Money is the same thing regardless of whether it comes from XP sales or from Vista sales.
Free Software can replace Microsoft software without us trying to spin every single utterance of "Microsoft" into some form of bad news. In fact, Free Software is more likely to succeed in gaining market share at Microsoft's expense if the advocates of Free Software come across as credible and serious. At the moment, we say the same thing over and over - we spin any mention of Microsoft into bad news, and spin any mention of Linux into good news. This must stop so that we can have credibility when making arguments in favour of Free Software.
One of the less technically knowledgeable staff points out the lack of standard features as cause for alarm...
Perhaps less technically knowledgeable, but certainly more technically knowledgeable than the thousands of MacBook Air owners who sacrificed the most basic of features (USB ports and wired ethernet ports) for a slimmer but still big and heavy laptop. Compared to the Eee PC, anyway.
I can understand why someone might want lots of strange and "trivial" articles on Wikipedia. They want it to be a resource that they can always turn to for pretty much any and all information.
Why do the deletionists care if there are trivial articles on there? If they consider an article trivial, isn't it fairly easy to just not read it and not contribute to it?
Do they base their stance purely on how "trivial articles" may affect Wikipedia's public image, or do they have some sort of technical concern about having too many articles?
The thing is that if someone is selling your GPLed thingy, or support for it: 1. You can do it too, and anything they add comes back to you. 2. You're more qualified than they are to sell/support it, since you wrote it.
Update: The response to this album has been overwhelming, causing our website to slow to a crawl. We THOUGHT we were ready, but... We've been adding more servers to accommodate the unexpected demand and we expect to be running smoothly in the next few hours. In the meantime, if you've had any problems with downloads from the Ghosts site, don't worry - you'll be able to use your download link again when the site is more stable. Thanks everyone for making this such an immediate success.
This business model is turning out to be very successful. Whenever a band (Radiohead or NIN, so far) does this, though, there will be cynics here and elsewhere in the media who will say "what about when this becomes the norm, though? Will it still be profitable?"
The answer is yes. I think people feel good about rewarding artists with $5 when they love the music. Not to mention that if they spend $10 they get immediate satisfaction in the form of a download, plus something tangible (2 CD set, with a 16 page booklet) to look forward to in the mail. People feel good about that, and they always will for as long as people love and appreciate music.
Despite my answer to the question, I think the original question is irrelevant. Cynics ask it as if to suggest that if such a thing were to happen, artists wouldn't just stop doing this. If the model becomes unrewarding, the model dies. So far it is wildly successful. It will probably only become even more successful in future as people (and companies) become increasingly comfortable with small online payments.
The RIAA does appreciate the effort that the cynics are making, though. Too bad for both of them that this is the inevitable future.
You haven't provided any reason why this particular problem can't be solved by Free Software. In your argument, you sound like you are claiming that Free Software is unviable due to the way software is developed. Then you state some of the challenges involved in solving this problem, as if to suggest that such technical problems (delays in accessing large databases) do not apply equally to proprietary software.
Re:The dancing dog observation
on
Open US GPS Data?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Hi..bruce..,
Do you consider the software or the database to be unfeasible? You talk about scaling things up, but there's very few reasons why software that works in one neighbourhood would fail in another except for deficiencies in the data.
The idea behind projects such as OpenStreetMap is to build the data, using contributors who are local to the area that they are mapping. I think OpenStreetMap is only beginning to pick up pace, and it is already getting quite good considering that it has been quite a low-profile project until recently.
The software side of this (as far as I know) doesn't exist yet, but when it does get started, you might claim to be correct if it happens to be crude at first. Free Software projects often are because they tend to release earlier than commercially-driven projects would. One strength of Free Software is that it can never go bankrupt. We can refine our poor software until it is great without having to worry about a project running out of money. If the Free Software for GPS navigation is crude at first, it will only ever improve. Eventually, if people keep working on it (and they will, because someone in the community will be unsatisfied until we have such software), it will be good.
If each contributor to OpenStreetMap only works on a single street, then it will only need an average of one contributor from each street in the world.
My contributions would continue, but almost everything I know about my local area was already on there before I started contributing. You're probably one of those people who still thinks that "Wikipedia isn't viable because it would take an army of volunteers to make an entire free online encyclopedia!"
He wants them to prove him wrong. Can you imagine the scenario where Microsoft has filed suit against Linus Torvalds for his work on the kernel? There's a lot of big companies (IBM, Sun, Nokia, Google, Red Hat, Oracle) that have a lot of money invested in this kernel. There's a couple of organisations (SFLC, OIN) that have been founded to pretty much retaliate against any such situation. Then there's the legal ambiguity about whether Microsoft can even use their patents to attack Free Software now, since they may be party to GPLv3.
