketing
Oh, no, probably its solely the fact that it costs more and provides less than any of the freeware alternatives you named. (And that the GUI is kinda ugly.)
> There are many SIP clients out there Quetcom or Twinkle are two interesting examples.
Without checking, I suppose they have no webcam support, haven't they? Skype is no way as prevalent as it is just for its Voip capablities.
> Problem is the lock-in: If all your friends use Skype, you have to use fucking Skype. Or
> you ditch your friends.
No, the problem is that every other competing system (especially the free software ones) lacks one or more of the features I use daily with skype and therefore am one of those "friends" you would have to ditch in order to get me to switch to some suboptimal solution just because its free or something.
In order to make it short, just name a (preferably Free Software) client (not just a meaningless protocol name) that enables me and my computer illiterate friends and relatives to do three simple things we do every day with Skype:
1. Use Webcams easily.
2. Deal with NATs easily, which means not having to deal with them at all.
3. Use the client across all major platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac) or have interoperable clients across those platforms.
As of my knowledge, there are just no other clients (whatever protocol) supporting those few really really basic and indispensable features at this time.
They mad it big news a few weeks ago when Empathy finally hacked some kind of really basic webcam support together, but its neither near usable for the masses, nor has hope to get any kind of cross platform support soon in order to be relevant in a heterogeneous world.
I'd really like to use free software for my daily communication, but, sadly, IT JUST ISNT THERE YET. Even RMS and the FSF acknowledge this, and have put the development of a free Skype replacement high up their priority list. If you know better, this is your moment to tell me, since I would be switching overnight.
> but the fact people can safely and effectively take to the streets in protest
Your post doesnt contradict my question at all. All youre saying is that the sole fact that you can roam the streets and call politicians names without anybody shooting at you, makes up a democracy, which couldnt be more wrong.
The word itself actually implies that the will of the people is imaged onto the actions of their elected goverment and that the election every few years is a kind of a correction factor and a way to readjust the official policy to peoples wishes.
How exactly is roaming the streets and calling politicians names a part of this mechanism, when it still stays at the politician's sole disposal if he's going to react or not to react to the protests? Until youre actually allowed to vote again a few years down the road, the protests may be as (in)effective as a collection of someones meaningless tweets.
How is demonstrating and protesting outside of a election process (and not being shot at) to beg the politician to change his policy any more relevant than demonstrating in a dictatorship (and... not being shot at) to beg a dictator to change his policy?
> makes it the most effective system we've found yet
In Soviet Russia, they made you believe that too! ;)
> The changes were hours away from being signed but a series of online protests
> (...) Government changing course and respecting the wishes of the IT industry.
So whats the point in going to vote in the first place if theres no guarantee that the will of the people will be mirrored in the actions of the elected goverment until mass protests fill up the streets (or tubes)?
It seems that we easily could just appoint a dictator for life once and then keep protesting against his decisions we dont like, it wouldnt in practice be any different to the current situation.
Either we have a democracy, in which case demonstrations and protests again the democratically elected goverment shouldnt be needed, or we dont, in which case we dont need elections.
Probably not, since they could have done so for years, if they wanted to, but they didnt. The Pidgin developers collectively suffered the "we want Pidgin to stay lean and mean, but cam and voice would bring bloat" mental illnes. So they wholeheartedly drove all of their potential users into Skype/MSN/YIM/ICQ/AIM. A decade older, they probably would have been the people who opposed IRC colors as "bloat"and fought them tooth and nail until practically everybody except them moved along.
Well, you probably would mod down a nazi elaborating the need to exterminate jews, no matter what his arguments were.
We too systematically mod down copyright nazis whenever they elaborate the need to exterminate information exchange or on the internet and wet dream about large scale for-profit censorship and mass punishments of filesharers.
>I'm sorry, but any real scientist
(which you aren't)
>would know that science simply can't prove something doesn't exist.
It doesn't even have to absolutely bullet-proof prove something doesnt exist. But after an analysis of available data, the scientific approach can give a probability of the existance of something. The probability of the existance of santa clause, the tooth fairy, god, bigfoot or harvey the rabbit is small enough for real life applications that you can "almost certainly" consider them non existant.
You missed to answer my question why any kind of science should put more weight in analysing god (which one, there are literally hundreds of them) than in analysing the existance of harvey the rabbit?
> The question of whether a god exists is simply something that science cannot answer.
It absolutely is, sonce as long as you cant show he exists, he doesnt. Its like saying science cannot answer whether bigfoot, the tooth fairy, santa clause, freddie krueger or unicorns exists, because the only way to prove it would be them to physically show up. God really belongs to this category. If you cant prove it, and nobody else can, youve just made it up.
It may hurt that you lived youre whole life under the presumption that you had a mighty "buddy" somwhere above the clouds which will help and protect you like a father when you feel small and insecure, but you will have to swallow the fact that theres just nobody there. I mean, as you were twelve at the latest, you accepted the fact that theres no santa clause. You maybe cried a little at first, but eventually you accepted it without requiring any kind "scientific proof". Whats so special about god that you still dont want to cross him off the list of imaginary superhero buddies you had once as a child?