Indeed. There are some rights you can't give up by contract or other means, but those are spelled out in the law. For example, any clause in a rental contract waiving the right to 48 hours' notice before your landlord enters your rental unit is void in my state.
Fair use isn't one of those, it's just an exception to copyright law. However, note that any contract you sign promising not to exercise your fair use rights only applies to you. If a friend comes over to your house and exercises his own fair use rights using the copies you've purchased, you might be breaking your contract by allowing him such access, but he can't get in trouble himself.
No wonder you're posting as AC when your logic is this faulty.
The fact is pirates are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor without compensating them for the price they are charging.
Sorry to break it to you, but that isn't inherently "wrong". I enjoy the fruits of Marconi's labor every time I turn on the radio, but I don't pay his heirs a dime, and if they approached me asking for money, I'd tell them to get bent--and rightfully so.
Just because you do something and hope to get paid for it doesn't mean anyone owes you that money, nor does it mean they can't enjoy the results of what you did. There are two surefire ways to collect money for your work: (1) sell physical objects, or (2) charge directly for your labor. Doing labor for free and then trying to collect money from people afterward, when they aren't taking anything from you or incurring any extra costs for you by enjoying your work, is just foolish and ineffective.
"Macs are more expensive than PCs," is a statement about the first kind of comparison and it is factually incorrect.
No, it's just a vague statement, because it doesn't specify which Macs are being compared to which PCs. You have to fill in the gaps for it to have any measurable meaning at all, and depending on how you do that, it can be true or false:
1. [All] Macs are more expensive than [all] PCs. False.
2. [Some] Macs are more expensive than [some] PCs. True, but useless.
3. Macs [on average] are more expensive than [the equivalent] PCs. False, but also useless unless you're buying one of each model, or you're buying the one model that brings down the average price (which happens to be the model without a monitor, keyboard, etc.).
4. [Most] Macs are more expensive than [the equivalent] PCs. True, and useful. I contend that this is the most logical interpretation of the vague statement: if a person is interested in a random Mac model, it's more likely than not that he could find an equivalent PC at a lower price.
If they use the GPL then they have no choice - freedom for one is freedom for all.
Well, not quite... some manufacturers reserve the freedom to issue software updates for themselves but deny it to their end users, which is the point of this change.;)
In any case, I was speaking in terms of ethical responsibility, just like I assumed you were. Many programmers have already licensed their software to TiVo et al. for use with crippled hardware, simply by releasing it under the GPLv2, but that doesn't mean they owed the use of their software to those manufacturers any more than the manufacturers owe it to their customers to make modding easy.
If programmers want to run changed software on hardware that isn't able to without modifications then it it's up to them to do the mods; not the manufacturers responsibility to make the hardware in a way that will run moded software.
Likewise, if manufacturers want to make hardware that can only run "blessed" software packages, then it's up to them to write that software; not free-software programmers' responsibility to license it to them.
In this case, I think RMS is out to lunch. He may not like it; but the GPL as written has no bearing on hardware.
Nor does the GPLv3, and no one expects it to. It doesn't say you can't sell crippled hardware--only that you can't distribute GPL software with it.
What slippery slope? We have a significant portion of the population that deliberately aborts unwanted pregnancies. If someday we benefit from the use of their medical waste to cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or even just slow down plain ol' ageing - Good for me, good for you, good for everyone!
AFAIK, embryonic stem cells aren't taken from unwanted pregnancies at all - they're taken from frozen embryos (fertility clinic waste) that have never been implanted.
You could conceivably reverse engineer around the signing issue with hardware just as you could write a printer driver - it may not be easy but that is not a condition for OSS.
Modifying hardware is far more difficult than modifying software, especially when we're talking about mass produced devices like the TiVo. Not everyone can desolder a surface mount ROM chip, install a socket, read out the old ROM data, burn a new chip, etc., all without destroying their hardware. It's unreasonable to expect programmers to do all that just to be able to run their changed software.
And it may not be a condition for OSS, but it is a condition for the "free software" RMS is always talking about. These changes in the GPLv3 shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows a thing about his philosophy or the FSF.
True - and you are free to use it in anyway you chose; they just don't make it easy.
