What happens if there is a large-scale disaster like hurricaine Katrina? Or an economic crash? Suddenly the number of people defaulting could skyrocket.
This is no different than the risks you are exposed to in a non-insured (money market, etc.) investment account (though the variability in those accounts is probably greater; they face the same catastrophic risks), or even a regular insured bank account once you are beyond the FDIC insurance amount (though there you face only the catastrophic risk, with the variability day-to-day only where the account has a variable rate).
That's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison. Since you get the money in your account as soon as the payments come in, unless you re-issue new loans, its equivalent to withdrawing part of the interest from a bank savings account every month and letting it sit around as cash.
Yes, CDs feature automatic reinvestment, and with Prosper you have to manually reinvest. But comparing the two without comparing them at full reinvestment is not especially useful.
Both are aiming to hit default rates of 3%, which seems low to me given that, well, this is the internet. They think they can make a real community on the internet, and are using as an analogy the way villages once functioned. Let us ignore the fact that people are much nicer in person than on the internet (you can't be cruel to a person you can't see, right?). Having a community relies on repeat transactions! If you need your consumer debts financed multiple times by strangers, I gotta think you're doing something wrong.
Why? Do you know the people at MBNA or Citibank? Do they make lending decisions based on anything but objective factors, anyway?
Most Americans (and I'd expect the British are no different) need their "consumer debts financed multiple times by strangers". Whether they are doing something wrong or not is somewhat beside the point, its a fact of life.
Both sites have credit checks. Prosper lets you specified credit levels as a lender in your offers, Zopa from a quick look through the cite doesn't seem to.
I can't imagine how this is able to compete with existing financial providers.
If you aren't completely risk-intolerant, it looks far better a place to put money than a bank for a small investor.
For a borrower, I don't see much advantage, though the terms may be slightly better. I think the lenders are what will drive its success, since having the money to lend will, itself, make it attractive to borrowers.
First of all, how many bad debts can these peers handle?
Zopa lets you limit your exposure to any given borrower to as little as 10 pounds, Prosper does something similar with a a minimum of US$50. Automated aggregation allows spreading the risk.
Unlike other successful P2P services, this model is entering a market where existing businesses are making a living out of it.
Successful P2P services have done that, too. "Buying and selling goods" is, after all, something business were making a living at (even using auction models) long before eBay.
In a sense this is an eBay system for buying and selling money, which actually can work far better since its a uniform, fungible commodity that allows spreading the risk. (Its a little bit different, since the auction service here also covers fulfillment, which isn't necessarily the case with eBay, but that's better for users, since it offloads much of the risk of dealing with a difficult person at the other end.)
We're not talking "real value" here, we're talking absolute price points over 20 years.
Pedantic, I know, but: "Nominal" (contrast with "real") is the usual adjective, rather than "absolute", to distinguish current rather than constant dollar amounts.
like before, M$ will be able to ship inside windows a m$ java virtual machine with limited compatibility with the real java.
What stops them from adopting one of the existing open source VMs, "embracing and extending" it (still open source, of course), and doing that now?
It doesn't matter if the open source java originates with Sun or someone else, as long as it exists Microsoft can do that.
Seems to me its better for Sun to open source its own implementation rather than risk some competitor putting its market power beyond a project forked from one of the other implementations, which has the added advantage of being open sourced.
I mean, is it better for Sun if IBM or Microsoft tries to fork an open source Sun JVM, or if Microsoft forks another implementation, and because its open source and Sun's isn't, that implementation gets redistributed with other open source projects and Sun's doesn't?
Once a clean-room open implementation exists that Sun doesn't control, it can no longer prevent Microsoft or someone else attempting to "embrace, extend, and exterminate". The way it maximizes its influence over what happens is by running the best java open-source project in the marketplace.
And that strategy has worked exactly when in history?
It rarely works except maybe in the short term, but is frequently tried by government's wishing to distract from domestic problems. Perhaps a good fairly recent examples that avoids partisan bickering in the US is Argentina and the Falkland Islands War.
It is available (you can get it).
What it is not is "open" as in "available under an open-source license".
The two are not the same, despite the fact that a lot of big companies selling proprietary software occasionally make source code "available" and pretend that has the advantages of making it "open source", even going so far as to call available source "open".
I guess now I'll start the search for the next beautiful language that can pull itself up above the fray--above the garbage that is the syntax of Ruby, C++, VB and all these other pretenders.
Depending on exactly what you mean by beautiful, and what other criteria you have, you might consider REBOL (which suffers, among other things, from not having an open source implementation) or maybe something like Alice. I mean, I think either is, in its own way, more "beautiful" than any of the more popular and widely used languages like VB, C++, Java, etc.
