Well there were 2 different license problems. The original one around the first KDE releases, with the uncertainty whether the Qt license was GPL compatible. This legal uncertainty at least contributed to KDE not becoming the undisputed leading free mainstream desktop, and would have later caused problems with commercial viability of the platform. Then when Trolltech went dual-license, the platform was legally in the clear, but had a non-ideal developer proposition. It's not an accident that no distro that targeted the commercial desktop went with KDE, despite KDE's obvious technical advantages. Depending on your POV that can be argued to be a good thing, but commercially it wasn't.
"Well, the licensing stuff is kinda annoying, but you can get around it, it's not exactly legal but nobody will stop you" is a great way to lure devs to your platform.
It made sense for Trolltech maybe, but not for small developers, and thus not for a vital ecosystem. In particular as you needed to license the commercial version from the start, you couldn't legally start development with the free version and then switch over. IMO the many little apps with a specialized purpose are what contribute immensly to why the mobile platforms are so helpful. Looking at Google Play, there's a large percentage for whom a steep entry fee would make no sense. As for the early days, you may be right about Harmony, etc., but the licensing mess at least didn't help.
$99/year is one thing, but IIRC the Trolltech license was 1300 to 2000 Euros (depending on some details) per developer, plus IIRC some annual fee on top. Apart from that, I would like to see the alternative timeline where the KDE folks didn't mess up their licensing for a promising 1.0 version.
AFAICT it was a licensing issue for the longest time. Previously, the licensing options for Qt forced developers to either use GPL for their code, or to buy a commercial license from Trolltech if they wanted their code proprietary. It wasn't a bad deal for free software, but not a good proposition for luring developers to the platform. Of course, today the available licenses from Digia also include LGPL, but that came pretty late.
Well, then we just need to produce more stuff, that will reliably increase the number of good stuff, according to Sturgeon's law. That's good enough for me:)
Yeah, I don't disagree with this either. However, I want to remind you that freedom from unwanted tasks, and more time for family, the arts, and all beautiful things, has little to do with socialism, but was the promise of technology in the west as well, just like the hope of improvement for all humanity was the driving force behind the whole Enlightenment (of which industrial technology is a result).
Good point, and a depressing one. Because really, the fact that efficiency continues to grow should make us richer, not poorer (that was the promise of technology, anyway). And if the well-off want to enjoy their life, we better find something to do for the "useless" masses in their "spare" time.
Yeah, that's basically like a DJ set, it's not making music live. It may work for some artists, and that's fine. I don't want the others starved, is all.
Don't assume that things don't exist because you are not aware of them, the field of culture (like most other worthwhile ones) is deeper and wider for any one person to explore fully. Like in the other reply I wrote, I will just mention the first thing that comes to mind: Plunderphonics
The past 60 years were special because at least during major parts of this time the music economy *did* generate enough income to live and create (not to be rich) for music beyond the mainstream. I preferred that state of things to a society were only the most dumbed-down crap supports its creators. I don't disagree with what you wrote in general, but it's a question at which height we as a society want to place the bar to jump over. If we place the bar so high that even a band with very favourable reviews in the most respected papers (Ja, Panik had one in Die Zeit and others) can make a living, we are going to be poorer.
Absolutely, but I was responding to an argument that musicians should just play live to earn money. Had the argument been the other way around, I would have responded with what you wrote.
Now, you can say that it's just fine if they have to work on the side, or that it's fine that only the musicians with top 10 sales should be paid for their work, but this would be a major change in the way our society has treated its artists at least in the decades after WW2, and not one we should make light-hearted, IMO
I don't know, from the top of my head emptyset comes to mind. Yes, you could use these prerecorded sounds for a live set, but the music like the one the record cannot be created live. I agree with you that it's a possible source of income for musicians to do other stuff on the side, like DJ sets or something (even for non-dance musicians), but I'd think that this requires that their names already has at least some value attached to it. Nevertheless, this is a significant change to the economies of music, whe we as a society are effecting, and we should be at least aware if it happens, if though we might not be able steer or prevent it.
