Bob Young On Intellectual Property 119
Michael Manoochehri writes: "Slashdot readers might be interested in this interview I did with Center for the Public Domain and Red Hat Chairman Bob Young. Bob talks about the goals of the center, the future of Public Domain, and the state of the world's IP. In this time of constant ideological attack on open-source software by Microsoft, it is refreshing to hear a contrasting (and well spoken) viewpoint." Slashdot also interviewed Bob Young a few months ago.
Contrasting viewpoint (Score:1)
Yes, the viewpoint that MICROSOFT IS EVIL.. LINUX ROOLZ! I NEVER see that viewpoint on slashdot.
Just thinking... (Score:1)
Re:I think not! (Score:1)
Devastating as in thousands of new drugs and medical procedures that save countless lives every year? Exactly how would these things come about if there were no profit in them?
You children take these things out of their context. Viagra is a Good Thing, it helps old men get the lead back in their pipes. Should poor people have the opportunity to do the same? I think so, but what about Pfizer? They spent millions developing the drug, they are going to have to recoup their costs or there will be no more Pfizer. Indeed, there never would have been a Pfizer in the first place had there been no profit in developing drugs.
In order for the poor to get 'help' from Viagra they will have to do something to get out of being poor. It isn't Pfizer's fault, so don't punish them. Punish the poor, who got themselves in that position in the first place.
Bob, you are wrong about our lawmakers (Score:5)
I live in Virginia's 6th district and have to be "represented" by Bob Goodlatte. He claims to be a great champion of technology, yet he proves his ignorance time and again especially on copyright and patent law. He understands exactly what the problems are with the DMCA and he flat out doesn't see them as problems at all. He openly attacks critics of the DMCA as thieves and pirates (literally). I once tried to talk to him about it and he jumped me right then and there with accusations that the DMCA's critics were dishonest people that advocate the theft of the hard work of creators.
The worst part about this is that this mindset is symptomatic of the majority of the baby boomer generation from what I've seen. My parents felt almost the same way that Goodlatte feels for some time. It was only when I started showing them how I could be thrown into debt and my life utterly ruined for doing university research and stuff like that on copyright systems that they began to see the light. Yet like most baby boomers they still don't see the DMCA as being all that bad. It is only my generation, the generation in high school and college now, that sees the DMCA for what it is. The DMCA helped push me away from being a leftist to being a libertarian. In fact Harry Browne's denunciations of our current IP laws convinced me that despite the areas where I disagree with the LP, it is the only party with a sane political platform. That is why when I turn 18 in less than a month I'm registering with the VA-LP.
It has taken the imprisonment of over 1,000,000 Americans for the public to begin questioning the mindless war on drugs (I still think buying foreign drugs should be illegal, especially drugs made in columbia... but not domestic drugs). The only way for Americans to see that the mindless war on "pirates" and "thieves" (IP "thieves that is") must be ended. Many Americans will have to have their lives, liberty and property ruined by the cartels (RIAA, MPAA, to name a few) and bear witness to the rantings and ravings of the IP-authoritarians before the public will call for its end. Civil disobedience is all we have left. Buy as many cds as you want, but when secure formats come out refuse to buy them. Send a message: "hey hey, ho ho protection schemes have gotta go!!!" to the companies and they will finally get the idea. When they are stuck between a rock (distributing in unprotected formats) and a hard place (distributing in secure formats, but having only
Posted anonymously because I may enter ROTC then the US Army and don't wish to bring possible reprisal on myself, family or friends.
Re:I think not! (Score:1)
Because, as we all know, unless people are motivated by the immediate prospect of vast financial gain, they'd never do anything for anyone, never mind anything as abtruse as research. Just ask that nice Mr. Einstein, who decided to stop thinking hard about physics unless someone handed him a fistfull of dollars.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:2)
The FSF uses the LGPL pragmatically, when licensing code in that fashion furthers the ultimate goal of free software. If they were so gung-ho to abandon it, why create it in the first place?
The rest of your argument, being based on an incorrect understanding of the license issues, is thus baseless.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
On the contrary. Humans will get to focus more on things their good at (creative, non-repetitive tasks) and less on being like machines (systematic, repetitive tasks).
Stu
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:2)
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:5)
The purpose of IP laws was to provide the 'small' entrepreneur a way to succeed against the large ones. If I invent a remarkable (simple) product in my basement, and it becomes fabulously successful, without copyright or IP, what prevents MegaCorp X from cloning my product, selling it cheaper (since they can afford to) and wiping me out of business?
I mean, the real goal was to keep small inventors and artists from turning into free R&D labs for big companies.
(Of course, this point has been spectacularly missed in the US with corp-favouring laws like the DCMA being passed.)
Re:Great interviewee, lousy interviewer (Score:2)
-D
Re:consumer preference (Score:1)
It is a bit disingenuous of you to choose Star Office as an example of a "Open Source" program.
Star Office is a second or third-rate also-ran that was released as Free Software after Sun bought it, sobered up, and realized they had no customers for it. As such, the bug you found in its installer as well as its poor user interface are both the result of mediocre commercial "closed-source" processes, not of a mediocre "open-source" effort. Admittedly, it doesn't seem to have improved any since Sun released it as Free Software.
Freshmeat is a real mixed bag, no question about it.
Denial about the flakiness of open source software is one of the most serious problems in the community.
Amen to that. I continue to be shocked by what the latest crop of linux weenies recommend as "pretty good". I haven't run into that kind of bozosity since I made the mistake of trying (for fun, thank God, not because I needed it to DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT) to bring an Amiga 2000 into the present back in 1998 or so... I have since recovered a little bit of my sanity, but the recommendations I received from Amiga nuts were um, often charmingly misguided.
There has been a little bit of a paradigm shift in the unix culture since the popularization of unix via Linux---there are a lot more people doing some kind of unix-for-unix's-sake kind of thing rather than interesting-things-that-are-most-easily-done-on-u
One of most interesting things about the unix world is that people still develop large unix programs at universities and release them as free software. These provide other business cases for using free software, especially for one-shot or infrequent tasks:
If you want to learn about finite element analysis, do you shell out five figures for a single-seat ABAQUS license or do you download TOCHNOG or FELT? (admittedly, the mid-tier FE vendors will gladly send you demo versions of their code with tutorials, but the source code of analysis software is a learning resource in and of itself.)
If you need to do some numerical analysis from scratch maybe four times a year, often for as-yet-unfunded work, do you spend days humiliating yourself convincing your boss it's worthwhile to shell out four figures for MATLAB, or do you download GNU Octave and live with its limitations? (Most of the other Matlab clones out there, last time I looked, fell into the category of "software people have recommended to me as pretty good".)
If you write one FORTRAN program, maybe a thousand lines, a year, do you shell out for one of the superb commercial Fortran 90/95 implementations, and spend a month or so coming up to speed on all the new features of modern FORTRAN, or do you live with g77?
As an aside, TeX still certainly has a niche for production of the finest computer typesetting. For a different perspective on software quality in free software, I suggest you read Knuth's [loria.fr]
"The Errors of TeX".
foog
Re:Great interviewee, lousy interviewer (Score:2)
I disagree. Name-calling never serves a purpose- it conveys no new information (if you get the joke of the name, you already know the point that's being made by it), it degrades the level of the discussion, and it makes the speaker sound like a 4-year-old who isn't getting what he wants. There are always better ways of underlining your point. For example, instead of saying "demopublicans and republicrats", the interviewer could have said "our increasingly indistinguishable political parties" or some such.
Re:Great interviewee, lousy interviewer (Score:2)
I'm not saying they're four-letter words, and my argument has nothing to do with political correctness. You have every right to say them. Moreover, I agree with the point you're making- the Democrats and the Republicans are in many ways failing to deliver the political choice a free society needs. All I'm saying is that those words are not likely to get their speaker taken very seriously. I'm sure, if your apply your apparently formiddable intellectual powers to it, you may be able to come up with a less juvenile way of "speaking the truth" about our political parties, without sacrificing the integrity of your position.
By the way, as far as my being well-trained by CNN, I can't stand TV news, and haven't watched CNN since the Gulf War. How's that for training?
