I'm now running Fedora 15, KDE, and a tin foil hat, nvidia is configured i got my game Frozen Synapse running in a VM....I ported all my apps over, wish me luck! All the talk of so many viruses and hidden hazardous apps that could be running in windows has left me little choice, hope this isnt permanent. Windows, I will be back.

Actually, windows will never be gone, i'm running it in a VM to watch netflix and play games

Welcome back to the fold!

Lets hope Ubuntus bug #1 gets fixed. It'd be beneficial no matter what you'd like to see in windows future. Either Microsoft ignores the fact and runs their business into oblivion, or they wake up and realize they should probably change some priorities.

Huh? You seem to me saying that Microsoft risks running their business into oblivion if they don't act to reduce their own market share. This doesn't make sense to me.

He meant that if Microsoft continues its policies then it'll fade away as people get fed up with malware, DRM, being accused of being a thief, exorbitant prices, yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, businesses don't run into oblivion by acting. They do it by doing business as usual while the world changes around them.

The world isn't changing to Linux. Just a couple nerds on allegro.cc.

I recently read somewhere that windows 8 is similar to a smartphone interface and that might drive users to linux.

If it's like Android then yeah, I can see why that would happen.

Before you get your panties in a bunch, it was a joke. My HTC Desire Z is the least annoying cellphone I've had since the Nokia 2110. It's still not perfect though.

My linux is going, I've just had enough of random failures.

Yesterday youtube stopped working. Black screen, all I got was 'there was an error' on the screen. I know it's flash as youtube html5 works. It's not the browser as it fails in all browsers, and flash does work at other sites. I've even tried running the flash cleanup app, etc. My touchpad seems to jerk and stutter when I move. My NAS (despite being linux) doesn't like my linux. NetBeans on linux just sucks. Things just work in Windows.

Let me guess... Ubuntu?

^ actually that's a known xmonad bug

^ yes (well, technically Mint, which is just ubuntu with bits)

Some random notes on Windows. I had problems a few years ago installing a network printer and some random crashes. No similar problems in Fedora 8. It turns out the problem was my room was too hot. Linux is more stable IMO.

I used to do tech support for a printer company that had terrible product failure rates, printers are the least reliable computer hardware i have ever seen in my life

They aren't supposed to last very long. They already cost less to buy than they do to make, they really don't give a rats ass about quality. They just want you to buy more ink. Which happens when you have to get a new printer and it's carts aren't compatible with your old printer.

you arent supposed to last very long

I hate printers with a passion. I very very rarely use them and definitely don't own one. That is all.

I hope something breaks and that you have to compile a later version to get it working.

no packaging system is perfect, not even gentoo's which requires constant recompiles.

Thus far, I've been using linux as a host for windows vms and it provides me which a bunch of network services

It just seems that way if reinstalling it is taken to be just part of the normal course of events.^[1]

I haven't had to reinstall Windows to fix a problem since Windows95, and even back then it turns out that the problem was actually caused by faulty ram - (reinstalling didn't fix it, obviously).

Maybe reinstalling is normal for some users, but certain not for all users. This is just another example of fail@generalization.com. You might as well just say linux is only usable if you also have access to a working second computer with internet access, to search for solutions to your linux problems... and then link to some random forum post where someone reported doing something like that.

I have linux problems all the time, but not so bad I can't get to the internet. Usually it's something I misunderstood in the man pages, rereading 3 times usually works. OTOH, Windows help saying "contact your network administrator" doesn't help no matter how many times I read it.

I've had to reinstall windows many, many, many times...

Well, linux has wipped out an entire hd (corrupted the partition table) because of a bug in parted (it affected several linux distros back in the day).

Oh, and a bug in grub 2 just some months ago made me reinstall windows (fixmbr wasn't enought).

See? there are bad stories in both sides.

The very crucial difference is that the open source world (Linux, GNU, et. al.) is entirely open so the software can be improved/fixed by anyone competent enough. In Windows, you're at the mercy of a very greedy vendor. Nobody is claiming open source to be bug free. No software is bug free. However, in general, open source seems to stable out much faster and remain stable much longer.

I run both Windows and Linux. I run the former mostly for gaming, but while I'm in a gaming mood (i.e., feel like gaming every night) I run it continuously for months at a time to spare myself the trouble of rebooting. I also run Windows at j0rb as a primary development environment since j0rb insists on investing in Microsoft technologies (if there isn't an allegedly easy button then they don't even understand why I'd be bringing it up). I have plenty of experience running both and overall Linux gives me a much better experience. It isn't Windows though. It isn't designed for complete n00bs NOR Windows users to get around. It's a completely different system and often the CLI is much more complete and more mature than the GUI. That makes complete sense considering how much more complicated GUI programming is; it's a huge waste of effort to develop that interface when the command-line is efficient, clean, and productive. It's a huge waste of resources to make a commonly used UI "idiot-proof" when most users will use it so often that they'll learn memorize it anyway. The pictures drawn on the screen are a lie; underneath the system is still command-line driven.

Long story short, GNU/Linux is easily the better OS, but it does require you to learn to use it. Most people are just lazy: they know Windows and they expect everything to work like Windows and refuse to learn something different, even if it might be better. The things that most people do though don't require any command line access 99% of the time in popular Linux distros (e.g., Fedora or Ubuntu). It's only when you begin to require certain exceptional behavior that you begin to have a need for the command line, but if you require exceptional behavior in Windows then you're fucked anyway. Fuck the CLI because Windows won't bend without tedious binary hacking.

There are still problems. Installing things like Flash could be easier, but that's not the fault of open source; that's the fault of proprietary vendors (e.g., Adobe), which are essentially the same as Microsoft. I think things have improved greatly though. I can't remember if Adobe has an RPM repository for Flash yet, but I know that it's certainly making some effort to make Linux support. So basically the fight is being won. You can see that companies provide support only for Windows when that's what they need to do. If people move over to Linux then they will be forced to provide support for Linux and if a majority of people happen to switch then a majority of resources will go into Linux development on all fronts.

Microsoft effectively got rich and powerful through unethical business practices. They didn't earn their success. They "raped" the planet. In the past few years their ability to tie the planet down though has been slipping and it's become obvious that they can't continue their monopoly anymore. They are being forced to adapt to a more open and free market and so far it doesn't look like they have the ability to cope. It will be interesting to see what they can come up with to stay afloat.

I just disconnected a hard disk I'd just installed Ubuntu on. The reason for installing in the first place was to try to get AMD's CodeAnalyst working correctly. CodeAnalyst did work, after a fashion, but all the Ubuntu "You are a moron, I am a computer, therefore we will do things my way, even though they cover a small subset of possiblities" got to be too much to bear after two days, I disconnected it. I might plug this hard disk back in once in awhile to do some extreme asm optimization every couple of months though.

[EDIT]

Right now, I'm having trouble with a program I'm working on.

  ;arr[y_screen * MAND_WIDTH + x_screen] = 0;
  sub ecx,ecx  ;the '0'
  ;mov edx,[r8+y_screen_xmm0+12]
  times 16 nop
  mov eax,[r8+y_screen_xmm0+12]    ;y_screen
  imul eax,MAND_WIDTH      ; * MAND_WIDTH
  add eax,[r8+x_screen_xmm0+12]    ; + x_screen
  mov [r9+rax*4],ecx    ; = 0, blacken the pixel.  BTW, the rax*4 means sizeof(int)

It crashes on the "mov eax,[r8+y_screen_xmm0+12]" line even though that memory location was accessed without problems before. A core dump says that r8 was correct, and uncommenting the "times 16 nop" (insert 16 nops) changes the location of the crash, and uncommenting the "mov edx,[r8+y_screen_xmm0+12]" works fine, leaving the correct value in edx. The disassembly listing shows it's being assembled correctly. I also tried "mov eax,10" to see what would happen and it crashed on that. As usual, the internet is of no help whatsoever, it'll take time and effort.

[EDIT2]

With the use of the UD2 instruction, I was able to determine that the disassembly had been thrown off by yasm align instructions, I was writing past the end of the buffer in mov [r9+rax*4],ecx

I didn't say they were. As for packaging systems, I like Gentoo's just because I'm used to it. Sure, it involves a lot of compiling, but that's the price you pay for the functionality and flexibility of it. It's not something that I would however attribute to being a fault of the package manager.

Personally, my favorite package management system aside from that is apt. And I love aptitude. It provides a very nice, functional UI to Debian's apt system. I'd certainly like to see such a front-end for portage or perhaps other distro's systems, for instance; However, I tend to find all others except aptitude somewhat lacking.

Personally I hate Ubuntu. It seems like an attempt to write a Windows-like UI over top of Linux and in doing so I think it violates the "essence" of Linux. It's a mistake to try to hide the command-line underneath. IF you can write a more efficient GUI for common tasks then by all means do so, but don't try to mask the underlying processes happening. That achieves nothing more than confusing people and wasting developer time. The way computers work shouldn't be a secret. User interfaces aren't about covering up some sacred truth. Ubuntu does have merits and it's not like they don't offer a terminal emulator from the base system (or virtual terminals), but I think they have their priorities somewhat crossed. It's good to get n00bs using Linux, but it's bad if it results in a Windows-like wrapper over Linux.

Here's another example of Windows requiring a reinstall, straight from MS.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217953/Rootkit_infection_requires_Windows_reinstall_says_Microsoft

I haven't gotten a CD with windows since the previous millenium. It's always on a space-wasting hidden partition, and installs all the shovelware along with Windows.

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But allegro.cc wasn't even in existence when Linux was invented! OTOH, neither was 32 bit Windows...

Problem bambam?

Mad that you weren't one of the founders of one of the most popular and successful technology companies on the face of the planet?

Mad that you are too insecure to admit that your time is literally worthless and that is the only reason why you refuse to use working, readily available, commercial software and instead resort to broken, open-source crap that barely works?

Commercial operating systems dominate the consumer PC market and they always will. Open-source technologies on PCs will never be successful. Deal with it.

That guy that sells bootleg CD's on the corner is more popular than Best Buy too. Not a fair comparison? Tell me of some technology that Microsoft has, and I'll tell you where they got it. They sure didn't invent it. Well, maybe Clippy...

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So... you can't give me an example of something useful that Microsoft invented?

Anybody that actually thinks that the Windows operating system is useless surely lives under a rock.

I didn't say they didn't have useful things, I'm just saying they either bought them or stole them instead of inventing them. The things they bought were leveraged from the original theft of DOS.

They saw an opportunity, and seized it, just like anybody should.

I'd rather not deal with a company who uses their extortionate profits to hire an army of lawyers to keep them out of jail, and calls everyone else a thief.

Well, you've included every single (profit making) company on the planet there then. You better drop out of society and go and live in a commune growing your own wheat.

That's besides the point; non sequitur.

Their primary product works and is a very powerful platform that has provided a sound foundation for countless opportunities to people and companies all around the globe. It's the most popular and successful end-user operating system to date and a few nerdy boys on a.cc aren't going to phase anything at all.

I think he already does that

Can you provide references for this? I can provide references for what I say.

I haven't the time to research, and I don't really have the motivation. But just at the number of patent disputes that are on-going. Just in the IT world there's Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, motorola....

Don't forget this one!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/27/1553216/Microsoft-May-Add-Eavesdropping-To-Skype

MFC. It's useful for showing how not to design a library.