There is music that cannot be played live, or which does not work in a live setting, and which is still worth having (as a cultural contribution to humanity, I mean)
You have valid points. But nevertheless the guy I replied to was simply wrong when he said, "Your typical e-book reader will last MONTHS in the hands of a heavy reader without recharge."
TFA alludes to the idea that your phone becomes a full blown PC when you dock it. OK, so Ubuntu doesn't have a good track record with UI, and there is no reason to believe that this phone UI is any better than what they've done to the Linux desktop. But the idea of my phone being my computer is very appealing to me. I dock my phone at the office, and immediately get to use a full display, keyboard, mouse/trackpad, etc. Same thing when I take it home. It's a real Linux OS, with a CLI and everything if I want it. That is very appealing to me.
I definitely don't want this if the OS is owned by the cellular carrier. I want to install my own OS on a commodity phone, and I'm the root user on the system, not Sprint or Verizon or AT&T.
The thing about sprouting the Unity GUI für PC when an external monitor is connected was announced a year ago or so. Explained at http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android at the time of writing
The choreography guys are doing it wrong, agreed. This does not change the fact that martial arts have seen hundreds of years of use by professionals (like the Chinese military prior to the arrival of guns) in real-world situations.
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Well there were 2 different license problems. The original one around the first KDE releases, with the uncertainty whether the Qt license was GPL compatible. This legal uncertainty at least contributed to KDE not becoming the undisputed leading free mainstream desktop, and would have later caused problems with commercial viability of the platform. Then when Trolltech went dual-license, the platform was legally in the clear, but had a non-ideal developer proposition. It's not an accident that no distro that targeted the commercial desktop went with KDE, despite KDE's obvious technical advantages. Depending on your POV that can be argued to be a good thing, but commercially it wasn't.
"Well, the licensing stuff is kinda annoying, but you can get around it, it's not exactly legal but nobody will stop you" is a great way to lure devs to your platform.
It made sense for Trolltech maybe, but not for small developers, and thus not for a vital ecosystem. In particular as you needed to license the commercial version from the start, you couldn't legally start development with the free version and then switch over. IMO the many little apps with a specialized purpose are what contribute immensly to why the mobile platforms are so helpful. Looking at Google Play, there's a large percentage for whom a steep entry fee would make no sense. As for the early days, you may be right about Harmony, etc., but the licensing mess at least didn't help.
$99/year is one thing, but IIRC the Trolltech license was 1300 to 2000 Euros (depending on some details) per developer, plus IIRC some annual fee on top. Apart from that, I would like to see the alternative timeline where the KDE folks didn't mess up their licensing for a promising 1.0 version.
AFAICT it was a licensing issue for the longest time. Previously, the licensing options for Qt forced developers to either use GPL for their code, or to buy a commercial license from Trolltech if they wanted their code proprietary. It wasn't a bad deal for free software, but not a good proposition for luring developers to the platform. Of course, today the available licenses from Digia also include LGPL, but that came pretty late.
Well, then we just need to produce more stuff, that will reliably increase the number of good stuff, according to Sturgeon's law. That's good enough for me :)
Yeah, I don't disagree with this either. However, I want to remind you that freedom from unwanted tasks, and more time for family, the arts, and all beautiful things, has little to do with socialism, but was the promise of technology in the west as well, just like the hope of improvement for all humanity was the driving force behind the whole Enlightenment (of which industrial technology is a result).
Ooops, typo: the album peaked in Austrian charts on 17, not 87.
The situation with health care is not *that* rosy here, either, but certainly better than the US, yes.
Good point, and a depressing one. Because really, the fact that efficiency continues to grow should make us richer, not poorer (that was the promise of technology, anyway). And if the well-off want to enjoy their life, we better find something to do for the "useless" masses in their "spare" time.
Yeah, that's basically like a DJ set, it's not making music live. It may work for some artists, and that's fine. I don't want the others starved, is all.
