Yes, but that cost is a small fraction of what they would have payed had they developed the software themselves. Yet they still expect to command the same fees as someone like Microsoft.
They don't sell as many boxes as Microsoft either.
And Microsoft don't do a comparable job with packaging. They only package their operating system, they certainly don't package hundreds of third party applications.
Customers don't want 3rd party support for full price.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "full price", or
"third party support".
I can't pull the numbers together quickly enough to give you an exact figure, but on new purchases it's around 50%
I don't know where you get that figure from, but
I don't find it plausible.
As far as I can tell, the only reason any of these companies package distributions is for control. They're out to make a buck on someone else's labor, and they'd have a hard time selling something that they have no control over.
Packaging distributions takes a lot of time and effort. They're not "making a buck on someone else's labor", what they're doing is taking care of the packaging and integration work that most programmers don't have the time to deal with.
nce guys like Love realized that they couldn't make money selling something that was free, they started this scramble to keep their heads above water instead of slowing down and rethinking their plan.
Packaging a distribution is not "free", it takes time and effort, which has to be paid for (commercial distros) or donated by volunteers (Debian).
It's amazing how high the percentage is of paying linux software customers that run Debian i
What, it's up to 1 already ? (-; Seriously, what is it ?
You're contradicting yourself left right and center. First you come up with this...
One of the most frustrating things about using some commercial products under GNU/Linux has been the Red Hat centric methods of distribution: binary RPMS designed for Red Hat that may or may not work with other RPM based distros,
The reason why this is the way it is has to do with the fact that different distributions have subtle differences at the core. They have slightly different naming conventions, and put files in slightly different places.
With that in mind, let's scroll down...
Now it looks like United Linux is trying to reduce the choice of anyone wanting to run a commercial product on their system to two choices: Red Hat or United Linux.
This is simply false. United Linux is not a single distribution, it's a common foundation. You can't have it both ways -- you either have a common foundation for different distributions, or you have incompatibilities.
What this actually does is give you more
choice, because the United Linux based distributions should be binary compatible.
It looks like the behometh forming here has every intention of dictating standards and shoving de-facto norms down the community's throat, rather than taking the consensus-based approach we have used up until now.
Not true. UnitedLinux is based on LSB, which was
indeed developed by the community.
and it sounds very much like this 'certification' process they're talking about is designed to coerce any and all commercial GNU/Linux vendors to target Red Hat and United Linux, to the detriment of other, likely better, distros out there.
A package that targets UnitedLinux is LSB compatible.
Here's the bottom line-- you can make your distribution binary-compatible with market leaders, by making it Redhat or LSB compatible,
otherwise you're kind of stuck. I don't see how this constitutes a change in the state of affairs, besides the fact that the commercial
Linux distribution market is getting its act together (at last)
One person mentioned that recipients of the binaries can redistribute as long as they don't use the name UnitedLinux. I'm not even sure that's true (but IANAL). It would be illegal to redistribute a UnitedLinux binary ISO if you changed a single byte on the CD. But if it's the exact same thing they're distributing, I can't see how it's a violation of trademark.
I think it's a violation of copyright. One can still copyright an ISO image. I'm not fully sure of the trademark implications, but if the United Linux CD carries any promise of support, then
you obviously can't redistribute it without creating the false impression that you're also transferring the support. Your car analogy is not analogous, because you're not making unsupported clones of factory models.
There are a number of bare bones vendors, and this works well-- a lot of potential problems are eliminated once the bare bones part of the system is tested. Also, the additionals one puts in a bare bones are more likely to be swappable. I've gone with cpusolutions.com, but as a general principle I recommend crossreferencing pricewatch.com with resellerratings.com
Just following up to say that I've had very
good experiences with barebones (cpusolutions.com works nicely, but don't skimp on the case)
I've done this several times, and this is a really nice way to do it, as well as being a bit of a sweet-spot in the time-money tradeoff. No futzing around trying to attach a motherboard (and hoping to hell you attached the heatsink properly!), just drop the RAM, PCI cards, put the drives in the cage, and you're all set. These parts of the installation are things that I've done so many times that I can do them quite quickly. For the other stuff, a bare bones vendor can do it so cheaply that it's worth the $20- or so that they charge. Also, if one has some spare parts to cannibalise (eg: PCI cards, floppy, CDROM), the
bare bones approach is very cheap.
Set up a home network (and other things)
on
General IT Books?
·
· Score: 2
A lot of people have mentioned books. I'd point
out another thing: if you can get hold of more than
one computer, try setting up a home network. It's
a lot of fun, and it will teach you a lot of useful things about networking. I still remember someone laughing at me when I said I was going to set up a
"network" with two computers. Well actually, you can
really learn a lot by doing this, and once you can
do it, it's not that hard to set up much larger
networks. Play with Apache, SAMBA, NFS, xdm, etc etc.
Try to learning some programming. I suggest starting
with an interpreted language, like Python. It's
easy to get started quickly. Good programming
books to get started with:
Learning Python by Mark Lutz for Python,
and Accelerated C++ by Koenig and Moo for C++. The recommended books (Programming Python,
The C++ Programming Language) aren't terribly
good for starting out (to put it mildly. The latter is a reference, which basically assumes you know C++, it's not a tutorial)
Also, play around with Apache, try to write
some server side scripts using Python or whatever
other tool you fancy.
Beginning Linux Programming (Matthew/Steones, Wrox press) is a good intro to several topics on programming for Linux.
Cheers,
Re:"Learning Python" better than "Programming Pyth
on
General IT Books?
·
· Score: 2
I would recommend "Learning Python" over "Programming Python" for anyone with little or no experience of the language. I have both, and while Programming Python is an excellent book it is not at all suitable for beginners.
I'd have to agree with this. I like the way Lutz's exercises have the reader type code straight into the interpreter, as an impatient type who'd had some programming experience and wanted to get up to speed fast, this hands-on approach worked wonders.
Once one has digested this book, the online python documentation is quite useful, or for a dead tree book, there's Beazley's "Python Essential Reference" (New Riders)
When someone asks for a good programming book, why does someone always recommend K&R? Where did we get this crazy notion that the guys who invented the language obviously wrote the best book about it? I mean, the Stroustrop C++ book is actually pretty good,
Pretty good, but also brutally terse. Experts love it, beginners usually despise it.