Even worse: they go out of their way to make it as difficult as possible, and when someone finds a way around their roadblocks, it's patched in the next hardware revision. There's a big difference between a manufacturer who just doesn't care about making modding easy, and a manufacturer who's actively engaging in an arms race with modders.
If a developer follows this good-faith argument, but decides after GPLv3 is released that the new version is not, in fact, similar in spirit (and this ongoing argument kind of indicates that there is some question on that point), they're kind of SOL now -- someone (perhaps even Stallman) can take the code and relicense under v3 against the authors' wishes.
I'd be worried about that if the GPLv3's changes resulted in less freedom for end users (e.g. allowed people to incorporate GPL code into their products without making source available to their customers), but it doesn't. Anyone is still free to distribute the existing code under GPLv2 if they wish; some third party can't retroactively change its license. They might not be able to use the third party's changes, but if he doesn't want people using his code who are going to deny their end users the freedom to make changes in place, that seems fair enough.
Finally, since RMS has taken every opportunity to point out the difference between "free software" and "open source", I can't believe that anyone who knows a thing about him or the FSF could honestly think the GPLv3 departs from the spirit in which the GPL was written. Version 3 simply addresses a few things that go against the spirit of "free software" but weren't problems at the time version 2 was written.
On average, for the numbers compiled thus far this year, macs are about 5% cheaper than the average, comparable PC hardware. [...] Now maybe that is mostly because of the mac mini, or maybe it is not. That is not the point. The point is, in general, macs are not more expensive than PCs.
What a useless comparison! Most Mac models, as far as I can tell, are more expensive than comparable PCs when compared one-by-one. If one model is throwing off the average, that's great news for people who want to buy that particular model, but for everyone else, it's just a meaningless statistic.
You might as well quote the average per capita net worth of a room containing Bill Gates and a thousand penniless bums. "The average net worth of these men is $24.5 million" is technically true, but there are virtually no situations where that fact could help you make a decision. All your statistic really means is that if you bought one of each model of Mac (or is it several of each in proportion to their sales volume?), you'd spend less than if you bought one of each equivalent model of PC.
Just because you can't use any of your mods on their hardware no way limits your freedom to use the GPL'd software.
Well, if by "freedom to use" you just mean the ability to execute it on some platform, then you're right. But free software is about more than that. If you find that Linux doesn't support your new printer, you can write a driver for it and add it to your existing system. If you don't like the behavior of your window manager, you can change it without having to start over from scratch. That's a benefit of free software: you can modify your stuff, in place, to suit your needs.
You don't get those benefits if you have to build a whole new computer to use the mods because the computer you bought off the shelf only boots signed kernels, which in turn only run signed applications, etc.
By the way, it isn't their hardware after they've sold it to me. It's mine.
To expect manufacturers to allow you to run modified software on their hardware is ridiculous - they have every right to limit their hardware to working only with their software configurations.
Fair enough... but they don't have the right to use whatever software they want in such a configuration. If I, as a free software programmer, decide I don't want my work to be distributed in such a way that the people who end up using it aren't allowed to change it, then I need to use a license like GPLv3.
Maybe you don't mind if people use your work that way; fine, keep using GPLv2 or BSD or some other license that allows it. GPLv3 is there for the people who want to be sure the freedom to tinker is passed on everyone who uses their work.
Providing source code for free projects is hardly exclusively "his philosophy," and Apache doesn't even use the GPL.
His philosophy is more than just providing source code. It extends to the idea that you should be able to make whatever changes you want to the software that you use, without being limited legally (by licenses) or technologically (by measures like TiVo's kernel signature checking), and providing source code is a consequence of that. The GPLv3 uses legal measures to ensure that end-users aren't impaired by technological measures which were unforseen at the time the GPLv2 was written.
Instead, he's defining a personal view of "freedom" and enforcing it on others, when my definition of freedom is more along the lines of the BSD license.
RMS isn't enforcing anything on anyone. If a software developer wants to release his code under the GPLv3, that's the developer's choice, not Stallman's. If you want to release your software under the BSD license, that's your choice too.
No. RMS's philosophy has been the same since before the modern OSS movement began. He was considered irrelevant back then, until the rise of free software success stories like GCC, Linux, Apache, etc. showed that his philosophy can produce great software while still granting end-users all the freedoms he talks about.