Stop being silly. Of course it "works", as in, it often boots without errors, and you can use it to run software and move files around and such. The fact that it's popular and successful doesn't say much about its quality; McDonald's is easily the most popular and successful restaurant chain in the world, but the food is mediocre at best. The rest of what you're saying is mostly meaningless marketing blah - seriously, "sound foundation", "countless opportunities", "around the globe"? Are you a Microsoft marketeer?

Astroturfing is a form of advocacy often in support of a political or corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement.

I use both Windows (7) and linux (arch), both run on different pcs that hide under my desk. Both operating systems have strength and weaknesses. I use my linux box for wireless access point, file server, SVN repso, internet sharing. I use my windows box for games, that is the reason its my desktop machine.

Linux isn't perfect or simple, but unless you they are a linux zealot, most users will admit its so. Windows Users who are not windows zealots, either seem to be unaware there is alternatives other than owning a Mac, or they want to run a particular software, or class of software that is just not available on anything but windows.

The whole discussion is void, because GNU/Linux is not about being powerful or economically successful. It's a moral thing most people do not understand or don't want to understand. Vegatarian people don't eat meat because they understood that it is not necessary to do so in our society today, as there is plenty of food available. Are they healthier? Maybe, but that is not the point. The point in free software is that proprietary software restricts your freedom, especially closed-source applications causes high economic damage by making it necessary to reinvent the wheel multiple times. Open Source is definately better, but also there you have restrictions: You can't modify the code and offer a better version for example.

I think that it's quite amazing to see how far GNU/Linux got by now and I am willing to support a project that backs up my freedom and I am refusing to use proprietary software like a vegatarian refuses to eat meat for moral reasons.

If someone feels enforced to use GNU/Linux he should not use it. GNU/Linux does not need a high market share built up on users that hate their computers, just a handful that love to use it.

They invented the kinect...

Arthur Kalliokoski said:

Linux sucks, Arthur. I never saw such a bad design around video card drivers until I tried to upgrade them.

It's simple as pie on a microsoft system and it's pain and hell on any linux distro I know.

dkms and module assistant are two supplementary bitch.

I praise MS W 7 64 !!

Dunno, last time I upgraded my driver on a MS system, it rebooted into safe mode requiring me to install the driver again. That's just as bad as Ubuntu (although I have found ways to avoid it most of the time).

Even though linux is my main operating system, i'm using it as my main OS with grief as it isnt as straight-forward quick to click and solve as windows, i have a lot of experience with linux and I know my way around it really well in the server world. I'm only switching to it for security reasons, not usability reason.

...fork. You most certainly can, but it risks a split in the community which could potentially be harmful. Usually, though, I think a fork is good for the community. Either the fork is intelligent and sensible and eventually merges back into the original (or possibly becomes something else with a different goal) or it's stupid and useless and nobody cares (it only serves to get those stupid ideas out of everyone else's way). The fork may still be bound by the original license (e.g., GPL), but there's nothing wrong with that.

I think the major distros have software repositories (official or unofficial) where you can get the Nvidia drivers. For example, RPMFusion has kmod-nvidia (and kmod-nvidia-PAE). I'm not sure about ATI drivers, albeit I suppose I'll have to find out soon enough.

Everything is wrong with GPL. Its viral nature, despite the honorable goal of trying to force projects to become open-source, is often counter-productive - in the corporate world, GPL usually means no-go, because the risk of having to GPL your own proprietary code is just too high. The result is that a GPL'd piece of code doesn't get the exposure it deserves, and often fails to become mainstream even though it is technically superior to everything else out there.
In other words, you can't force freedom upon people.

Video drivers are a sore spot, but you can only blame the developers for a small part of the problem. Thing is, you can't easily provide reliable drivers without proper specs, and since hardware manufacturers aren't exactly keen on leaking those (in fear of telling the competition too much about the internals of their products), the choice is between open source drivers that are based on guesswork and sample hardware, and closed-source drivers from the vendor. In most cases, neither is pretty (Intel being a notable exception, but then their cards aren't exactly high-performance).

The last time I upgraded my drivers... I don't know when that happened. I let Windows' automatic updates handle that for me.

Our company pretty much runs on Excel macros (with the occasional AutoCAD and TruTops among others thrown in for good measure). We mass produce (with the help of some robots) quite unassuming but vital machinery parts for pretty much all fields of industry. You can't eat, read a book, drive to work, take a dump or do pretty much anything else in the nordic countries without having that activity being in one way or another dependant on our components, and by extension, Microsoft Excel.

Resistance is futile.

No one is forcing you to use that code. Just don't use GPL code, and you have no problems.

I used to think the same thing "OOhhh GPL is viral, OMGGggnonoeoneoneone~!!!!" well no, it isn't.

Most libs are LGPL so you can actually use them even in non GPL/LGPL projects.

It's worked rather well for the linux kernel. But its probably the only major project its worked so well for. And its by far the largest.

I don't think the purpose of the GPL is to force other people into writing open source software. Let's be realistic: a pathetic nerd's free (no cost) GPL library isn't going to be so great that a company would give out its source code just to use it. And if it was, all the company would have to do is wave a few dollars in front of him, and he would license it.

GPL software and utilities are generally not an issue, because there's typically no need to bundle them with your proprietary program in a way that contaminates it.

I think when people use the GPL (especially for libraries), they do so because they feel like if somebody sells a product that uses their code, that they are somehow being taken advantage of. But if they knew how to sell their own GPL product, they would. So GPL becomes more of a "if I cannot make any money, then neither can you."

The LGPL is somewhat different, but to me, it's kind of a stupid mix between GPL and public domain. "Here, take my library, but don't static link against it." That's dumb. (Yes, I understand the reasoning behind it.)

And none of that hurts the GPL'd software authors in any way. They don't actually benefit from you freely using their software so if you choose not to then they've essentially lost nothing. However, if you do decide to use it and are therefore forced to contribute your own efforts then the open source world might benefit.

All that aside, GPL is NOT against charging for software. The main restriction is that you must offer the source code, but AFAIK there's nothing stopping you from charging for it. Of course, once the source code is acquired the acquirer is free to redistribute it at no cost. In any case, you still can make some money off of GPL'd code. Most of the software that proprietary vendors write sucks anyway (i.e., they're more interested in making a sale then writing good software) so it really isn't worth much anyway.

Even with all of that pointed out, as already mentioned, there's nothing stopping a commercial entity from offering to license GPL'd software under different terms at a cost.

The result may very well be that my boss decides I can't use it, and I go reinvent the wheel once again. In this scenario, the open source world misses an opportunity (if I were to use it, chances are I file useful bug reports or maybe even bugfixes), as does the world as a whole (because there is no way my own hurried implementation is anywhere near as good as the ongoing collaborative effort of a few hundred people).
If the author instead uses a less restrictive license (say, MIT, Apache, or BSD), the whole world can benefit, including those who would not use that software if it were GPL'd. Sure, for the user it doesn't matter one way or another; and for some large projects, I'm pretty sure there are really good reasons to use GPL; but I get annoyed with small projects where the authors go "oh, I know, I'll open source it, because I believe in freedom and all that, let's GPL it", instead of researching their options and picking a license that really fits their intention (which is usually just "go ahead, use it, as long as you don't claim you wrote it I'm fine").

Which is exactly what happens: People just don't use that code. Which is a shame.

Yeah, LGPL... it has the same problems as GPL, only to a lesser extent. Still, it is sufficiently vague to make companies shy away from LGPL'd libraries anyway, just to be on the safe side.

This is the people's fault, not the one of the GPL. See, just because everyone thinks like that does not mean it's the "right" way to think. Using the GPL would surely mean less profit, but there's no natural law that says that we have to pay x developers. We have a whole industry build up on misconcepts, like "intellectual property" (whatever that means in detail) for example. So now we have to bring in misconcepts again to fix the old ones, isn't that funny? Just to enforce concepts that were dead before they were born.

Because most people thought the world is flat doesn't automatically mean that's true.

I don't use GPL libraries because I like to decide for myself what license I put on my code (if any). If I want to open-source it, I'll do so without being forced.

There are a lot of good GPL lib's, but it's not worth the loss of freedom imo.

I hear that often. What freedom do you lose? I am really interested in what people mean by that.

edit:

If you mean that: It's not a loss of freedom, it's a loss of power over what you can do to other people. So you're basically losing the power to restrict other's freedom, much the same other's gave up the power to decide what you can do with it. Freedom is based on co-existence, it's not a personal thing.

edit2:
The GPL is a license that ensures freedom between people, so you have to give up power on each other. If you want to put it in an evil context, you might call that "invasive", but it certainly doesn't fit well the idea.

I see nothing wrong with GPL. I use a GPL library in my game, in return I release my game as GPL as well. I can't use it in a closed source application, but that is the whole idea.

With LGPL there is no restrictions on my own code at all - it just means when I use an LGPL library and modify it, I can't distribute those modifications under a license which prevents the original library from incorporating them. Which makes a lot of sense.

No, it's the GPL's fault. It's way too restrictive. It is viral, because everything it touches should be GPLd too.

Our whole civilization, over 40 centuries, is built on being able to freely negotiate the prices for the items we have created. That's how the Western civilization managed to grow economically. It's almost a natural law, don't you think?

The only reason intellectual property is considered a misconcept nowadays is because it's an obstacle to software and media piracy. Computer users throughout the whole internet scream about how intellectual property is a bad thing, because they cannot download for free the latest games, music and movies.

If it wasn't for intellectual property, then most people would not create anything, since they wouldn't be able to get some value out of their creations, in order to be able to afford the creation of that property.

And please, don't get me started how piracy is not theft, because it is. A product doesn't need to have a physical form to have value. Enjoying something you didn't pay for that you should have paid for is clearly theft.

No, because a software product is not an item.

See my post above for the part with being "restrictive".

edit:
I am referring to that:

edit2:

Good point! I am NOT talking about games, music and movies, that's a whole separate thing! Another misconcept is to put that together with software, how can I say it, that you actually "use".

It is. It is something that value was spent on it in order to be produced.

While money was spent on it, that money is amortized over the number of units sold. The additional cost of distributing the program on CD-ROM might be 50 cents for the disk and another 1.00 for the box and styrofoam, with 1.00 for shipping to the store warehouses. If it's distributed on-line, call it 0.10 cents for distribution. If you divide the development cost over 100000 units it's pretty small compared to the prices normally charged for a copy of software. At least they're not charging five or six hundred dollars per copy like they did in the '80's.

That might be your definition of freedom, but it's a useless one for any rational discussion. Obviously my freedom to live supersedes your freedom to kill me. That does not mean I infringe on your freedom.

If I write a program, I should be able to decide what I do with it. It's not global property just because it exists. And I can do this, by sharing it to whom I want, how I want. Just as I decide not to use GPL, users can decide not to use my software.

This does not limit their freedom - it's an expression of mine.

EDIT:

What's wrong with making money of (presumably) good software that you've risked money and time to make?

Note that I'm not against open-source in any way, I just prefer not to be forced into it.

Remember the GIF image format debacle? How about MS and DOS? Or Windows refusing to run if it was DR. DOS? Or IBM computers refusing to run if it wasn't PC-DOS?

Dude we know you like AmigaOS and you love the world of yesterday, but

I've never even seen an Amiga!

If you want a modern example of stupidity getting in the way of using code the way you want, look at the Intel ICC compiler. If the code it produces is running on a CPU that doesn't have the 'GenuineIntel' string from CPUID, it chooses the worst possible algorithms it has in its libraries. Intel says it's supposed to ensure correctness, but everyone knows it's to make non-Intel chips look bad.