Don't assume that things don't exist because you are not aware of them, the field of culture (like most other worthwhile ones) is deeper and wider for any one person to explore fully. Like in the other reply I wrote, I will just mention the first thing that comes to mind: Plunderphonics
The past 60 years were special because at least during major parts of this time the music economy *did* generate enough income to live and create (not to be rich) for music beyond the mainstream. I preferred that state of things to a society were only the most dumbed-down crap supports its creators. I don't disagree with what you wrote in general, but it's a question at which height we as a society want to place the bar to jump over. If we place the bar so high that even a band with very favourable reviews in the most respected papers (Ja, Panik had one in Die Zeit and others) can make a living, we are going to be poorer.
Absolutely, but I was responding to an argument that musicians should just play live to earn money. Had the argument been the other way around, I would have responded with what you wrote.
Damn, sorry for messed up link
FYI, the economics of the music business are such that it's not only avant cellists that cannot survive on their music, but - at least in countries with a more limited market due to language and cultural barriers - the problem extends far beyond that. Just as an example, one of the most promising young non-mainstream (for lack of a better word) rock bands in the German-language market is "Ja, Panik". Their fourth and latest album was in the Austrian charts for 5 weeks and peaked at 87, and peaked at around 80 in Germany. This amounted to a few hundred sold CDs. Add to that the income from downloads from the band's website, radio play, and streaming and the album may have made maybe (maybe!) 5,000 euros, likely not enough to even cover production. Yes, they played a tour and drew a few hundred people in the bigger cities, but how many big cities are there in the German language area, and how much can you make at 15 euros a ticket? Not many and not much, and I doubt that the merch sales from the online shop is killer, either. The band members obviously all need other income, obviously (and if you want to tour for every record, that removes a lot of work options right there), and for a while jokingly rented themselves out to fans via their webshop, with items like "book a Ja, Panik member for: .... DJ for your party: 100 eur; ... cleaning your toilet: 200 eur (2 members mandatory)", and stuff like that.
Now, you can say that it's just fine if they have to work on the side, or that it's fine that only the musicians with top 10 sales should be paid for their work, but this would be a major change in the way our society has treated its artists at least in the decades after WW2, and not one we should make light-hearted, IMO
I don't know, from the top of my head emptyset comes to mind. Yes, you could use these prerecorded sounds for a live set, but the music like the one the record cannot be created live. I agree with you that it's a possible source of income for musicians to do other stuff on the side, like DJ sets or something (even for non-dance musicians), but I'd think that this requires that their names already has at least some value attached to it. Nevertheless, this is a significant change to the economies of music, whe we as a society are effecting, and we should be at least aware if it happens, if though we might not be able steer or prevent it.
You are off by a factor of 100. It's 0.42 cents.
There is music that cannot be played live, or which does not work in a live setting, and which is still worth having (as a cultural contribution to humanity, I mean)
You have valid points. But nevertheless the guy I replied to was simply wrong when he said, "Your typical e-book reader will last MONTHS in the hands of a heavy reader without recharge."
With a reading time of 30 minutes per day ...
Amazon claims the Kindle will run for 8 weeks w/o using wifi and a reading time of 30 minutes per day. That's not "months".
TFA alludes to the idea that your phone becomes a full blown PC when you dock it. OK, so Ubuntu doesn't have a good track record with UI, and there is no reason to believe that this phone UI is any better than what they've done to the Linux desktop. But the idea of my phone being my computer is very appealing to me. I dock my phone at the office, and immediately get to use a full display, keyboard, mouse/trackpad, etc. Same thing when I take it home. It's a real Linux OS, with a CLI and everything if I want it. That is very appealing to me.
I definitely don't want this if the OS is owned by the cellular carrier. I want to install my own OS on a commodity phone, and I'm the root user on the system, not Sprint or Verizon or AT&T.
The thing about sprouting the Unity GUI für PC when an external monitor is connected was announced a year ago or so. Explained at http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android at the time of writing
The choreography guys are doing it wrong, agreed. This does not change the fact that martial arts have seen hundreds of years of use by professionals (like the Chinese military prior to the arrival of guns) in real-world situations.
Alternatives: crush face with elbow, for example. Or slap with the back of the hand. Kick in the balls. There is no shortage really