Since it's simply not possible to be simultaneously insightful and completely fuckin' dense. The link specifically mentions "civil judgment", so this buttwart didn't even bother to read the article before spewing baseless shit.
The written summary of the article that was posted
on the front page of slashdot did indeed refer to Microsoft as "criminals". A rebuttal directed at that, and not the article itself, is
still pertinent to the slashdot discussion, which after all, is initiated with the editorial summary and submission text!
It's too bad that there hasn't been more of an international outcry at the abuses in Zimbabwe.
EU boycotted them after the elections if I recall
correctly. The UN has sort of waffled on them, but
there are several countries that have criticised them. I'd like to hear the UN make more noise, but I wouldn't say the world is ignoring this.
If you reread my post, I said "CS exams that involve programming". You even quoted that part, but obviously didn't pay attention to it.
I see. My response would be that most CS exams don't
involve programming, and the ones that appear to involve programming are actually testing something else (eg whether you can express an algorithm clearly and correctly)
So I think most of your argument is based on a
false premise.
I'd been programming for over a decade before I took my first CS exam, so I think I'm qualified to say that writing code on paper is unnatural.
"Unnatural" is a loaded, subjective, and emotive term. IMO, "unfamiliar" would be a better word.
XP has it right
Design a little, test a little, code a little.
XP is about project management. It has little or
no relevance to measuring basic skills. What
coding exercises on exams measure is whether or
not the student can express simple algorithms in
a clear and correct way.
Again, this boils down to the fact that entry level
programming courses are not intended to evaluate
your skill as a programmer (that would require
an interview at the very least), the purpose is to test mastery of the syllabus, which is often
related to programming, but certainly is not
exactly the same thing.
I agree, however, that's not the way it works. In my first year CS courses, we lost marks if we so much as forgot a bracket. That's rediculous.
Might be "how it works" in your experience, but there's no reason why this is always "the way it works". In any case, your complaint is about the
fact that in your experience exams were poorly graded. An obvious solution to this problem is to
use a better grading scheme for exam papers (-;
That allows you to take it home, code as many solutions as you can in a week, debug it, etc. I think this approach is a far more accurate description of one's skills as a programmer.
Nope. A good programmer should be able to write
simple programs correctly without having the
computer to test it for them. If they can take it
home, everyone should (and in practice, usually does) get it, but in an exam room, you're measuring how good the students are at catching
mistakes (or not making them in the first place)
without the computers help.
Of course, an obvious problem with my suggestions would be cheating.
Yep. That's why this solution isn't used in practice. It unfairly penalises honest students.
Another approach is to change the way CS tests (midterms and finals) are designed. Drop as much of the coding as possible, and simply ask the student to apply the principles they've learned to a variety of problems. This would be a mostly written exam, which leaves it open to subjective grading. Maybe that's the way it should be. Computer Science is about problem solving, not coding.
I mostly agree with this. First year courses do
need a lot of coding, so that students acquire the
basic skills to coherently express their ideas.
I wouldn't put a lot of coding on an exam uness it was an open-notes test.
Why would anyone want a programmer to know how to code a linked list? Its a waste of time. No one is gonna code it from scratch, its a trivial and demeaning question.
I'd want to know, because a hell of a lot of people graduate from CS degrees without knowing how to do this properly. You're not really looking for whether the interviewee can write the code with immaculate syntax, the main concern is
whether or not they understand the basic concepts,
and all of the subtle implementation issues
I know if I went into an interview and someone asked me for code like that, I'd tell them straight up that I'd look that up in a book or online, and that it'd be a waste of my time to write it.
That's like an elementary school student telling the teacher that they'd just use a calculator
if someone asked them to add two numbers. Of course, one could do it like that, but the point is
that the interviewer is interested in knowing whether or not you understand how to implement a
linked list. There's a good reason for asking questions about a data structure that has been implemented millions of times-- it's something that everyone is expected to know how to do.
Maybe if you're hiring greenhorns straight out of school you might ask a dumb question like this just to make sure they aren't completely clueless, but for experienced programmers its frankly a poor test to find a good problem solver.
Even people who write programming books frequently
make a complete mess out of linked list data structures. So I'd consider the question fair game,
even for "experienced developers". By the way, I
think you're greatly underrating the subtlety of
this question. It's not trivial, there are a
lot of interesting issues and tradeoffs that come up in designing such a class, and most books screw it up.
Here's why: name the last time some one came up to you and asked "Tell me the quadratic formula and use it to solve this quadratic equation. You've got 1 minute... GO!" Honestly, this example is absurd, but some tests come down to that.
Have you ever given a math or physics talk where someone asks you an annoying and difficult question
you hadn't anticipated ? The kind of question
you offer as an example here is exactly the kind
of thing you're likely to get shoved in your face in front of a large audience in the real world.
Of course, the quadratic formula will probably
be one of 5 steps that you'd better be able to
string together in your head in short order, but
basically, it is the same thing. I've saved myself
from some substantial embarrassments by thinking on
my feet and "patching" unanticipated gaps in proofs. I'd imagine similar is true for more business oriented types, when they're handling
tough questions at a shareholders meeting.
THinking on your feet is actually quite
useful, even in "the real world".
Paper is just plainly the wrong medium for CS exams that involve programming. That became plainly obvious in my first CS exam and only got worse.
Depends on what you're testing.
CS students should be tested on computers in at least a simulated development environment.
Simulating a "development environment" is nontrivial. A real world development environment often involves large and complex programs. The paper exam is a "simulated environment" of sorts.
I agree that open book tests tend to be a good
idea with courses that involve programming.
If athletes were tested like computer programmers,
You've lost me. You're discussing "testing computer programmers", but the topic is "CS exams". The two are not equivalent.
The worst part is that the intersection of those two groups is probably not very large, especially in CS, so I think some truly good programmers are being punished.
An exam on compiler design will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the fundamentals of compiler design.
An exam on artificial intelligence will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the
fundamentals of artificial intelligence
An exam on discrete math will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the fundamentals of discrete math.