What does this discussion have to do with the broken patent system of the US?
I think software patents is a fundamentally flawed concept (and the US implementation of it even more so), and certainly not a requirement for making money of closed (or open) source software.

It's a sleezy tactic, sure. But they should be able to decide what to do with their software, and the customers should choose not to accept it (by not buying it).

True, but it is only the author of said product that has the right to set the product's price. If you don't like the price, don't buy the product. You certainly do not have the right to pirate it.

Not this again

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I didn't pirate Linux. Did you pirate Windows? I'd bet money yves did.

^it's ok if you use AmigaOS as your main desktop, we understand you're old school

The GPL is effectively about user freedom. It basically states that the freedom of many is more important than the freedom of few. Its purpose is preserving and enforcing the freedom of the users. Those not intending to profit from their software can release it using the GPL and trust that their works will continue to be free for modification and redistribution, regardless of whether or not they're integrated into some other software. It basically prevents somebody from taking your hard work, enhancing it ever so slightly, and charging the world for the product as a whole, despite you doing most of the work.

The LGPL is basically the same thing, except that it allows for the software to be contained as a separate module, and linked separately. This way you can freely use it without restrictions to your own software. It effectively solves the "problem" being discussed about the GPL. Not all software is a good candidate for that though.

Basically it's bullshit for commercial developers to want to use free software and then turn around and charge unreasonable licensing fees for the derivative. Don't get me wrong: I certainly want commercial developers to use open source software. They should just contribute back to the open source world instead of exploiting it. If that open source software wasn't available then each of those libraries and programs that save the day would cost your company another licensing fee. There would be plenty of half-assed implementations and you'd have no way of knowing which worked and which didn't until you had already coughed up the annual budget. It adds up very quickly. It's expensive to use broken software that you aren't allowed to fix.

As programmers, you need to get paid for your work. Your 9-5 or whatever you work. However, you don't need to get paid every time somebody runs your damn program. If the software has a productive purpose then somebody is going to be willing to fund it. After they've done so there's no good reason to keep charging for it (except for greed). For now the entire software industry is built on greed though. I think the GPL is a very good way to force the greedy shops to feed on their own kind.

I do not see how this freedom would not be achieved if GPL was not enforced on derivative works, provided that the GPL part is explicitly stated in the program's license. For example, I could make a closed source application which I could sell for profit, but I would have to explicitly mention the GPL parts I used. This does not harm the freedom of others, but it does also not harm the freedom of me.

Why not let the market decide that?

Since when is using something offered for free exploitation? the word 'offer' means the software is voluntarily given away. There is no exploitation.

There are other solutions: software reviews, try-before-you-buy, demos etc.

Why not? if I have made something that is nice to use and everybody wants to use it, then why not?

Greed is not necessarily bad. It may be motivating and result in good things.

GPL only makes sense if everybody is using it for everything. And if the goal of GPL'ers is to take over the world, they are sadly delusional. If Allegro were GPL, the only difference would be that fewer people would use it.

The main perspective of people who love the GPL is:

If you use my puny GPL software and make a profit, I feel like I've been taken advantage of. Why? Well, if you didn't use it, then I'd have nothing. If you did use it, then I'd still have nothing. But I judge my happiness based on how much I have relative to you. If we both have nothing, I am happy. If you have more than me, I am not.

Now, I have nothing against people who use the GPL. It's their right. And in fact, for most applications it doesn't really matter much at all. I can use your GPL program without ever touching the source code and contaminating my own.

But the motivation of using GPL for a library is just one of selfishness and elitism. If you don't belong to my GPL open source club, then you cannot use it.

Again, the author has every right to say that, but to pretend it's for the greater good... well, that's just pathetic, and I feel a little bit sorry for somebody who has wasted his own time developing software with such misguided intentions.

Not this again. It requires non-ignorant customer base. Without it, you can do whatever evil you want and cover it up with marketing.

Anyway, I'm completely unsympathetic with anyone who wants to release their software closed source. I've been fighting with getting older games to work on WinXP the past few weeks, and I had to use other people's fixes that required crafted dlls, binary patching, compatibility settings etc etc. None of that would have been an issue if the games had been open source (e.g. Doom, Quake, Descent are, and they run flawslessly on modern systems). As a user I feel shafted by the greedy developers that chose to close their sources indefinitely. GPL is about serving the user, and if you truly care about the user, that is the license to use.

You could've just used DosBox or even install VMware to run an older OS if you want to play classic games

None of those were open source while they were actual products on a market.

I certainly agree that it is, in general, in the developers best interest to release old titles for free (and optionally with source, though if they can make it work on modern systems without releasing sources, I rather have that - it usually makes for a less painful installation and use).

However, it's not the developers that decide these things. It's typically the publisher that sits on the rights, and I've yet seen a smart publisher.

There will always be a scale on the level of ignorance in customers that ranges from experts to newly-born. It's up to them to learn, or accept that they might have to pay a bit extra. Most people go with the latter, since no person can be an expert in every area. What does that have to do with GPL?

These games are neither dos based, nor do they run without 3D acceleration.

EDIT:

It was a gamble on the user's part to buy these closed source games that paid off.

In what way? Developers need to waste time removing proprietary code from it at the very least. Releasing the source after the fact does not help the original developers whatsoever (well, maybe except goodwill or something); only the users benefit.

Ignorance with respect to the long term dangers of closed source software (e.g. compatibility issues with newer systems).

VMware Workstation 7 supports 3D acceleration, my desktop runs Linux, but I still play games in a VM that runs Windows XP

http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/new.html

Even if that does work, that means in principle shelling out $180... something I wouldn't have to do if the game was OSS.

Note that I haven't even started talking about buggy software that I can't even attempt to fix because I have no access to its source.

going by principle wont get you far in life

Do you mean that it's a gamble to buy a closed source product, period? Eg it might have been shit? Yes. That's true for any product that you buy, closed source or not. Having access to the source does not mean it's economical, effective or possible to "fix" the game/software yourself. Especially not for 99% of the users out there.

And for games - if you modify it, you're not really playing THAT game any more. Artistic vision and what-not.

If it is possible with a minimum of work (such as if they don't need to re-factor the code too much), it's a significant boost to their brand, and a good way to advertise a future game.

However, I suspect it will happen less now. It seems that there is indeed a good market for old games made to work on new systems (such as www.gog.com, which sells great games at really reasonable prices).

Not quite. It's a gamble in the sense that they released the source when they felt unable to continue development. Sure, if they continue development (or someone else does, like gog.com) then in principle it's ok. A bug free software does not have the same need to be open source as a buggy software does.

It doesn't need to be. The 1% for whom it is economical etc will release their fixes for the other 99%. Perhaps that 1% can't fix all the bugs, but some other 1% can fix the remainder. This has happened with the aforementioned games. I wouldn't know where to begin in getting the Doom or Descent engines to run on modern systems, yet someone did and now everyone benefits.

That's unrelated to the issue of getting it to run in the first place. You can already screw up the artistic vision via mods.

VMWare Player is free. All you need is downloading the vm from somewhere else, or use some free tool to create the vm, like this one.

I can't respond to every little statement here, but some of them are horribly wrong. As I already said, there is a distinction between content and software tools. We are not talking about copying movies, games or music - or art in general, that's a whole different thing. It's something you enjoy rather than use and there are different licensing models for that.

Also, a software product is certainly not an item, although someone here stated otherwise. How can you test it? Well, throw it against the wall, if it breaks it was an item. Your computer is an item, but software is not. Problems arise when people start trying to draw sharp lines between "software items" (the word is wrong, but I could not tell how to explain that different). At which point is a software a derivative of another software? If you link to it statically, is it then part of your software? What if you link it dynamically? What if it calls another program and makes use of the results, etc. etc. Although we can give more or less precise answers to these questions we always encounter problems that cannot be answered clearly, even our laws sometimes seem to be uncertain over that. This indicates that there is a problem with the abstraction of software as a "virtual item". Putting efforts/time/money/whatever into something does not make it an item automatically. I have put lots of efforts, time and money into my relationship with my girlfriend and there is no item.

Also, someone here mentioned that the GPL is an expression of l33tness, which is totally dumb. The GPL is a symbolically reached-out hand for freedom, and absolutely noone is forced to enter the deal. If someone grants you freedom to use his work, I think its not even selfish, eliteness, viral or restrictive to expect that someone grants you freedom to use his improvements on your work. There is a important saying about that: "Wisdom is one of the few things that multiplies when you divide it." ("dividing" is the same word like "sharing" in German)

So in the end it's not even a question what's technically better, although I often pull jokes about it or troll just for fun, making fun of "computer experts".

Those statements would be yours.

But expect != force.

I really hate when people advertise GPL talking about freedom, when it's the most restrictive open source license, and compare it against close source, when the real useful comparison would be against other open source licenses.

I've used GPL in the past, but now I really think other open source licenses are more appropriate for most cases, and stay away from GPL libraries because I don't want to be forced to license anything under GPL/LGPL^[1] (even if I'm planning to open source it).

The GPL doesn't do that. In fact, the GPL explicitly allows anyone to take your work, not change it at all (or change it however they like), and then charging the world for the product as a whole.

The condition imposed by the GPL is that if you do sell the product, then you must also grant the purchaser the right to modify and distribute the product (under the same GPL terms).

The GPL isn't about preventing people from charging money. It's about preventing people from turning open-source software into closed source software.

...

In any case, for my own purposes, I value the freedom to be able to choose and change the licence of the software I write. So even if I intend to release software under the GPL, I still wouldn't use GPL components, for fear that I'd lose my freedom.

I have used the GPL licence a couple of times, and I expect I'll use it again in the future; but I see it as a way of protecting my rights rather than protecting the freedom granted by open source software.

I second Oscar. Things being licensed under the GPL have caused me some headaches when developing for the Wii. I'd be forced to use GPL whether they released a library GPL or LGPL. There is no way to dynamic link as of yet.

I've had to not use certain things just because. Its dumb.

Don't mix up two words:

• power

• freedom

Freedom is not to choose any license you want when using foreign code. If you think that you have a naive definition of freedom. Freedom does not mean you can do whatever you want, it means you can do whatever you want as long as you respect the freedom of others. You seem to be forgetting the second part all the time. If you can't take GPL code and put your own code under the GPL, then I would ask: What is restricting you to do that?

You think it's dumb, but basically you wanted to take away the freedom of others and the mechanism seemed to work here, because you could not use it. What's wrong with it?

Using the GPL for a library is selfish. Why should everyone who uses your library be forced into using the GPL and giving away their own code for free as well? Some people value their time and effort, and justly expect to be compensated for it, so it's easy to see why people don't like the GPL and don't use GPL code.

The LGPL is at least reasonable enough to let people profit from their own work.

My understanding of the GPL is that it is a licensing infrastructure which is intended to facilitate communal code. Therefore, by developing GPL code, you justly expect to be compensated for it by means of subsequent code additions to the community.

No?

Nobody is telling anybody to develop GPL code. To me it's a statement, and it's not one that I would ever dream of opposing.

I don't think we need to turn this into a semantics argument, but let me just say this. If I write some code myself, I am free to choose whichever licence I like, and I can change my mind as about the licence whenever I like. But if I want to link my code to a GPL library, I must sacrifice my freedom of licence choice. To use the GPL library, my own work must be made GPL as well. It's a condition that gives me fewer options that I had before; and that is why I avoid GPL libraries.