And as they try and invent this future they miss out on the massive amount of money they could make by just giving up on DRM and creating a fair market for digital music.
Creating a "fair market" for digital content (and DRM goes far beyond music) would not make any more money for the people who extract lots of money from the fact that the market is not "fair" in the sense you seem to be using it.
It might make more money for other people, and be better for society as a whole, but that's not something they care about.
Their insistance to DRM will ensure that illegal copies survive.
Human nature does that. Illegal copies existed long before DRM, and will exist whether or not DRM exists, so long as there is any legal restriction on copying. No law is perfectly followed.
They don't really care if "illegal copies survive", they care about maximizing their own profits.
They have to make illegal downloading not worth it in comparison and the wasy to do that is to make legal downloading easier, not harder (read DRM enbumbered up the wazoo).
Well, sure. If they wanted to minimize illegal downloads as an end unto itself, that would make sense. They'd simply make all downloads legal without restriction and illegal downloading would be a contadiction in terms.
They don't want to minimize illegal downloading, except insofar as that serves as an instrumental means to maximize profits.
I'm not trying to criticize or otherwise poop on your comment, but I'm curious as to what all these extra features might be that are worth another $1000+.
To me? None of them warrants spending $1,800 on a glorified DVD player. But then, I got my first DVD player as a computer drive only because I thought (wrongly, as it turned out) that given increasing multimedia demands, virtually every PC game would be DVD-ROM-only "soon" when I got it, years and years (and something like four "main" desktop PCs) ago. So, I'm not exactly the early-adopter-videophile that the companies introducing high-end players for a new format are aiming for.
I'll probably get a PS3 before any other next-gen DVD player, but I probably won't get it until mid- to late-2007, at the earliest.
I think the high prices now are the early-adopter status more than some sort of super fancy feature set, unless these players are offering things that I haven't heard of yet.
Well, sure, the overall high-prices are early-adopter status. The variation within those high prices are partially based on "gee whiz" features (which often aren't "super special", IMO, but, again, I'm not the person their marketers are targeting.)
As there are already OSS Java implementations, which can already be forked, all Sun does by not going open source is reduce their own ability (given the viral nature of the OS licenses involved) to embrace a threatening fork before it becomes so divergent and well-established that it splits the user base badly.
Further, having the gold-standard implementation open to the community might present Java with a competitive advantage over.NET (which has a multiplatform OSS implementation, too); and the risk from.NET is probably a bigger threat to Sun's relevance than any Java fork.
What I don't get is why Sun have such a hissy fit over supposed Java incompatibilites introduced through forking of free licensed code. What's to stop them preventing people from calling derivitive versions 'Java'? Sun could implement strict compliance testing, a-la UNIX, to ensure that derivitives are compatible, and can license the 'Java' trademark for use by those compatible versions. Problem solved.
One thing that limits the ability of Sun to do this is the existence of "fair use" in trademark law, which is less well-known among most people, I think, than copyright fair use. Particularly relevant is the opportunity for nominative "fair use", which would let people advertise the fact that their product (which couldn't be named "Java" as a marketted product), was designed to run Java software.
That's why they have resisted it for so long. Now it will just be one more thing where there are sneaky, annoying inconsistencies between distributions. Nothing will be "broken", but things will end up being implemented slighly differenty and some portability will be lost.
But that's already potentially happening; there are OSS Java implementations already, the only guarantee of consistency with Sun's standard is the attention to detail of the OSS community. Any threat Sun faces from forking its code (whether elsewhere in the community or by big players like Microsoft) is already a danger, as the existing OSS java code can be forked.
Open sourcing its own Java implementation may be the best way for Sun to manage those risks, which are past the point where Sun could prevent them from existing, anyway.
But they DO care about IBM or Microsoft creating a VM that advertises compatbility, but actually pulls the bait-and-switch routine.
One way to manage that risk might be to pull a page from the (oddly enough) pen & paper RPG world -- when Wizards of the Coast adapted the open source idea to those kind of games by releasing the core of D&D/3e under its Open Gaming License as the d20 System Reference Document, it faced similar concerns, so its content licenses requires surrendering rights that the user would otherwise have to, e.g., nominative fair use of trademarks, so that while you can make derivative works, you can't (except by complying with a more restrictive trademark license) advertise or promote them using "product identity" associated with D&D or the d20 System.
Applying the same idea back to software wouldn't be that hard. OTOH, there is a limited degree to which you can exercise control over OSS -- that's rather the point.
Now, here comes Sony with their BluRay equipped $500-$600 PS3. You know that you'll be selling your Bluray player at a loss if you sell it any less than $800 and you know anyone that wants a Bluray player will just get a PS3 since it's cheaper.