Get the point ? Not all CS exams attempt to
measure whether or not you are "a good programmer". The exams are there to test mastery of the syllabus, which, with the exception of some
entry level courses, doesn't have a whole lot to do with writing code.
In the meantime, I hope instructors treat handwritten code more like a sketch than a masterpiece. We were lucky that the profs here didn't worry too much about syntax in handwritten code and instead looked for understanding of what we were doing.
You weren't "lucky", this is the way it's usually done. The instructors, as you say, are looking for some sign that you understand the material. They don't care a whole lot if you miss a semicolon
or something.
If we were a bit off on the syntax that was okay as long as we had the concepts down well. But we still did have to memorize a lot of stuff that was quite unnecessary and that's just Wrong.
Just like it was "wrong' for them to make you memorize those timestables, right ? After all, one
could always use a calculator.
First we have math programs that won't let you use calculators, now CS tests that make you write code on paper.
I think the point is that the tests are supposed to
be designed in such a way that you don't need
a calculator or computer. The students whine about
this because they reach for their calculators if
you ask them 2+2.
Another issue is with graphing calculators: there are some tests where
the questions are conceptual questions about the behaviour of functions, and the students are supposed to be able to compute (for example) the vertex of a parabola, so giving them a calculator that they could graph it on would defeat the purpose of the test. You didn't bring calculators to elementary school when you learned your times tables, did you ? (or don't they learn those any more ?)
Similar arguments are applicable with writing code
on paper. Maybe you are testing the students
capacity to check code for themselves, without
having a computer tell them whether their program
is correct. In the real world, of course, you have
a computer, but your program is also very large, and an error will not necessarily produce an
immediate bug that surfaces within 20 lines of
the offending line of code.
There's always that argument..."if you get stuck on a desert island and need to rebuild society you won't have the benefit of these modern tools."
That's a straw man. The real problem is that you're not going to be able to simulate the real
world under exam conditions.
Actually, I think CS tests are pointless, period. They have very little to do with your skill as a programmer or knowledge of the subject.
Sure they do. An algorithms test can ask questions
about algorithms. They can be conceptual, they can
involve proofs or pseudocode implementation. Either way, they test your knowledge and understanding of algorithms. Replace "algorithms"
with any subject and repeat (-;
Off-the-cuff remarks like yours strike me as cheap rationalisations employed by weak (or lazy) students.
Exams don't necessarily test "your skill as a programmer", because they're not necessarily supposed to. Mastery of the syllabus usually does not mean the same thing as "skill as a programmer".
can see concepts on tests, and perhaps a few functions to demonstrate knowledge of certain algorithms, but a 500 line program is ridiculous.
I agree that a 500 line program is ridiculous, and
I suspect that it's also an exaggeration. I've never seen any school do anything remotely like this.
I feel the same way -- every written test I had to take, I was proficient on the underlying theory, and would be able to code it in front of a computer. Most of the time I miss the 100% grade due to an off-by-one error, or an `if' clause testing the exact opposite of what I intended to. These sort of errors are easily spotted if you have a computer to aid in debugging, and that's why I believe coding tests should be done on a computer, period.
I think the point is that you're supposed to
"understand" it well enough that you can write
simple programs that do not contain fencepost
errors, and that you can write condition tests
correctly. Of course a tool as powerful as a
computer can help you diagnose your mistakes--
on a trivial 20 line program. On a program that is
thousands of lines long, however, logic errors
are not immediately detectable. That
is why you want to be able to get it right without
waiting for a core dump.
This may sound harsh, but it sounds to me like you're just whining. I mean, everyone thinks they're "proficient on the underlying theory", but when it comes down to it, some people are more proficient than others, some are "proficient" enough to get simple questions right all of the
time. My advice is to quit whining and just do
the exam -- when I say just do it, I also mean prepare for it, practice with similar questions,
and make sure you "understand the underlying theory" in a way that leads to giving correct answers on exams.
This isn't right. The original argument was that societies that don't have copyrights don't produce much in the way of creative works. ( no copyrights => no creative ) You suggested that the converse was the case-- that is, that copyright was the result of a society that valued creativity. ( creative => copyrights ) The contrapositive of this is that ( not copyrights => not creative )
Doh! I appear to have tangled myself up here. Never mind (-; I said (no creativity => no copyrights), and you said "I see no reason to believe that the value on creativity is an effect of lack of copyright law. If anything, it is a cause." eg: (value creativity => copyrights exist)",
but your statment is actually the contrapositive of
my assertion that ( no copyrights => no value of
creativity ). So we're actually not in disagreement on this point-- both of us agree that copyright
is caused by a value of creativity.
Yes but the converse is not logically equivalent to the original statement. The contrapositive (those who value copyright value creativity) is.
This isn't right. The original argument was that
societies that don't have copyrights don't produce much in the way of creative works.
( no copyrights => no creative )
You suggested that the converse was the case-- that is, that
copyright was the result of a society that valued creativity. ( creative => copyrights )
The contrapositive of this is that
( not copyrights => not creative )
My argument is perfectly logical here, I appear to have confused the issue somewhat by not explaining my use of converse. I was referring to the converse of my assertion, and taking the contrapositive of that.
And yet the artists made money? From what?
CD sales, and merchandise.
Fair enough, but then I'm not going to bother believing you.
I don't ask you to believe me. Instead, I suggest you make a good faith effort to critically evaluate the claim that oive performances are profitable, before asserting it.
That would be an excellent start. I for one would immediately start a pirating business out of my home.
I'd advocate jail time for this -- it's more analogous to organised crime/fraud than freeriding. This is analogous to selling
illegitimate tickets at
half the price of the train co., and this would certainly result in jail time.
Using someone else's golf course directly hurts that other person. Using someone else's words doesn't.
How do you know that it hurts another person ?
Maybe it doesn't necessarily. For example, if you
use the golf course, or ride the trains, or whatever, at a time when it's not busy, you're probably not causing substantial harm to anyone.
But in any case, there are other sorts of clubs where one could freeload without depleting
availability of a
limited
physical resource. If I form a social club, should
I be able to charge membership fees, even if
membership is not a limited resource ?