I don't think this has anything to do with respecting the freedom of others. When I write software, I feel I have a personal right to grant or to withhold the source code. If I choose to release closed-source software, I'm not taking away anybody's freedom, but rather I'm just simply choosing not to grant users the right to use my source code.

You can use the word power if you prefer. Perhaps you and I don't share the same meaning of the word freedom but that's just something we have to work around. I don't think saying power instead of freedom is going to make things any clearer - because we probably have different ideas of what power means as well!

This has nothing to do with the GPL. If those programs' source was available for a price, would you be satisfied? I bet you wouldn't. You would complain that they are greedy.

Your definition of item is arbitrary. In economics, an item is something that has value.

When you use another person's work, you use another person's work. There is no confusion at all. Static or dynamic linking plays no role in this.

How am I not respecting the freedom of others with other open-source licenses?

Only the product as a whole must be GPL. You can always re-release your own code under a different license (you never gave up the copyright by releasing a copy of it under GPL, you just licensed it under the terms of the GPL). The fact that you released another version of it under GPL doesn't touch that at all. The already released version of your code would of course stay released. But if you make a change to your original code under some new license you could for example disallow the use of that change in the GPL version.

Indeed. It has to do with protecting the freedom of the source code, not your or someone else's freedom. Open source code usually isn't something you write once and then it's finished and never needs an update or bug fix. But if you release it for example under the BSD license someone can fix a bug in it and never release the bug-fix (or worse, release that bug fix under a license which bars you from using the fix in your original version). The GPL (and also LGPL) prevent that by requiring you, as a clause in the license, to re-license any changes you make to the code back to the original. (The GPL in addition also asks you to release your whole project in which you use the GPL code as open source, but that's a separate clause.)

The lock-in I was talking about was due to linking to a GPL library. If I do that, then I cannot release my code under any other library (unless I rewrite it to not use the GPL component).

[edit]
Immediately after posting, I released what you meant. You meant (maybe) that I could release the just own parts of the project under a different licence, and then require that the user puts my part and the GPL part together themselves in order to use it. (¿is that what you meant?)

Yes, or replace the calls to the GPL library with calls to another library.

(So essentially you would be dual-licensing it then... which of course can be complicated, like what if someone contributes code to the GPLed release but you want to use that contribution in your non-GPL release.)

Does it allow some users to fix the bugs in said software and redistribute the fixed binaries? If yes, then in principle it's ok, if far from ideal. For example, how would collaboration work in this framework? I can't think of a license you could put on that "code for a price" that would allow multiple developers to work on it. Also, what happens when the original code owner disappears? Or stops selling the code? It becomes the same kind of gamble that you take when you buy software in hopes of it becoming OSS in the future.

GPL ensures that the code remains available in perpetuity. It ensures that you never fall into a situation of "I want to fix this bug, but I can't because I don't have the source." I've yet to see an alternative that does the same.

^[1]

So

I'm not sure what you mean to imply by those quotes... My quote is simply in reference to why creators of libraries today might use the GPL. It has nothing to do with the initial reasoning by Stallman.

An interesting study would be to see which projects receive more support in terms of third party patches (particularly from these evil commercial enterprises)... LGPL+GPL or BSD+ZLIB+etc. If the numbers don't show that GPL gives any major advantage, then it's "real" purpose for existing is pointless.

Upon rethinking this I think Stallman was upset about the duplication of effort, not the fact that UniPress might have been making money off the code they bought. There was a thread a few years ago where someone was stupidly reimplementing line() for the Allegro library and everybody jeered him, but the Allegro license says "We trust you not to abuse our generosity." but the GPL doesn't have to trust the goodwill of someone looking to make a fast buck, it enforces it. Look at MS using the BSD stack for TCP/IP which replaced their own hopelessly broken code and (partially) using the profits from this improved implementation to do harm to the open source community. No, open source code isn't perfect, that's how people can tell MS is using the BSD stack, if you send it some particular packets it goes crazy in a particular way, but the BSD code is available for anyone to fix this problem if they can.

go back to using amigaos arthur

Why? There isn't room enough for both of us?

See, the problem is you are mixing up contexts, shifting rules from one context where they are appropriate to another context in which they are not. As for yourself, in your private context, you can do whatever you like. Additionally, there is a public context in which freedom is ensured by certain principles.

On your own parcel of land you can park your car whereever you like. If you want to block your neighbour's car with yours, that's not okay. What do we learn? Parking your car everywhere is not okay, but would you say you feel supressed by your neighbour or the government? Still you surely live in a country where people are considered to be free. Freedom does not mean you can do whatever you like.

Yes, there are other "models" of people living together. You could simple buy your neighbour as a slave, then parking in front of his car would surely be okay. But that is not the concept of freedom.

You do, see what I have said above.

I prefer the word power here.

You have not given any reason as to why closed-source software takes away peoples freedom. You are saying something about slavery and parking cars, but I fail to see the relevance.

Do you seriously mean that the moment someone writes a piece of code, it belongs to everyone?

Why not? you could modify the code, but then you would have to give it back to the owner, and then the owner would have to incorporate it in its product.

The same thing that happens when the developers of open source software decide to abandon a project: the project dies, a replacement comes along. After all, when developers abandon a project, it's very hard for someone that hasn't worked on the source code of a project to start tinkering with it right away.

How important is this advantage realistically? to me, it is not realistic at all. The situation where a person finds a bug in a program and fixes it himself is extremely rare.

You have a very strange definition of freedom. So, according to you, people should not have any rights to manage their creations as they like?

Have to? What if he doesn't want to?

Not the same thing. When developers of an OSS project decide to abandon it, the source is still available for all of its users.

Some things, like games, do not have replacements. A clone or a remake is hardly a consolation to the person who has savegames from the original, or perhaps likes the original's aesthetics.

Yeah, a few hours familiarising yourself with the code is generally required. I've done that before, and it's not that hard. This is especially easy if the code is written well.

Of course it is, I wasn't talking about that situation however. The situation is not "one person finds the bug, one person fixes it". The situation is "one person finds the bug; N people confirm it, one other person within that N, or outside that N fixes it; everyone benefits from the fix." The second situation happens all the time.

If you really want a bug in an open source project fixed, you can always pay some skilled developer to fix it. If it's an abandoned closed source program, you'll just have to live with it.

The mass of ignorance muzzles me. I suggest you learn about a few basics, take a deep look in what the GPL says and then we can discuss again. I hate it to repeatedly answer on stupid questions/arguments (yes, they exist!). Most of them show you did not even take a quick look into the GPL.

Exactly. We took a long hard look and found it to be detrimental to society.

Look again.

What contexts was I mixing up? Where is your private vs. public argument coming from? I don't see what this stuff about cars and slaves has to do with what I said. I said that I prefer not to use GPL libraries because they restrict my choice of licence; how is what you said related?

I think it's pretty clear that most of us have read the GPL. Many of us (including me) have even used it. What ignorance are you talking about? Could you, for the benefit of us all, just specify one fact about the GPL that you think the rest of us don't understand?

From my point of view, your arguments seem to be based on personal ideals rather than on facts about the GPL; but yet you've come out and accused us of being ignorant, and of asking stupid questions. Please, so that we know what you're on about, give an example of a stupid question; and an example of ignorance.

As you wish, here are some examples of ignorance:

..followed by blah.

Then here:

The analogy is - so obvious - that when not releasing your software as free software, you make other people dependent on you, giving up their usual rights they have. This was just a metaphor, of course it is. But you just said:

Let's go on here:

Public context and private context in which you act, so obvious.

I am stopping here, since I don't want to spend all my time with this, it gets slightly hilarous. I can't force you to see what you don't want to see.

edit:
Personal ideals? See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNBMdDaYhZA

That's not me.

You are confusing a discussion about opinions (which this is) with a discussion of facts (which this can never be, because the nature of this subject is subjective).

What you are saying also does not have anything to do with the GPL - only with your definition of freedom.

Jacob, let it put it plainly for you.

You are wrong and your opinions are worthless.

K THNX BYE

I already mentioned that. There was a time in which the general opinion was that slavery is not a crime, for instance. Also, there was a time (and in many countries still is) where free speech is not a basic right. As for the young information technology scene I'd say we still live in the dark ages

The GPL is intended to support this kind of freedom. If you have another definition of freedom, of course it does not make much sense. So at first one has to decide what characterizes freedom has. Is it right to do whatever you want to do? Certainly not. To yourself you can do whatever you want, if you interact with others there must be a clear definition of what is allowed and what is not.

So, I say it's not okay to make the "end users" give up all their essentials rights (EULA). For second, I need to make sure that noone else can lever that out by doing that through a third person.

That is what is commonly known as a "straw man". The legality and morality of EULA's is an entirely different matter, which AFAIK has not been brought up until now.

Using BSD instead of GPL would for example not do anything of the sort ("force" end users to give up their freedom), while still giving developers the freedom to license their code in any way they wish.

The argument I'm putting forth is that GPL is viral and limits the freedom of developers. You are arguing that all code by default is public domain, and GPL just enforces that (or am I wrong?). We are obviously have dramatically different views on life and liberty in general, and thus any further discussion is an exercise in futility.

Your argument seems to go something like this: there was a time when a particular opinion was popular and now that opinion is no longer popular, therefore my opinion is right and yours is wrong.

It's a completely ridiculous argument; and your analogies are wholly disconnected from what we're talking about. For example, you keep talking about blocking your neighbour's car with your own. In that analogy, presumably what you mean is that your neighbour's right to use their own car is somehow akin to their right to use the source code of the computer program that you wrote for them. But let me put this to you: if I don't write any source code at all, then obviously no one can use the source code... but if I don't have a car, then the neighbour can still move their car.

Let me now pitch a car analogy that I think is more appropriate (but still pointless): Suppose I design a new kind of car, and I build a car factory, and the factory builds a bunch of these cars... and then I sell the cars, but I don't let anyone see the plans that I used to build the car. In this analogy, the car is the software, and the plans are the source code. — I think the take home message is that if there is something that is clear in the analogy which is not clear in the original, then there is probably something wrong with the analogy.

If you don't write sourcecode (you don't have car) then you don't need the GPL and what you said is pontless. There is nothing wrong with it.

The problem with your analogy is that you define rules for material objects, for property. See the video I posted, I don't want to repeat that here again. You have to find an analogy that is on an ethical - not technical - level. Maybe that's why you confused things in my metaphor. I was not talking about slaves and cars, I was talking about how they act together, with emphasis on the act.

See what happens if you transfer rules in case they're not appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c

.

Exactly the analogy I was thinking about: when we buy cars, do we also request the car's engineering blueprints? no, we don't. Then why are we so adamant in requesting the source code of a program?

That's because they've refused to supply them for so long it's accepted as "normal". Independent auto repair technicians have been fighting to get repair info for years, especially with respect to computerized systems. The OEM's don't want to release the info partly so they get all the repair business, but mostly they're not in the repair business, they're trying to sell new cars. Fixing old cars is contrary to this goal.

[EDIT]

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Motor_Vehicle_Owners%27_Right_to_Repair_Act

Trying to protect one's business is normal. It's a fundamental right.

Except when you take it to the extreme and screw over your customers, then you are violating their rights and yours is revoked.