Now that we already have those pieces of software, some folks are ready to call him irrelevant again... but he isn't. He's looking out for those of us who value free software for more than just the fact that it costs $0 and anyone can contribute. I don't want to live in a world where companies like TiVo (although I love their DVRs) can use technological loopholes to build on the community's work while denying their end-users the ability to build on and tinker with the products they paid for. The open-source nature of Linux doesn't count for jack if your computer will only allow you to boot the signed copy of Linux that came preinstalled, and/or signed Linux upgrade CDs that you buy in a box at the store, does it?
Only if conditions are right. Are they in this case? I don't know for sure, but I am skeptical.
I'm not sure which conditions you're referring to. What makes you think this wouldn't work?
I suppose some chipsets might force the VGA output to show the same as the flat panel, and only allow an extended desktop on the TV output, but I wouldn't expect the GeForce Go to be one of them, and according to this, it isn't.
That's a different argument. You can't have it both ways.
It's not "having it both ways" if the other differences are unimportant. Consider a cheap sedan that costs $15,000, and an expensive luxury model that's exactly the same, except it has heated seats and costs twice as much. Heated seats are unavailable on the cheaper model. Is it impossible to compare the two cars? No; you can note that they're mostly identical except for one feature, then decide whether you're willing to pay an extra $15k for that feature. If you don't care about heated seats at all, then you can ignore the seats and compare the cars directly on price, and the smart choice is obvious.
Again, you can't say "those aren't important to me" while at the same time using the price to demonstrate how much cheaper it is.
Of course you can. No two laptops are going to be exactly the same; by your logic, then, it wouldn't make sense to compare any two laptops on price. At some point you have to accept the differences and decide how much they're worth to you.
To me, the handful of features only available on the MacBook are worth a lot less than the faster DVD burner on the HP, and I'm saying that as someone who has a Powerbook G4 with most of them (and has seen first hand the damage that a non-magnetic power connector can cause). Someone who thinks they're more important would be wise to take my advice with a grain of salt, but I doubt many of those people would be comparing laptops by price anyway.
And the are of course other advantages to the Mac that are more difficult to quantify.
No to all but the last question (no optical audio out, but it does have 1/8" SPDIF out). Combining two monitors to make one large desktop is a standard feature of Windows.
Now the question is, are those bells and whistles really worth an extra $850? To me, they definitely aren't.
I'll admit that Apple is not more expensive if you just want "a computer." Mac Minis and MacBooks are pretty competitively priced.
Actually, the low-end MacBook pro costs $800 more than a comparable HP laptop. And that's with most of the same bells and whistles - you can save a few more bucks if you don't need a webcam, remote control, Bluetooth, etc. The screen resolution will kill you, though.
It's not quite half again as thick (it's 1" thick at the front, sloping up to 1.5" thick at the back), and half a pound is an insignificant weight difference. Try putting two sticks of butter in your laptop case and see if you get tired carrying that extra weight around all day.;)
Although the HP has a lower resolution screen, it also has a better DVD burner, more video RAM, an additional USB port, and it supports 802.11a. You aren't going to find any two laptops from different manufacturers that are exactly the same, but IMO these are easily close enough to compare.
My guess is that the factory uses Windows because PCs are less expensive than Macs. That and the applications being run not supporting OSX (or Linux, for that matter).
Less expensive, maybe a little bit, but a Yugo is less expensive than a Ferrari too! Just look at how much more you get: FireWire! Magnetic power cords! Genius bars! And isn't it worth a few more bucks to make your factory snappier?
Besides, there are plenty of factory applications for Mac! There's AssemblyLine...
We don't necessarily know there is a rise in the actual occurrence of autism. There may only be a rise in the diagnosis - that is, some symptoms that were ignored before are now recognized as autism, or some children who wouldn't be in a position to be diagnosed (e.g. no money for medical care) now are.
Seriously, every story about lasers gets tagged "sharks". Austin Powers came out in 1997, so that tag was barely even funny the first time. It's time to move on.
The innovative power of the open market. The belief that by allowing a competition of ideas in how best to run elections (as long as they meet minimal standards) the best choice will be eventually reached.
So, um.. it's been over two hundred years. How come our election methods still suck?