Great interviewee, lousy interviewer (Score:5)
On the whole, it's a very interesting article, but I kept cringing at the the interviewer. It's not so much the fact that he's clearly biased that bothers me, it's the way the bias degrades the quality of the interview
Of course, there's one of my personal pet peeves, "Micro$oft." I suppose I can understand the desire to call names in private discourse, chatrooms, or wherever, but let's not mince words- it's still name-calling, plain and simple. It's what we did in preschool when we couldn't think of anything else to say, and yet because we're talking about the Great Satan, it's somehow supposed to be reasonable, even witty. Guess what? You still sound like a 4-year-old, and trying to incorporate "Micro$oft" into a serious, intelligent discussion (much less a journalistic interview) is about as effective as saying "Bill Gates is a poo-poo head." Ditto for "Demopublicans" and "Republicrats."
And then we have Mr. Young (quite rightly) arguing that we should consider the merits of openness as it applies to a particular situation, rather than blindly applying Open Source as the cure for all ills. In other words, he is arguing in favor of intelligent thought, as opposed to knee-jerking, and our esteemed interviewer unbelievably goes out of his way to disagree, citing the South African AIDS issue. Is this man seriously claiming that some issues are so morally objectionable that we must abandon discretion, stop thinking, and just blindly shout "Open Source"? Either he's doing frighteningly little thinking himself, or he's just not listening to his interviewee. Neither possibility reflects very well on the quality of this interview.
On the other hand, kudos to Mr. Young for an intelligent, coherent, and eminently reasonable interview.
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:2)
I even converted a die-hard MS gamer when he said linux has no games for it and I showed him Unreal,Q3,Simcity3000,Alpha Centauri,civilization CTP.. and then asked,"what did you say?"
Granted, some things are hard to do, but then they are just as hard in MS products.
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:1)
I guess that means Windows isn't user-friendly either, since not all of its applications use the exact same menus..
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
Absolutely untrue. The FSF (who's "the RMS"?) have always said that you can charge for free software, and that free software is about freedom, not about zero cost. Heck, RMS used to charge for emacs!
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:2)
True, once there is a sufficiently large codebase licenced under the GPL and owned by the FSF, they could release it all again under a new, much more restrictive version of the GPL.
They wouldn't be able to stop you from using the version that you already had under the terms of the licence that you received with it, however. They also wouldn't be able to force you to relicence any software that you had already written. Unless people started to use the new versions of their software under the new licence in sufficient numbers, they would fail to make much of an impact. Given the voracity with which people around these parts leap upon any perceived attempts to limit their freedom, I don't think the FSF would have much success.
You're right about RMS - he does try to persuade people not to use the LGPL, and some of his ideas are somewhat extreme, to put it mildly. I think RMS has his heart in the right place, and serves a useful purpose; without extremists on both sides, there is a danger of straying too far from the middle ground. For example, consider RMS apparently wanting to destroy proprietary software, and MS apparently wanting to destroy Free software. If only one existed, I think people would tend to drift towards them eventually. With both denouncing the other, people will hopefully see the flaws in both their arguments and strive for a more balanced approach, taking the best of both.
Sorry about the ad hominem attack, but it's been a trying few days at work. I too have a partner and a kid to support; I wouldn't even consider trying to make a living writing open source software. However, I never suggested that you should, either.
The bottom line is that the GPL itself is not trying to hijack anyone's efforts. The FSF may attempt to use it to that end, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the GPL itself. Just because patents are, on occasion, misused doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the intent of giving the creators of IP a way to protect it temporarily.
If you don't like the GPL, that's fine, don't use it, but please don't attribute to it your perceptions of the intention of its creator.
Cheers,
Tim
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:4)
Sorry, you're going to have to explain that one to me, because I really don't understand.
If I write a piece of software and release it under the GPL, in what way am I hijacking other's efforts? All I'm doing is saying "here you go, hope it's useful, feel free to give it to your friends, make modifications, etc - oh, if you do, though, you have to let people have the source, just like I did you, and crediting me as original author would be nice too".
I'm not forcing anyone to make modifications and give away their hard work, I'm just giving them the opportunity to do so, whilst at the same time preventing them from taking my hard work and profiting from it. The GPL and similar licences do exactly the opposite of wht you claim - they prevent the hard work of people from being hijacked by others.
Yes, RMS has argued that all software should be free. However, whilst the majority of it is not, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to create a licence that provides people with more freedom than others, whilst denying them the right to abuse that freedom. (Note that I express no opinion as to whether or not all software should be Free.)
I really am getting tired of saying this, but no-one is forcing anyone to release their code under the GPL. If you think of a great feature that, say, gcc should have but hasn't, then you are free to implement it and distribute your version, complete with source. If, however, you want to charge for it and withold the source, that's fine too. All you have to do is rewrite gcc from scratch, just like you would have to if it was a commercial compiler.
You know, the more I read your comment, the more you sound like someone who really wants to take other people's work and profit from it, and is pissed that the GPL is preventing you from doing that.
Cheers,
Tim
When you're not the biggest... (Score:1)
All the answers he gave were very safe answers. Nothing controversial, and not much real substance. He could have answered "I'll have to think about this for a week or so, I'll get back to you." and I would have almost as much insight and information as I do now.
To me is seemed like a "RedHat just began making a profit here, don't rock the boat" interview. Perhaps it would have been better to stir things up a bit. I don't think enough of the right people will read this. No one wants safe, conservative answers and no controversy. Make a couple good outlandish comments to get some attention, then fill the rest of the interview with good information. Sure people will remember the off the wall comments, but they'll also actually read the interview.
Microsoft is doing this. Read their press releases. They're pushing
(.NET appears 4 times in Craig Mundies attack on the GPL. Innovation appears 5 times.)
Dammit, Where's the FUD? We need the FUD!!
Re:Great interviewee, lousy interviewer (Score:4)
But I digress. That comment came totally out of left field. As did the recent article in Linux Journal [linuxjournal.com] that, while touching, seemed to lack either a central, well-defined thesis, or relevance in a technical magazine.
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:1)
Re:I think not! (Score:1)
A basic human action is to act to benefit yourself and your family. Typically, that translates into adding value to some materials and selling the value-added product. Your labor and creativity have changed something into something more valuable. If you can't sell/exchange it, you tend to change activities to something where you can make money. This insight completely eludes communists and socialists, which is why communist systems are so wretchedly impoverished (socialists are busy trying to impoverish prosperous systems). Central bureacrats try to decide what is the best allocation of resources, but they can't, because they don't know everything, so they misallocate. This is inherently inefficient. But now I'm rambling...
So should the state coerce people to act for the benefit of others without any reward? That they must give up their time and energy and creativity for the benefit of some unknown, distant, unrelated human, to the detriment of those who are close--friends and family? That is, to be slaves?
No, we don't care about money more than we care about our loved ones, but we don't always care about abstract "humanity", which is what the slave-makers always chant while enslaving and impoverishing and bombing.
--
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Yes, it is. If I buy Microsoft Office, I am buying software that works. If I download StarOffice, I am getting software that doesn't work. If I download some random utility from FreshMeat, I am downloading something that is almost guaranteed not to work and to be held together with hooks and bailing wire. Denial about the flakiness of open source software is one of the most serious problems in the community.
thirty seconds with CodeWarrior rather than five minutes with GCC for "free" can't do simple math. Thousands of dollars would be wasted every week by the "free" solution.
Lessee the math here... Average developer: $60/hour (prolly less, but this makes it easier). $1/minute. With CodeWarrior, you claim 30 seconds to go, and gcc, 5 minutes to go. That's great! You've just saved me $4.50/developer! So, lessee, licensing of CodeWarrior: $200+/seat. Licensing of GCC: $0/seat. Oh, shit, there just went $195.50/developer. Now, how do I get bugs fixed? CodeWarrior: Submit the bug to them, hope they fix it, pay for upgrade. GCC: Grab the source, find the bug, fix it, and start using it. Give it back to the steering committee while I'm at it, since that's probably a requirement (if I'm distributing it).
What the hell, I'll stick with CodeWarrior. After all, it's a superior environment. Now, I need the AIX version, since we're developing a product on AIX. How much is that? Oh, wait, it's not available? Damn, there goes that option.
Yep, CodeWarrior is the best option. Much rather have a product which costs a lot, gives me zero portability, and takes control of fixes away from me.
