I love it when people get upset at the "information wants to be free" adage, but I don't even think it's very wise. The real kicker is that, thanks to Internet, information is in fact free for most intents and purposes. The risk of getting into trouble is absolutely negligible, and it will only get smaller as the pipes get thicker and copying gets cheaper. And they will get thicker and cheaper, even though Internet's performance level is already obscene when compared to the time most of us were born into.
And yet the same people who proclaim "information wants to be free!!!" seem to get their panties in a twist when that same meme is applied to GPL code. Apparently it only wants to be free if it's copyrighted music/movies/books and proprietary software.
In practice that doesn't happen though. It's usually more expensive to maintain ones own fork than it is to contribute patches back up stream. Both the MIT and BSD licenses are about as minimalist as you can get requiring very little on the part of people using the code. And yet mysteriously companies contribute back to those projects anyways.
I see.
You want it "free" as in "free market:" rip off everybody and run away with all the money?
You seem to not understand "Licenses are artificial"
It most certainly is artificial for a particular arrangement of a string of 0's and 1's to be considered property. You cannot "rip [something] off" from someone for something that isnt property, let alone their property.
Heh, I think Stallman would be happy in a world where no licence, proprietary or free, would be enforceable.
I surely would. Sure it would mean some companies would release binaries without giving the source. But it also means no restriction on copying, reverse-engineering and reusing these binaries. It would be ok for me.
Remember that free licenses began as a reaction to proprietary licenses. Because some works can not even be lawfully copied, and because law authorizes such madness, this madness has been
He wants to force the GPL "freedoms" on you, copyright nor not.
Huh? Can you elablrate? And why put "freedoms" in quotes? The GPL gives you the freedom to do damned near anything you want except publish the work as your own. The only thing freer is public domain.
"So what would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. [..] So I proposed that the Pirate Party platform require proprietary software's source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The escrowed source code would then be released
Heh, I think Stallman would be happy in a world where no licence, proprietary or free, would be enforceable.
No, not really. He says [computerworlduk.com] that he's okay with copyright thrown out only if the law would otherwise enable copyleft - essentially, by writing GPL into law. Specifically:
It would be necessary to eliminate copyright on software, declare EULAs legally void, and adopt consumer protection measures that require distribution of source code to the user and forbid tivoization.
More realistically, he's okay with 10 year copyright terms.
How free information is, seems much more tied in reality to how much its costs to copy and distribute it more than anything else. What happens when the $5 1 terabyte thumb drive turns up and people start filling it full of content and just give them away for fun, simple party favours (inflation will also have done it's bit). How much 'free' content will be available then and there is nothing that anyone can to track it and just about everyone will a bowl full of 'free' content, which they filter and upload
Please post your SSN, all your credit card numbers (including security codes from the back), bank account numbers, birthday, mother's maiden name, first pet's name, name of your best friend, all of your medical records, etc...
After all, if information wants to be free, why are you trying to thwart that?
Wow, learn to troll. Start by trying to say something at least remotely related to my post. I am not trying to thwart anything. So far, I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent my SSN from being published. There is nothing I can do. Millions of people can get my real name in seconds, and my credit report in minutes. I am not freaking out, you are!
I love it when people get upset at the "information wants to be free" adage
The bankers financing the production and marketing of "The Dark Knight Rises" expect a solid return from their $250-$500 million dollar investment.
When that doesn't happen, money moves towards serving the more reliable - i.e., paying - customers of studios like Disney and distributors like HBO and and Netflix.
The bankers financing the production and marketing of "The Dark Knight Rises" expect a solid return from their $250-$500 million dollar investment.
So did the bankers who financed Ishtar [imdb.com] and Knight and Day [imdb.com], both of which were almost certainly pitched as the best movie ever...guaranteed blockbusters with top box office stars.
Nobody has a "right" to make money. Like every investment, you pays your money and you takes your chances.
They get "Tangled."
