This is false. It's true that the number of copies of the software is unlimited. However, the actual process of developing the software requires time and resources. This is why software costs money -- because the software company need to spend money developing it. 10 people can't have any software if the software doesn't get written in the first place.
I read the BW article and IIRC the main concern was about HMOs. The article was not about napster, the RIAA, the street performer protocol or anything like that.
what the RIAA are involved in is not a form of creativity, it is a form of marketing
A popular lie is that the RIAA labels only sell cheesy pop tunes. This is completely false ( actually, it'd be more correct to say that the napster users only listen to such music ). The RIAA includes top jazz labels, and many of the records they produce are by obscure ( but very creative ) artists.
The remaining large part of creative effort is commissioned. Through sponsored art in the cultural parts of creative society, to
government paid research, to progammers working to solve problems, paid to do the work.
Actually, software is an excellent example of why we should have a copyright system. If we didn't have the software written under the copyright model, we would be years behind where we are today.
BTW, I have no idea why you bring up patents, though perhaps it';s one of these irrelevant diversionary lines used to draw attention away from the main subject ( copyrights )
I have yet to see a decent argument from the anti-copyright crowd , and "I want everything free" is not a decent argument. It's just being selfish.
so where will this lump sum that the artists/record labels should receive come from, you ask? that's
obviously up for debate.
The problem with most lump-sum payment models is that they're inefficient. You avoid the problem by saying "that's up for debate", but that really isn't good enough -- if you wish to discardx the existing system, you need to replace it with something that works.
The advantage of the current system is that it permits users to make up their mind about a purchase after the material has been produced ( indeed, at any time ). It would be extraordinary and silly to demand that interested listeners pay up front. And it would be unfair to implement a system which allows and encourages freeloading ( though allowing freeloading seems to be the primary rationale behind the "information-wants-to-be-beer" crowd. )
The question you leave unanswered is this -- how do you reward creativity in the absence of a copyright system ? Sure, the current system is imperfect, but it still does provide financial incentive to be creative.
Sharing is fine, as long as you are not forcing someone else to share against their will. You have the right to share, but you don't have the right to force anyone else to do the same.
why -should- you pay for
something (or why should lots of people pay for something) when the producer only
produces it once?
Because the producer did produce it once, and they need to be compensated. Put it this way -- if you don't pay for it, who will ? Ultimately, someone has to fork out to get the software written, and the current licensing model is a reasonably fair distributed payment system.
if a specific item required nothing to create,
isn't its inherent value zero?
A program takes quite a lot of effort to create. Therefore it's inherent value is most certainly a lot greater than zero, which explains why the market is prepared to send their checks to the software companies for making their software available.
What he means it that Linux desktop apps are just imitating what Windows did five
or more years ago.
Then he's simply wrong. Did WIndows make use of XML five or more years ago ? By making such absurd claims, he provides a compelling case -- that he is ignorant.
Miguel is an open admirer or Windows,
Wrong. He is an open admirer of certain technologies that Microsoft have developed for use on the Windows platform.
and Kde has been trying
to look just like Windows from day one.
KDE looks like many things, and Windows is only one of those things. If it had been "trying to look like windows", they would have left out obviously UNIX-centric features like virtual desktops. Again, you make a laughably false claim.
MS will have C#
So what ? Today, it's vapour. Tomorrow, it will still lack maturity. C# will not make a substantial impact for some time.
while you guys are still struggling to get Sun
company's java working right on linux.
Are you trying to prove your ignorance ? Java already "works right" on Linux.
Then, when the entire internet is based
around.NET
Unless ".NET" is an open platform, this won't happen any time soon.
Then VA company will go out of business and so will slashdot.
You MS drones have been predicting the "death" of UNIX for over 10 years, and we're still waiting for it.
YOu may be able to
find a job coding visual basic somewhere after that.
My language of choice is C++, and I don't forsee a shortage of C++ jobs any time soon. What, do you think they're going to throw away all their C++ code tomorrow ? They haven't even got rid of COBOL and FORTRAN yet...
I think you're the one who needs to "get a life". The fact that it's a forms designer doesn't mean that it's visual basic, any more than it's "oracle", "visual C++", or anything else. And the fact that it's announced on slashdot does not mean that it's the first of it's kind available for Linux ( or even for Qt ).
ask me how long I've had Glide to design interfaces for GTK+
Why even bother asking ? If you were a developer, and not a troll, you'd know it was "glade" (unless you're really using 3dfx's proprietary API to design user interfaces ).
There are lusers in both camps, and hey, it looks like you're one of them.
So someone that is walking back and forth over a crosswalk is not a pedestrian?
Well, they're a pedestrian, sure. Just like someone who drives around in circles in the highway is a "motorist". There are appropriate behaviours for both pedestrians and motorists -- and in both these cases, the correct behaviour simply amounts to being considerate to those you share the road with.
