All good arguments of course, but there's something you're not considering: for you to interpret music there must be something to interpret in the first place. Therefore, the creation of an MP3 requires the same work composing music does, as well as the non-trivial effort of interpreting and editing it.
It's like selling a script for more than the movie derived from it.
Since you've barely used propietary software for ten years, let me tell you: it's the same thing. Windows' terrible CLI, something that's been bothering admins and power users since at least Windows 2000 has only now been somewhat addressed with 7's PowerShell. And let us not talk of the wait we had to get proper, usable PNG support in IE, and I fear if it weren't for Firefox et al we'd still be waiting.
It's cute, this idea of yours that the commercial world is like one of those wildlife docummentaries you see on cable, where only the best survives and the mediocre dies a bloody death in the hands of their superior brethren, but reality just doesn't work that way. The smaller guys cut corners to lower costs and compete on price, the big guys make mediocre products because, hell! you ain't switching to the smaller guys anyways and we both know it, and those in between somehow manage to have the problems of both smaller dev houses and the big guys at the same time.
In fact, I'd say on average the F/OSS ecosystem is better, even, as you need at least some degree of love and interest in the subject matter to start a particular project, which means you'll be more willing to spend your time in it even if your idea doesn't prove as successful as you originally thought it was. While in the commercial world, "not as successful" is "not as many potential buyers" is "won't make as much money" is "we'd be better off investing elsewhere" is "stop wasting time in that money sink and get to work elsewhere!", which ain't pleasant when you're one of the few that *was* intersted in the idea in the first place.
*Technically* true, but your phrasing implies that Photoshop is in any way, shape or form what a sane person would consider "easy". A better way to phrase your statement would be "No, Photoshop's slightly less nightmarish, even if it's expensive".
Photoshop is a prime example of what happens when your Marketing department gets to make the engineering decisions for you, it's a program that tries to do a hundred things and does all of them badly, something that's painfully evident in its whole interface. The GIMP is worse these days, yes, but that's because they took a... perhaps not "good", but at least "workable" interface then caved in to the hundreds of morons who asked it to be more like Photoshop, managing to create something that's even more convoluted than the program it tried to imitate.
I'm an amateur photographer, not a designer (either web, print or any other media), I'm not a graphic artist, I'm not a painter, videographer or any of the hundred other markets Photoshop tries to cater to, so my experience certainly won't be universal. But for me, I'd much rather have a specialized tool such as RawTherapee, LightZone or even Adobe's own Lightroom and do all the "adjustment for web" with ImageMagick than deal with either of those attrocities.
They don't have the google ad revenue that Mozilla has.
Actually yes, they do. Can't find a source for it at the moment, but they've had a deal since the early 9.x days if not sooner, it's not something recent.
It is. It freaking switches whole *numeric bases* every couple units, for God's sake! it makes an even bigger mess than computational units, and without the mathematical reasons to do so.
The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine, I still prefer Celsius/Kelvin but it's not bad either. But yards, pounds and all that crap need to die a quick and very painful death, they deserve nothing else.
We hear about "teleportation" and something-or-other traveling faster than light, only to hear later that it's BS and we won't be seeing Star Trek technology anytime soon.
When you license things under the BSD license, you allow Apple or any other company to take it and use it however they feel like. I fail to see how this is a "legal" discussion.
Precisely that. We aren't arguing about what's "allowed" or "disallowed" within the license, that is a legal discussion. It's completely and utterly irrelevant, and unless you understand that simple, trivial fact replying to the rest of your post would be meaningless.
Because he's trying to turn an issue of morality into one of legality just so his favorite company gets in the clear.
To make an analogy to a company Slashdot is less obsessive about, it's similar to when IBM asserted its patents against Open Source: it was allowed by law, but that didn't mean "biting the hand that feed them" with their patent portfolio wasn't morally objectionable.
Same with Apple, the OP argued that using F/OSS to develop an entirely closed ecosystem was inmoral regardless of the legalities of the case. Now, you could make an argument that nothing legal can be inmoral, but any Philosophy student could tell you why that's a load of self-contradicting bollocks in an instant.