False assumption. Lots of early adopters will likely pay $1,000+ for feature-packed players, just as they did with earlier new formats. That's why there are Blu-Ray players now lining up with prices of $1,000 to $1,800 (just from the ones in the Sacramento Bee article I was looking at in dead-tree form yesterday). Sure, the PS3 will sell a lot more, but the people selling more feature-packed (for features other than playing games) players for more will target a higher-end market and compete to establish their name as the "gold standard" of Blu-ray players, so that as the format becomes accessible, they will be the most sought after, and get to charge the extra price premium that allows.
In the current era because of the bullshit brand wars you need to buy 2-3 consoles to get all the games you want. If you don't have a PS2 you can't play Devil may cry, if you don't have a DS you can't play Mario kart. This just didn't happen back in the 80s.
Maybe in the 80s you lived in. In the 80s I lived in, Atari, Intellivision, et al. (and, for that matter, the various "home computers", too) had plenty of platform-exclusive games (or games that were not technically exclusive, but very hard to find for one platform and easy for others -- no internet shopping in the 1980s!).
The PS3 is expensive. Adjusted to inflation or not, 600 is something that buys a fairly ok computer these days.
So? I don't think a lot of people are choosing between buying a PS3 and a computer. While its true that you can make a computer into a living room entertainment center with similar functionality to that from the PS3 (minus, at the time of PS3 launch, Blu-Ray at any remotely comparable cost, one assumes), "living room PCs" haven't, best as I know, been tremendously successful, though a number of manufacturers have tried. Most of the people in the PS3's target launch market probably already have PCs, and are looking for a high-end game console to accompany it, and already have a set of well-established reasons they prefer to have a console as well as a PC.
Massive proliferation of competing consoles (plus a myriad of incompatible, with each other or the consoles, "home computers", sometimes from the same manufacturers, also competing for the game-players dollar) forcing prices down to the point where no one can sell most of them for a profit, coupled with a recession, driving most of the players in the businesses and taking out most of the consoles (and "home computers") on the market?
Um, no, its nothing like that at all. Why would anyone ask such a stupid question?
Yet, still, I'd say there is a lot more leading innovation, both of the revolutionary new game style and the evolutionary increasing depth in existing styles, in PC games than on consoles.
Making a new controller may enable certain kinds of innovation, or at least novelty, in game play, but isn't necessary to or all that closely related to novelty or innovation in game design. Though its a way to get novelty in game experience without advancing the design of the game itself at all.
But patents (and IP more broadly, as set out in the Constitutional provision allowing the federal government to create such rights) were made to protect products, not ideas; or, rather, they were made to reward people for making inventions that are useful to society by granting them exclusivity for a time, which protect their ability to make money. But an invention is only useful if it is available.
IP law exists by Constitutional mandate to encourage the expansion of useful material available to the public. It is, therefore, quite appropriate for the courts to give weight to the fact that a particular application of that law would conflict with that purpose when evaluating whether such a use is appropriate.
Microsoft have open sources a lot of their work, you can even get to look at Windows code if you pay them.
That's not "open source". "If you pay me enough, you can see my proprietary source code" is a common closed source modus operandi.
Now, its possible to be "open source" without being "free software", but "you can pay me and accept terms that prohibit you from making derivatives without paying an additional license fee and I'll let you see my source code" is neither "open source" nor "free software".
You are correct that they are wrong, but you miss what is wrong.
"Regular" (by which presumably one means either "real" or "tangible personal" or both) property owners do not have unlimited rights of the type described (this is particularly clear in the case of real property, where mandatory easements, etc., exist.) Intellectual property is limited, true, (particularly in the case of, e.g., fair use in copyright), but this is not unlike the case of "regular" property. So, inasmuch as this is wrong, its not in the use of the term "intellectual property", but in the description of the privileges of holders of "regular" property. And it is clearly wrong that it uses the words "the same" when it clearly means "similar" or "analogous", since to use the "the same" engages in equivocation, since "use" doesn't mean the same thing in the case of intellectual property as it does in the case of tangible personal property or real property.
DRM is dead. Unfettered formats exist and are in widespread use. Try as they might, they can't unring the bell.
Maybe so, in the long run, though I'm not as optimistic as you are. In the short-run, the people who make lots of money controlling distribution of content like DRM, and will do everything they can to get it adopted in order to continue to profit from that control, and lots of people will go along because it will be the easiest way to get access to the most popular media content.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison. Since you get the money in your account as soon as the payments come in, unless you re-issue new loans, its equivalent to withdrawing part of the interest from a bank savings account every month and letting it sit around as cash.
Yes, CDs feature automatic reinvestment, and with Prosper you have to manually reinvest. But comparing the two without comparing them at full reinvestment is not especially useful.