Hijacking public assets....so if I refuse to leave a park area after I have my
picknick to lounge around should be illegal?
Using a park area is not "hijacking public assets", unless you're making the entire park unusable for others.
"Public assets" belong to the public.
Exactly. And since they are shared resources, no-one has the right to monopolize access to them.
To assume that one person or a set of people
should not be allowed to make use of it is ludicrous.
Exactly. That is why the protestors were wrong to block the area and make it unusable for others.
I understand where you are coming from, but with your interpretation a citizens
right to protest and assemble is restricted to private property
Not at all. You can also assemble on public property, as long as you don't make large amounts of public property unusable for others in the process. There's a difference between blocking the interstate and using an area like a public park.
"GNOME" as in the GNOME development libs are not bloated. Some of the fancier features used by GTK, such as themeing are expensive though. Of course, if you don't like these features, just turn them off.
Additionally, all of these wonderful libraries create dependency problems
This is mostly because it is still under rapid development, and is somewhat bleeding edge.
You argue that it's bloated, but again, take a look at Star Office, Netscape, etc. Now imagine trying to run 10 Star Offices concurrently. THe point is that facilitating code reuse leads to less "bloat", not more. Storing and loading 3 APIs that do the same thing is "bloated". Software reuse is not.
And the only way any of this stuff will define "policy" or encourage reuse is if Gnome is the 100%
development standard, something I think is unrealistic.
Wrong. For example, if the KDE and GNOME people agree on policy, then that will encourage reuse. If you're a developer working with GNOME widgets that other people have written, that is also reuse.
An important aspect of reuse is that it greatly accelerates development time.
They were denied access to public property. Remember the right to "property" ? Well roads are "public property", and if you require exclusive use of public property, you need to acquire a permit. You have every right to assemble and speak, but you don't have the right to hijack the property of others, be it personal or public to communicate your message.
Freedom of speech is directly applicable to this situation:
Freedom of speech is the right to say what you want. It doesn't come bundled with the "right" to hijack public property. You might as well beat someone up, and call it "performance art", then claim your "first amendment rights" are being "violated" when the police arrest you.
Perhaps you learned a bit of this in History
class? In an effort to demonstrate their intolerance of the taxes imposed by the King,
those future Americans stormed aboard a ship and dumped the cargo of tea
overboard into Boston Harbor.
In other words, they were causing willful damage to property, and the government would certainly have good reason to arrest them. Demonstrating may be an honorable tradition, but don't cry when your disobedience of the law gets you arrested.
Again, it is my interpretation of the Constitution that I have the right to assembly.
Yes but you don't have the right to "assemble" in the town hall, or in any other public place. OTOH, you can assemble in the privacy of your own home any time. But the roads are public property. A shared resource. The demonstrators have no right to willfuly deny others access to this resource, just as noone has the "right" to pollute air that others breathe.
The "permit" is a permit to hold a large gathering on public property. This requires a permit whether or not the purpose is to stage a political protest. You can't just block the streets at your own convenience.
I'm not clear on what "consitutional rights" were violated. Freedom of assembly isn't a license to hijack public resources, and "freedom of speech" is not a license to shout in your neighbour's ear.
Re:I'm proud of my police dept. (Score:1)
by Keeper on Sunday August 06, @10:30PM EST (#1058)
(User #56691 Info)
Hmmm...at this point I'd like to remember an obscure traffic law that most people
have seen to forgotten over the last several years...
Pedestrians have the right of way on a road. Doesn't matter what the hell they're
doing.
If pedestrians are in your way, tough shit.
"Disturbing the peace." I love this phrase. You can't arrest some ass driving down
the street playing ganster wrap on his 3.2 gigawatt car stereo system for disturbing
the peace.
If someone's making an unholy racket outside certain hours, you can call the cops and tell them to shut up.
BTW, there's a difference between being a "pedestrian" and blocking the road. Freedom of assembly does not include the supposed "right" to hijack public space.
Proportional only makes sense when you have a number of slots to fill, like congressional or senate elections. I think you mean "preferential". In the preferential system, when a candidate is eliminated from the race ( because they have the lowest primary vote count ), their secondary votes are added to the tallies. This system continues until someone has an absolute majority. So the winner is the leader in the two party preferred stakes, which seems fair.
Where do you get that figure from ? Are you saying that their profit/operating expenses ratio is 5:1 ? Care to show me an annual income statement from one of them to support your absurd claim ? ( It *is* publically avaiable, at least in case of the members that are publically traded ).
What I like about it is that it's a voluntary distributed payment system. The bad of it is that it is unlikely to be a very succesful model for low profile authors. You need to have some exposure to use this method.
A good example of where something like the street performer protocol has been very succesful ( IMO ) is with the member supported radio stations. These radio stations get their funding from a loyal membership base as opposed to advertisers. They cater to the niche markets and typically have a more interesting lineup of shows.