An example where we should consider diminishing the rights of a business is demanding car designers give out their blueprints and specifications to help make repairing their cars easier and ensuring a safe and reliable ride for all drivers/passengers (And as Arthur Kalliokoski pointed out, this is contrary to their "right" to protect their business)

It is one of many so-called 'fundamental' rights, and in pretty much all interesting cases, at least two such rights conflict. Protecting one's business is OK as long as it doesn't violate anyone else's rights; in this case however, it does.
Also since the car manufacturer now has an unfair advantage over an independent garage owner, the market mechanisms that would otherwise lead to repairs at commodity price won't work anymore, leading to a situation where a select handful profits at the expense of the common good.

Since it cannot be ensured that those blueprints will not end up in the hands of competitors, not giving the designs of your products to 3rd parties is called 'protecting your business'.

There is no right such as having access to the design blueprints of something you didn't make.

What unfair advantage? making something and selling it is not unfair advantage. What would really be unfair is to share those designs you worked very hard on with people that hadn't worked on them.

Nice twisting of reality. Selling your own product and aftermarket services for it is not a monopoly.

Of course not. However, I believe that it is at least morally questionable to lock customers into your brand by preventing competitors from offering services for your product. You don't need the full stack of blueprints, but providing enough information so that someone else could perform repairs and servicing on your product should be the minimum.

No, it's not. However, making something and then artificially preventing others from providing services for it is.

If the Ford Motor Company (just an example) is the only competitor capable of repairing Ford cars, then that's a monopoly. If Ford locks you into buying service and repairs from authorized Ford dealers only, then your only choice would be to buy a different brand.
It's not a standalone monopoly, like if there were only one car brand period, and no other means of transportation available, but since buying a new car every time you are dissatisfied with the repairman is not feasible, it is still a local monopoly, with all the mechanisms this implies - customers cannot choose, consequently the market pressure goes down, which creates an imbalance up to the point where prices would become so unbearably high that people would in fact rather buy a new car than take it to that garage again, and at the same time, the monopolist can afford to deliver much lower quality, since there is no practical competition. Again, in the car example, the effects are somewhat alleviated because utterly bad service will hurt car sales, but they are still real.

It's in the same league as cellphone AC adaptors (using nonstandard connectors so you have to buy a 20$ one from the cellphone vendor instead of a 5$ generic one), printers (sold below production cost, just so you buy their insanely overpriced and completely incompatible ink cartridges), operating systems (apparently, it is currently practically impossible to buy a notebook PC without a windows licence) and a bunch of other crap.

Some of these have been outlawed in the EU recently, including cellphone adaptors (IIRC, these are now required to use a standard connector format), car electronics (specs for the diagnostics connector interface now have to be released so that anyone can at least read them out using off-the-shelf hardware), while others still flourish (ink cartridges, operating systems, etc.).

Ford motor company are also the only ones capable of building ford cards. Does that make them a monopoly?

Not offering your products' design blueprints to your competitors is not unethical. It's part of the competition. What is unethical is to try to expand your market share or keep competitors out by bribe or extortion.

It's not. It's part of the competition.

Your definition of monopoly is a tautology, and therefore it is wrong. You are essentially saying that when one sells product X, he is the only one selling product X. Well, duh. That's not a monopoly.

But there are many car brands. If you don't like Ford, choose another one.

Here in Greece, we have the concept of specialized shops with exclusive access to the technology of the car maker. For example, I own a Seat Ibiza, and I can repair it in any Seat-specialized repair shops. Doesn't that happen in USA?

Good question. To what extend this logic goes? according to this logic, everything is a monopoly, and everyone should share his designs with everyone else.

The wiki article mentioned how this was a non-issue...

And I already said that.
Additionally, I said that it might make sense to tread over your right to protect your business in order to improve public safety; In much the same way as the law forces you to wear a seatbelt, treading over your freedom of action, to reference another thread .

That's the very definition of a monopoly - a market with just one competitor.
The point is that it's not a monopoly that can be broken up by a new competitor. In a healthy market, a new competitor can enter and challenge an existing monopoly. If, however, a car manufacturer makes their cars so that they can't be repaired without their consent, then such a competitor can never get a meaningful chance.

I can, but only if I sell my car and buy a new one. This is usually a costly operation, so there's a punishment to switching. That's not a free market.

IIRC there are now laws in place to prevent this at least in the EU, so the entire example is pretty much moot.

Anyway; this has nothing to do with Free Software, and the analogy has long been over-stretched. On that topic, here's what I think:

• I don't see anything immoral in a software author's right to control distribution of his/her work per se, but as it stands, I am convinced that the concept of intellectual property (and copyright in particular) needs some serious rethinking

• I feel better about using a piece of software when I can access the source code; I don't necessarily have to read it myself, but if lots of people have, I find it easier to trust the software

• in an ideal world, all software would be free for all to use and share, but this doesn't really go together well with a market economy

• you can't force freedom upon anyone or anything

Since you haven't read the article:

The free market has a wonderful way of compensating for these kinds of things. If you make a car that only the dealer can fix at an expensive price, then nobody will buy them.

If there were only a single manufacturer of cars or they all conspired together, then it could be a problem. However, neither of those are true, so any legislation would be misguided and unnecessary.

The point is that it's not a monopoly that can be broken up by a new competitor. In a healthy market, a new competitor can enter and challenge an existing monopoly. If, however, a car manufacturer makes their cars so that they can't be repaired without their consent, then such a competitor can never get a meaningful chance.

The "ford car" is a product in the "car" market. You can always decide to go with another product. It seems to me that repair of a certain product isn't a separate product in a different market, just another part of the original product.

EDIT:

Why is that an ideal world? It sounds like a world where a few productive people will be taken advantaged of by a large number of less productive people, with no systems to stop the abusers.

I remember trying to use an OBD II diagnostic program on a laptop about ten years ago. It would work on Japanese imports, but not American or European cars due to taking advantage of some loophole in the OBD II spec.

This is similar to buying a Compaq desktop (at least many years ago). You couldn't buy a power supply (for instance) from anybody from except Compaq because it wouldn't fit. I had a 486 with another power supply setting on the table next to it because of this. Actually the computer I'm typing this in with is like that.

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The red circle surrounds the original piece of crap power supply.

The fan outside the case on the left is blowing on the video card. I need to shut it down and vacuum up all the dust it's collected on the carpet.

Isn't that just a micro ATX PSU?

There weren't any on the shelf at the computer stores here, let alone a 500W model.

I disagree, but let's get back to software.

Getting back to software, one thing that I think is similarly unfair is that Blizzard has a complete monopoly on the lucrative World of Warcraft business. Maybe we need legislation to force Blizzard to make the WoW servers open source and available so that small WoW providers can compete without being at such a disadvantage.

No, it is not a monopoly. You are twisting the definition of monopoly. A monopoly exists when there is only one manufacturer of a product kind. Ford has a lot of competition from other car makers, it's not a monopoly.

It was your mistake. You shouldn't have bought a car from a manufacturer that has costly repairs.

If I go buy a Ferrari, I cannot complain that each service costs 5000 dollars. I should have known better before buying such an expensive car.

No, the concept of intellectual property doesn't need any rethinking. It's fine as it is.

The complaining about intellectual property has started the last few years because people are no longer free to pirate software and media as they did before that.

It's 100% hypocrisy from people.

They say they software's prices are too high, but instead of not buying the overpriced products, they pirate them.

They also say that piracy doesn't hurt anyone, because nothing is stolen, which is wrong: in economics, an item's value is not dependent on its physical form. An idea has value, and can be stolen, decreasing its value.

In the same line of logic, people are not free to enter Tobias' house to sleep. He has a monopoly over his house. Perhaps we also need legislation that allows people to exercise their freedom to sleep in any house they want.

I think it gets fuzzy if they ALL lock down repairs. Now they all have a shared monopoly on repairs.

And that is their preferred way of doing things, making it so you have to buy special tools (if you can even get them) to work with different parts, especially the computers.

What. What about (amongst many other things) the indefinite copyright from the Copyright Term Extension Act? Sure, everything's fine from the point of view of megacorporations. Is everything fine from the point of view of the society at large? And don't go saying that because that sort of resembles the free market, it means it is great for society because I, for one, do not subscribe to that lie.

You say this:

And I retort that it doesn't matter what I buy. I am in a minority. I (and all members of my minority) can boycott every piece of bad (from my point of view) software and hardware in existence and it won't make any difference at all in the overall makeup of the market. Free market is like a pure democracy in this respect: tyranny of the majority over the minority.

I love this last bit. Every time I (and others) complain about M$, I am told that I am not an average user, and therefore my comments don't matter. This is the reality.

I don't believe that it hurts anyone (see above minority irrelevance argument), but because you (and others) believe that, my current explanation for my piracy is that I want the manufacturers of things I pirate to fail and go out of business. Awhile ago I (and thousands of others) seeded some StarCraft 2, and I'm happy to report that that made the game fail to thrive and the company to go under.

You are arguing against the length of copyright, not against the idea of copyright then. Indeed, 100+ years for copyright is not good. But the concept of copyright is not flawed.

If more people did it though, you would become the majority.

It's not a matter of belief. It's a fact: an item has value independently of its physical form. If you say "I don't believe that it hurts anyone", you are simply deluding yourself, or you are a hypocrite, or you didn't think about it that much.

Saying "my current explanation for my piracy" means that your explanation of your piracy varies from time to time. Which, in reality, it simply means you are making up a different excuse each time, depending on what is happening in the market.

No matter what excuse you make, the fact is you are doing piracy, i.e. you steal value.

I believe that supporting piracy only helps the companies you pirate from.

True boycott means you refuse to even mention their products in any circumstance. If you're really good at it, you'll even forget their product exists.

If you're a true mastermind, you'll develop your own competitive product and still not remember where you got your inspiration from.

I've had several versions of [ ] from [ ], and while successive versions sucked less, they all pretty much sucked big time. Now I use Linux!

Those two things are not that separable. Why should copyright be temporary? The reasons I've seen for temporary copyright is that cultural growth is fueled by sharing: copyright length is set that the original creator is rewarded, but the cultural growth is not stifled unduly. From the point of view of the user (consumer in the more general sense) any non-zero length of copyright, and thus the very idea of copyright, is detrimental.

"If the problem didn't exist, then you wouldn't have a problem." Don't just assume away my very assumptions and use that as the argument. The assumption is that I am in a minority small enough that no matter what we do, the change in our spending will be lost in the noise of the profit fluctuations of a company, making it unable (even in principle) to satisfy our needs.

That is true, but this value is negligible for digital copies of software. Maybe it hurts others, but they certainly don't notice it.

E.g. I might pirate something in complete secret, and never brag about it to anyone... I might use this thing in complete secrecy: nobody would ever know whether or not I had it without paying for it except me. I wouldn't even change my shopping habits to reflect that I now have this thing. I might even buy it legitimately, to screw the system. Have I hurt anyone?

What if I do start bragging about it? Perhaps it'll serve as an advertisement. What if I start using it publically (e.g. use the thing's file format). Perhaps that'll entrench the company's market. Have I hurt anyone? Perhaps I even helped them more than I hurt. It is not at all apparent which way that equation leads.

I for one hope it hurts them more, the bastards.

Opinions change from time to time given new evidence, as do reasons for doing things. The only opinions that don't change, are those of idiots.

I'm not arguing against copyright per se, and I'm not saying it needs to be rethought so I can legally leech warez.