No, user friendliness is not a "small hurdle." It's a paradigm shift that requires an entirely different development model. The problem is well studied and I could recommend you some books if I thought you'd actually read them. It is a shift that free software has not made. Due to the insistence on programmers designing their own interfaces, it is a shift that the free software community can not make.
What's wrong with this statement? "I'm not a tinkerer. I needed a stable router/firewall." You are not a software consumer -- you are a system administrator.
Hmmm, how about that. My dad is a system administrator. He'd be surprised to know that, since he works as an RN on the 3rd floor of the local hospital, and couldn't tell you most of anything about firewalls. But, he does know that he needs one to protect his machine from getting hacked, and he knows it's better to have it be external.
As for non-geek social affairs, I'm married to one (soon enough to be divorced at the rate I'm going). Your example is a poor one. How would I do it? You heard about the latest virus which will hit your machine from the internet and wipe out your drives? I guarantee that most of the people in the room will be asking how to stop it, and I can mention the firewall/router then.
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Agreed. So, what's the bug number for the report you filed with them, so that they can fix it? I'd like to try it again after the fix is done, and to do that, I need to track the bug's progress through Sun.
Brilliant TCO analysis! It's very applicable to the case of a single-programmer team who uses the software exactly once. I'm sure that's the most common case. Remind you to include you if we do a CFO search.
Very good turn back! I'm impressed. You took what was described as the startup time, replied to as the startup time, and compared it to TCO, thus turning me into the fool. I AM impressed.
Even starting to fix a single bug in a big project like the Linux kernel, GCC, or Mozilla will take weeks of startup time familiarizing yourself with the idiosyncracies of the source. If you haven't been on the chat rooms or mailing lists with the core team for months, they won't even look at your bug fixes. The supposed ease of fixing bugs in open source software is one of the community's Big Lies.
Depends on the nature and severity of the bug, plus the design of the code base. Some bugs are non-trivial, some are trivial. Most trivial ones have been found and fixed already, to be sure. Nice redirect, too. I didn't comment on the ease of fixing the bugs, only the possibility. Where I did comment on the ease was in how easy it was to have it happen, period. Dealing with a commercial, closed source vendor, you don't have any leverage (unless you've got deep pockets) to get any particular bug fixed. Dealing with an open source vendor, it doesn't matter. You have the code, you can fix it (or at least try to). An option which is not available with the closed source guys (like, say, CodeWarrior).
Try anything by Deborah J. Mayhew.
Thank you, I will. It's always good to have more resources, and I do appreciate it.
My point exactly. Good user experience design takes money.
Well, something we do agree on, at least. Well, to some degree. The other thing usability design takes, which you neglect to mention, is users. More importantly, users who will tell you why your design sucks or is great. Those are in even shorter supply than money for the OS community (heck, from the money aspect, we've got IBM, Sun, HP, etc, trying to help out). But users who will provide feedback about the interface? Go find me five of them, and I'll be shocked.
(Just FYI, firewalls don't usually have much to do with viruses. Firewalls are mostly about DoS and intrusion prevention.)
You are, of course, right. But I was only illustrating that you can get people to listen, not what would be technically correct. Unless, of course, you count that at least some DDoS tools have been distributed as virii.
So, I await word on how your non-programmer, non-admin father (or wife) got along with the Linux Router configuration.
My dad? He got me to install it. But he knew he needed one. My wife? Won't go near the computer anymore, hates it because I use it too much.
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Ahhh, wait a minnit. Many people refer to Star Office, and ignore Open Office [openoffice.org], which according to Sun is the next official version of Star Office. Noticeable changes, including a bug reporting page [openoffice.org]. Now, I admit that Star Office 5.2 does have issues. Might I recommend trying out what is actually the next official revision of it? I've had ever better success with it than with 5.2.
All depends on the vendor. In my experience most commercial software vendors are pretty good at fixing major bugs reported by their customers. OTOH, lots of open source developers complain about their fixes for open source bugs being stonewalled -- there have been some notable
Agreed. Major bugs do tend to get fixed quickly. I think this happens in all environments though. However, special case bugs (in both open and closed source) tend to have the hardest time getting put in, since it's usually viewed as not a real issue. At least, that's been what I've seen. Unless you're paying somebody to fix the bug, a minor issue will be ignored for as long as possible. The difference I was trying to point out is the possibility to fix the bug yourself. While it might not be easy to do, it is possible, which is more than can be said for any closed source vendor.
Sorry for the shortness of the reply, and how long it took to do. Had some problems reaching here for the past two days. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired, so I'll ask this: Are we really arguing, or are we simply pointing out that the coin has both heads and tails?
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:2)
She did a default install of RedHat. After hearing so much hype about Linux, she must have expected a wondrously colorful world full of new and exciting experiences to open up before her, but that isn't what happened, at least in her eyes.
I'm not sure which version of RedHat she installed, but I'm pretty sure is was an earlier version that used Gnome as the default desktop.
She was terribly disappointed with her experience because "RedHat looks too much like Windows." She added "I'm going to try another distribution."
God, if that's the way she feels about Gnome, wait 'till she sees KDE!
The problem is that this was someone who could have been won over, but she wasn't because everyone in the Linux community is too busy chasing m$'s tail.
Where is our innovation? When do we take the lead? Where is the killer app that takes the world by storm that the Linux community "innovated"? Why are we so absorbed with m$ "compatability?"
World domination will not be won by following m$'s wake with an office clone, but by leading the world into new territory. The m$ killer app will be one that is so sexy, so enticing, so irresistible that no one will want to be without it. There will be little to no cross platform compatability.
"You want this, get Linux!"
---
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
Used to? He still does. [gnu.org]
--
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow)
Give people a little credit (Score:4)
The "Common Computer User" as Slashdot readers are so quick to cite does not believe everything Microsoft feeds them.
In fact the common user:
Re:Screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:2)
As opposed to the current system.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
A matter of personal opinion, of course. There are people a lot smarter than you are, who have the exact opposite opinion about the page in question. But then again, I also get emails from young kids who have no trouble grasping that nothing can move in spacetime. Too bad you can't do the same, eh? Besides, it's my credibility to reduce or increase as I see fit.
Just out of interest, why do you get so bent out of shape over a crackpot?
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
Care to name some?
Some are listed on my site. Feel free to write to them. Several among them are full physics professors at major universities. Don't think for a second that the time-travel and wormhole con artists have a monopoly on what's accepted in the physics community.
But then again, I also get emails from young kids who have no trouble grasping that nothing can move in spacetime. Too bad you can't do the same, eh? Besides, it's my credibility to reduce or increase as I see fit.
Zeno's paradox is a fallacy, "nemesis".
Proof by assertion, I see. Not even the greatest scientists of the world held such power. Besides, there are more than one Zeno's "paradox." Get a clue.
By the way, how do you equate everyone agreeing with you with everyone violently disagreeing with you and still keep a straight face?
"Violently" is the right word for it. Many, like you, take it to heart, jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth. Indeed I can't keep a straight face. It's rather amusing. See ya!
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
That is not the only possible assumption that makes it false: another assumption is that time and space can both be divided infinitely. If they can't then movement becomes possible again.
I agree. The continuity assumption (infinite divisibilty) is part of the other "paradoxes" of Zeno. Get rid of the continuity and time assumptions and the problem is solved. It's simple. But would you believe that famous and celebrated physicists like Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking have trouble grasping this? Instead of doing what you just did, they would rather come up with a bunch of cockamamie nonsense like time travel. Go figure!
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
Not at all. Spacetime cannot exist because it makes motion impossible. I thought you understood Zeno's paradox of the arrow but aparently not. A time dimension forbids motion.
Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:4)
[...]
Without patents the drug companies would not have done the research to create the aids drugs in the first place so the whole issue would be moot. But clearly it is not in anyone's interest including the drug companies to charge so much for their product that their consumers (patients) cannot afford them. So they need to figure out how to charge less (in Africa - a lot less) in markets where the consumers cannot afford the regular price.
With all due respect to Mr. Young, there really is no such thing as free market coexisting with IP laws. IP laws are not designed to free the market but to restrict its freedom. So we are left in a quandary: how does a free society finance scientific research without IP restrictions on its freedom? How do programmers, artists, etc.. make a living if they cannot live off their work?