Pretty much every big company probably has some servers running Linux. Big financial companies together probably have hundreds/thousands of Linux servers. Those companies are Microsoft customers, and will not be happy if Microsoft starts taking legal action. Microsoft's threats are just part of their annual "be very afraid" tour.
But unlike Google, when you go to Yahoo.com you will find that you do not get redirected to your local site. When people outside the US go to Google.com, they get redirected to the Google page for their country. If you go to "top sites by country" on Alexa, you will find that Google is #1 for pretty much every country.
This is why I use GPLv3 for software I write. The anti-tivoization clause in GPLv3 is reason enough for all Free Software projects to upgrade to it, in my opinion.
Unlikely. iTunes is not the only program that can run on OS X and uses DRM. If Apple regards DTrace as a circumvention tool and disabled DTrace just for iTunes but still included it, then they have still provided a tool capable of circumventing DRM.
The commercial license is how they make their money. They get their library popular through Free Software, and if someone wants to distribute a proprietary application (eg. Google with Google Earth) that uses their library, they have to buy a proprietary-compatible license for Qt.
I reckon this is one of the more feasible Free Software business models.
Well, most large businesses at least do marketing experiments with the intention of maximising profits. Even with congressmen appropriately paid off, marketing experimentation could be valuable for the record companies. Paying off congresspeople is not a substitute for revenue rising by 200%.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would Microsoft care whether people upgrade to Vista or use another of their products? Microsoft still makes money off each XP license they sell.
Money is the same thing regardless of whether it comes from XP sales or from Vista sales.
Free Software can replace Microsoft software without us trying to spin every single utterance of "Microsoft" into some form of bad news. In fact, Free Software is more likely to succeed in gaining market share at Microsoft's expense if the advocates of Free Software come across as credible and serious. At the moment, we say the same thing over and over - we spin any mention of Microsoft into bad news, and spin any mention of Linux into good news. This must stop so that we can have credibility when making arguments in favour of Free Software.
One of the less technically knowledgeable staff points out the lack of standard features as cause for alarm...
Perhaps less technically knowledgeable, but certainly more technically knowledgeable than the thousands of MacBook Air owners who sacrificed the most basic of features (USB ports and wired ethernet ports) for a slimmer but still big and heavy laptop. Compared to the Eee PC, anyway.
I can understand why someone might want lots of strange and "trivial" articles on Wikipedia. They want it to be a resource that they can always turn to for pretty much any and all information.
Why do the deletionists care if there are trivial articles on there? If they consider an article trivial, isn't it fairly easy to just not read it and not contribute to it?
Do they base their stance purely on how "trivial articles" may affect Wikipedia's public image, or do they have some sort of technical concern about having too many articles?
creditcard agencies, CD-R manufactucters, ink makers, webhosters and ISPs
They're all necessary, though. The point is that the unnecessary middle-men are gone.
The thing is that if someone is selling your GPLed thingy, or support for it:
1. You can do it too, and anything they add comes back to you.
2. You're more qualified than they are to sell/support it, since you wrote it.
From http://nin.com/ :
Update: The response to this album has been overwhelming, causing our
website to slow to a crawl. We THOUGHT we were ready, but...
We've been adding more servers to accommodate the unexpected demand and we expect to be running smoothly in the next few hours. In the meantime, if you've had any problems with downloads from the Ghosts site, don't worry - you'll be able to use your download link again when the site is more stable. Thanks everyone for making this such an
immediate success.
This business model is turning out to be very successful. Whenever a band (Radiohead or NIN, so far) does this, though, there will be cynics here and elsewhere in the media who will say "what about when this becomes the norm, though? Will it still be profitable?"
The answer is yes. I think people feel good about rewarding artists with $5 when they love the music. Not to mention that if they spend $10 they get immediate satisfaction in the form of a download, plus something tangible (2 CD set, with a 16 page booklet) to look forward to in the mail. People feel good about that, and they always will for as long as people love and appreciate music.
Despite my answer to the question, I think the original question is irrelevant. Cynics ask it as if to suggest that if such a thing were to happen, artists wouldn't just stop doing this. If the model becomes unrewarding, the model dies. So far it is wildly successful. It will probably only become even more successful in future as people (and companies) become increasingly comfortable with small online payments.
The RIAA does appreciate the effort that the cynics are making, though. Too bad for both of them that this is the inevitable future.