Copyright is a fairly new concept, invented around the time mass-copying of works (in various art forms) became feasible. Before that, copying was pretty much a non-issue; it involved almost as much manual labor almost as making the original work in the first place. But with the invention of mass media, a peculiar situation arose: on the one hand, copying became cheaper than recreating, on the other hand, copying still required expensive equipment (as did producing copyable art, e.g. recording music in a studio) and some kind of distribution network. Entire industries were built to support this, and they still exist; copyright was invented so that a market economy could distribute profit among artists and distributors. Since the largest expense in creating copies was the copying itself, it was only natural for distributors to take the lead (and the largest chunk of the profit).
The current situation, however, is different: Copying and distributing is practically free, and producing often involves nothing but some affordable stock hardware - even a decent enough music production system can be built for under $5,000. In such a situation, focusing on the copying part (rather than the creation) seems a bit silly, and the fact that copyright exists artificially limits artistic possibilities and a free exchange and amalgamation of ideas (or, in the case of software, innovation: combining existing chunks of code into something new, a common thing in the FOSS world, is usually impossible with closed-source commercial software - both because you don't get the source code, and because you're not allowed to reuse any code by copying and modifying it).

I'm not sure what a different model could be; in any case, it should provide artists (and other creators of copyrightable work) with a decent income, and that income should somehow relate to the act of bringing works of art into existence, not on the act of copying old things. As a musician, I'd much prefer being paid for creating music, here and now, rather than for having created music in the past which for some reason became popular (if only because someone decided to push it as the next big thing).

If there was no copyright, the only creations would come from individuals who would be willing to work for free. Businesses that rely on copyright would cease to exist, along with the innovations they bring.

You should accept the situation, because that's how democracy works. Suppose you wanted to go out completely naked; most people wouldn't accept that. Yes, you will be forced to be dressed, but the majority of the people want that, and you should accept that.

No, it's not negligible. Suppose you write a very nice video game and you publish it without any form of protection. Then no one buys it, instead they all pirate it. You can't say this value is negligible, is it? you would have expenses that you couldn't pay because no one bought your game.

It's not a matter of doing piracy publicly or not. From the moment you enjoy something, you give value to something. This value is not rewarded to the people that created the product you enjoy.

True.

Not true.

It's not. It takes a lot of energy to run a computer.

Agreed. The copying cost is not important any more. But there is still the issue of compensating the creators for their work.

Can you provide a way to secure that the original creators will be compensated for their work, and also make software free and that their competitors will not steal their ideas?

Personally, I cannot find such a way. It's either copyright or copyleft. There is no middle ground: if you let the source code out there, pretty soon it will fall in the hands of your competitors.

I think that closed source software isn't really a problem. If there is something that is closed source, you can write an open source software that does the same thing. The only drawback is that it takes effort to do what essentially others have also did - but it's a tradeoff I can live with, because competition promotes innovation.

I don't think this is true.

I pity the fool who has to labor only to get money.

That's simply not true. There are lots of game companies that have released games without protection, and sales have not suffered AFAIK (hard to tell of course, since you can never know how many sales you'd get otherwise).

Copy protection rarely stops piracy for more than a few days, so if copy protection was the only thing keeping people from piracy, there would not be a game industry.

It goes well beyond that, lots of people have quit buying otherwise valuable games and programs because of DRM.

http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/603194/854393#target

Conversely, of course, democracy is not a dictatorship by the majority, where minorities should just shut up and submit. A disturbing number of people do seem to think that this is what it should be though.

There is a way. It's where everyone works together for the common good rather than their own short-term interests. In practical terms, that would mean that it doesn't matter whether your source code falls into the hands of your competitors, because they will acknowledge your contribution and compensate you for it.
Back in reality this doesn't work so well, at least not on a large scale where corporate interests are concerned, but I think you could argue that this is not fixed and unchangeable behaviour, but rather part of our culture that could change in the future. Not saying it will, of course.

I never said otherwise. That's why I said "rethink", not "abolish".

Apart from the fact that ideas cannot be stolen (the closest thing would be using someone else's idea and claiming that it was yours); yes, there are a few ways I can think of.

First of all, if we stop thinking of ideas as 'things' you can 'own', competitors stealing ideas will be a non-issue; the new issue, then, is how do we compensate people who come up with ideas for their efforts? A few ideas (none of which are mine, BTW), have been around for quite a while:

• society funding (read: tax money)

• donations and goodwill

• outright communism / socialism (the real kind, not the dictatorship-in-embarrassing-disguise kind we've had in recent history)

I'm not too confident in either, but then, I'd like any of these better than the current solution.

Why not? Reality is proving you wrong. Numerous software packages are dual-licensed or use some other kind of hybrid model halfway between open-source and closed-source; the custom-built software world uses all sorts of copyright constructs anywhere between "vendor retains all rights" and full copyright transfer; larger systems are often built from both open-source and closed-source commercial components. Mixed open-source / closed-source systems are the pragmatic norm.

Also, open-source licenses have been shown to hold up in court; just because you release source code doesn't mean you lose all power over it. Microsoft has released parts of the .NET framework's source code, yet if you use it to build anything meaningful, expect a bunch of bloodthirsty lawyers on your tail.

It's not the only drawback. You can't source-code-audit closed-source software; you can't learn from it to produce even better code; you can't port it to a binary-incompatible platform; when encountering a bug, you cannot analyse it to either find a reliable workaround or develop a fix; you cannot easily reuse parts to assemble them into something new; coding style and the general state of a codebase can tell a lot about the overall quality and reliability of a piece of software.

Competition often fuels innovation, but it can also kill innovation: in the free market sense, competition stimulates profitability, not usefulness per se.

And don't forget that there is an enormous amount of competition in the FOSS world. People aren't competing for money, but they are competing for an audience, because without one, it's almost impossible to build a useful, mature product (plus, there's the e-penis that wants to be satisfied).

People, socialism doesn't work. Will never work. Humans are not ants.

It would be a lot better if we all understood that and formed our societies and laws to account for that.

FOSS is nice, but it would not exist if there was no commercial software.

There would be no iPhone, no iOS and no cellphone "revolution" if commercial software was not possible.

The company I work for would not be able to sustain its business if all software had to be FOSS.

If that happened, I would be out of a job.

I wouldn't be able to buy a car.

Then you would be out of job.

You wouldn't be able to buy food.

Then other people would be out of job.

Dreaming of an ideal world is nice, but it's also nice to have our feet on the ground, once in a while.

The whole deal with copyrighted software is to allow the owners to sit on their butts and let the money roll in. Without copyright, they might have to <gasp> innovate to stay ahead of their competitors!

Apparently, the way most of the so-called 'primitive' societies organize themselves resembles socialism à la Marx (minus the class ideology); many of them don't even have a real concept of personal property. Cooperative societies are the norm, not the exception.

So let me get this straight; your argument is:

• there hasn't been a successful large-scale attempt at socialism in recent history

• ergo socialism doesn't work

• ergo the status quo is the only possible option

Software used to be open source long before people invented the very concept of closed-source software. What makes you think people would stop writing software just because nobody pays them? Sure, a whole bunch of people would, but every single person with such a mentality I've ever dealt with writes lousy software anyway.

Do you seriously believe that the only way for mankind to survive is to sell each other things, despite the fact that for over 90% of our species' existence, we have done just fine without doing so? Do you really believe that even though the concept of software itself is probably less than a century old, and the first computers of any practical use at all were built less than 70 years ago, closed-source software is a requirement for keeping us all fed? Hey, even the concept of employment is just about three centuries old, less than 1% of the history of homo sapiens sapiens.

And on a more practical notice: If all software were FOSS, I'd still have a job. I build custom software; clients pay for it not because we're cheaper than shrink-wrap, but because no shrink-wrap solutions exist that meet the clients' needs. We use FOSS tools and building blocks, not because they're cheaper, but because they're better suited for the task (and occasionally, they are not, and we use closed-source components instead, but this is rare). People pay me for bringing the software they need into existence, not for allowing them to copy my ideas.

Really, the primitive societies don't really have a concept of personal property because anything they have can be made from raw materials in less than an hour. What price stealing an arrow if you can just make one?

People, capitalism doesn't work. Will never work. Humans are not capuchin monkeys^[1]. It would be a lot better if we all understood that and formed our societies and laws to account for that.

See what I did there? :p

But nar, I'm just kidding. Everyone knows that capitalism is the lifeblood of humanity. No one could possibly survive in a socialist state.

Here in Sweden, a lot of people get money from the state for various reasons.
There's so much work involved in making sure these people are allowed to get the money they apply for that I think it may actually be cheaper if we simply gave out a monthly sum to every citizen.

No bureaucracy, it's just a matter of distribution. The people who previously had to spend many hours monthly to fight for their right to get their money now has more free time to do something productive. And the politicians has a whole field of politics now reduced to the single question, how much should everyone get every month?

I think you need to go back and think about the maths a bit

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_statsbudget

If we divide all the income from taxes etc and divide it to all people equally, there is about 8800 SEK per person/month. Not enough to live on for those that need it. And we could not divide everything anyway, maybe half of it - tops.

Did you miscalculate by a factor of 10?
Income 853.800.000.000
Population 9 428 054
Per capita 90559

No. That's 7500 SEK per month.

The maths part is fine. Instead of paying a base income to only those who need it (and discouraging any efforts of picking up a low-income job), give everyone the guaranteed base income, and raise income taxes to compensate.

Simplified example. Lets assume:

• 10% of the population do not have any income at all

• 80% of the population have an average income, 10,000 GP (gold pieces) per year

• 10% of the population make ten times the average, 100k GP / yr

• To sustain a minimal lifestyle, a person needs about 5,000 GP per year

• We have a population of 1000

This means that the total amount of taxable income is 800 * 10k + 100 * 100k = 18 million GP. If we assume that the first 5000 GP (the minimum income) aren't taxed, we get 800 * 5k + 100 * 95k = 13.5 million GP.
The 10% population requires 100 * 5000 = 500k GP; this means we need a 3.7% flat income tax to be able to pay for this. The income situation is now:

• 10% of the population get 5000 GP from the state

• 80% of the population make 10k GP, paying 3.7% of 5000 in taxes, leaving them with 9815 GP

• 10% make 100k GP and pay 3.7% of 95000 in taxes, leaving them with 96,485 GP

Now let's assume the state pays 5000 GP to everyone: this will cost 1000 * 5k = 5 million GP. We can remove the 5000 tax-free GP rule (because the base income comes from the state), so we need a 27.8% tax rate on everything to finance this. The individual situations are now:

• 10% of the population gets 5000 GP from the state

• 80% of the population make 10k GP, paying 27.8% of 10k GP in taxes, leaving them with 7220 + 5000 = 12220 GP

• 10% make 100k, paying 27.8% of 100k GP in taxes, leaving them with 72,200 + 5000 = 77,200 GP

Note that the difference between both models in the richest segment can be compensated for to end up with more or less the same sums, by using different tax rates for higher and lower incomes (in a real country, there is such a difference already, but it works in the other direction, so a flat tax might actually just work). The point is that even though taxes are higher in the second example, most individual incomes are the same or higher.

It's still practically impossible though, because proposing a flat tax rate of, say, 60%, would amount to political suicide. The problem is not the maths, but the psychology. "We pay you $1500 each month, but we'll take away more than half your salary" just doesn't sound acceptable, even if you might end up with more money than you have now.

Your simplified example is faulty, because the assumptions are wrong (I also oppose it on an ethical plane, but that's a different point).