Just one, though, not one for each developer you plan on assigning to the project.
And then there's also the productivity penalties with having to learn an entirely new toolset from the ground up, which again could've been avoided had Apple not determined from their almighty throne that "Thou shall not have any other IDE before XCode".
No, it isn't, but Knuth is to CS what Newton is to Physics and Gauss is to Mathematics: there is no field of study where you wouldn't come across his name at one point or another. He's not like, I don't know, Emmanuel Kant where if you don't specialize in Ethics there's a reasonable chance you could become a knowledgeable Philosopher and never heard of it, Knuth is nicknamed the "God" of computing for a reason.
How in hell is chatting up with your ex-girlfriend when you're married something inmoral? at all?
I know, I know, lack of experience to judge here in this forum so take my word for it: it's something perfectly normal, and relatively common as well. Yeah, some people can get a bit jealous but the same goes for, say, commenting how 'cute' David Beckham looks wearing the England uniform yet few (if any) would say that making such a statement qualifies as "inmoral" for a married woman.
Because Amdahl's Law, surprisingly enough, also applies to people. You can't, for instance, ask somebody to write half an algorithm and another person the other half, well technically you can but the work needed to keep it orderly so it works (same variable names, etc) would be far more than it'd take just one programmer to write the entire thing himself.
Dunno why you were modded Troll though, I think it's a valid question, at least at first glance.
A physically slow kid playing football is very much like a physically weak kid playing rugby: unless he *vastly* compensates for his shortcomings in other areas he's going to get himself and his team owned, and hard.
But perhaps you just don't notice because in the US the competence level in football is fairly poor to begin with, so as long as you've still got two legs you aren't that far from the average. In a country like Argentina however, you'd be fucked.
Because there's a huge number of sports to watch in all countries, yet football dominates ratings nearly everywhere but the US. It's logical to assume then, if the only place where it doesn't occur is in the US, there *must* be a reason other than "ohh well, tough luck". Hence the reasoning for trying to find it.
I've always seen this argument here at Slashdot and I'm wondering, shouldn't it go both ways? with companies allowed to complain about piracy if and only if they release their older stuff freely to the public, ala ID Software?
If so, it's obvious neither the RIAA nor the MPAA qualify, given the extensive lobbying they've made to prevent stuff well over 50 years of age (The Beatles' discography, Mickey Mouse) from passing to the public domain.
Free speech means you can say unpopular things, things that disagree with the "establishment", things that are inflammatory, things that are downright disgusting (in some segment of the populations opinion)..
Free speech does not mean you can copy things either privately or for profit.. it never has and it never will.
Wrong, the text says nothing of the sort.
And if you bring intent and 'spirit' to the table let's see you explain "limited times" then.
If the world is so terrible then use the fucking UN, that's what it was created for. Too little teeth? give them weapons and training then, but leave them *independant* and stop trying to control them for your own gain.
The problem of your "solution" of having the US invade any country whose regime they don't like is that there's no measure put in place if the US itself begins acting like a goddamned cowboy where if you're not with them, you're against them and deserve to be crushed. Besides, if *you* have the right why not China as well, or Russia? and then it's the Cold War all over again.
Slashdot Mirror
All good arguments of course, but there's something you're not considering: for you to interpret music there must be something to interpret in the first place. Therefore, the creation of an MP3 requires the same work composing music does, as well as the non-trivial effort of interpreting and editing it.
It's like selling a script for more than the movie derived from it.
Since you've barely used propietary software for ten years, let me tell you: it's the same thing. Windows' terrible CLI, something that's been bothering admins and power users since at least Windows 2000 has only now been somewhat addressed with 7's PowerShell. And let us not talk of the wait we had to get proper, usable PNG support in IE, and I fear if it weren't for Firefox et al we'd still be waiting.