The main harm that is done by freeriders is that
they are essentially stealing from the people who
pay for it, because those who pay for it are
subsidising them. It costs money to administer
and build the golf course, to run the trains,
or to write a piece of software.
First off, that's not true. Look up the terms "converse", "inverse", and "contrapositive".
I know perfectly well what they mean.
Since we're talking about looking up things, I suggest you lookup "Kants categorical imperative".
I know correlation doesn't imply causality, but earlier ion the post, you suggest a causal relation. In any case, there is a definite correlation between countries that value creativity and countries that have copyrights.
If there's a demand, and there's someone to supply that demand, the market will likely find a way to meet that demand.
"The market" cannot function without basic laws. At the fvery least, a market system needs to facilitate and protect contracts, and punish cheats. A market system cannot survive in the
presence of fraud or extortion. I'd argue that
not allowing copyright or a contractual system that
amounts to an equivalent to copyright would result in a system that is vulnerable to fraud -- because someone could cheat on a contract, or be a beneficiary of someone else who cheats on a contract, with impunity. It';s absolutely necessary in this case, because allowing parties to enter contractual agreements should allow parties to form the sort of exclusive clubs I spoke of previously.
I see no reason to believe that the value on creativity is an effect of lack of copyright law. If anything, it is a cause.
If we buy that, then the converse is that those who are against copyright don't value creativity.
I'd like to see some quotes which back up your point.
There are several examples of tours that have barely broken even, or lost money. I'm not going to dig them up now, because this issue has already been beaten to death on slashdot.
What consumer software market? Games? Operating Systems? I don't know a single person who has bought a single consumer software item which wasn't a game, except from Microsoft.
I was counting shrink-wrapped business software in this category too, and that is quite a large market. As for home users, the piracy rate is I believe still under 50% in the US, so there is a market.
Short of throwing millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens in jail (probably after illegally searching their homes), you're not going to do anything to stop it.
I think throwing people in jail is the wrong solution. Better to treat them as any other freeloader-- slap a fine on them. This is what they typically do to people who ride trains without paying, for example. The punishment fits the crime much better.
No one is forcing me to type on my keyboard either, but that doesn't mean it's dishonest for me to type on my keyboard without paying royalties to the keyboard manufacturer. If congress made a law saying that anyone who buys a keyboard must pay $0.01 to the keyboard manufacturer every time s/he types a key, would you consider it dishonest and immoral to use the keyboard without paying?
Your analogy is not analogous, because the government are mandating a minimum price. In the case of creative works, there is no minimum, eg: keyboard manufacturers could compete on pricing schemes, and the manufacturer with the pricing scheme that was most acceptable to consumers would
probably win out, while those who didn't would just go out of business. In the case of keyboards, a per-key charge would not be necessary to prevent
proliferation of freeloading.
The government does not have the right to allow authors to set up such a club.
Why not ? What's wrong with such a club ? If I start a golf club, am I not allowed to charge fees, and exclude freeloaders ?
Correlation does not imply causation.
If I indeed have the causality arrow backwards, it follows that copyright is inevitable in a society that values creativity.
I don't believe it's up to me or you to decide. I believe it's up to the market to decide.
If the market are really discontent with copyright, they can always support other models instead. The fact is that the market do not support freeloader-friendly models, because people who have the decency to pay for the ride have no interest in subsidising freeloaders.
Actually the other problem is that these societies can continue to freeload off the works of other countries, so it really isn't a problem that they aren't creating themselves.
There are some fairly severe secondary effects, the main one being that those countries tend not to have a "brain-oriented" economy, because they don't value creativity.
I don't think it's clear that very much science and useful arts would go uncreated without copyright law. Popular music might die, but local bands would continue, and would probably flourish. Probably even popular music would continue since the musician makes most of his/her money through concerts,
It's simply not true that musicians make most of their money through concerts. I agree that small live acts would probably still stay, however, the recorded music industry would suffer greatly.
The consumer software market would be hurt pretty
badly. I'm personally concerned about technical measures like dongles, because they make life hard
for people who are honest. You'd also see a lack of competition, because large bundling deals would become the primary means by which consumer software was marketted.
If that contract was made under duress, perhaps, since I have no choice whether or not to agree to the copyright contract.
No-one is forcing you to use the software. The software vnedor has the right to make a deal with
any buyer. If you're not a buyer, you are using it because some other buyer cheated the software vendor. This is analogous to receiving stolen goods -- you're still a party to the crime.
Look, I can go around feeding the hungry and healing the sick, and if I don't arrange for a way to get paid, I'm not going to get paid. No one is forcing the authors to create their works, and I don't advocate eliminating copyright on already existing works.
Copyright is a way for authors to get paid. It's a means by which authors can set up an exclusive club of people who are allowed to use their software. The slashdot whiners cry foul because they're not allowed to sneak in the doors for free, but you know what ? Perhaps the founder of the club, and the paying membership are quite happy to have their club, and don't want any freeloaders squeezing in.
Personally I blame copyright law for our current technology recession. Its elimination would certainly cause a boom in computer and internet usage.
Take a look at the countries that have weak IP laws, and ask yourself how they are doing in terms of technology. Singapore and Taiwan for example (I chose these because they are wealthy countries with a high standard of living and weak copyright protection): the only parts of the tech sector that are strong in those countries are those where trade secrets concstitute a viable form of IP protection, both countries have a strong hardware industry (which is trade secret oriented) but next to no software industry. If your theory is correct, we should expect an IP boom in those countries.
That begs the question as to whether authors of creative works should necessarily be compensated in the first place.
Depends on how much you value creativity, doesn't it ? If you consider flipping burgers to be more useful to society than writing software, then perhaps you should indeed reward the burger flipper, but not the software author.
I think copyright should be eliminated first, because it is immoral, and any problems as to supply of creative works should then be solved after seeing the actual problem in action, not by guessing as to what it might be.
No need to do this. There are copious examples of
countries where copyright law is not enforced, and
the results are fairly clear-- there is less incentive to produce creative works. The only thing that is not clear is that the fact that societies that don't value creativity don't value copyright, so the absence of copyright is confunded as a variable with a lack of respect for creativity. I don't think there's any way to separate these variables, because copyright or some other form of IP protection is inevitable anywhere that creativity is valued.