Which was likely pitched pretty much the same as something like The Last Airbender [imdb.com]: guaranteed box office from kids who watch Disney/Nickelodeon/whatever. Remember that every movie is supposed to be either the next Harry Potte
Non-commercial copying, yes. I mean, come on, they are making RECORD PROFITS while more people infringe than ever before, and it makes perfect sense because no one is averse to paying for art, although plenty of people are FED UP with DRM and unsolicited ads. And while I believe that ALL copyright is bad, if we could just legalize non-fucking-commercial copying (if only because it is, in fact, unstoppable), we would move on to a more humane society with MORE
Although wholesale piracy and counterfeiting (e.g., copying movies and selling them in shrink-wrapped, full-artwork packages) does appear to harm sales, the reality is that these copies are selling to people who cannot afford the legal product.
This usually only happens in places where the legal product is a lot more than an hour or two of a minimum wage job.
Nobody has a "right" to make money. Like every investment, you pays your money and you takes your chances.
Unless you're a banker, in which case you take any profits and public pays any losses. Which, IMHO, banks should be owned by the government. I'm sick and tired of paying the gambling losses of "businessmen" who hold the economy hostage.
IMHO, banks should be owned by the government. I'm sick and tired of paying the gambling losses of "businessmen" who hold the economy hostage.
Hear here! Why is it that a man who "earns" $75k/yr gambling the stock market pays Capital Gains Tax at half the rate of the roofer who pays income tax on the $75k/yr he earns risking his life and laboring his sweaty ass off?
There is a great deal of evidence (both anecdotal and serious studies, like the GAO [gao.gov]) that show that unauthorized copying has almost no effect on product sales
There is even more evidence that it has a positive effect on product sales, provided the work in question doesn't suck.
Cory Doctorow puts his books on craphound.com for free download, and credits that with his status as a best seller.
One book publisher believed that piracy was costing him business, so he comissioned a study to see how sharply
Information doesn't want anything, of course, as far as the word is normally understood; it's argued that the idea that everything that is, is, in essence, information, is, in part, that which makes the "information age" different/interesting, especially when things like music and movies are, by time/technology, presented as information one can easily manipulate, share, copy, e.c. In this way, if the only wars that have ever been fought have been wars for information, it makes sense that the movie/music co
Of course it doesn't, but the statement "information wants to be free" is like the statement "water wants to seek its own level" or "a helium balloon wants to float".
I'd rather say that when information isn't free, neither are you.
BTW, it's not very wise to recommend torrenting, when torrents are so heavily tracked. Why not simply file hosting, Google Blog Search and tools like jdownloader ?
For the record, I do recommend torrenting, since it is a cheap and efficient way to transmit information. You seem to be implying that torrenting equals breaking the law, but that is simply incorrect.
It is also a hard fact that for many, many people, even here in the US, the risk of getting into trouble as a result of non-commercial copying is non-existent. I do not recommend that anyone actually break the law, I am just of the opinion that the copyright and the patent laws are unjust, oppressive to human
I search for specs or schematics or howto's and I get "BUY ME!" crap links.
I search for datasheets on chips and I get junk china sites claiming to be able to get any part I want. (fake ones from china, sure...)
its really hard to get real content from a google search now. and we've been slowly conditioned (cooking the frog) to accept that the search results are dumbed down more and more over the years.
google's day in the sun is over. they do have name recognition but no one really belives, now, that their search is any better than any other.
the auto-complete, bouncing text and blinking things only drive the nails in the coffin down harder.
when you need a pre-processor to a search site, you know they lost their mojo.
I am no hater of Google, and neither am I an ill-wisher. We do need an online shopping catalog, and if Google can be good at that, then more power to them. They do, however, seem to be losing ground in the war with rank gamers, and they are beset from all sides by narrowly specialized competitors who index tiny portions of Internet, but do a way better job at that.
Filter out keywords. Do your search with: -buy -purchase -price -shop
It would be really nice if shopping sites could all be on.com and useful informational stuff could all be on non.com domains, but that's as likely to happen as unicorns flying out of my butt.