In Sweden at least, about 47% of the population does not have an income (under 18, over 65 or unemployed).

We still give out a total of 5000k. If we assume that 1/8 of the people with an income earns 10x as much as the rest (which I think is WILDLY incorrect, but I can't find any statistics on that), we get 66*100k + 464*10k = 11240k, resulting in about 44.5% taxes.
Lower segment: 5k (minimum)
Middle segment: 10.55k
Upper segment: 60.5k
Why is the upper segment being forced into paying for everyone? What's stopping them from simply leaving to a country where they don't have to feed the rest of the population?
And this is before other taxes - roads, schools, medicine, pensions etc.

Why is this better than figuring out who actually needs money, and give them what they need - assuming that they fill certain conditions (pensioners have worked their entire lives, kids go to school so they can be productive in the future, unemployed people try to get a job etc).

EDIT:
And this is before taking into account the number of people that would quit their jobs, or at least work less (further increasing the size of the unproductive lower segment).

TL;DR:
It's a horrible idea that would ruin any society that even thinks about implementing it.

Exactly. Over time, social programs are a downward spiral that cause a large number of people to do the least amount of work for the most personal gain. Since the gain is at other people's expense, it eventually crumbles.

The only thing the government should do is provide fundamental services in areas where it is more practical or efficient than the private sector. Most social programs ought to be paid for by non-profit organizations funded by volunteer money.

From a practical, real world perspective, capitalism has its problems, but socialism is far, far worse. At least with capitalism, if you want to cheat the system you actually have to build up a monopoly and have some business skills. With socialism all you have to do is sit at home and say you cannot work, and the government just gives you everything you need.

Capitalism with some social programs is a good mix, but unfortunately once the gravy train starts passing by eventually everybody starts jumping on board.

The assumptions are deliberately simple. I also stated that by modifying income-dependent tax rates, it is possible to have the resulting incomes roughly match the current situation. And this calculation can be made for any given society, provided a social security system is possible at all. The difference, then, lies in the edge cases; most importantly, the transition between welfare receivers and the working population. In most social security systems, if you have a small income (less than welfare level), payments you receive from the state are reduced so that you end up with the same amount you would have if you didn't have an income - so for example, suppose the welfare level would be $1000 / month, and I'd be offered a job that paid 500; my choices would then be between working for 1000 dollars, or not working for the same 1000 dollars. If, however, you give everyone the basic 1000 dollars, and tax the rest, I'd still see some revenue from the work - not the full 500 dollars, but maybe 250.

That's not socialism. Socialism and government are mutually exclusive. If you don't agree, substitute 'socialism' for 'anarchy' - but then other incorrect associations are going to pop up, so there's kind of an impasse there: everytime someone comes up with a nice catchy word for a society where people voluntarily cooperate, someone else takes the word, institutionalizes it, and then uses it as an ideological excuse for yet another oppressive, greed-driven system. And saying that capitalism has 'its problems' is kind of an understatement.

You can argue about the semantics, but the meaning of my post is clear.

If you're allowed to state what your abilities are, naturally every little hangnail or bit of tiredness will "reduce your ability", and if Mr. Rich has a 40 inch TV then you need one too.

Socialism is based on some weird principle that people would act for the benefit of the collective. This is obviously not the case, nor will it ever be. People are by their very nature selfish. We can be "altruistic" when it will probably benefit us later. Initially this was controlled by reputation, but then it evolved trade and by extension - money. It's a way to detect and limit cheating in a collective, reducing the risk we take when we trust someone (or rather, removing the risk and trust issue altogether).

Giving people this resource (trust) without any cheat-detection will fail.

Long ago, in a society, where being retarded was a norm, a retard said: "All people are by their very nature retards and this will never change."
Every retard seemed to agree.

Do you have any examples of truly altruistic societies? I sure don't know of any, past or present.

Well, "truly altruistic society" is probably too general a term, as is your statement about "nature". So no, I don't know any "truly altruistic society".
Humans will never be angels. But, do you know any "truly selfish society"? They will probably not be pure wolves either.
I think it's just no use to talk using these generalisations or making any oversimplifying general statements about human nature. My point was that you're never able to see human nature in a "pure" form, because humans always seem to live in societies, which obviously influence the way they "are".
But exactly this fact, that we have lived in "societies" or groups for ages, which is quite proven, does at least show that we are quite social after all.

However, it seems to be a different thing with conflicts between groups. But, whatever. Just don't generalise things as you see them, please, especially as the last 250 years or so of industrialisation/society as we know it are quite short compared... you know.

As to your explanation of money:

Ever heard about credits? I have heard, they are even connected with a financial crisis...
But ...yes, I see: There's still too much trust involved! We need more money instead!

I'm not saying everyone is 100% selfish. Just that no functioning person is truly altruistic.

Obviously you are trying very hard to misunderstand me.

First there were "favors" (spare food, tools, living space). Individuals who did not return favors ("cheats"), did not get further favors. This behavior exists in both humans and animals.

Then people realized that they could swap spare "favors" for favors they need, thus limiting the risk and trust required. This is a form of cheat protection. Then money was invented, mostly as a convenience - money being a form of "delayed favor" (which also had several other benefits - ease of transport being the main one).

I wasn't placing any value on the concept of money, nor do I say we need more or less of it. Just that it's a logical step for societies. I DO think it's a pretty neat concept, but that's besides the point.

The problem is that while most people are good in that they wouldn't rip off their friends and family, they have no problems taking advantage of a government endorsed social program because in their opinion somebody outside their social circle is paying for it.

I think it's related to the problem of "everyone else does it". I am extremely bothered by the "everyone else does it" mentality in the people who surround me

Everything from smoking and drug use to ripping off the government, businesses and, as you put it, people outside of their social circle.

My buddy told me that when he was in South Korea things were totally different. People respected other people. The stories he told seemed so bizarre, like losing a wallet and someone hunting you down and returning it to you with the cash still in it

There are definitely cultural differences among different countries, but I wouldn't make a sweeping generalization based on one person's story.

I know many people here who would return a wallet with cash, and I also know people who wouldn't. But a person who might return a wallet may not mention anything when a cashier accidentally forgets to scan some item they are purchasing. (Yet, they might wait in line for an hour at a service desk to complain if they were overcharged by a penny...)

I think we have to imagine communities exchanging their spare-things first and then trading, not single individuals. I think your concept of trust->money is not convincing.

You can also turn it the other way round easily: As money became so crucial, trust declined, because everyone thinks everyone else is just after his money. Seems perfectly logical to me and in accordance with everyday experience.

And then, there's credits (credit = "believe") and everything. This is, in a way, against your assumptions.

But yes, money is a very neat invention, we certainly agree on that.

Every system of governance seems to lead to tyranny. The solution seems to be to educate people to "reject" simplistic and non-factual/linguistic notions such as "isness", the fallacy of aristotelian logic.
Primed to the E.
Mystics throughout human history have suggested that the fact we are all collectively the universe operating, sometimes called gOd/VALIS, and that we are not excusively these material forms (though I hesitate to even contemplate existance without the synergistic interplay of all of the components operating simulatenously).
I am the Walrus.
When we begin to appreciate these things maybe we will seem to begin to understand the proposition, "there is nothing wrong with the world, we are just having a strange conversation", and dialectics will flourish as an artform.
Then rather than obsessing about the tickets, and representations of wealth and resources, maybe we will be able to unlock its' fuller potential to make stuff happen, and spread happiness and greater liberation from the material condition, that we share and all experience.
At least that is what my brain seems to tell me.

That's actually what happened to me some weeks ago in Germany: I lost my wallet while riding my bicycle, and after I arrived at my flat, only after about five minutes, somebody was at the door and gave me my wallet. However, it might be interesting to notice that I lost my wallet about 10 cycling minutes away from my flat, so this guy took 10 minutes to come to give me my wallet.

Ah, so if I understand your point correctly (considering your previous posts as well), you see this as an argument that people are "less strict" when exploiting something like a company or the government, than when it comes to exploit a single person.
I'd agree with you on that point, however, I think this largely depends on the behaviour that you observe in others: For example, if you see that everybody else steals stuff at the supermarket, you might have less scruples to steal something yourself. If it is generally accepted by your society to exploit the state, there is a high chance exactly this will happen. (Think Greece!)

So what can one do about it? As a single person, probably not very much.
So I guess most countries will have to stick to their established systems, unless public attitude changes. One shouldn't think that because a system works well in one country, it has to be applicable to another country. (Example: Health care in Europe vs. health care in the US.) That needs a lot of preparation, if it can be successful at all.

I'm guilty of taking advantage of mistakes made by others, both government, corporate and individual alike. Face to face with a cashier I'll point it out, but I've had extra items shipped to my doorstep, multiple credits to my card when only one charge was made, and other small things. However, I've also been screwed over by corporations, so that makes me feel less guilt about it.

I do know it's frowned upon by most, but perspective boils down to the attitude of the people who surround you. Given that I do believe in a sort of Karmic force operating through the universe, it would make sense for me to report such mistakes, but the people who surround me would find it so bizarre.

Of course; there is still crime in South Korea.

Last summer my wife and I were going for a walk and we found someone's wallet with $50 in it. We used the address on the driver's license to return it, cash and all. It all depends on who finds the lost item...

Alright, perhaps my negative assumptions about people finding wallets are unfounded.

It's a good thing.

Someone paid 140€ to my bank account, apparently writing the wrong account number when paying something (it said "EVO water filters" in the reference field). I didn't react to it since I assumed he'd notice the mistake and have the bank re-transfer it. But now it fell out of the 3 months of logs my online banking keeps and I have a hard time even looking it up but still feel bad about having those 140€... :/

I don't want to go back to live my life as a tribe member in Amazon. Primitive economies don't scale.

No, my argument is:

• there hasn't been a successful large-scale attempt at socialism

• socialism doesn't work

• capitalism has its problems too

• let's improve capitalism to work for everyone

  
  
  Quote:

  Software used to be open source long before people invented the very concept of closed-source software.

  But not all software was open source. There was also commercial software.

  
  
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  What makes you think people would stop writing software just because nobody pays them?

  Would you spend 10 hours of your day working hard for free?

  
  
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  Do you seriously believe that the only way for mankind to survive is to sell each other things, despite the fact that for over 90% of our species' existence, we have done just fine without doing so?

  Markets exist for at least 5,000 years. The ancient Sumerians had trade with neighboring nations. Mankind's huge progress came largely from trade.

  
  
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  Do you really believe that even though the concept of software itself is probably less than a century old, and the first computers of any practical use at all were built less than 70 years ago, closed-source software is a requirement for keeping us all fed?

  Being able to be compensated for your work in order to be fed is a requirement for everything, not just software.

  
  
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  Hey, even the concept of employment is just about three centuries old, less than 1% of the history of homo sapiens sapiens.

  Wrong. Slaves were employees too. They worked for their owners.

  
  
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  If all software were FOSS, I'd still have a job. I build custom software; clients pay for it not because we're cheaper than shrink-wrap, but because no shrink-wrap solutions exist that meet the clients' needs. We use FOSS tools and building blocks, not because they're cheaper, but because they're better suited for the task (and occasionally, they are not, and we use closed-source components instead, but this is rare). People pay me for bringing the software they need into existence, not for allowing them to copy my ideas.

  Ok then. Can you send me your list of clients and your software sources? I can believe I can do better than you, and my company would need a few good projects right now.

