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[Deathworks]

Hi!

Phmcw: While I am in no position to argue about point 3 of your most recent post, allow me to comment on points 1 and 2:

1) You cannot makes as much money with a free software then with a privateer one.
This is true. This is one of the aim : invest less money, get more quality out of it.
How?
   A) by allowing user's themselves to adapt the system to theirs needs.
It work pretty well, if the users are knowledgeable in theirs field. A proof of this fact is Debian.
   B) You can use every free software. If there is 10000 hours spent on a free software somewhere all this work benefit to you. Not so much with commercial software. But more important, free software can use each other discoveries. Want a new word processor. Fork open office, or any other one, and improve it. Open office himself will then be able to use your work.

A) Already makes a rather hefty assumption: You require people to be able to program, effectively. If you don't know how to modify the code so it does really what you want it to do, open source will do you no good, you will still be limited to the options provided by others. And not every user of a computer is proficient in programming - you have 1. a lot of users who barely understand the difference between a disk drive and computer memory, then you have 2. those who at least know the basic concepts but don't know any programming, then you have 3. those who can hack, which would allow them to modify small programs without necessarily failing, but who could probably not modify an office package in a major way without goofing up, and then you have 4. those who can program. Your solution is definitely beyond the reach of the first two groups - I was just asked by my father (again) where he should enter an internet address he was given into a browser and whether doing as I told him wouldn't cause problems - a man who is in e-mail contact with his friends and keeps up on international newspaper he can't buy here without problems by reading them online. So, the adaptation does NOT work well for the first two groups. The third group may benefit but may also reach their limits according to the task, and only the fourth group would fully benefit. And as far as I know, the fourth group are not the majority of the users.

B) is also not completely true. While you are correct that discoveries can be shared with comparative ease when compared to closed-source, it is not a piece of cake. Granted, when creating something by starting with a single program someone else provided, you are correct. But once two or more different programs are donating parts, you will automatically get a lot of additional problems you have to cope with. And depending on the task, it may be utterly impossible to create a bug-free end product UNLESS you invest as much time and effort into understanding some of the borrowed source code as if you had programmed it from scratch.

2) Commercial is better. Short answer no it isn't. Long answer  : read the innumerable flame-wars on the subject.

Well, if that is the case, then why do people pirate stuff. Freeware and open source software already exist and are available on the internet in throves. Thus, if commercial is not better, then why do people break the law to obtain that commercial software and not simply stick to what they can get legally for free?

That argument does not make sense within your position.

General: Please guys, I think just about everyone here on the boards following the discussion has understood that there is no love lost between some of the participants in this discussion. There is really no need to make small remarks that look like inciting fights.

Deathworks

[DrPizza]

To say that this doesn't work because they just can't fund it or churn it out is ignorant of what we already have in the tech industry.

On the contrary. What the free software movement has shown over the last two decades is that it's horrible at producing consumer-oriented mass-market software.

To hear you guys speak, it's a miracle anyone even uses commercial software. You seem to totally disregard the cost amortization it offers, you insist it's just as good (if not better) than commercial software, and that nobody should even want to work for a corporation, much less write proprietary software, and yet it's still abundant.

How come?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

DrPizza: I think you are doing Grakelin a little bit of injustice there. His latest post does indeed acknowledge an important aspect about reality:

This is a capitalist economy, however, and so money is important. Programmers can't just hobby-program all day. They need food on the table. This is why we see more commercial products, and more quality out of commercial products: this is what people spend 8 hours a day doing. It's not because it is inherently better.

That passage, which is the end of his post clearly admits that unless you find a model that can actually pay the programmers for their work, you can't get programmers to work as much on the open source/freeware programs.

At least in my eyes, the logic consequence of this is that in order to "overcome" commercial software on a large scale, you either need to move to communism (which is not really an option given the failings of the human nature) or find a capitalist model that creates the funds for paying full-time programmers.