You haven't provided any reason why this particular problem can't be solved by Free Software. In your argument, you sound like you are claiming that Free Software is unviable due to the way software is developed. Then you state some of the challenges involved in solving this problem, as if to suggest that such technical problems (delays in accessing large databases) do not apply equally to proprietary software.
Hi ..bruce..,
Do you consider the software or the database to be unfeasible? You talk about scaling things up, but there's very few reasons why software that works in one neighbourhood would fail in another except for deficiencies in the data.
The idea behind projects such as OpenStreetMap is to build the data, using contributors who are local to the area that they are mapping. I think OpenStreetMap is only beginning to pick up pace, and it is already getting quite good considering that it has been quite a low-profile project until recently.
The software side of this (as far as I know) doesn't exist yet, but when it does get started, you might claim to be correct if it happens to be crude at first. Free Software projects often are because they tend to release earlier than commercially-driven projects would. One strength of Free Software is that it can never go bankrupt. We can refine our poor software until it is great without having to worry about a project running out of money. If the Free Software for GPS navigation is crude at first, it will only ever improve. Eventually, if people keep working on it (and they will, because someone in the community will be unsatisfied until we have such software), it will be good.
If each contributor to OpenStreetMap only works on a single street, then it will only need an average of one contributor from each street in the world.
However, most contributors work on many, many streets. I've only been involved for a very short time and I've already added/fixed a few streets, added parking areas, post offices, banks, ATMs, police stations, and public toilets. When I started contributing to OpenStreetMap, I was a bit disappointed because most of my area had already been mapped. The CBD in every major city has also been mapped. It currently has information (eg. public toilets, fast food places other than just McDonald's, pharmacies, banks, and ATMs) that is not on any other map that I am aware of.
My contributions would continue, but almost everything I know about my local area was already on there before I started contributing. You're probably one of those people who still thinks that "Wikipedia isn't viable because it would take an army of volunteers to make an entire free online encyclopedia!"
In that case, could you please explain what an "offline web application" is, as well as how it differs from types of applications that came before it?
He wants them to prove him wrong. Can you imagine the scenario where Microsoft has filed suit against Linus Torvalds for his work on the kernel? There's a lot of big companies (IBM, Sun, Nokia, Google, Red Hat, Oracle) that have a lot of money invested in this kernel. There's a couple of organisations (SFLC, OIN) that have been founded to pretty much retaliate against any such situation. Then there's the legal ambiguity about whether Microsoft can even use their patents to attack Free Software now, since they may be party to GPLv3.
Pretty much every big company probably has some servers running Linux. Big financial companies together probably have hundreds/thousands of Linux servers. Those companies are Microsoft customers, and will not be happy if Microsoft starts taking legal action. Microsoft's threats are just part of their annual "be very afraid" tour.
Google US (Google.com) is #2.
But unlike Google, when you go to Yahoo.com you will find that you do not get redirected to your local site. When people outside the US go to Google.com, they get redirected to the Google page for their country. If you go to "top sites by country" on Alexa, you will find that Google is #1 for pretty much every country.
They just need to find some investors. They'll get very rich if they can win a few of those lawsuits.
There's also the chance of settlements.
I doubt Vista is a huge flop or a tremendous success.
What's much more interesting is the cash reserves. Dropping by over $10 billion per year? Really?! Are those numbers accurate?
This is why I use GPLv3 for software I write. The anti-tivoization clause in GPLv3 is reason enough for all Free Software projects to upgrade to it, in my opinion.
Unlikely. iTunes is not the only program that can run on OS X and uses DRM. If Apple regards DTrace as a circumvention tool and disabled DTrace just for iTunes but still included it, then they have still provided a tool capable of circumventing DRM.
He is talking about this.
My highest traffic website gets about 2,000 IE-using visitors a month.
The breakdown of IE users for the past month is:
7.0: 54%
6.0: 46%
The summary maybe, but from what I can see, most comments are actually pro-IE7 because it means that IE6 can be dropped soon.
The commercial license is how they make their money. They get their library popular through Free Software, and if someone wants to distribute a proprietary application (eg. Google with Google Earth) that uses their library, they have to buy a proprietary-compatible license for Qt.
I reckon this is one of the more feasible Free Software business models.
Ray-tracing scales like n-squared.
It snaps.
Well, most large businesses at least do marketing experiments with the intention of maximising profits. Even with congressmen appropriately paid off, marketing experimentation could be valuable for the record companies. Paying off congresspeople is not a substitute for revenue rising by 200%.