The way I see it, there is no such thing as intellectual property. If you can't lock it up or put a fence around it, it does not belong to you.Once you release it to the world it belongs to nobody and to everybody. The only property worthy of the name is tangible property. A economic system based on human labor will not survive, whether it is communism or capitalism. What will happen to a slave economy when AI and advanced automation replaces everybody? It will collapse, that's what.
So now the IP owners can only rely on powerful police states to enforce their "property." And it will get worse. The only way to truly enforce IP laws in the age of the internet and file sharing technologies is by instituting increasingly Orwellian governing bodies that continually spy on its citizens. When that happens, I hope the people of the world rise up against it.
We will not be truly free until we are all guaranteed an inheritance in the land and its wealth, a piece of the pie. What we do with our piece should be up to us. The wealth of the earth is the earth and it should not be divided for a price so that it ultimately ends up under the control of the few while everyone else is forced to be slave. It should be divided up and given to the people. Only then will we have a free market where nobody is forced to suck up to those who would enslave us. Knowledge should only serve as a mechanism for increasing the wealth of the earth.
Once we have a society based of giving rather than taking, we will openly share our knowledge with one another. We will cooperate and freely share our knowledge so that society as a whole benefits. Someone recently emailed me this delightful quote by Benjamin Franklin: "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
This can only happen in truly free society. Slaves cannot be expected to give freely to others when their livelihood depends on competing against other slaves. The system forces us to exploit our fellow human beings. It must be changed or we will soon face disaster.
Why? We already have the EFF. (Score:1)
They are already doing a GREAT job and I think a diffusion of effort will just hurt our common goal - intellectual freedom.
Is there something wrong with the EFF that made Bob start centerpd.org?????
Also.. if you haven't already joined the EFF. Please do so! It is your future at stake!
Every time I go to an EFF meeting I give them ALL the money in my pocket. Usually I find an excuse to hit an ATM right before the meeting and accidentally take out a LOT of money...
Kevin
Readers Digest Version (Score:2)
1) We really are like Pac Man. We want to eat all the software in the world nad make it impossible to for a business to make money with computers.
2) Software patents suck! We patented software patents so that no one else will ever be able to get one! Aren't we clever? We're going to patent air, too! Boy, aren't we clever?
3) Open Source really is a cancer! We've been collaborating with the alien invaders for years now and have implanted chips in the back of the neck of every open source developer who's ever written a line of GPL code!
4) We want the internet to be all free and peace and love and all that stuff! We wish the lawyers and AOL and everyone would just go away!
5) No one here listens to RMS. He's a hippy and hippies suck. Mmkay?
Now that you know what the story's about, post away!
I think not! (Score:1)
A sucker's maxim (Score:2)
Re:I think not! (Score:2)
Actually, they don't come about -- For too many people, the reality is that because the production of drugs is money oriented, they will die a painful and disgraceful death after having lived their decrepit lives without the benefits of modern science simply because we care more about money.
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
You dismiss Young's claims of government intervention in the software market. Let's remember the most fundamental intervention: the invention of 'intellectual property' rights. These are a non-obvious construct and their application to software is also non-obvious and was disputed at the time. Selling identical copies of a string of bits is not a viable business model unless the government uses coercion to protect your monopoly.
And I disagree that commercial software offers superior reliability. I will grant performance as a theoretical point - commercial vendors have the resources to optimize things - but not as a real issue. For example, IIS is faster than Apache, but in reality a very slow site is usually powered by IIS. Unix and related software contain many decisions that elevated flexibility and elegance over raw speed. It turns out that in practice, flexible, elegant software lends itself to fast systems.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
First, let me preface this by saying that I agree with you. There is no propoerty in intellect, ie no intellectual property. However, when you say;
If you can't lock it up or put a fence around it, it does not belong to you.Once you release it to the world it belongs to nobody and to everybody.
I disagree. You have just described "real" property. The are aspects of property that go beyond that. For example, one may grant a right of way over a piece of land. That is not fencable since it is not within the ambit of the gift to exclude others from the land, but one can transfer the title of the right of way. It is even possible to suggest that there is property in ones "right" to earn a living. That is, because "sustenance" is so closely tied to "working" nowdays that the notions that were applied to property to reify it, are becoming more and more applicable to employment relationships.
Note that I agree with your assertion that IP is illusory. But one must be careful to ensure that the "sufficient" requirement of exclusion is not interpreted as a "necessary" requirement for property, for such a thing will only weaken your argument.
Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:2)
Re:Contrasting viewpoint (Score:1)
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
The way to "get" the record company is to NOT buy any cd's from the company. Granted that will get the band dumped but once they are off contract you need to start buying music from the artist directly. In this world of easy communication the record company is not necessarily necessary for distribution or promotion. Once we can buy directly from the artist we cut out the huge profits that the record corp was getting and the artist ends up with more money in the end.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
If a software company were to rent out the use of the software tool to get the job done then the software provider can earn money without causing a great conundrum of intellectual property laws. If another company figured out how to make a tool that did the same job then kudos to them and they can compete in the industry to be a provider of that service. Otherwise the original provider of the service would keep knowledge of doing the task to itself.
In the end though this is what software is about anyways, just people imagine it as property and want to "own" it. That or they think because to make a new copy of the software it costs nothing extra that the software should be released for the good of everyone because the person that made it would lose nothing. The problem with that is you would not have nearly as many people willing to give the software away.
In the end we need to reward software providers monitarily for the work they do providing software because the result gives benifit to the people that use the software. Thats the way trade works.
Re:Rent out Software??? what is a license?? (Score:2)
Re:Rent out Software??? what is a license?? (Score:2)
Even given that fact if you put 10% of the functionality of the application on a secure server its going to be impossible to "steal" time on the program unless you duplicate the missing functionality on your own servers. At that point the way people will try to solve the problem is hacking accounts to steal time and we are half way decent at stoping unauthorized access to servers (no not perfect but better than we are at stoping people from cracking software).
Anyways this is far off my initial point was that people are upset at the idea of "intellectual property" because they feel that the software is virtual and does not have value. For this reason I advocate having software be a service where you pay for the amount you use. This way benifit can be correlated to benifit recieved, not to amount of material recieved.
I mean you pay a car wash or a doctor or mechanic for services and never expect any physical result in return so why can't that apply to software? I guess people will still argue that letting 2 people use the software doesn't cost any more than letting 1 person use it so the second person should get to use it for free. Unfortunately you will always have consumers wanting more for less but in a free economy the suppliers want to make less and get more for it. The key is to let the natural balance happen because this maximises the total value in the system (by removing the surplus or shortages).
Compile a source package: click Setup (Score:1)
The number of people who use closed source implementations who would even have the know-how to compile a program from source is nil.
That is, unless GCC is included on the CD, and the setup program (launched from Autorun) compiles, links, and installs the software; the AOLer in front of the monitor barely has to lift a finger.
But are GGMs the best reward? (Score:2)
Some couple hundred years ago it was agreed that artists, authors, inventors, and others that used intellectual efforts to create works for the public good should be rewarded for that effort.
Rewarded yes. But is a government-granted monopoly [everything2.com] the only way to reward creation of works of authorship? I'd say the future belongs to services and sponsorships. Instead of making money selling records, a would-be Britney Spears could be making money performing, or putting slick ads into her songs (though less flagrantly than "The Joy of Pepsi").
Not everyone agrees, and are free to lobby to change the law of our society
Lobbying is currently defined as donating millions of dollars to a politician's campaign. Who, outside of big faceless corporations with an interest in preserving their monopolies, has the money for that? Most people are so dazzled by marketing that they actively reject the truth about the way the system works (perpetual copyright terms [pineight.com], copyrights that act like patents, region price discrimination coding).
those that don't, can find other contries with a society that agrees with them in this area ... Maybe by being invited to move to someplace they think is better.
Who has $500,000 to spend to move a family and a career, including the cost of learning a new language and culture?
have yet to learn about the value of that compromise.
You call 125-year American copyrights (life + 70 years) a compromise? Take off a century and I'd agree. Bottom line: Write your representatives.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:2)
The code is already out there and licensed such that all can use it and extend it. That *cannot* be undone.