  
  
  Trezker said:

  Here in Sweden

  Sweden has sociodemocracy, not socialism.

  
  
  Tobias Dammers said:

  The maths part is fine. Instead of paying a base income to only those who need it (and discouraging any efforts of picking up a low-income job), give everyone the guaranteed base income, and raise income taxes to compensate.

  Your lack of knowledge of economics is amazing, to say the least. Money represents labor, you know? it's not something that you print it. Money represents the value of products and services available for consumption. Giving everyone a base income will soon turn money into worthless paper. The value that has been created worldwide comes from work. Without working, there is no value. If people get a base income as you suggest, they will stop producing, and then there would be no value in anything, in the long run.

  
  
  Matthew Leverton said:

  and the government just gives you everything you need.

  Actually, the government gives you almost nothing. In the USSR, people had to share their homes with 10 other families, eat meat once in 6 months, use water and electricity a few hours a day, etc. The poorness of those people is still visible, if you visit ex-soviet countries.

The USSR wasn't a truly socialist nation, it was a dictatorial state covered by socialism.

But it started as one. And then some people thought they were more important than others, and the revolution went the way of the dodo (bird).

Same thing happened in Cuba and North Korea.

Under capitalism, man exploits man.
Under communism, it's exactly the opposite.

But socialism wasn't the cause of the poverty, a dictatorship was. This means the resources weren't divided properly like in real socialism.

You do have a point that there hasn't been a single large-scale socialistic society yet, due to the selfish nature of man.

Imagine a world where basic discoveries like fire and cutting tools required an ongoing payment plan and could only be used in ways authorized by the original discoverer...

People make advancements because it betters their lives. You don't need to pay somebody to do that. The betterment is reward enough.

/me gets antsy in anticipation of Bob's appearance.

Bob would point out that a snake eating his own tail won't live long.

First of all, USSR started as socialism. When there was the revolution in October 1917, it was what Marx described, i.e. the workers revolting and getting the power, nationalizing banks etc. You can read it all here.

Secondly, socialism is dictatorship: there is no concept of personal property in it. All means of production are owned by the people. You can also read it here.

Instead of wishing for these unrealistic political systems, why don't we all wish for something simpler: capitalism, free market and high taxation on the rich? USA, in its best years, had 92% max tax rates on the wealthy. Prosperity in USA came from taxing the rich and keeping the jobs in the USA. Now, rich pay minimum taxes and most jobs are exported.

The same thing happened in other prosperous nations: Sweden, for example, as a 55% income tax rate as highest income tax rate.

Fire and cutting tools are not the same as the software, movies, video games and songs.

EDIT: fixed the USA tax rate history link.

That link doesn't work for me, but I do remember my withholding going from 25% down to 20% during the beginning of the most prosperous economy in my memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics#Impact

Nope that's communism. A dictatorship can occur in all governments, just take a look at the current 2 party system in the USA handing power back and forth every 4-8 years!

Fixed it.

Didn't you read the wikipedia article I posted?

I thought a dictatorship was run by a... (wait for it) dictator. A tyrant with absolute power who dictates to the people what is or is not allowed/required.

1. If it's a dictatorship, then who's dictating? And if someone is, how is it still socialism (where everyone rules equally)?
2. Absence of personal property is not the definition of a dictatorship.
3. Denying people of personal property is not the same as having a society where the entire concept doesn't exist.

As I read in Wikipedia about value, I found out that the view advanced by axilmar (money==value depends on labour) is Marxist. And, to my surprise, I found this article:

Albert Einstein - Why Socialism?

Marx isn't the only one who made this observation. Calling it Marxist is like saying that addition is Gödelian.

The Einstein essay is good reading though - as usual, he pretty much nailed it, but like most visionaries, he was a tad bit too hopeful (expecting actual Socialism to be just around the corner, in 1949...).

More good reading: Erich Fromm's work, especially 'To Have Or To Be' (which is also one of his more digestible books) explains a lot.

If it helps get the thread back on track, I have 100% definitive proof that Windows is better than Linux.

I was running linux but due to youtube only showing a black screen on videos, switched back to windows, and Minecraft got a 15fps boost and is now playable.

In case of the USSR, the dictator was the CPSU.

Everyone ruling equally is one of the types of socialism. There are other types (as per the wikipedia article).

Forcing everyone to not have personal property is a form of dictatorship.

Now, if a party was elected with over 50% votes, and this party wanted to bring absence of personal property, then it would be democracy (and it also would mean I would move to another country).

But if the entire concept existed before and now it does not, then people would be denied of personal property.

It is an Economics principle: value is produced through labor. It was Marx who first put this principle in context.

I agree with that essay. Einstein highlights what is wrong with capitalism. He tells us what needs to be fixed, which is what I said in previous post: capitalism needs to be fixed so as that we can all benefit from it. Which means, higher taxes, bigger salaries, better distribution of wealth.

EDIT:

I am still waiting for Tobias to share his company's project with us, so we can all benefit from it.

A dictator is one person, not a committee. And the USSR was effectively run by the nomenklatura anyway. The US is getting to be like that, especially what with "energy czars" and other foolishness.

[EDIT]

I'm not sure what the difference between a dictator and a king is then, but probably the king has the population believing he has the right to rule because ghod says so, a dictator just uses raw power to maintain his position.

The difference between a king and a dictator is that all kings are close relatives.

People still use Linux? That is so 1997.

A king doesn't necessarily have full power (unlike a dictator). He may even have no power at all, being just a ceremonial figure (like Japan's Emperor). In most (all?) modern European monarchies the King has very low power, mostly just symbolic.

Yes, in the same way that forcing everyone to give up a percentage of their income is a form of dictatorship.

i got 'cher dick tater right here

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It seems to me that we're talking about the solution and not the problem. Socialism, Communism, Capitalism, etc are all attempts to solve a problem of scarcity. Ideally, there should be an abundance of the things we need (food, water, shelter, energy, safety). Until this problem is fixed then all attempts at a social structure is still going to be a mess, regardless of the ideals.

Exactly.

In my ideal world, all ideas (information) should free for consumption and free to use. The effort required to take on a task of creating new ideas should be rewarded by ______. I don't know what that is, yet, but it shouldn't be something that a person needs to survive. Unfortunately, Humans™ are most strongly motivated when it supports their survival.

Maybe NeoHumans can transcend this weakness.

@Arther Kalliokoski:

Did you have compositing on? If so, turn it off, and then start minecraft.

• I didn't say anything about forcing

• Forcing people to pursue personal property is just as restrictive as forcing them to abstain from doing so

• Neither of these qualifies as a dictatorship per se; the enforcement can be established in perfectly non-dictatorship-like situations - peer pressure, culture, outside circumstances, etc.

• Majority vote is not the same as democracy. People buy into this fallacy all the time, but democracy is about having the people (all of them!) rule a country. For this to work, compromises have to be made, and the participation of every individual needs to be ensured (or at least, the right to freely participate). Voting and elections are just one way of achieving this, and a pretty weak one at that. Without public discussion, a democratic culture, free education, protection of minorities, independent media, free speech, a guaranteed fulfilment of existential needs, and counter-measures against individuals who abuse their democratic freedoms, a democracy cannot exist in any meaningful way. Again, majority vote alone merely enforces the power of a consenting majority and excludes the remaining minorities from any participation.

There is an abundance. There's this famous figure that says the richest 20% of the world's population consume 80% of the available resources; which means that, theoretically speaking, if we could get rid of those 20% (which, unfortunately, includes me), we could easily quadruple the resource usage of the rest and still have plenty to spare. It's not a problem of scarcity. It's mostly a problem of distribution - but not one that is easy to solve. Capitalism solves the problem of average scarcity, at least as long as the required overall growth is sustainable; but it fails horribly at solving the distribution problem - as Einstein observes nicely, its core mechanisms have a tendency to bundle capital (and thus resources) in the hands of the lucky few.

I heard a rumor that if you have:

1. indoor plumbing

2. electricity

3. refrigerator

then you are in the top richest 20% in the world.

But if the rotorooter van is parked outside someones house then its obvious their plumbing is bad yet they can fix it?

That's not going to happen, so we should focus on increasing the total amount of resources world-wide (cheap, clean energy would be a good first step).

A percentage of income is not the same as absolutely no property. In the cause of giving up a percentage of your income, your basic rights are not taken away: they didn't take ALL your income.

Personally, I talked about the solution: raise taxes on the rich, bring back jobs.

It's funny that you say that, because these things are established through majority vote.

There is not.

Quadrupling the source usage of the rest will do nothing to raise those people's standard of living to acceptable levels.

According to wikipedia, the poverty line is $1 per day.

If you quadruple that, it's $4 per day.

According to wikipedia, the average income in America is $45000 per year.

The average dollars per day for an American is 45000 / 365 = $123.

So, in order to raise the standard of living of that 80% of the population to the 1/10 of the average American, i.e. to $12, you need to raise the income of those poor people from $1 to $12, i.e. 12 times, not 4.

The solution is easy, and it has been applied in the past in America. It was those prosperous times that people with more than $250k income payed 92% tax, and all jobs were in America.

Tobias Dammers, will you give us your project? I am still waiting. You said you wouldn't mind giving your work away for free.

So far as Congress' ability to prey on the rich, we must keep in mind that rich people didn't become rich by being stupid.^[1]

There you go. It's quite silly of you to take my word out of context like that though.

How? Honestly - how does a majority vote establish a public discussion? You've got it backwards. Ideally, the voting process merely confirms the preceding discussion (and resulting consensus or compromise). "War voting" is sometimes unavoidable, but a democracy that does it all the time ceases to be one.

And all this is meaningless because you're using money, a concept that doesn't have any intrinsic value at all. People don't need money; they need food, shelter, healthcare, and things to make their lives meaningful and enjoyable. You don't need twelve times the resources and workforce to raise everyone's living standard to 'acceptable'; the extreme kind of wastefulness we're practicing now is only necessary if you take the current state of things for granted.

1) The right to keep personal property is not the right to keep some of your personal property.
2) Overriding someone's right for another right/goal is exactly that, whether you override it 100% or just 55%.
And most importantly:
3) The right to personal property is as arbitrary as any human right - each group of people / country defines their own set of what constitutes human rights according to what they feel a human is entitled to. Some countries feel that there is a right to bear arms, some do not. The United Nations proposed that internet access should be a human right, some would find that bizarre.
If the people of one country collectively decide that the right to personal property is not really a human right at all, or that they believe that it is completely unimportant, especially compared to rights to food/shelter/survival (which they believe will be upheld thanks to a communal lifestyle where everyone receives according to their need), then by abolishing personal property they are not denying anyone of their rights as those rights do not even exist.

Thank you. Which project of these is your company's project? I was interested in that specific project of your company.

In most, if not all, democracies around the globe, laws to help minorities are voted in parliaments using the 50% vote law.

Money itself doesn't have value, but it represents value.

And all these things require money.

I agree. The standard of living for the poor could be raised. That's why I want the rich to be taxed more.

However, there should be a balance between sharing and not sharing. Some resources must be shared, some must not be shared. The ultimate goal is the prosperity of mankind, and for this to happen, sometimes sharing resources is good, and sometimes is bad, because it makes people lazy or unmotivated to do their best.

To be fair, money is not an intrinsic requirement for food, shelter, healthcare etc. Money could not exist without the need to trade for food and shelter, but the opposite is not true.

But one could argue that food and shelter = value, and money is an abstraction of value.