That presumes that the resource is expendable. By copying a book, I am not expending the resource at all. In fact, I am benefitting society by helping to educate it.
It is analogous. The only substantial difference is that you're seizing an intangible asset -- the right to distribution of the book. By doing this, you devalue that right, and as that right is the only means of compensation for a producer, you are
attacking the producers compensation, and their incentive to produce. So it's still a "grab".
I don't think that copyright infringement has anything to do with dishonesty. Just because the powers that be decide to place unjust restrictions upon me does not mean that I am dishonest for disobeying those restrictions.
Sure it does. There's an implied contract that
the creative work is made available under. You're trying to cheat the author by not holding up your end of the deal. It's analogous to someone deliberately breaching a contract, and trying to say they're not a cheat.
That is, unless bandwidth is artificially restricted, or anonymous peer-to-peer communications are outlawed
Anonymity is a problem though. How can you trust an anonymous source ?
Depends on the type of creative work. Also, I'd really like to see what the actual problems are with eliminating copyright law before deciding. For the most part I think voluntary non-disclosure contracts can fill the gap.
There are a number of problems with this though.
One of them is that if someone anonymously leaked
the "information", it would be difficult to prevent its distribution, even though the receivers would be in a situation analogous to handling and profiteering from stolen goods, and even if the infringer were caught, they probably wouldn't have the means to compenate for the damages. In any case, I don't think it's good enough to get rid of the primary means of compensation for authors of creative works, and then worry about trying to compensate them after they all starve, and the high tech economy collapses. It's irresponsible to propose "no solution" as a replacement for something that you think is a bad solution -- and there is an identifiable problem: how should authors of creative works be compensated ?
ragedy of the commons is not the proper term. That assumes a resource which is depleted by use
I agree that the free rider problem is a better analogue. I was thinking of the parts of "tragedy of commons" where the author talks about conflicts of interest between the individual and the society. The free rider problem creates similar conflicts of interest -- it's in the interests of society to fund creative works, but it's in the interests of the individual to avoid paying for something that can be had for free.
To your average geek, "Hacker for the RIAA" ranks even lower than the sysadmin at Monsterhut.
Most of the slashzombies have the ethics of the monsterhut sysadmin. They're only ranting about how "information wants to be free" as a shoddy post-hoc way of justifying their criminal tendencies. Most of
them would probably work for these guys at the drop of a hat if it was more profitable for them to do so. I'm sure they could find an equally convenient, if shoddy, rationalisation.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't sell as many boxes as Microsoft either. And Microsoft don't do a comparable job with packaging. They only package their operating system, they certainly don't package hundreds of third party applications.
Customers don't want 3rd party support for full price.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "full price", or "third party support".
I can't pull the numbers together quickly enough to give you an exact figure, but on new purchases it's around 50%
I don't know where you get that figure from, but I don't find it plausible.
Packaging distributions takes a lot of time and effort. They're not "making a buck on someone else's labor", what they're doing is taking care of the packaging and integration work that most programmers don't have the time to deal with.
nce guys like Love realized that they couldn't make money selling something that was free, they started this scramble to keep their heads above water instead of slowing down and rethinking their plan.
Packaging a distribution is not "free", it takes time and effort, which has to be paid for (commercial distros) or donated by volunteers (Debian).
It's amazing how high the percentage is of paying linux software customers that run Debian i
What, it's up to 1 already ? (-; Seriously, what is it ?
You're contradicting yourself left right and center. First you come up with this ...
One of the most frustrating things about using some commercial products under GNU/Linux has been the Red Hat centric methods of distribution: binary RPMS designed for Red Hat that may or may not work with other RPM based distros,
The reason why this is the way it is has to do with the fact that different distributions have subtle differences at the core. They have slightly different naming conventions, and put files in slightly different places.
With that in mind, let's scroll down ...
Now it looks like United Linux is trying to reduce the choice of anyone wanting to run a commercial product on their system to two choices: Red Hat or United Linux.
This is simply false. United Linux is not a single distribution, it's a common foundation. You can't have it both ways -- you either have a common foundation for different distributions, or you have incompatibilities. What this actually does is give you more choice, because the United Linux based distributions should be binary compatible.
It looks like the behometh forming here has every intention of dictating standards and shoving de-facto norms down the community's throat, rather than taking the consensus-based approach we have used up until now.
Not true. UnitedLinux is based on LSB, which was indeed developed by the community.
and it sounds very much like this 'certification' process they're talking about is designed to coerce any and all commercial GNU/Linux vendors to target Red Hat and United Linux, to the detriment of other, likely better, distros out there.
A package that targets UnitedLinux is LSB compatible. Here's the bottom line-- you can make your distribution binary-compatible with market leaders, by making it Redhat or LSB compatible, otherwise you're kind of stuck. I don't see how this constitutes a change in the state of affairs, besides the fact that the commercial Linux distribution market is getting its act together (at last)
I think it's a violation of copyright. One can still copyright an ISO image. I'm not fully sure of the trademark implications, but if the United Linux CD carries any promise of support, then you obviously can't redistribute it without creating the false impression that you're also transferring the support. Your car analogy is not analogous, because you're not making unsupported clones of factory models.
Seems to work now.
Try to learning some programming. I suggest starting with an interpreted language, like Python. It's easy to get started quickly. Good programming books to get started with: Learning Python by Mark Lutz for Python, and Accelerated C++ by Koenig and Moo for C++. The recommended books (Programming Python, The C++ Programming Language) aren't terribly good for starting out (to put it mildly. The latter is a reference, which basically assumes you know C++, it's not a tutorial)
Also, play around with Apache, try to write some server side scripts using Python or whatever other tool you fancy.
Beginning Linux Programming (Matthew/Steones, Wrox press) is a good intro to several topics on programming for Linux. Cheers,
I'd have to agree with this. I like the way Lutz's exercises have the reader type code straight into the interpreter, as an impatient type who'd had some programming experience and wanted to get up to speed fast, this hands-on approach worked wonders.