I actually rarely ever type anything in Google's search box. I use a Quicksearch set up in Firefox instead and just type "g " in the address bar. It just occurred to me I can add the "-buy -purchase -price -shop" as part of the bookmark the quicksearch runs off of and get those terms added to pretty much all my searches automatically now with no change in my searching behavior. The bookmark simply becomes http://www.google.com/search?&q=%25s+-buy+-purchase+-price+-shop [google.com]
- Excuse me, where can I find the art museum? - Yes-yes. Art is good. Buy this vase. Ten dorrars. Very good. - No, I don't want to buy anything, I just want to know how to get to the museum. - Yes-yes, the museum. Postcards. One dorrar. - Listen, if I buy this postcard, would you tell me where the museum is? - You want postcard? Please, choose. Also look. Good luck charm. Five dorrars.
one of the newer introductions, the live previews, also makes it less elegant looking, and you'll be treated to crappy graphics just by moving your mouse around the screen.
maybe they forgot why they got popular in the first place: all the established search engines sold out and started making their search engines into "portals" rather than search engines.
messing with search results this openly though.. that is a slippery path.
DNS is just the most convenient way to resolve literal names, but it is not the only one. The only way to stop people copying data over Internet is by unplugging all cables in between.
Not long ago I was looking for some ebook reader review (a sony one IIRC) and all that I got from Google was pages and pages of advertisement.
Google results are only bearable after using Google Filter [userscripts.org] scripts.
And with this new development, it is clear that the Google search service is not providing complete results sorted by "importance" but that are actively filtering out web pages due to pressure of third parties.
I'm not shocked that the RIAA is embracing measures that are totally ineffective in preventing piracy because they have yet to introduce anything that's made it harder for me to get music, games, etc (lol, DRM). I'm actually going to give Google some credit here because they are managing to get free points with the big businesses that supply them ads while not actually doing anything to combat file sharing, and thus anger their user base. Clever work, Google.
Their idea of an offer you can't refuse is an offer... and you'd better
not refuse.
google can... (Score:1)
Re:google can... (Score:5, Informative)
Google search is basically a shopping catalog now. Here is where you go when you want INFORMATION:
Re: (Score:2)
Entertainment wants to be free!
Re:google can... (Score:4, Interesting)
I love it when people get upset at the "information wants to be free" adage, but I don't even think it's very wise. The real kicker is that, thanks to Internet, information is in fact free for most intents and purposes. The risk of getting into trouble is absolutely negligible, and it will only get smaller as the pipes get thicker and copying gets cheaper. And they will get thicker and cheaper, even though Internet's performance level is already obscene when compared to the time most of us were born into.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
And yet the same people who proclaim "information wants to be free!!!" seem to get their panties in a twist when that same meme is applied to GPL code. Apparently it only wants to be free if it's copyrighted music/movies/books and proprietary software.
Re: (Score:3)
It wants to be free, not locked in proprietary software. Where's the inconsistency?
Re: (Score:2)
Licenses are artificial.
Re: (Score:2)
I see.
You want it "free" as in "free market:" rip off everybody and run away with all the money?
Because that's only scenario I can think of where (L)GPL can be considered not free.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I see. You want it "free" as in "free market:" rip off everybody and run away with all the money?
You seem to not understand "Licenses are artificial"
It most certainly is artificial for a particular arrangement of a string of 0's and 1's to be considered property. You cannot "rip [something] off" from someone for something that isnt property, let alone their property.
Re: (Score:2)
I surely would. Sure it would mean some companies would release binaries without giving the source. But it also means no restriction on copying, reverse-engineering and reusing these binaries. It would be ok for me.
Remember that free licenses began as a reaction to proprietary licenses. Because some works can not even be lawfully copied, and because law authorizes such madness, this madness has been
Re: (Score:2)
Heh, I think Stallman would be happy in a world where no licence, proprietary or free, would be enforceable.
Actually, not. He wants to force the GPL "freedoms" on you, copyright nor not.
Re: (Score:2)
He wants to force the GPL "freedoms" on you, copyright nor not.
Huh? Can you elablrate? And why put "freedoms" in quotes? The GPL gives you the freedom to do damned near anything you want except publish the work as your own. The only thing freer is public domain.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html [gnu.org]
"So what would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. [..] So I proposed that the Pirate Party platform require proprietary software's source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The escrowed source code would then be released
Re: (Score:2)
Heh, I think Stallman would be happy in a world where no licence, proprietary or free, would be enforceable.