It's cute, this idea of yours that the commercial world is like one of those wildlife docummentaries you see on cable, where only the best survives and the mediocre dies a bloody death in the hands of their superior brethren, but reality just doesn't work that way. The smaller guys cut corners to lower costs and compete on price, the big guys make mediocre products because, hell! you ain't switching to the smaller guys anyways and we both know it, and those in between somehow manage to have the problems of both smaller dev houses and the big guys at the same time.
In fact, I'd say on average the F/OSS ecosystem is better, even, as you need at least some degree of love and interest in the subject matter to start a particular project, which means you'll be more willing to spend your time in it even if your idea doesn't prove as successful as you originally thought it was. While in the commercial world, "not as successful" is "not as many potential buyers" is "won't make as much money" is "we'd be better off investing elsewhere" is "stop wasting time in that money sink and get to work elsewhere!", which ain't pleasant when you're one of the few that *was* intersted in the idea in the first place.
No, Photoshop's easier, even if it's expensive.
*Technically* true, but your phrasing implies that Photoshop is in any way, shape or form what a sane person would consider "easy". A better way to phrase your statement would be "No, Photoshop's slightly less nightmarish, even if it's expensive".
Photoshop is a prime example of what happens when your Marketing department gets to make the engineering decisions for you, it's a program that tries to do a hundred things and does all of them badly, something that's painfully evident in its whole interface. The GIMP is worse these days, yes, but that's because they took a... perhaps not "good", but at least "workable" interface then caved in to the hundreds of morons who asked it to be more like Photoshop, managing to create something that's even more convoluted than the program it tried to imitate.
I'm an amateur photographer, not a designer (either web, print or any other media), I'm not a graphic artist, I'm not a painter, videographer or any of the hundred other markets Photoshop tries to cater to, so my experience certainly won't be universal. But for me, I'd much rather have a specialized tool such as RawTherapee, LightZone or even Adobe's own Lightroom and do all the "adjustment for web" with ImageMagick than deal with either of those attrocities.
They don't have the google ad revenue that Mozilla has.
Actually yes, they do. Can't find a source for it at the moment, but they've had a deal since the early 9.x days if not sooner, it's not something recent.
it's no more mumbo jumbo then the metric system
It is. It freaking switches whole *numeric bases* every couple units, for God's sake! it makes an even bigger mess than computational units, and without the mathematical reasons to do so.
The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine, I still prefer Celsius/Kelvin but it's not bad either. But yards, pounds and all that crap need to die a quick and very painful death, they deserve nothing else.
Nothing blows the realism quicker for me than "magic doors" or guys that supposedly can take more rounds than the Terminator without even a limp.
Including but not limited to your own character.
But as the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series' horrible, horrible "next-gen" offerings proved, "Terminator" sells a lot better than actual realism.
That reality conflicts with your particular ideology doesn't mean those informing you of it are acting on a political agenda.
We hear about "teleportation" and something-or-other traveling faster than light, only to hear later that it's BS and we won't be seeing Star Trek technology anytime soon.
I believe this and this may be relevant.
That seems somewhat reasonable. Or what, scientists are just supposed to be revered as priests of hidden knowledge?
No, you're supposed to Read The Fucking Paper.
When you license things under the BSD license, you allow Apple or any other company to take it and use it however they feel like. I fail to see how this is a "legal" discussion.
Precisely that. We aren't arguing about what's "allowed" or "disallowed" within the license, that is a legal discussion. It's completely and utterly irrelevant, and unless you understand that simple, trivial fact replying to the rest of your post would be meaningless.
You assume the GP has it. He doesn't, for instance, if the person he loves is a minor, an octopi or his own sister.
And before you reply "but that'd be disgusting!" be aware that the same can be (and has been) said of homosexuality as well.
When the alternative is living under the thumb of our corporate overlords, yeah that sounds pretty nice actually.
Why is the parent post modded troll?
Because he's trying to turn an issue of morality into one of legality just so his favorite company gets in the clear.