Once one has digested this book, the online python documentation is quite useful, or for a dead tree book, there's Beazley's "Python Essential Reference" (New Riders)
Pretty good, but also brutally terse. Experts love it, beginners usually despise it.
The written summary of the article that was posted on the front page of slashdot did indeed refer to Microsoft as "criminals". A rebuttal directed at that, and not the article itself, is still pertinent to the slashdot discussion, which after all, is initiated with the editorial summary and submission text!
EU boycotted them after the elections if I recall correctly. The UN has sort of waffled on them, but there are several countries that have criticised them. I'd like to hear the UN make more noise, but I wouldn't say the world is ignoring this.
I see. My response would be that most CS exams don't involve programming, and the ones that appear to involve programming are actually testing something else (eg whether you can express an algorithm clearly and correctly) So I think most of your argument is based on a false premise.
I'd been programming for over a decade before I took my first CS exam, so I think I'm qualified to say that writing code on paper is unnatural.
"Unnatural" is a loaded, subjective, and emotive term. IMO, "unfamiliar" would be a better word.
XP has it right Design a little, test a little, code a little.
XP is about project management. It has little or no relevance to measuring basic skills. What coding exercises on exams measure is whether or not the student can express simple algorithms in a clear and correct way.
Again, this boils down to the fact that entry level programming courses are not intended to evaluate your skill as a programmer (that would require an interview at the very least), the purpose is to test mastery of the syllabus, which is often related to programming, but certainly is not exactly the same thing.
Might be "how it works" in your experience, but there's no reason why this is always "the way it works". In any case, your complaint is about the fact that in your experience exams were poorly graded. An obvious solution to this problem is to use a better grading scheme for exam papers (-;
That allows you to take it home, code as many solutions as you can in a week, debug it, etc. I think this approach is a far more accurate description of one's skills as a programmer.
Nope. A good programmer should be able to write simple programs correctly without having the computer to test it for them. If they can take it home, everyone should (and in practice, usually does) get it, but in an exam room, you're measuring how good the students are at catching mistakes (or not making them in the first place) without the computers help.
Of course, an obvious problem with my suggestions would be cheating.
Yep. That's why this solution isn't used in practice. It unfairly penalises honest students.
Another approach is to change the way CS tests (midterms and finals) are designed. Drop as much of the coding as possible, and simply ask the student to apply the principles they've learned to a variety of problems. This would be a mostly written exam, which leaves it open to subjective grading. Maybe that's the way it should be. Computer Science is about problem solving, not coding.
I mostly agree with this. First year courses do need a lot of coding, so that students acquire the basic skills to coherently express their ideas. I wouldn't put a lot of coding on an exam uness it was an open-notes test.
I'd want to know, because a hell of a lot of people graduate from CS degrees without knowing how to do this properly. You're not really looking for whether the interviewee can write the code with immaculate syntax, the main concern is whether or not they understand the basic concepts, and all of the subtle implementation issues
I know if I went into an interview and someone asked me for code like that, I'd tell them straight up that I'd look that up in a book or online, and that it'd be a waste of my time to write it.
That's like an elementary school student telling the teacher that they'd just use a calculator if someone asked them to add two numbers. Of course, one could do it like that, but the point is that the interviewer is interested in knowing whether or not you understand how to implement a linked list. There's a good reason for asking questions about a data structure that has been implemented millions of times-- it's something that everyone is expected to know how to do.
Maybe if you're hiring greenhorns straight out of school you might ask a dumb question like this just to make sure they aren't completely clueless, but for experienced programmers its frankly a poor test to find a good problem solver.
Even people who write programming books frequently make a complete mess out of linked list data structures. So I'd consider the question fair game, even for "experienced developers". By the way, I think you're greatly underrating the subtlety of this question. It's not trivial, there are a lot of interesting issues and tradeoffs that come up in designing such a class, and most books screw it up.
Have you ever given a math or physics talk where someone asks you an annoying and difficult question you hadn't anticipated ? The kind of question you offer as an example here is exactly the kind of thing you're likely to get shoved in your face in front of a large audience in the real world. Of course, the quadratic formula will probably be one of 5 steps that you'd better be able to string together in your head in short order, but basically, it is the same thing. I've saved myself from some substantial embarrassments by thinking on my feet and "patching" unanticipated gaps in proofs. I'd imagine similar is true for more business oriented types, when they're handling tough questions at a shareholders meeting. THinking on your feet is actually quite useful, even in "the real world".
Depends on what you're testing.
CS students should be tested on computers in at least a simulated development environment.
Simulating a "development environment" is nontrivial. A real world development environment often involves large and complex programs. The paper exam is a "simulated environment" of sorts. I agree that open book tests tend to be a good idea with courses that involve programming.
If athletes were tested like computer programmers,
You've lost me. You're discussing "testing computer programmers", but the topic is "CS exams". The two are not equivalent.
The worst part is that the intersection of those two groups is probably not very large, especially in CS, so I think some truly good programmers are being punished.
An exam on compiler design will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the fundamentals of compiler design.
An exam on artificial intelligence will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the fundamentals of artificial intelligence
An exam on discrete math will punish a "good programmer" who doesn't understand the fundamentals of discrete math.
Get the point ? Not all CS exams attempt to measure whether or not you are "a good programmer". The exams are there to test mastery of the syllabus, which, with the exception of some entry level courses, doesn't have a whole lot to do with writing code.
In the meantime, I hope instructors treat handwritten code more like a sketch than a masterpiece. We were lucky that the profs here didn't worry too much about syntax in handwritten code and instead looked for understanding of what we were doing.
You weren't "lucky", this is the way it's usually done. The instructors, as you say, are looking for some sign that you understand the material. They don't care a whole lot if you miss a semicolon or something.
If we were a bit off on the syntax that was okay as long as we had the concepts down well. But we still did have to memorize a lot of stuff that was quite unnecessary and that's just Wrong.
Just like it was "wrong' for them to make you memorize those timestables, right ? After all, one could always use a calculator.
I think the point is that the tests are supposed to be designed in such a way that you don't need a calculator or computer. The students whine about this because they reach for their calculators if you ask them 2+2.