Deathworks

[Grakelin]

Nobody has said that.

I am a bit confused by your defining 'consumer-oriented mass-market software'. Linux, being free, does not worry about its profitability. It is also the leading example of what Phmcw is advocating: Thousands of people collaborating on a single project and constantly making it better.

The last paragraph of my last post in this thread should answer your question.

EDIT: As Deathworks ninja'd in. I disagree that a socialist economy (Communism is something different from socialism, though it incorporates in. The Soviet Union would not be running open source software, it would still be run by the State, and the individual programmer wouldn't be able to start up his own ideas) is impossible due to human failing, but that is a debate for a different thread.

[DrPizza]

I am a bit confused by your defining 'consumer-oriented mass-market software'.

Which part of that is confusing you?

The last paragraph of my last post in this thread should answer your question.

Not really, it presumes a very peculiar kind of "socialism" that has not been implemented anywhere, ever.

Even in the USSR, results mattered.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Wow! I would never have thought I would ever ninja anyone on a board!

Grakelin: But then I am a little bit confused about what the heated part of the argument on copyright and so on is about.

After all, is not the acceptance that paying the programmers to get things going at a decent pace leading to the consequence that some form of "copyright" is required to allow for that payment to be made or rather that money to be accumulated? Or do you have a viable theory (besides the communist road) on how to fill the gap the total removal of the concept of "copyright" would result in?

The way I see it, commercial, free, and open source software all contribute to the wealth our culture has, each in their own way and in their own possibilities. Is it then not the most reasonable wish to try to allow ALL of them to be productive in their fashion on the basis of a live-and-let-live idea? By forcing open source on everyone, for instance, you effectively destroy the basis for commercial and closed-source freeware as you disallow the latter and probably make the former not viable as a business concept. But that would mean diminishing the diversity and thus depriving us of the strengths those venues that are lost have.

Likewise, the efforts of the commercial side to wipe out the freeware and especially the open source sector are also unhealthy for the culture, but they must be met in my eyes not by destroying the attacker but by protecting the attacked. And personally, I see piracy as part of the weaponry the commercial side uses to undermine the basis for the open source sector, which is why I consider open source and piracy to be opposed to each other.

Deathworks

[Grakelin]

Until DrPizza stops ignoring the bodies of our posts, I'd suggest we stop discussing this with him. Let's rewind back to the original topic, which is the video.

I didn't actually find the video all that interesting. All my worst professors (and even one of my high school teachers) have shown me TED, and while some things are interesting, I think it all gets blown out of proportion by the laymen. It's a great marketing scheme, talking about your new product, or being JJ Abrams and telling people it doesn't matter how LOST ends (no joke). When people actually share ideas, however, it sometimes falls flat. Like the guy who tells you that things are more interesting if you colour them in a funny way (during his speech about otaku). I've only ever been impressed by a few things, though the only name I can remember offhand is Malcolm Gladwell. I had to pay a lot of attention to this stuff, though, because I had an AFM professor ask us questions about the videos on the exam. Man, that was a terrible class.


Ninja'd again!

Deathworks: I agree with you. In fact, I'm not against copyright at all, but I do support open-sourcing, especially for projects that the owner is finished with. I'm still trying to decide for myself whether I think copyright should be sold as a commodity, though. For instance, should Michael Jackson have been able to purchase all of the Beatles' works and sell them, or would we have benefit more to have gotten it all for free once the Beatles were done with them? It doesn't actually fully matter either way, because cultural staples are cultural staples whether we pay for them or not, though it is interesting if one has a benefit over the other (besides a new person getting monies).

Open Source and piracy don't seem opposed to eachother so much as separate. If I commandeer your treasure ship and take all your gold, I'm not making a statement about monetary reform, for example.