Except by deprecating the hardware on which the software runs (think VHS => DVD or NTSC => HDTV) or by embracing and extending the protocols that the software speaks. It would have been better titled "When not to use LGPL" rather than "Why not to use LGPL".
RMS's essay [gnu.org] advocates using viral GPL only for libraries that have no proprietary equivalent. A more permissive license (e.g. Lesser GPL or even the New BSD license) is indicated in highly competitive fields (e.g. C libraries; graphics infrastructure; audio compression).
Re:Screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:2)
Having just a original that can be mass produced exactly as the original doesn't mean much, having a *scarce* individual product does.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
Excellent question!!
The RMS and FSF answer is that all proprietary rights are wrong, and offer absolutely no alternative means for programmers, artists, etc to protect their rights to make a living off their own works. In fact that go so far as to say any attempt to retain proprietary rights and charge for ones own work is evil.
Since you asked the question, just how do authors make a living without IP owner ship?? By being slaves to corporate america under W-2 classified wages? Just how do private individual authors make a living without the ability to sell authorship rights?
Screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
Rent out Software??? what is a license?? (Score:1)
Licenses are a rental agreement that requires that the recipient NOT publish/distribute the software.
Without such an agreement, what RMS and the FSF promote happens. The first renter publishes the work the author spent the last 3 years creating to the internet, and presto - no rental market for your "service". After all, your last 3 years of hard work simply DON'T EXIST, they have no tangible VALUE once IP rights are voided.
So please explain, how an author, artist, programmer can invest 3 years of their full time labor to create this wonderful work - and get paid for their effort once the first person/corporation that gets a copy for free publishes it. Just how???
Difference between Public Domain and Free authors (Score:1)
The Free Software author is riddled by the fear that it might really be used by everyone.
Neither expect a dime for their efforts, just praise. Both can require public acknoldgement for use of their works in a greater work/compulation, or not.
By defination the Public Domain author's work is truely free - and once published on the internet, should be easily archived and searchable on it's own. It makes no legal claim on others work if incorporated and acknowldged. Public Domain authors stand out by example, without need to call proprietary works evil and deny their authors rights. They allow others to choose to protect, or not, their own works as they see fit.
Free Software developers on the other hand resort to legal IP games to hijack others efforts with a highly restrictive GPL, or similar, licenses. An interesting ploy for sure - claiming that all IP licenses, except for GPL licenses, are evil and should be revoked. Just what would a GPL license be, if copyright was revoked? RMS and backers of FSF seek to destroy IP rights for all under the theory that if they don't need/want those rights, then no one else should either.
Which is the noble and just cause? Which cause promotes true freedom - the live and let live policy, or the one that seeks to take away ones basic right of authorship?
Wrong - RMS and FSF are hijacking artists rights (Score:1)
Just how can a small artist/author/programmer protect their years of writing a new work, without IP rights? RMS and FSF's answer is not. no rights. In order to screw the corporations, a few little guys are just collateral damage along the way.
Re:Rent out Software??? what is a license?? (Score:1)
Someday, we might have CPU's which execute PK encrypted instructions streams, but that doesn't apply to the primary consumer computer systems in use today.
Re:Rent out Software??? what is a license?? (Score:1)
Re:Screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
The problem is not GPL, but the RMS and FSF stated position that IP is not a right. The question that the clueless taking that position have yet to offer an answer for, is if they are worried about someone taking their works and making money from it, just how is it that denial of IP ownership as a right is going to solve that problem? The whole reason in the first place for IP rights, is to KEEP CORPORATIONS from stealing and profiting from the little guys work. RMS and FSF have failed to logically offer a solution to the problem - reverting back 700 years just makes it worse.
Re:Naive? (Score:1)
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
The majority of the funds are claimed by the retail distribution chain and retail outlets as markup. On the whole, most retailers run with less than a 15% net margin, after expenses - with the money turning it wages, utilities, leases, flooring interest, advertising, and a host of other expenses.
While the inefficiency of our capitalist distribution system might seem alarming - it does work better that most other alternatives that other societies have tried. - and manages to keep a vast majority of our poorly educated and trained labor force employed in retail, and off state supporting incomes.
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
In short, it probably also means less availble jobs for students and teens as well, and many of their parents.
Rethinking the FreeSoftware Movement (Score:1)
For those that have followed Red Hat, only a portion of their product offerings are purely Free Software and available on the web for download without purchase. RedHat has freely embraced a balanced business model mixing both proprietary software sales and Free Software. This business policy is in direct opposition to others views however.
The Stallman position, mirrored by associates at the FSF, presents a radically different view which frequently denies ownership of IP as a right, and certainly casts those the differ in a rather poor light. Let us just say that while Bob Young's position is pretty much middle of the road, and reflects a careful well thought out balance, the RMS and FSF position is anything but moderate (First of two quotes from sections of "Why Software Should Be Free" by RMS):
Last time I checked, what makes our society truly free, is the ability of authors to independently develop works and sell to the highest bidder. It doesn't really matter if we do that on a project by project freelance basis, or by choice of employers, or starting and running our own business. Otherwise we would all be working below minimum wage for a couple large corporations, or in the grand view of the RMSplan - on government funded grants (which by RMS is where all R&Dreally belongs). It's not clear how we would fund that government however.Some how there is this feeling that we spend 4-6 years of our lives, and $30-200K of our families assets for College to work for nothing or below minimum wage once we get out. And that anyone that sacrifices to develop a great idea, should get a pat on the back and his picture in paper.
The entire RMSargument against ownership of software (and all other IP) is based upon two theory's which differ greatly from current practice:
In the RMSworld, once you design anything, it's expected that you turn over the plans to the great world society and allow anyone to produce your design without compensation for your design labor and costs. He does consider it proper however to sell ADDITIONAL services, if needed, to those manufacturing your designs. This eliminates wasted duplicate effort (otherwise known as competition) and many evils associated with gaining wealth from the capitalistic system. While Linux distributions show a clear success on the backs of millions of hours of unpaid effort, and some commercial support of certain projects, the clear and obvious result of the last 7 years of Free Software development is that few users have showered their developers with dollars. Nor have the Linux Distribution sales been equitably shared in the development community - with the vast majority developers represented in the major Linux distributions receiving nothing for there work. Clearly the RMS model for supporting programmers isn't working, other than proving a very large number of people do this strictly as a labor of love. Linux distributions have however contributed to our societies well being by transferring millions of dollars of retail distribution sales in to our communities to help provide retail and distribution jobs for unskilled and teenage workers that might otherwise require government assistance. Maybe we pay programmers by giving them part-time retail jobs?It's not clear that anything is changing in the market to suggest that programmers will get paid for Free Software work at level to make even a poverty level income. The RedHat business model on the other hand is producing jobs for a few of these developers. The emergence of Linux and it's popularity has caused the loss of better than 10,000 UNIXrelated development and support jobs world wide as proprietary UNIXdevelopment environments have been shut down over the last 10 years. Microsoft has hired many of those developers, a few now have similar jobs supporting Microsoft and Linux products in shops that used to have their own UNIX teams. The trend is clearly that Free Software doesn't pay, and that trend will surely over time sharply cut the number of industry jobs and engineering graduates. With fewer programmers getting paid for UNIX/Linux work - colleges will be forced to train for the environments that their graduates will be seeking jobs. In the long term this works strongly to lock in the Microsoft monopoly, and hold Free Software Linux to a minority position. While Free Software projects have access to a glut of programmers with Unix/Linux trained skills today - the long term trend will follow jobs. Unless the Free Software groups can create jobs, it's unlikely that the momentum borrowed from the previously proprietary UNIX market is enough to establish a long term critical mass of both talent and customers.
The key to a a long term solution and success, is a balanced moderation - a compromise - that benefits our society as a whole. Both radically increasing or eliminating IP protections is almost certainly going to cast us into a technological dark age where dollars are withdrawn from research and investment without protections to guarantee that businesses can recover the investments during product life cycles. The withdrawal of funds will certainly slow product evolution and cut R&Djobs. With the lack of jobs, few people will enter those disciplines in college, and over time the industry seriously risks loss of critical mass to even sustain the current technology level.