To make an analogy to a company Slashdot is less obsessive about, it's similar to when IBM asserted its patents against Open Source: it was allowed by law, but that didn't mean "biting the hand that feed them" with their patent portfolio wasn't morally objectionable.
Same with Apple, the OP argued that using F/OSS to develop an entirely closed ecosystem was inmoral regardless of the legalities of the case. Now, you could make an argument that nothing legal can be inmoral, but any Philosophy student could tell you why that's a load of self-contradicting bollocks in an instant.
Just one, though, not one for each developer you plan on assigning to the project.
And then there's also the productivity penalties with having to learn an entirely new toolset from the ground up, which again could've been avoided had Apple not determined from their almighty throne that "Thou shall not have any other IDE before XCode".
Most iP* users are like the GP. They like the fact that there is a safe, one-stop shop for all apps.
Proof? considering TFA states the exact opposite and all.
No, it isn't, but Knuth is to CS what Newton is to Physics and Gauss is to Mathematics: there is no field of study where you wouldn't come across his name at one point or another. He's not like, I don't know, Emmanuel Kant where if you don't specialize in Ethics there's a reasonable chance you could become a knowledgeable Philosopher and never heard of it, Knuth is nicknamed the "God" of computing for a reason.
How in hell is chatting up with your ex-girlfriend when you're married something inmoral? at all?
I know, I know, lack of experience to judge here in this forum so take my word for it: it's something perfectly normal, and relatively common as well. Yeah, some people can get a bit jealous but the same goes for, say, commenting how 'cute' David Beckham looks wearing the England uniform yet few (if any) would say that making such a statement qualifies as "inmoral" for a married woman.
Because Amdahl's Law, surprisingly enough, also applies to people. You can't, for instance, ask somebody to write half an algorithm and another person the other half, well technically you can but the work needed to keep it orderly so it works (same variable names, etc) would be far more than it'd take just one programmer to write the entire thing himself.
Dunno why you were modded Troll though, I think it's a valid question, at least at first glance.
A physically slow kid playing football is very much like a physically weak kid playing rugby: unless he *vastly* compensates for his shortcomings in other areas he's going to get himself and his team owned, and hard.
But perhaps you just don't notice because in the US the competence level in football is fairly poor to begin with, so as long as you've still got two legs you aren't that far from the average. In a country like Argentina however, you'd be fucked.
Because there's a huge number of sports to watch in all countries, yet football dominates ratings nearly everywhere but the US. It's logical to assume then, if the only place where it doesn't occur is in the US, there *must* be a reason other than "ohh well, tough luck". Hence the reasoning for trying to find it.
No, the phones for our grandmothers are made by Nokia and come free with your contract.
It turns out users like the inability to install viruses along with all the crappy screensavers and free games they want to install.
Which is why the OSX platform is thriving while Microsoft is on its way to bankrupcy.
Ohhh, wait.
I've always seen this argument here at Slashdot and I'm wondering, shouldn't it go both ways? with companies allowed to complain about piracy if and only if they release their older stuff freely to the public, ala ID Software?
If so, it's obvious neither the RIAA nor the MPAA qualify, given the extensive lobbying they've made to prevent stuff well over 50 years of age (The Beatles' discography, Mickey Mouse) from passing to the public domain.
Stop raping the English language, please.
Free speech means you can say unpopular things, things that disagree with the "establishment", things that are inflammatory, things that are downright disgusting (in some segment of the populations opinion)..
Free speech does not mean you can copy things either privately or for profit.. it never has and it never will.
Wrong, the text says nothing of the sort.
And if you bring intent and 'spirit' to the table let's see you explain "limited times" then.
If the world is so terrible then use the fucking UN, that's what it was created for. Too little teeth? give them weapons and training then, but leave them *independant* and stop trying to control them for your own gain.
The problem of your "solution" of having the US invade any country whose regime they don't like is that there's no measure put in place if the US itself begins acting like a goddamned cowboy where if you're not with them, you're against them and deserve to be crushed. Besides, if *you* have the right why not China as well, or Russia? and then it's the Cold War all over again.