My only piece of advice, if creating optical backups, is to backup to your harddisk, then burn the images and verify the burns against the images, rather than burning the discs on the fly.
Is it any faster that way? My only real complaint about Mondo is that it takes several hours to back up my 26 GB system to DVD+R, even with compression turned off... and for most of that time, I'm watching a progress bar stuck at 100% ("Now backing up large files") even as it burns disc after disc after disc.
And yet without copyright, the GPL could not force downstream authors to release their source.
Without copyright, the GPL would hardly be necessary, because we could reverse engineer any closed-source software and freely share the resulting code. The GPL exists mainly as a means to turn copyright against itself.
My anecdotal observation is that the people most cheesed off about intellectual property are primarily or entirely consumers of IP, and not producers.
Likewise, the people most cheesed off about pollution are primarily the ones who are harmed by pollution, not the ones who produce it. When you have a system in place that gives one group an advantage at the expense of another, of course the first is going to like it a lot more than the second.
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Indeed. There are some rights you can't give up by contract or other means, but those are spelled out in the law. For example, any clause in a rental contract waiving the right to 48 hours' notice before your landlord enters your rental unit is void in my state.
Fair use isn't one of those, it's just an exception to copyright law. However, note that any contract you sign promising not to exercise your fair use rights only applies to you. If a friend comes over to your house and exercises his own fair use rights using the copies you've purchased, you might be breaking your contract by allowing him such access, but he can't get in trouble himself.
Sorry to break it to you, but that isn't inherently "wrong". I enjoy the fruits of Marconi's labor every time I turn on the radio, but I don't pay his heirs a dime, and if they approached me asking for money, I'd tell them to get bent--and rightfully so.
Just because you do something and hope to get paid for it doesn't mean anyone owes you that money, nor does it mean they can't enjoy the results of what you did. There are two surefire ways to collect money for your work: (1) sell physical objects, or (2) charge directly for your labor. Doing labor for free and then trying to collect money from people afterward, when they aren't taking anything from you or incurring any extra costs for you by enjoying your work, is just foolish and ineffective.
No, it's just a vague statement, because it doesn't specify which Macs are being compared to which PCs. You have to fill in the gaps for it to have any measurable meaning at all, and depending on how you do that, it can be true or false:
1. [All] Macs are more expensive than [all] PCs. False.
2. [Some] Macs are more expensive than [some] PCs. True, but useless.
3. Macs [on average] are more expensive than [the equivalent] PCs. False, but also useless unless you're buying one of each model, or you're buying the one model that brings down the average price (which happens to be the model without a monitor, keyboard, etc.).
4. [Most] Macs are more expensive than [the equivalent] PCs. True, and useful. I contend that this is the most logical interpretation of the vague statement: if a person is interested in a random Mac model, it's more likely than not that he could find an equivalent PC at a lower price.
Well, not quite... some manufacturers reserve the freedom to issue software updates for themselves but deny it to their end users, which is the point of this change.
In any case, I was speaking in terms of ethical responsibility, just like I assumed you were. Many programmers have already licensed their software to TiVo et al. for use with crippled hardware, simply by releasing it under the GPLv2, but that doesn't mean they owed the use of their software to those manufacturers any more than the manufacturers owe it to their customers to make modding easy.
Likewise, if manufacturers want to make hardware that can only run "blessed" software packages, then it's up to them to write that software; not free-software programmers' responsibility to license it to them.
Nor does the GPLv3, and no one expects it to. It doesn't say you can't sell crippled hardware--only that you can't distribute GPL software with it.
AFAIK, embryonic stem cells aren't taken from unwanted pregnancies at all - they're taken from frozen embryos (fertility clinic waste) that have never been implanted.
Modifying hardware is far more difficult than modifying software, especially when we're talking about mass produced devices like the TiVo. Not everyone can desolder a surface mount ROM chip, install a socket, read out the old ROM data, burn a new chip, etc., all without destroying their hardware. It's unreasonable to expect programmers to do all that just to be able to run their changed software.
And it may not be a condition for OSS, but it is a condition for the "free software" RMS is always talking about. These changes in the GPLv3 shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows a thing about his philosophy or the FSF.
Even worse: they go out of their way to make it as difficult as possible, and when someone finds a way around their roadblocks, it's patched in the next hardware revision. There's a big difference between a manufacturer who just doesn't care about making modding easy, and a manufacturer who's actively engaging in an arms race with modders.