Bob offers a business model solution between RedHat and the Public Domain initiative. We need to leave the anti business FSF/GPL behind as a failed experiment that creates few jobs in the industry, and even fewer jobs in our society, as compared to proprietary alternatives. Mixing proprietary and Public Domain initiatives not only has a better chance of creating jobs and pushing technology forward, but it creates prosperity in our society as a whole by providing retail sector jobs which create cash flow and consumers for the technology advancement and production.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:1)
> unnecessary.
actually, impossible, as big corps would have the ability to steal all ex-IP and use as they pleased.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:1)
First, a brief [edited] version their definition of:
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is not free or semi-free. Its
use, redistribution or modification is prohibited, or requires you to
ask for permission, or is restricted so much that you effectively
can't do it freely.
The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install
any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for the
specific purpose of writing a free replacement for that very program.
Aside from that, we feel there is no possible excuse for installing a
proprietary program.
We don't insist that users of GNU, or contributors to GNU, have
to live by this rule. It is a rule we made for ourselves. But
we hope you will decide to follow it too.
The clear message is that all Proprietary Developers are not only unwelcome, but it is in the best interests of the FSF/GPL community not to support anything but Free Software. Furthermore, the stated objective is to kill all non-free linux based software. Since grass roots linux projects in several major UNIX iron companies are to promoting replacing the existing UNIX products, the end goal is domination of the non-Microsoft market with linux and the long term removal of all competitive UNIX based products. The choice for independent applications developers is to port to Microsoft, or be forced to accept GPL and source release your product since the RMS goal is clearly stated in "Why you should not use the Library GPL for your next library" which would make it impossible to link proprietary software to run a Free Software OS platform. It also forces people who have released software purely into the public domain, to adopt the highly restrictive GPL terms, if the application is to be linked with libraries on a Free Software OS platform. Somehow one has to really question why it is necessary to abandon the true freedom of "Public Domain" to give away your PD application for use on a GPL'ed OS by accepting the much more restrictive GPL terms.
So while you might claim "I'm really am getting tired of saying this, but no-one is forcing anyone to release their code under the GPL." the clear stated goal is to keep replacing/killing non-GPL options until none are left, and then use the change in library terms to force the rest to GPL, or completely leave the UNIX/Linux community - including completely Public Domain applications which are completely unrestricted open source and license free.
It seems the real intent here is to force everyone that can't wait for a mercy check from their user base to pay their rent onto Microsoft Platforms. The real intent is keep all the niche application developers that need software licenses for revenue to pay their employees, off Linux and on Microsoft platforms. And at the same time promote a revisionist view of software ownership so that Wine users will continue to pirate windoze applications that nobody in the Free Software community is willing to write. I don't know why Microsoft is complaining, business is being forced into their market.
As for the openly hostile assertion that I'm out to steal something from the GPL community - get a life. I have three kids and a wife to support, and have enough common sense to completely avoid the Linux trap, despite RedHat's invitation for for-profit application porting to their distribution. RMSand FSF have completely failed to deliver on their claim that the user community has an obligation to support Free Software Developer - my kids are hungry today, and I'm not stupid enough to believe RMS and FSF that if I GPL my living, that the user community will support them. I have delivered public domain source in the past, and will in the future - but I will probably never deliver a line of GPL'd source. I believe in the Freedom to program, including to make a living, and GPL is not FREE.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:1)
GPL is just a license, with explict terms, and has no motives. However, since RMS does have strong stated motives, controls much of the core IP in the Free Software movement, is strongly pressing to abandon/revoke LGPL with the explict goal of removing proprietary software applications (read as any non-GPL source or binary application) from the Linux platform which he seems to consider "his" - THEN this is not an idle concern or mis-percived threat, and it would take a year or more to replace GCC and related tools after RMS/FSF decided to close the door to non-GPL code.
I personally think that Linux is dead long term without the support of major applications vendors that have no reason to release their entire business assets to GPL. The only way to make a singificant impact on the Microsoft business model, is by not waving anti-IP hate propaganda in front of small businesses noses. There is a lot of rancor against Microsofts legal right to protect it's IP from piracy that we all know is rampant - but compared to the out right anti-business bashing of RMS/FSF and wholesale condemnation of free market principles thru explict plans to destroy IP rights, Microsofts actions are very mild and non-agressive in comparison.
In life we have to carefully choose our alliances - in the choice that RMS/FSF forces, Gates/MS is a saint since they mostly do what they need to do protect their own percieved rights. RMS/FSF on the otherhand, controls the rights of donated work of a huge number of people that largely may be unaware or even disagree with core public policy issues RMS/FSF demand. Gates is accountable to the market, and will compromise to retain that market. RMS refuses to accept the basic tenents of civilized democracy - compromise and individual rights are out of the question.
The original stated goals of Free access to software are much better served thru the declartion of Public Domain Rights. That policy advances the state of the art better, by including big business into the partnership. The donations that HP, SGI and Sun have made to the public good greatly advance the art and the public good. Embracing the RMS/FSF propaganda against businesses only serves to drive a wedge between important "Non-Evil" business partners that share our long term goals and provide the jobs that advance the state of the art.
I think we need to embrace Bob's public domain foundation, the great work it is doing with grants and public policy, and move major portions of core IP out of GPL and into the public domain. As consumers we have the ability to effectively boycot businesses that take without contributing their share - WE can control their customers perception of them in the market, not them - we may not be able to break a poor partner, but we certainly can make those that pull their share by supporting both their products and their business.
RedHat has been an excellent partner in this movement - we need to support and reward that, dispite the rancor of the RMS/FSF/Debian leadership against their different views regarding the role of businesses and IP rights in the Free Software movement.
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
What is scary about the internet is the total loss of distribution control and piracy that goes with it.
Re:Rethinking the FreeSoftware Movement (Score:1)
This is an old conflict in the Open Source community - reflect on Eric Raymond's comments starting at the top of page 206 in "The Cathedral & The Bazaar". What Bob offers in the Public Domain theory of Open Source is completely FREE using the FSF definition - and much more free than GPL. It suggests that our new OSS partners, like HP, SGI, IBM, Sun, and others are no longer the enemy - but they are US including thousands of developers that share the OSS vision.
The anit-business model inherited from RMS/FSF needs to be abandoned, and Bob leads the way using a PD alternative to GPL.
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:1)
My position that we need to choose our partners and allies carefully is not without merit on it's own. Here the RMS/FSF relationship is in the way of fully embracing new OSS partners like HP, IBM, SGI and Sun and the thousands of their employee's they have that share OSS goals.
Nor does that position in anyway lessen the value of the argument that Bob's leadership toward the PD movement allows is to move forward toward TRUE OSS Freedom.
Re:Rethinking the FreeSoftware Movement (Score:1)
It's fundamental to acknowledge that not only have big businesses (like HP, IBM, SGI, and Sun) become a core resource in the OSS as corporations, but that those businesses employees in general respresent a signficant portion of the OSS movement individual members. Businesses are collective voices - to claim that businesses are bad is to imply their employees are bad. The employees of businesses that support OSS, are responsible for that support, and that should be heralded as a GOOD thing. Continuing the FSF mantra that business and their money grubbing employees are all bad is a farse that is completely derisive for the OSS community.
Re:But are GGMs the best reward? (Score:1)
For the record, the definition of lobby; lobbying is: to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and esp. members of legislative body on legislation; to attempt to influence or sway (as a public offical) toware a desired action.
That isn't about money, it's about voters and votes.
Re:Wrong - RMS and FSF are hijacking artists right (Score:2)
Some couple hundred years ago it was agreed that artists, authors, inventors, and others that used intellectual efforts to create works for the public good should be rewarded for that effort. Our society as a whole accepts, and largely accepts, that as a right - those that don't, can find other contries with a society that agrees with them in this area (and probably not others).
Not everyone agrees, and are free to lobby to change the law of our society - they are not free to selectively pick and choose which laws they car to accept and enforce - that is the nature of our association. Play by the rules, or go elsewhere. Violate MY rights, as we have has a society agreed, then face societies judgement.
Certain totalitarian governments are controlled by individuals that believe it's their right to kill, rob, rape, or harm anyone they choose. And by *their* laws they not only have the right, but the freedom to do so. I prefer our societies, dispite the compromises we sometimes have to make - as a much better tradeoff.