Both sites have credit checks. Prosper lets you specified credit levels as a lender in your offers, Zopa from a quick look through the cite doesn't seem to.
If you aren't completely risk-intolerant, it looks far better a place to put money than a bank for a small investor.
For a borrower, I don't see much advantage, though the terms may be slightly better. I think the lenders are what will drive its success, since having the money to lend will, itself, make it attractive to borrowers.
Zopa lets you limit your exposure to any given borrower to as little as 10 pounds, Prosper does something similar with a a minimum of US$50. Automated aggregation allows spreading the risk.
Successful P2P services have done that, too. "Buying and selling goods" is, after all, something business were making a living at (even using auction models) long before eBay.
In a sense this is an eBay system for buying and selling money, which actually can work far better since its a uniform, fungible commodity that allows spreading the risk. (Its a little bit different, since the auction service here also covers fulfillment, which isn't necessarily the case with eBay, but that's better for users, since it offloads much of the risk of dealing with a difficult person at the other end.)
It is available (you can get it). What it is not is "open" as in "available under an open-source license". The two are not the same, despite the fact that a lot of big companies selling proprietary software occasionally make source code "available" and pretend that has the advantages of making it "open source", even going so far as to call available source "open".
As there are already OSS Java implementations, which can already be forked, all Sun does by not going open source is reduce their own ability (given the viral nature of the OS licenses involved) to embrace a threatening fork before it becomes so divergent and well-established that it splits the user base badly.
.NET (which has a multiplatform OSS implementation, too); and the risk from .NET is probably a bigger threat to Sun's relevance than any Java fork.
Further, having the gold-standard implementation open to the community might present Java with a competitive advantage over
One thing that limits the ability of Sun to do this is the existence of "fair use" in trademark law, which is less well-known among most people, I think, than copyright fair use. Particularly relevant is the opportunity for nominative "fair use", which would let people advertise the fact that their product (which couldn't be named "Java" as a marketted product), was designed to run Java software.
So? I don't think a lot of people are choosing between buying a PS3 and a computer. While its true that you can make a computer into a living room entertainment center with similar functionality to that from the PS3 (minus, at the time of PS3 launch, Blu-Ray at any remotely comparable cost, one assumes), "living room PCs" haven't, best as I know, been tremendously successful, though a number of manufacturers have tried. Most of the people in the PS3's target launch market probably already have PCs, and are looking for a high-end game console to accompany it, and already have a set of well-established reasons they prefer to have a console as well as a PC.
Massive proliferation of competing consoles (plus a myriad of incompatible, with each other or the consoles, "home computers", sometimes from the same manufacturers, also competing for the game-players dollar) forcing prices down to the point where no one can sell most of them for a profit, coupled with a recession, driving most of the players in the businesses and taking out most of the consoles (and "home computers") on the market?
Um, no, its nothing like that at all. Why would anyone ask such a stupid question?
And almost every PC game uses keyboard and mouse.
Yet, still, I'd say there is a lot more leading innovation, both of the revolutionary new game style and the evolutionary increasing depth in existing styles, in PC games than on consoles.
Making a new controller may enable certain kinds of innovation, or at least novelty, in game play, but isn't necessary to or all that closely related to novelty or innovation in game design. Though its a way to get novelty in game experience without advancing the design of the game itself at all.
But patents (and IP more broadly, as set out in the Constitutional provision allowing the federal government to create such rights) were made to protect products, not ideas; or, rather, they were made to reward people for making inventions that are useful to society by granting them exclusivity for a time, which protect their ability to make money. But an invention is only useful if it is available.
IP law exists by Constitutional mandate to encourage the expansion of useful material available to the public. It is, therefore, quite appropriate for the courts to give weight to the fact that a particular application of that law would conflict with that purpose when evaluating whether such a use is appropriate.
That's not "open source". "If you pay me enough, you can see my proprietary source code" is a common closed source modus operandi.
Now, its possible to be "open source" without being "free software", but "you can pay me and accept terms that prohibit you from making derivatives without paying an additional license fee and I'll let you see my source code" is neither "open source" nor "free software".
You are correct that they are wrong, but you miss what is wrong. "Regular" (by which presumably one means either "real" or "tangible personal" or both) property owners do not have unlimited rights of the type described (this is particularly clear in the case of real property, where mandatory easements, etc., exist.) Intellectual property is limited, true, (particularly in the case of, e.g., fair use in copyright), but this is not unlike the case of "regular" property. So, inasmuch as this is wrong, its not in the use of the term "intellectual property", but in the description of the privileges of holders of "regular" property. And it is clearly wrong that it uses the words "the same" when it clearly means "similar" or "analogous", since to use the "the same" engages in equivocation, since "use" doesn't mean the same thing in the case of intellectual property as it does in the case of tangible personal property or real property.