I'd be worried about that if the GPLv3's changes resulted in less freedom for end users (e.g. allowed people to incorporate GPL code into their products without making source available to their customers), but it doesn't. Anyone is still free to distribute the existing code under GPLv2 if they wish; some third party can't retroactively change its license. They might not be able to use the third party's changes, but if he doesn't want people using his code who are going to deny their end users the freedom to make changes in place, that seems fair enough.
Finally, since RMS has taken every opportunity to point out the difference between "free software" and "open source", I can't believe that anyone who knows a thing about him or the FSF could honestly think the GPLv3 departs from the spirit in which the GPL was written. Version 3 simply addresses a few things that go against the spirit of "free software" but weren't problems at the time version 2 was written.
What a useless comparison! Most Mac models, as far as I can tell, are more expensive than comparable PCs when compared one-by-one. If one model is throwing off the average, that's great news for people who want to buy that particular model, but for everyone else, it's just a meaningless statistic.
You might as well quote the average per capita net worth of a room containing Bill Gates and a thousand penniless bums. "The average net worth of these men is $24.5 million" is technically true, but there are virtually no situations where that fact could help you make a decision. All your statistic really means is that if you bought one of each model of Mac (or is it several of each in proportion to their sales volume?), you'd spend less than if you bought one of each equivalent model of PC.
Well, if by "freedom to use" you just mean the ability to execute it on some platform, then you're right. But free software is about more than that. If you find that Linux doesn't support your new printer, you can write a driver for it and add it to your existing system. If you don't like the behavior of your window manager, you can change it without having to start over from scratch. That's a benefit of free software: you can modify your stuff, in place, to suit your needs.
You don't get those benefits if you have to build a whole new computer to use the mods because the computer you bought off the shelf only boots signed kernels, which in turn only run signed applications, etc.
By the way, it isn't their hardware after they've sold it to me. It's mine.
Fair enough... but they don't have the right to use whatever software they want in such a configuration. If I, as a free software programmer, decide I don't want my work to be distributed in such a way that the people who end up using it aren't allowed to change it, then I need to use a license like GPLv3.
Maybe you don't mind if people use your work that way; fine, keep using GPLv2 or BSD or some other license that allows it. GPLv3 is there for the people who want to be sure the freedom to tinker is passed on everyone who uses their work.
His philosophy is more than just providing source code. It extends to the idea that you should be able to make whatever changes you want to the software that you use, without being limited legally (by licenses) or technologically (by measures like TiVo's kernel signature checking), and providing source code is a consequence of that. The GPLv3 uses legal measures to ensure that end-users aren't impaired by technological measures which were unforseen at the time the GPLv2 was written.
RMS isn't enforcing anything on anyone. If a software developer wants to release his code under the GPLv3, that's the developer's choice, not Stallman's. If you want to release your software under the BSD license, that's your choice too.
No. RMS's philosophy has been the same since before the modern OSS movement began. He was considered irrelevant back then, until the rise of free software success stories like GCC, Linux, Apache, etc. showed that his philosophy can produce great software while still granting end-users all the freedoms he talks about.
Now that we already have those pieces of software, some folks are ready to call him irrelevant again... but he isn't. He's looking out for those of us who value free software for more than just the fact that it costs $0 and anyone can contribute. I don't want to live in a world where companies like TiVo (although I love their DVRs) can use technological loopholes to build on the community's work while denying their end-users the ability to build on and tinker with the products they paid for. The open-source nature of Linux doesn't count for jack if your computer will only allow you to boot the signed copy of Linux that came preinstalled, and/or signed Linux upgrade CDs that you buy in a box at the store, does it?
I'm not sure which conditions you're referring to. What makes you think this wouldn't work?
I suppose some chipsets might force the VGA output to show the same as the flat panel, and only allow an extended desktop on the TV output, but I wouldn't expect the GeForce Go to be one of them, and according to this, it isn't.
It's not "having it both ways" if the other differences are unimportant. Consider a cheap sedan that costs $15,000, and an expensive luxury model that's exactly the same, except it has heated seats and costs twice as much. Heated seats are unavailable on the cheaper model. Is it impossible to compare the two cars? No; you can note that they're mostly identical except for one feature, then decide whether you're willing to pay an extra $15k for that feature. If you don't care about heated seats at all, then you can ignore the seats and compare the cars directly on price, and the smart choice is obvious.