The clueless that claim to not be bound by a societies rules, have yet to learn about the value of that compromise. Maybe by being invited to move to someplace they think is better.
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:1)
That all said, I don't see any reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Spacetime exists, sure, just some of the extrapolations thrown about are nonsense. But then, "hypothesis->experiment->observe->repeat". We need a supply of hypothesises to feed in to that system.
TWW
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
Proof by assertion, I see. Not even the greatest scientists of the world held such power. Besides, there are more than one Zeno's "paradox."
Zeno's paradox about the impossibility of movement is indeed false. I walked to work today and, in so doing, disproved it. This sort of garbage depends on throwing out all observations which do not fit with the crank theory being espoused.
Given the clash between observation and Zeno's paradox one must be discarded. It is clear that it must be Zeno that loses since I can move. Arguing against such a simple fact indicates not deep thought but pretentious intellectual posturing in a childish attempt to show off. "Oh, oh! Look at me, I challenge authority! Look at me, pleeeeeeese!"
TWW
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
That is not the only possible assumption that makes it false: another assumption is that time and space can both be divided infinitely. If they can't then movement becomes possible again.
TWW
Re:Free Market vs Free "Intellectual Property" (Score:2)
No, a continuous time dimension forbids motion. Zeno's paradox is based on the false assumption that a dimension must be divisible to an infinite degree. Other theories fall down on this but, really, there is no evidence to support (and lots to contradict) the idea that our universe contains anything which can be infinitely subdivided.
TWW
Is that the same Bob Young (Score:1)
Does he speak in an official capacity here?
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:1)
I've been trying to make those points here on Slashdot over and over.
I know Microsoft is a monopoly, that their shit crashes alot, that it's expensive, etc. I HATE IT.
But Linux is not a viable alternative for me right now, primarily because of ease of use. That doesn't mean it's no good, just that your average Linux user probably likes to tinker with it a little, and I can't afford to do that.
I WANT Mandrake to be good enough for me to replace Windows with, but it isn't. (or I can't make it good enough, because I don't have the knowledge). So I implore you, instead of making Dungeons and Dragons type installers for Linux (see recent /. article), spend some time on ease of use. PLEASE because tons of us can't wait!
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:1)
Just off the cuff, even if we did get a killer app, I wonder how long until a company ports it to windows - maybe Microsoft would. If not they'd copy the idea. Micrsoft would rather have an open source killer app on windows then not on windows.
However, the whole killer app idea is very interesting. Lots of linux developers are some of the worlds best coders, most are experienced and almost all are competent - if they arent then no one uses their code. Survival of the fittest (code).
The innovators in the world are few and far between. When I say innovators I mean the people that come up with completely new stuff, not changing the color of the start button.
As many people have said before, whats the point in 500 text editors? OK, people do a text editor as one of their first apps when learning programming, and thats great. Trouble is they then (generally) move on to mp3 players, IRC clients, etc. etc.
Catch up is a big role to play (XML works in IE5.5 but not in mozilla/opera/konqurer/browser-of-choice, or so I hear), but the new killer apps is whats important. I wish I could tell you what a killer app would be, but I cant. I dont innovate, I dont know anyone that does.I dont even know how to innovate, althoguh I'd guess its more of a flash of inspiration you have in the bus queue.
Difference between public domain and BSD (Score:1)
If it has a license it isnt PD.
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
Re:Difference between Public Domain and Free autho (Score:1)
unnecessary.
Re:consumer preference (Score:1)
In that case you need another second PC connected to the web to read the online documentation in order to be able to your first Linux computer to configure properly.
That's the real problem. Either they ship hardware preconfigured with Linux (which I don't like) or they still put more emphasis on a complete, hundred percent bugfree installation process for the absolute PC illiterate, which must include a idiot proof printer and web connectivity set-up. This is especially important for countries where it's hard and expensive to get connectivity at all.
What I think most people are missing is the fact that Linux illiterates have to learn from online docs most of the time. If you have only one PC, how are you supposed to access all those with a Linux PC, if you need already to be connected to get the Linux PC to work in the first place.
Another reason where I think the consumer is underestimated , is to think that the average user only wants his desktop . I don't believe hat at all. If the illiterate would be gently introduced into the advantages to run his own servers, he would immediately try to set them up, for the simple reason that most consumers don't like to be dependent on system admins, who can do anything with your system. Don't forget an illiterate is more scared and more anxious than a knowledgable person. To win his trust, you have to set him free and give him the opportunity to make him knowledgable and not the opposite. Open Sources are the first step, open minds towards to consumer and newbie from the open source community of geeks is the second step. On the second step there is still a lot of learning to be done.
Re:Don't screw the artists to get the corporations (Score:1)
Re:100% bullshit. Redhat has intellectual property (Score:4)
If they are against intellectual property, why do they have those and will they sue if someone use this name?.....I would really want to get an answer from Bob on this.
Well, if you actually read what he says....
In other words, Bob isn't saying that *all* intellectual property is bad, rather he is saying...
He also mentions in the article that each case in IP has to be dealt differently. You can't just imply the same rules to genetics, software, trademarks and ideas. You have to look at each individually. He points out that the Center of Public Domain is about raising awareness about these issues and these issues have to be re-examined. So, Bob has already answered your question.
Blob Young (Score:1)
Fresh Ideas (Score:1)
consumer preference (Score:2)
They do? That must be why Windows has a desktop market share of around 95% while Linux has a desktop market share well under 1%.
Oh wait, there's an explanation:
But the technology markets were not being left to market forces. The government is playing an increasing role at the urging of the major global publishing organizations.
Apparently the reason Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, etc. software is preferred by the market is due to government interference. That makes sense. I hear the government has been trying to help Microsoft for years, especially the Justice Department!
In all seriousness, consumers do not prefer free software or open source, unless by consumers we mean the tiny community of open source system administrators. The reason is that commercial software is superior to free software in features, friendliness, attractiveness, performance, and reliability. Free software appeals to tinkerers and hobbyists, who represent a very small portion of the market.
Tim
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Yes, it is. If I buy Microsoft Office, I am buying software that works. If I download StarOffice, I am getting software that doesn't work. If I download some random utility from FreshMeat, I am downloading something that is almost guaranteed not to work and to be held together with hooks and bailing wire. Denial about the flakiness of open source software is one of the most serious problems in the community.
In the Price versus performance ratio Linux wins.
No, not from a total cost of ownership perspective. Tools exist to increase productivity -- that's a basic law of economics. Slower tools hurt productivity relative to faster tools. Any manager who wouldn't prefer to spend a few hundred dollars to get his or her programmers compiling in thirty seconds with CodeWarrior rather than five minutes with GCC for "free" can't do simple math. Thousands of dollars would be wasted every week by the "free" solution.
Attractiveness is not all that important but is a plus to have and Linux will need more work in that area especially in user friendliness. Lets not forget that with development Linux can easily overcome these small hurdles and it will.
No, user friendliness is not a "small hurdle." It's a paradigm shift that requires an entirely different development model. The problem is well studied and I could recommend you some books if I thought you'd actually read them. It is a shift that free software has not made. Due to the insistence on programmers designing their own interfaces, it is a shift that the free software community can not make.
And i'm not a tinkerer. I needed a stable router/firewall for my 486 hence i'm using LRP (Linux Router Project). Saving the environment and saving me money too.
What's wrong with this statement? "I'm not a tinkerer. I needed a stable router/firewall." You are not a software consumer -- you are a system administrator. Your needs and desires for software are nothing like those of the other 99+% of humanity. You consider it fun to spend two days slaving over configuration files to get a router to work. Most people have never even heard of a router, would not be able to configure one, and would not want to spend the time doing so if they could.
Do you hang out with non-programmers and non-administrators? Do you date them? Try this experiment. At your next non-geek social affair, casually bring up the subject of router configuration....
Tim
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Aside from being slow, incompatible, and nonconforming to platform UI standards you mean? Well, I just downloaded it (had to work through a bug on Sun's download web page to do that) and launched the installer. "Program Error: so-5_2-ga-bin-w.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows." An installer crash is about as broken as you can get.