But then, radio stations have advantages small artists don't. The big one is that they have unlimited air time to ask for donations.
In conclusion, I don't think the SPP is bad, but it has limited use and is not a good option unless you have enough exposure to make it work.
, the open source project *could* probable do a better job at writing Windows 98 then Microsoft did..
Depends on which programmers the OpenSource project have and which programmers MS have. If the OS project had Alan Cox and Linus, sure it'd do well. But they don't. Until they can show us something more than big promises, I'm a tad sceptical. And I don't think a competent programmer would mouth off and make promises that big without having a product on the table.
Now we could really test the cathedral and the bizarre. If it is open, hopefully the bugs will be discovered quickly.
I'd be pleasently surprised if they actually wrote enough code to result in a nontrivial bug !!! Sorry for being so cynical. But I'm sceptical of "projects" that begin with "announcements", "mailing lists", "websites" and the like, as opposed to code.
Slashdot Mirror
This is false. It's true that the number of copies of the software is unlimited. However, the actual process of developing the software requires time and resources. This is why software costs money -- because the software company need to spend money developing it. 10 people can't have any software if the software doesn't get written in the first place.
I read the BW article and IIRC the main concern was about HMOs. The article was not about napster, the RIAA, the street performer protocol or anything like that.
A popular lie is that the RIAA labels only sell cheesy pop tunes. This is completely false ( actually, it'd be more correct to say that the napster users only listen to such music ). The RIAA includes top jazz labels, and many of the records they produce are by obscure ( but very creative ) artists.
The remaining large part of creative effort is commissioned. Through sponsored art in the cultural parts of creative society, to government paid research, to progammers working to solve problems, paid to do the work.
Actually, software is an excellent example of why we should have a copyright system. If we didn't have the software written under the copyright model, we would be years behind where we are today.
BTW, I have no idea why you bring up patents, though perhaps it';s one of these irrelevant diversionary lines used to draw attention away from the main subject ( copyrights )
I have yet to see a decent argument from the anti-copyright crowd , and "I want everything free" is not a decent argument. It's just being selfish.
The problem with most lump-sum payment models is that they're inefficient. You avoid the problem by saying "that's up for debate", but that really isn't good enough -- if you wish to discardx the existing system, you need to replace it with something that works.
The advantage of the current system is that it permits users to make up their mind about a purchase after the material has been produced ( indeed, at any time ). It would be extraordinary and silly to demand that interested listeners pay up front. And it would be unfair to implement a system which allows and encourages freeloading ( though allowing freeloading seems to be the primary rationale behind the "information-wants-to-be-beer" crowd. )
Because the producer did produce it once, and they need to be compensated. Put it this way -- if you don't pay for it, who will ? Ultimately, someone has to fork out to get the software written, and the current licensing model is a reasonably fair distributed payment system. if a specific item required nothing to create, isn't its inherent value zero?
A program takes quite a lot of effort to create. Therefore it's inherent value is most certainly a lot greater than zero, which explains why the market is prepared to send their checks to the software companies for making their software available.
Then he's simply wrong. Did WIndows make use of XML five or more years ago ? By making such absurd claims, he provides a compelling case -- that he is ignorant.
Miguel is an open admirer or Windows,
Wrong. He is an open admirer of certain technologies that Microsoft have developed for use on the Windows platform.
and Kde has been trying to look just like Windows from day one.
KDE looks like many things, and Windows is only one of those things. If it had been "trying to look like windows", they would have left out obviously UNIX-centric features like virtual desktops. Again, you make a laughably false claim.
MS will have C#
So what ? Today, it's vapour. Tomorrow, it will still lack maturity. C# will not make a substantial impact for some time.
while you guys are still struggling to get Sun company's java working right on linux.
Are you trying to prove your ignorance ? Java already "works right" on Linux.
Then, when the entire internet is based around .NET
Unless ".NET" is an open platform, this won't happen any time soon.
Then VA company will go out of business and so will slashdot.
You MS drones have been predicting the "death" of UNIX for over 10 years, and we're still waiting for it.
YOu may be able to find a job coding visual basic somewhere after that.
My language of choice is C++, and I don't forsee a shortage of C++ jobs any time soon. What, do you think they're going to throw away all their C++ code tomorrow ? They haven't even got rid of COBOL and FORTRAN yet ...
Why even bother asking ? If you were a developer, and not a troll, you'd know it was "glade" (unless you're really using 3dfx's proprietary API to design user interfaces ).
There are lusers in both camps, and hey, it looks like you're one of them.
Well, they're a pedestrian, sure. Just like someone who drives around in circles in the highway is a "motorist". There are appropriate behaviours for both pedestrians and motorists -- and in both these cases, the correct behaviour simply amounts to being considerate to those you share the road with.