Another issue is with graphing calculators: there are some tests where the questions are conceptual questions about the behaviour of functions, and the students are supposed to be able to compute (for example) the vertex of a parabola, so giving them a calculator that they could graph it on would defeat the purpose of the test. You didn't bring calculators to elementary school when you learned your times tables, did you ? (or don't they learn those any more ?)
Similar arguments are applicable with writing code on paper. Maybe you are testing the students capacity to check code for themselves, without having a computer tell them whether their program is correct. In the real world, of course, you have a computer, but your program is also very large, and an error will not necessarily produce an immediate bug that surfaces within 20 lines of the offending line of code.
There's always that argument..."if you get stuck on a desert island and need to rebuild society you won't have the benefit of these modern tools."
That's a straw man. The real problem is that you're not going to be able to simulate the real world under exam conditions.
Actually, I think CS tests are pointless, period. They have very little to do with your skill as a programmer or knowledge of the subject.
Sure they do. An algorithms test can ask questions about algorithms. They can be conceptual, they can involve proofs or pseudocode implementation. Either way, they test your knowledge and understanding of algorithms. Replace "algorithms" with any subject and repeat (-; Off-the-cuff remarks like yours strike me as cheap rationalisations employed by weak (or lazy) students.
Exams don't necessarily test "your skill as a programmer", because they're not necessarily supposed to. Mastery of the syllabus usually does not mean the same thing as "skill as a programmer".
can see concepts on tests, and perhaps a few functions to demonstrate knowledge of certain algorithms, but a 500 line program is ridiculous.
I agree that a 500 line program is ridiculous, and I suspect that it's also an exaggeration. I've never seen any school do anything remotely like this.
I think the point is that you're supposed to "understand" it well enough that you can write simple programs that do not contain fencepost errors, and that you can write condition tests correctly. Of course a tool as powerful as a computer can help you diagnose your mistakes-- on a trivial 20 line program. On a program that is thousands of lines long, however, logic errors are not immediately detectable. That is why you want to be able to get it right without waiting for a core dump.
This may sound harsh, but it sounds to me like you're just whining. I mean, everyone thinks they're "proficient on the underlying theory", but when it comes down to it, some people are more proficient than others, some are "proficient" enough to get simple questions right all of the time. My advice is to quit whining and just do the exam -- when I say just do it, I also mean prepare for it, practice with similar questions, and make sure you "understand the underlying theory" in a way that leads to giving correct answers on exams.
Doh! I appear to have tangled myself up here. Never mind (-; I said (no creativity => no copyrights), and you said "I see no reason to believe that the value on creativity is an effect of lack of copyright law. If anything, it is a cause." eg: (value creativity => copyrights exist)", but your statment is actually the contrapositive of my assertion that ( no copyrights => no value of creativity ). So we're actually not in disagreement on this point-- both of us agree that copyright is caused by a value of creativity.
This isn't right. The original argument was that societies that don't have copyrights don't produce much in the way of creative works. ( no copyrights => no creative ) You suggested that the converse was the case-- that is, that copyright was the result of a society that valued creativity. ( creative => copyrights ) The contrapositive of this is that ( not copyrights => not creative ) My argument is perfectly logical here, I appear to have confused the issue somewhat by not explaining my use of converse. I was referring to the converse of my assertion, and taking the contrapositive of that.
And yet the artists made money? From what?
CD sales, and merchandise.
Fair enough, but then I'm not going to bother believing you.
I don't ask you to believe me. Instead, I suggest you make a good faith effort to critically evaluate the claim that oive performances are profitable, before asserting it.
That would be an excellent start. I for one would immediately start a pirating business out of my home.
I'd advocate jail time for this -- it's more analogous to organised crime/fraud than freeriding. This is analogous to selling illegitimate tickets at half the price of the train co., and this would certainly result in jail time.
Using someone else's golf course directly hurts that other person. Using someone else's words doesn't.
How do you know that it hurts another person ? Maybe it doesn't necessarily. For example, if you use the golf course, or ride the trains, or whatever, at a time when it's not busy, you're probably not causing substantial harm to anyone. But in any case, there are other sorts of clubs where one could freeload without depleting availability of a limited physical resource. If I form a social club, should I be able to charge membership fees, even if membership is not a limited resource ?
The main harm that is done by freeriders is that they are essentially stealing from the people who pay for it, because those who pay for it are subsidising them. It costs money to administer and build the golf course, to run the trains, or to write a piece of software.
First off, that's not true. Look up the terms "converse", "inverse", and "contrapositive".
I know perfectly well what they mean. Since we're talking about looking up things, I suggest you lookup "Kants categorical imperative". I know correlation doesn't imply causality, but earlier ion the post, you suggest a causal relation. In any case, there is a definite correlation between countries that value creativity and countries that have copyrights.
If there's a demand, and there's someone to supply that demand, the market will likely find a way to meet that demand.
"The market" cannot function without basic laws. At the fvery least, a market system needs to facilitate and protect contracts, and punish cheats. A market system cannot survive in the presence of fraud or extortion. I'd argue that not allowing copyright or a contractual system that amounts to an equivalent to copyright would result in a system that is vulnerable to fraud -- because someone could cheat on a contract, or be a beneficiary of someone else who cheats on a contract, with impunity. It';s absolutely necessary in this case, because allowing parties to enter contractual agreements should allow parties to form the sort of exclusive clubs I spoke of previously.
If we buy that, then the converse is that those who are against copyright don't value creativity.
I'd like to see some quotes which back up your point.
There are several examples of tours that have barely broken even, or lost money. I'm not going to dig them up now, because this issue has already been beaten to death on slashdot.
What consumer software market? Games? Operating Systems? I don't know a single person who has bought a single consumer software item which wasn't a game, except from Microsoft.
I was counting shrink-wrapped business software in this category too, and that is quite a large market. As for home users, the piracy rate is I believe still under 50% in the US, so there is a market.
Short of throwing millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens in jail (probably after illegally searching their homes), you're not going to do anything to stop it.
I think throwing people in jail is the wrong solution. Better to treat them as any other freeloader-- slap a fine on them. This is what they typically do to people who ride trains without paying, for example. The punishment fits the crime much better.