I'm digressing, though. I didn't see where the woman was going with the speech. It seemed more like a compare and contrast of industries where copyright protection was possible and industries where copyright protection was impossible, sectioned off into intermittent spaces where she describes why plagiarism doesn't happen in certain industries anymore, whereas they did before. There were no ideas being shared, though.

[fenrif]

Until DrPizza stops ignoring the bodies of our posts, I'd suggest we stop discussing this with him. Let's rewind back to the original topic, which is the video.

I didn't actually find the video all that interesting. All my worst professors (and even one of my high school teachers) have shown me TED, and while some things are interesting, I think it all gets blown out of proportion by the laymen. It's a great marketing scheme, talking about your new product, or being JJ Abrams and telling people it doesn't matter how LOST ends (no joke). When people actually share ideas, however, it sometimes falls flat. Like the guy who tells you that things are more interesting if you colour them in a funny way (during his speech about otaku). I've only ever been impressed by a few things, though the only name I can remember offhand is Malcolm Gladwell. I had to pay a lot of attention to this stuff, though, because I had an AFM professor ask us questions about the videos on the exam. Man, that was a terrible class.

TED is great if simply for the fact that you get to see people like Jayne Goodall speak about things that are deeply important to them. Some of them do fall a bit flat, usually because the speaker isn't very good, or chooses an uninteresting topic, but the basic concept of the TED talks is awesome.

[Blacken]

Likewise, the efforts of the commercial side to wipe out the freeware and especially the open source sector are also unhealthy for the culture, but they must be met in my eyes not by destroying the attacker but by protecting the attacked.

Or, y'know. Figuring out if that's actually happening or not, because it's fairly evident that it's not. Even Microsoft, who once upon a time looked for ways to disrupt and destroy open source, now have a preposterous number of open source projects of their own. In addition to their Codeplex stuff, and just going off their own page, they either maintain or contribute to ADODB, Apache POI, Apache Qpid, Apache Stonehenge, AntiXSS, Eclipse Tools for Silverlight, IronPython, IronRuby, a number of Linux device drivers to enable interoperability (oh wait, Phmcw, I thought Microsoft hated interoperability!) with Hyper-V, OpenPegasus, Spec#, and WiX. Microsoft is even an Apache platinum-level funding supporter.

Mind you, much of that is licensed under terms that are not GPL-compatible. It's open-source, and much of it is even free software by the FSF's own definition, but a lot of it's not GPL-compatible. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I specifically license my own open-source code, wherever possible, under the CDDL precisely because of its GPL incompatibility, because I fundamentally disagree with cashing in my rights as a developer when releasing open-source software. (This is in contrast to, say, Phmcw, who apparently has no code to license at all.) Sharplike, the roguelike library I'm currently working on, will be released under the CPAL, which is a derivative of the CDDL.

The other common complaint, and I'll pre-emptively deal with it here, when I point out the rather large number of open-source projects Microsoft works on is, "but most of them benefit them!" And sure, they do. Linux device drivers that allow it to work with Hyper-V totally benefit Microsoft. What the fuck else would you expect them to do?

Nobody in the commercial world is going "herpaderp, kill open source." The reverse is not true, and is incredibly disturbing for people who talk about "freedom" a lot. But they want freedom for them, not for the people actually making the software. Which is pretty fucking disturbing.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Open Source and piracy don't seem opposed to eachother so much as separate. If I commandeer your treasure ship and take all your gold ask someone what your ship looks like, then recreate, at my own labor and expense, an exact replica, I'm not making a statement about monetary reform, for example.

Fixed for accuracy.

[Blacken]

Open Source and piracy don't seem opposed to eachother so much as separate. If I commandeer your treasure ship and take all your gold ask someone what your ship looks like, then recreate, at my own labor and expense, an exact replica, I'm not making a statement about monetary reform, for example.

Fixed for accuracy.

That would be reverse engineering (which I unequivocally support). That said, piracy does not involve your own labor and expense, except in the final copy. It ignores the incredible expense of actually creating the work you are copying.