Hijacking public assets....so if I refuse to leave a park area after I have my picknick to lounge around should be illegal?
Using a park area is not "hijacking public assets", unless you're making the entire park unusable for others.
"Public assets" belong to the public.
Exactly. And since they are shared resources, no-one has the right to monopolize access to them.
To assume that one person or a set of people should not be allowed to make use of it is ludicrous.
Exactly. That is why the protestors were wrong to block the area and make it unusable for others.
I understand where you are coming from, but with your interpretation a citizens right to protest and assemble is restricted to private property
Not at all. You can also assemble on public property, as long as you don't make large amounts of public property unusable for others in the process. There's a difference between blocking the interstate and using an area like a public park.
Wrong. The definition requires that the "pedestrian" is walking, as opposed to blocking the road.
n. 1. (often "attrib.") a person who is walking, esp. in a town ("pedestrian crossing").
2. a person who walks competitively.
If you want to make up another definition
I didn't "make it up", it's in a dictionary. I suspect you're the one "making things up" here.
to justify violating someone else's rights so you can get to work 30 seconds faster, by all means go ahead.
Hijacking public assets is not a "right". BTW, speaking for myself, I don't drive. I bicycle, and use public transport.
Python has regex's, so you could do much the same thing.
Additionally, all of these wonderful libraries create dependency problems
This is mostly because it is still under rapid development, and is somewhat bleeding edge.
You argue that it's bloated, but again, take a look at Star Office, Netscape, etc. Now imagine trying to run 10 Star Offices concurrently. THe point is that facilitating code reuse leads to less "bloat", not more. Storing and loading 3 APIs that do the same thing is "bloated". Software reuse is not.
And the only way any of this stuff will define "policy" or encourage reuse is if Gnome is the 100% development standard, something I think is unrealistic.
Wrong. For example, if the KDE and GNOME people agree on policy, then that will encourage reuse. If you're a developer working with GNOME widgets that other people have written, that is also reuse.
An important aspect of reuse is that it greatly accelerates development time.
Not at all. But you must be willing to accept the consequences of breaking laws if you wish to do so.
As for the law enforcement agencies, I believe they should enforce the law, even if you disagree with it or they disagree with it.
They were denied access to public property. Remember the right to "property" ? Well roads are "public property", and if you require exclusive use of public property, you need to acquire a permit. You have every right to assemble and speak, but you don't have the right to hijack the property of others, be it personal or public to communicate your message.
Freedom of speech is the right to say what you want. It doesn't come bundled with the "right" to hijack public property. You might as well beat someone up, and call it "performance art", then claim your "first amendment rights" are being "violated" when the police arrest you.
In other words, they were causing willful damage to property, and the government would certainly have good reason to arrest them. Demonstrating may be an honorable tradition, but don't cry when your disobedience of the law gets you arrested.
Again, it is my interpretation of the Constitution that I have the right to assembly.
Yes but you don't have the right to "assemble" in the town hall, or in any other public place. OTOH, you can assemble in the privacy of your own home any time. But the roads are public property. A shared resource. The demonstrators have no right to willfuly deny others access to this resource, just as noone has the "right" to pollute air that others breathe.
The "permit" is a permit to hold a large gathering on public property. This requires a permit whether or not the purpose is to stage a political protest. You can't just block the streets at your own convenience.
If someone's making an unholy racket outside certain hours, you can call the cops and tell them to shut up.
BTW, there's a difference between being a "pedestrian" and blocking the road. Freedom of assembly does not include the supposed "right" to hijack public space.
Proportional only makes sense when you have a number of slots to fill, like congressional or senate elections. I think you mean "preferential". In the preferential system, when a candidate is eliminated from the race ( because they have the lowest primary vote count ), their secondary votes are added to the tallies. This system continues until someone has an absolute majority. So the winner is the leader in the two party preferred stakes, which seems fair.
A good example of where something like the street performer protocol has been very succesful ( IMO ) is with the member supported radio stations. These radio stations get their funding from a loyal membership base as opposed to advertisers. They cater to the niche markets and typically have a more interesting lineup of shows.
But then, radio stations have advantages small artists don't. The big one is that they have unlimited air time to ask for donations.
In conclusion, I don't think the SPP is bad, but it has limited use and is not a good option unless you have enough exposure to make it work.
Depends on which programmers the OpenSource project have and which programmers MS have. If the OS project had Alan Cox and Linus, sure it'd do well. But they don't. Until they can show us something more than big promises, I'm a tad sceptical. And I don't think a competent programmer would mouth off and make promises that big without having a product on the table.
I'd be pleasently surprised if they actually wrote enough code to result in a nontrivial bug !!! Sorry for being so cynical. But I'm sceptical of "projects" that begin with "announcements", "mailing lists", "websites" and the like, as opposed to code.