No, not really. He says [computerworlduk.com] that he's okay with copyright thrown out only if the law would otherwise enable copyleft - essentially, by writing GPL into law. Specifically:
It would be necessary to eliminate copyright on software, declare EULAs legally void, and adopt consumer protection measures that require distribution of source code to the user and forbid tivoization.
More realistically, he's okay with 10 year copyright terms.
Re: (Score:2)
"information wants to be free [for non commercial uses]!!!"
Re: (Score:2)
How free information is, seems much more tied in reality to how much its costs to copy and distribute it more than anything else. What happens when the $5 1 terabyte thumb drive turns up and people start filling it full of content and just give them away for fun, simple party favours (inflation will also have done it's bit). How much 'free' content will be available then and there is nothing that anyone can to track it and just about everyone will a bowl full of 'free' content, which they filter and upload
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Please post your SSN, all your credit card numbers (including security codes from the back), bank account numbers, birthday, mother's maiden name, first pet's name, name of your best friend, all of your medical records, etc...
After all, if information wants to be free, why are you trying to thwart that?
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, learn to troll. Start by trying to say something at least remotely related to my post. I am not trying to thwart anything. So far, I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent my SSN from being published. There is nothing I can do. Millions of people can get my real name in seconds, and my credit report in minutes. I am not freaking out, you are!
Re: google can... (Score:2)
I love it when people get upset at the "information wants to be free" adage
The bankers financing the production and marketing of "The Dark Knight Rises" expect a solid return from their $250-$500 million dollar investment.
When that doesn't happen, money moves towards serving the more reliable - i.e., paying - customers of studios like Disney and distributors like HBO and and Netflix.
They get "Tangled."
The P2P geek gets nothing.
Re: (Score:3)
The bankers financing the production and marketing of "The Dark Knight Rises" expect a solid return from their $250-$500 million dollar investment.
So did the bankers who financed Ishtar [imdb.com] and Knight and Day [imdb.com], both of which were almost certainly pitched as the best movie ever...guaranteed blockbusters with top box office stars.
Nobody has a "right" to make money. Like every investment, you pays your money and you takes your chances.
They get "Tangled."
Which was likely pitched pretty much the same as something like The Last Airbender [imdb.com]: guaranteed box office from kids who watch Disney/Nickelodeon/whatever. Remember that every movie is supposed to be either the next Harry Potte
Re: (Score:2)
copying has almost no effect on product sales.
Non-commercial copying, yes. I mean, come on, they are making RECORD PROFITS while more people infringe than ever before, and it makes perfect sense because no one is averse to paying for art, although plenty of people are FED UP with DRM and unsolicited ads. And while I believe that ALL copyright is bad, if we could just legalize non-fucking-commercial copying (if only because it is, in fact, unstoppable), we would move on to a more humane society with MORE
Re: (Score:2)
Non-commercial copying, yes.
Although wholesale piracy and counterfeiting (e.g., copying movies and selling them in shrink-wrapped, full-artwork packages) does appear to harm sales, the reality is that these copies are selling to people who cannot afford the legal product.
This usually only happens in places where the legal product is a lot more than an hour or two of a minimum wage job.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you're a banker, in which case you take any profits and public pays any losses. Which, IMHO, banks should be owned by the government. I'm sick and tired of paying the gambling losses of "businessmen" who hold the economy hostage.
Re: (Score:2)
IMHO, banks should be owned by the government. I'm sick and tired of paying the gambling losses of "businessmen" who hold the economy hostage.
Hear here! Why is it that a man who "earns" $75k/yr gambling the stock market pays Capital Gains Tax at half the rate of the roofer who pays income tax on the $75k/yr he earns risking his life and laboring his sweaty ass off?
Re: (Score:2)
There is a great deal of evidence (both anecdotal and serious studies, like the GAO [gao.gov]) that show that unauthorized copying has almost no effect on product sales
There is even more evidence that it has a positive effect on product sales, provided the work in question doesn't suck.
Cory Doctorow puts his books on craphound.com for free download, and credits that with his status as a best seller.