Average developer: $60/hour (prolly less, but this makes it easier). $1/minute. With CodeWarrior, you claim 30 seconds to go, and gcc, 5 minutes to go. That's great! You've just saved me $4.50/developer! So, lessee, licensing of CodeWarrior: $200+/seat. Licensing of GCC: $0/seat. Oh, shit, there just went $195.50/developer.
Brilliant TCO analysis! It's very applicable to the case of a single-programmer team who uses the software exactly once. I'm sure that's the most common case. Remind you to include you if we do a CFO search.
Now, how do I get bugs fixed? CodeWarrior: Submit the bug to them, hope they fix it, pay for upgrade. GCC: Grab the source, find the bug, fix it, and start using it. Give it back to the steering committee while I'm at it, since that's probably a requirement (if I'm distributing it).
Even starting to fix a single bug in a big project like the Linux kernel, GCC, or Mozilla will take weeks of startup time familiarizing yourself with the idiosyncracies of the source. If you haven't been on the chat rooms or mailing lists with the core team for months, they won't even look at your bug fixes. The supposed ease of fixing bugs in open source software is one of the community's Big Lies.
Perhaps you could pass along some of those titles? I'd actually like to read them, and think they could be useful
Try anything by Deborah J. Mayhew.
Personally, I hate designing interfaces. I know that what I want in one is nothing like what everybody else wants in one (not even other developers). Find for me a user interface expert who can help me design a better one, and will work for the same terms I do when developing Open Source: Free. They're in kinda short supply, if you know what I mean?
My point exactly. Good user experience design takes money. That money is not to be found in the open source or free software development model. Therefore, those models are not capable of making the paradigm shift to user-centered design. Usability labs do not grow on trees and good design is not something you can do sitting by yourself on your home computer.
Hmmm, how about that. My dad is a system administrator. He'd be surprised to know that, since he works as an RN on the 3rd floor of the local hospital, and couldn't tell you most of anything about firewalls. But, he does know that he needs one to protect his machine from getting hacked, and he knows it's better to have it be external.
Please. We were talking about someone who configured a Linux router, not someone who just knows vaguely what a firewall is. These are silly arguments that you're making.
You heard about the latest virus which will hit your machine from the internet and wipe out your drives? I guarantee that most of the people in the room will be asking how to stop it, and I can mention the firewall/router then.
(Just FYI, firewalls don't usually have much to do with viruses. Firewalls are mostly about DoS and intrusion prevention.)
So, I await word on how your non-programmer, non-admin father (or wife) got along with the Linux Router configuration.
Tim
Re:consumer preference (Score:2)
Good luck. I searched for "report bug" and "report StarOffice bug" and didn't find anything. I went to the StarOffice main page and looked for a bug reporting link; also nothing. I went to three different StarOffice FAQs, but none of them had any questions relating to how to report bugs. I looked at the patches page and found some bug numbers, but they were just static text with no links to the bug reports. If there's a bug reporting feature, they've hidden it pretty well.
Very good turn back! I'm impressed. You took what was described as the startup time, replied to as the startup time, and compared it to TCO, thus turning me into the fool. I AM impressed.
I'm not sure what wasn't clear when I was comparing costs of GCC to those of CodeWarrior. I was talking about compile speed, which is a TCO factor, not a startup cost factor. GCC has a lower up-front cost but a much higher TCO.
Dealing with a commercial, closed source vendor, you don't have any leverage (unless you've got deep pockets) to get any particular bug fixed.
All depends on the vendor. In my experience most commercial software vendors are pretty good at fixing major bugs reported by their customers. OTOH, lots of open source developers complain about their fixes for open source bugs being stonewalled -- there have been some notable /. threads on the subject.
The other thing usability design takes, which you neglect to mention, is users. More importantly, users who will tell you why your design sucks or is great. Those are in even shorter supply than money for the OS community (heck, from the money aspect, we've got IBM, Sun, HP, etc, trying to help out). But users who will provide feedback about the interface? Go find me five of them, and I'll be shocked.
I do it all the time. It's part of my job as user experience lead. The answer is, you pay them, or you pay a recruiting firm to find them and pay them. It's not free, and so it doesn't fit into the free software development model.
My dad? He got me to install it. But he knew he needed one. My wife? Won't go near the computer anymore, hates it because I use it too much.
Good thing you did it -- they wouldn't have been able to. I took a look at Free Linux-based Floppy-Boot Firewall [steinkuehler.net], which is supposedly easy.
Then you go to the instructions. They're six pages long, they use a command line (which lets out your wife and your dad right there), and they're full of non-human-readable stuff like:
Yeah, that's really easy -- for a UNIX system administrator, that is. It's not for ordinary mortals. It shares that with almost all the open source software in the world. that's why, contra the claim in the article, consumers don't prefer open source.
Tim
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:2)
Re:Give people a little credit (Score:3)
Is curious about or has tried linux, but probably doesn't see it as a viable alternative to MS
Unfortunately, I dont think this is true at all. A vast majority of "common users" dont know what Linux is. Most probably have heard it, in one setting or another, but could not tell you what it is or where to find it. You're equating, I assume, your friends and acquantences with the "common user", and this is probably flawed. Go into an AOL or Yahoo! chat room, and ask what Linux is. Most wont know. It's a shame, but it's life.
I agree with everything else, though.
Naive? (Score:5)
As far as I can tell, a recent slashdot feature on the history of copyright law showed the opposite. For every revision of copyright laws, they slash away more and more of the fair use, and they take more and more away from public domain.
So if it's been moving the wrong way for 200 years, we should have a decent law by 2400 or so, assuming that things start swinging the right way from now on?
Re:consumer preference (Score:5)
Ah, but you're wrong. If you look at the consumers really hard, they don't care what OS they get. If they have a preference at all, it is to have the same OS as last time, so they won't have to learn all the stuff all over again. They buy a PC, with standard features (such as CDROM, mouse, keyboard, and operating system).
What you're forgetting about, is another market, where the operating system is less visible. Linux is widely used for embedded devices. Your next VCR is more likely to run linux than windows. The next generation car stereos might be linux devices. Your home climate control might be operated by a linux device. See how popular TIVO is. You can get java phones.
These things are built with free (as in beer) software, because it saves the manufacturer money, and they also get other benefits (as in sharing). They get to tweak the software to do exactly what they want it to, and if they're lucky, the next release might even include their patches, so they can be up and running out of the box.
Consumers love their new devices, and with a "Powered by Gnu/Linux" sticker on them, they might even consider it for their PC. Getting users to switch operating systems is not easy, but MS has made the job easy for Linux. Make buggy software, charge a lot of money, bully other companies and get a tainted public image. As a result MS customers are not as religious as for example Apple customers, and they'd be very happy to jump ship.
Comparing Software to Drugs (Score:2)
This comparison that is made to drug companies is this article is rather troublesome to me. Though I see some correlation, it's somewhat of a stretch. If you stop and think about it, the idea of a for-profit drug company is pure absurdity. If they were truly successful in their own research, they would drive themselves out of business. When was the last time a drug company developed a vaccine or a cure for anything? I'm no historian, but all the cures and vaccines I know of were developed by independent scientists or non-profit research groups. (If I'm way off base, please let me know.) Drug companies benefit most from the least effective solution that people will pay for. Of course, what that solution is continues to increase in effectiveness over time (painkillers have become more advanced), but there is no money (in the long-term) in providing a true solution. You can only sell it once!
Now, how does this relate to software? Certainly software companies don't want to sell only one version of their software ever, because it's the same predicament as the drug companies. If Microsoft's subscription-based licensing idea comes to pass, software licenses will indeed become almost like prescriptions. However, beyond this point, the comparison breaks down. The big difference here is that the difference between the independently developed "cure", and the "pain-killing" prescription has little to do with whether of not the backing research is in the public domain. As far as John Q. User is concerned, it's not that the non-Microsoft software is open source, it's that it's free. You will not come across many free drugs these days, regardless of who developed them. They're a physical product, and even the generic asprin costs money to produce and distribute. The somewhat abstract nature of programs makes them significantly different. The number of people who use closed source implementations who would even have the know-how to compile a program from source is nil. If movements like open source are really interested in making any sort of inroads against the closed source giants, distribution of simple to install, free binaries are at least twice as important as providing source code.
On the right track (Score:2)