No one is forcing me to type on my keyboard either, but that doesn't mean it's dishonest for me to type on my keyboard without paying royalties to the keyboard manufacturer. If congress made a law saying that anyone who buys a keyboard must pay $0.01 to the keyboard manufacturer every time s/he types a key, would you consider it dishonest and immoral to use the keyboard without paying?
Your analogy is not analogous, because the government are mandating a minimum price. In the case of creative works, there is no minimum, eg: keyboard manufacturers could compete on pricing schemes, and the manufacturer with the pricing scheme that was most acceptable to consumers would probably win out, while those who didn't would just go out of business. In the case of keyboards, a per-key charge would not be necessary to prevent proliferation of freeloading.
The government does not have the right to allow authors to set up such a club.
Why not ? What's wrong with such a club ? If I start a golf club, am I not allowed to charge fees, and exclude freeloaders ?
Correlation does not imply causation.
If I indeed have the causality arrow backwards, it follows that copyright is inevitable in a society that values creativity.
I don't believe it's up to me or you to decide. I believe it's up to the market to decide.
If the market are really discontent with copyright, they can always support other models instead. The fact is that the market do not support freeloader-friendly models, because people who have the decency to pay for the ride have no interest in subsidising freeloaders.
There are some fairly severe secondary effects, the main one being that those countries tend not to have a "brain-oriented" economy, because they don't value creativity.
I don't think it's clear that very much science and useful arts would go uncreated without copyright law. Popular music might die, but local bands would continue, and would probably flourish. Probably even popular music would continue since the musician makes most of his/her money through concerts,
It's simply not true that musicians make most of their money through concerts. I agree that small live acts would probably still stay, however, the recorded music industry would suffer greatly. The consumer software market would be hurt pretty badly. I'm personally concerned about technical measures like dongles, because they make life hard for people who are honest. You'd also see a lack of competition, because large bundling deals would become the primary means by which consumer software was marketted.
If that contract was made under duress, perhaps, since I have no choice whether or not to agree to the copyright contract.
No-one is forcing you to use the software. The software vnedor has the right to make a deal with any buyer. If you're not a buyer, you are using it because some other buyer cheated the software vendor. This is analogous to receiving stolen goods -- you're still a party to the crime.
Look, I can go around feeding the hungry and healing the sick, and if I don't arrange for a way to get paid, I'm not going to get paid. No one is forcing the authors to create their works, and I don't advocate eliminating copyright on already existing works.
Copyright is a way for authors to get paid. It's a means by which authors can set up an exclusive club of people who are allowed to use their software. The slashdot whiners cry foul because they're not allowed to sneak in the doors for free, but you know what ? Perhaps the founder of the club, and the paying membership are quite happy to have their club, and don't want any freeloaders squeezing in.
Personally I blame copyright law for our current technology recession. Its elimination would certainly cause a boom in computer and internet usage.
Take a look at the countries that have weak IP laws, and ask yourself how they are doing in terms of technology. Singapore and Taiwan for example (I chose these because they are wealthy countries with a high standard of living and weak copyright protection): the only parts of the tech sector that are strong in those countries are those where trade secrets concstitute a viable form of IP protection, both countries have a strong hardware industry (which is trade secret oriented) but next to no software industry. If your theory is correct, we should expect an IP boom in those countries.
That begs the question as to whether authors of creative works should necessarily be compensated in the first place.
Depends on how much you value creativity, doesn't it ? If you consider flipping burgers to be more useful to society than writing software, then perhaps you should indeed reward the burger flipper, but not the software author.
No need to do this. There are copious examples of countries where copyright law is not enforced, and the results are fairly clear-- there is less incentive to produce creative works. The only thing that is not clear is that the fact that societies that don't value creativity don't value copyright, so the absence of copyright is confunded as a variable with a lack of respect for creativity. I don't think there's any way to separate these variables, because copyright or some other form of IP protection is inevitable anywhere that creativity is valued.
That presumes that the resource is expendable. By copying a book, I am not expending the resource at all. In fact, I am benefitting society by helping to educate it.
It is analogous. The only substantial difference is that you're seizing an intangible asset -- the right to distribution of the book. By doing this, you devalue that right, and as that right is the only means of compensation for a producer, you are attacking the producers compensation, and their incentive to produce. So it's still a "grab".
I don't think that copyright infringement has anything to do with dishonesty. Just because the powers that be decide to place unjust restrictions upon me does not mean that I am dishonest for disobeying those restrictions.
Sure it does. There's an implied contract that the creative work is made available under. You're trying to cheat the author by not holding up your end of the deal. It's analogous to someone deliberately breaching a contract, and trying to say they're not a cheat.
That is, unless bandwidth is artificially restricted, or anonymous peer-to-peer communications are outlawed
Anonymity is a problem though. How can you trust an anonymous source ?
Depends on the type of creative work. Also, I'd really like to see what the actual problems are with eliminating copyright law before deciding. For the most part I think voluntary non-disclosure contracts can fill the gap.
There are a number of problems with this though. One of them is that if someone anonymously leaked the "information", it would be difficult to prevent its distribution, even though the receivers would be in a situation analogous to handling and profiteering from stolen goods, and even if the infringer were caught, they probably wouldn't have the means to compenate for the damages. In any case, I don't think it's good enough to get rid of the primary means of compensation for authors of creative works, and then worry about trying to compensate them after they all starve, and the high tech economy collapses. It's irresponsible to propose "no solution" as a replacement for something that you think is a bad solution -- and there is an identifiable problem: how should authors of creative works be compensated ?
ragedy of the commons is not the proper term. That assumes a resource which is depleted by use
I agree that the free rider problem is a better analogue. I was thinking of the parts of "tragedy of commons" where the author talks about conflicts of interest between the individual and the society. The free rider problem creates similar conflicts of interest -- it's in the interests of society to fund creative works, but it's in the interests of the individual to avoid paying for something that can be had for free.
Most of the slashzombies have the ethics of the monsterhut sysadmin. They're only ranting about how "information wants to be free" as a shoddy post-hoc way of justifying their criminal tendencies. Most of them would probably work for these guys at the drop of a hat if it was more profitable for them to do so. I'm sure they could find an equally convenient, if shoddy, rationalisation.