But that kind of cognitive dissonance is usually best avoided by ignoring it, as you just did.

[Grakelin]

Are you trying to make a point, or trying to correct my analogy? Because the thing about analogies is that I don't need to recreate the original situation but replace everything with ships.

And even if it was, that wasn't the point I was making. You changed my analogy to one about imitating a piece of open source software. Your description isn't even piracy.

[Virex]

B) is also not completely true. While you are correct that discoveries can be shared with comparative ease when compared to closed-source, it is not a piece of cake. Granted, when creating something by starting with a single program someone else provided, you are correct. But once two or more different programs are donating parts, you will automatically get a lot of additional problems you have to cope with. And depending on the task, it may be utterly impossible to create a bug-free end product UNLESS you invest as much time and effort into understanding some of the borrowed source code as if you had programmed it from scratch.

That may be less the case then you'd expect. Fundamental discoveries are typicaly either made by universities, who will publish about it, companies, who will write patents about it, or open-source writers, who will publish the code (or at least they should). This means that nearly all of the important discoveries will be availible within 2-3 years after their discoveries. (in the case of patents, they are availible for a fee of course, but they're still availible. You want it free, you have to invent it yourself. Or trade one patent for another). The only things that are kept secret are those that are either not interesting or not patentable and not patentable usualy means that it's a game concept (note, not an engine, a real concept), it's obvious (in which case you should have tought of it already) or someone decided that software patents should be less broad (which is not likely, but we can always have nightmares).

[Blacken]

B) is also not completely true. While you are correct that discoveries can be shared with comparative ease when compared to closed-source, it is not a piece of cake. Granted, when creating something by starting with a single program someone else provided, you are correct. But once two or more different programs are donating parts, you will automatically get a lot of additional problems you have to cope with. And depending on the task, it may be utterly impossible to create a bug-free end product UNLESS you invest as much time and effort into understanding some of the borrowed source code as if you had programmed it from scratch.

That may be less the case then you'd expect. Fundamental discoveries are typicaly either made by universities, who will publish about it, companies, who will write patents about it, or open-source writers, who will publish the code (or at least they should). This means that nearly all of the important discoveries will be availible within 2-3 years after their discoveries. (in the case of patents, they are availible for a fee of course, but they're still availible. You want it free, you have to invent it yourself. Or trade one patent for another). The only things that are kept secret are those that are either not interesting or not patentable and not patentable usualy means that it's a game concept (note, not an engine, a real concept), it's obvious (in which case you should have tought of it already) or someone decided that software patents should be less broad (which is not likely, but we can always have nightmares).

One minor quibble with an otherwise reasonable post: open-source development that doesn't come from the corporate or academic worlds is generally extremely derivative (copying something else) and is not exactly where you'll find much notable fundamental innovation.

Software patents are a piece of shit, though, and, unlike copyright, don't provide a material benefit to society as a whole. You can't patent math.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Guys, I wasn't talking about Should. I was talking about Is.

Copyright of digital media is being eroded by piracy that is easier and cheaper to do than ever, and it's only getting easier and cheaper as time goes on.

I wasn't trying to say people should abandon copyright and do something else. I was trying to get across that people in the industry are losing the piracy battle, and they need to come up with new ways to remain profitable. If they're active and creative, they can manage some profitability somehow. But if they don't, and try to maintain the status quo, they're just going to be left with the worst of possible outcomes: no viable method of profitability.

It doesn't matter whether you're for or against your ship sinking. It's going to sink. You can't bail it out fast enough. But you can grab some things and throw them in a lifeboat. That's what I was thinking about when I posted the video link.

Now of course people might debate about whether piracy is a big enough problem. The IP holders say it's an industry-killing problem. Of course they know better than anyone else, and they wouldn't lie, right? But if piracy in fact isn't an industry-killer, and never will be, then nobody needs to worry about finding alternatives to copyright.