Of course you can. No two laptops are going to be exactly the same; by your logic, then, it wouldn't make sense to compare any two laptops on price. At some point you have to accept the differences and decide how much they're worth to you.
To me, the handful of features only available on the MacBook are worth a lot less than the faster DVD burner on the HP, and I'm saying that as someone who has a Powerbook G4 with most of them (and has seen first hand the damage that a non-magnetic power connector can cause). Someone who thinks they're more important would be wise to take my advice with a grain of salt, but I doubt many of those people would be comparing laptops by price anyway.
You could say the same about Windows.
No to all but the last question (no optical audio out, but it does have 1/8" SPDIF out). Combining two monitors to make one large desktop is a standard feature of Windows.
Now the question is, are those bells and whistles really worth an extra $850? To me, they definitely aren't.
Actually, the low-end MacBook pro costs $800 more than a comparable HP laptop. And that's with most of the same bells and whistles - you can save a few more bucks if you don't need a webcam, remote control, Bluetooth, etc. The screen resolution will kill you, though.
In that case, they certainly wouldn't like the 5.6 lb MacBook Pro.
It's not quite half again as thick (it's 1" thick at the front, sloping up to 1.5" thick at the back), and half a pound is an insignificant weight difference. Try putting two sticks of butter in your laptop case and see if you get tired carrying that extra weight around all day. ;)
Although the HP has a lower resolution screen, it also has a better DVD burner, more video RAM, an additional USB port, and it supports 802.11a. You aren't going to find any two laptops from different manufacturers that are exactly the same, but IMO these are easily close enough to compare.
Maybe for desktops (I haven't checked), but not for notebooks. Compare the 15.4" MacBook Pro to a customized HP dv6000t:
Hardware
HP: 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 512 MB RAM, 15.4" widescreen (1280x800), 80 GB 5400 RPM SATA, 8x DL DVD+/-RW, GeForce Go 7400 (256 MB), 3 USB/1 FireWire, 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth, remote control, mic and camera
Apple: 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 512 MB RAM, 15.4" widescreen (1440x960), 80 GB 5400 RPM SATA, 4x single-layer DVD+/-RW, Mobility Radeon X1600 (128 MB), 2 USB/1 FireWire, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, remote control, mic and camera
Dimensions
HP: 14.05" x 10.12" x 1-1.5" (wedge shaped), 6.09 lb
Apple: 14.1" x 9.6" x 1", 5.6 lb
Price
HP: $1124
Apple: $1999 (77.8% more expensive)
Encryption? Big deal, you have the key right there on your install disc!
Less expensive, maybe a little bit, but a Yugo is less expensive than a Ferrari too! Just look at how much more you get: FireWire! Magnetic power cords! Genius bars! And isn't it worth a few more bucks to make your factory snappier?
Besides, there are plenty of factory applications for Mac! There's AssemblyLine...
Super AssemblyLine...
*whisper* Photoshop...
</fanboy>
We don't necessarily know there is a rise in the actual occurrence of autism. There may only be a rise in the diagnosis - that is, some symptoms that were ignored before are now recognized as autism, or some children who wouldn't be in a position to be diagnosed (e.g. no money for medical care) now are.
Seriously, every story about lasers gets tagged "sharks". Austin Powers came out in 1997, so that tag was barely even funny the first time. It's time to move on.
So, um.. it's been over two hundred years. How come our election methods still suck?
Is it any faster that way? My only real complaint about Mondo is that it takes several hours to back up my 26 GB system to DVD+R, even with compression turned off... and for most of that time, I'm watching a progress bar stuck at 100% ("Now backing up large files") even as it burns disc after disc after disc.
Without copyright, the GPL would hardly be necessary, because we could reverse engineer any closed-source software and freely share the resulting code. The GPL exists mainly as a means to turn copyright against itself.
Likewise, the people most cheesed off about pollution are primarily the ones who are harmed by pollution, not the ones who produce it. When you have a system in place that gives one group an advantage at the expense of another, of course the first is going to like it a lot more than the second.