One book publisher believed that piracy was costing him business, so he comissioned a study to see how sharply
Not to say I subscribe to this or any other notion (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Information doesn't want anything
Of course it doesn't, but the statement "information wants to be free" is like the statement "water wants to seek its own level" or "a helium balloon wants to float".
I'd rather say that when information isn't free, neither are you.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot the best one:
btjunkie.org
BTW, it's not very wise to recommend torrenting, when torrents are so heavily tracked.
Why not simply file hosting, Google Blog Search and tools like jdownloader ?
Re: (Score:2)
For the record, I do recommend torrenting, since it is a cheap and efficient way to transmit information. You seem to be implying that torrenting equals breaking the law, but that is simply incorrect.
It is also a hard fact that for many, many people, even here in the US, the risk of getting into trouble as a result of non-commercial copying is non-existent. I do not recommend that anyone actually break the law, I am just of the opinion that the copyright and the patent laws are unjust, oppressive to human
Re:google can... (Score:5, Interesting)
shopping shopping shopping!
no kidding.
I search for specs or schematics or howto's and I get "BUY ME!" crap links.
I search for datasheets on chips and I get junk china sites claiming to be able to get any part I want. (fake ones from china, sure...)
its really hard to get real content from a google search now. and we've been slowly conditioned (cooking the frog) to accept that the search results are dumbed down more and more over the years.
google's day in the sun is over. they do have name recognition but no one really belives, now, that their search is any better than any other.
the auto-complete, bouncing text and blinking things only drive the nails in the coffin down harder.
when you need a pre-processor to a search site, you know they lost their mojo.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:google can... (Score:5, Insightful)
Filter out keywords. Do your search with: -buy -purchase -price -shop
It would be really nice if shopping sites could all be on .com and useful informational stuff could all be on non .com domains, but that's as likely to happen as unicorns flying out of my butt.
Re:google can... (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, thanks.
I actually rarely ever type anything in Google's search box. I use a Quicksearch set up in Firefox instead and just type "g " in the address bar. It just occurred to me I can add the "-buy -purchase -price -shop" as part of the bookmark the quicksearch runs off of and get those terms added to pretty much all my searches automatically now with no change in my searching behavior. The bookmark simply becomes http://www.google.com/search?&q=%25s+-buy+-purchase+-price+-shop [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
This is a really useful tip! I just set my bookmark to https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%25s+-buy+-purchase+-price+-shop [google.com] and it works much better than regular Google searches.
Re: (Score:2)
Often it is easier to whitelist than blacklist. Instead of trying to block sites selling stuff try adding "pdf" or the name of the manufacturer.
Re: (Score:1)
It's like talking to a greedy Chinese shop owner.
- Excuse me, where can I find the art museum?
- Yes-yes. Art is good. Buy this vase. Ten dorrars. Very good.
- No, I don't want to buy anything, I just want to know how to get to the museum.
- Yes-yes, the museum. Postcards. One dorrar.
- Listen, if I buy this postcard, would you tell me where the museum is?
- You want postcard? Please, choose. Also look. Good luck charm. Five dorrars.
Re: (Score:2)
one of the newer introductions, the live previews, also makes it less elegant looking, and you'll be treated to crappy graphics just by moving your mouse around the screen.
maybe they forgot why they got popular in the first place: all the established search engines sold out and started making their search engines into "portals" rather than search engines.
messing with search results this openly though.. that is a slippery path.
Re: (Score:1)
I search for specs or schematics or howto's
THIS! Geocities was a *really* good place to find technical stuff and schematics of electronic projects.
Nowadays the majority of stuff available in the web is ads...
*grump* *grump*
See you, I'll be in Gopher.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Until the DHS seizes all the domains at the behest of the MAFIAA... You know it's a national security issue, not being able to get free content.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The internet is a fucking shopping catalog.
Not long ago I was looking for some ebook reader review (a sony one IIRC) and all that I got from Google was pages and pages of advertisement.
Google results are only bearable after using Google Filter [userscripts.org] scripts.
And with this new development, it is clear that the Google search service is not providing complete results sorted by "importance" but that are actively filtering out web pages due to pressure of third parties.
Time to try Bing?
Re: (Score:2)