Yes, Ankh, I am arguing the way things should be, not the way things are, a simple fact which seems to have escaped Spoofe and Sam repeatedly. No offense, guys, but it seems, for all intents and purposes on my side of the issue, to be true.
Look, guys, no matter what I say you’re going to remain convinced that I’m wrong. No matter what you say I’m going to remain convinced you’re not understanding me correctly, either at my fault for lack of clarity or yours for willfull misinterpretation. I say fuck it. Not like what I think is right and should be the law will ever come about, and not like anything you say will ever change my views.
If we keep arguing in this manner, my attempting to clarify and reclarify my position (one that KEEPS getting wrong is that I encourage the copying and disbursement of materials to persons who have not paid for them) will just get exponentially longer, while you guys get more exponentially frustrated because “I’m not getting it”. I’m dropping the subject until I become supreme commander of the world or something illustrious like that.
Sam, my claim to be exponentially more intelligent than you was, I had thought, obviously not a literal claim. I don’t think you’re a rapist either in case you were wondering.
The whole system breaks down at some point anyway because it is not built on a solid foundation of fairness, justice and equality. A house built on sand…
Homer, I not only told you the way the laws are, but why it is RIGHT that they are that way. Feel free to refute any of the points I made regarding the moral and practical benefits we gain from intellectual copyright laws.
It is true that a buyer owns what he buys, and therefore is ethically entitled to all rights with respect to what he has bought. However, when you buy a license to use software on a single machine, that is all you have bought. You own nothing more than what is sold to you. You have no rights with respect to anything you do not own. If you don’t like the terms of the sales contract, then don’t buy the license.
The point I think Homer is making (besides licences are immoral) is that we should be allowed one licence per user (or household or however meets your opinion).
Microsoft licences its software (I gather since this is the only thing pretty much everybody agrees on) to one machine.
Can they do this? Yes.
Should they do this? No, in my opinion. It is driven by greed.
What can we do about it? Not much. Not buy the software but this is where things get dicey because MS has a monopoly over the market.
Oh and as a bottomline, I have no moral qualms about using my copy of Windows on all my machines (2). I paid good money for it. A few ethical considerations to have but I can live with it because the software is expensive!
What, exactly, is wrong with licensing software the way Microsoft does? Let’s forget the law, and just talk about what SHOULD be. Please make your case for allowing an individual who buys a copy of software to use it in any way he wants, other than selling it.
Here’s the problem: If you license it that way, then the people who have five computers at home are being subsidized by the people who only have one. Assuming that Microsoft maintains the same level of profit, the price of the software will have to go up.
And don’t go down the path that Microsoft shouldn’t make as much profit, because that’s irrelevant to the licensing issue. For example, if you want to argue that they shouldn’t make as much profit, then they could simply reduce the price of the software with the current licensing scheme.
So, back to basics: Let’s take a fictional company, that just breaks even. Doesn’t make a nickel. So they HAVE to make as much revenue with a new licensing scheme than they make now. Please explain to us your ideal software license, and how it would be better than the ones that are currently in use.
See, with traditional goods there is a certain inefficiency built into pricing. In a perfect economy, a company would be able to charge different amounts to different people, based on the value the product gives that individual. Believe me, companies would LOVE to sell their products at a lower price to poor people, and at a higher price to rich people. This would maximize profit, and would also be a big boon to consumers. Some industries approximate this by packing the same product in different ways and pricing it differently, then marketing the two products to different groups. For example, the Infiniti and Acura car lines are essentially re-packaged Toyota and Nissan cars. They have some improvements in trim and a few other details, but their main purpose for existance is so that Toyota and Nissan can take the same car and sell it at two different prices.
The same goes for many electronic products. Many manufacturers produce a low-end, mid-range, and high-end version of roughly the same product. Some times the high-end versions are slightly better, and sometimes the only difference is the logo.
If you look at product pricing in different countries, this tactic will really jump out at you. Sometimes the same product will be sold for half the price in one country than another, after adjusting for differences in currency, shipping costs, etc. This is especially true of products that are cheap to manufacture but represent significant R&D expenses, like software, drugs, etc. Pfizer is talking about selling AIDS drugs at near cost in Africa, while maintaining a much higher price in the U.S. This is a good thing.
Software licensing falls into the same category. Selling the same software with different licenses allows software makers to price their product more efficiently. This means people need less support don’t have to subsidize the ones who use more. This means people will one computer at home don’t have to subsidize those who have five. This means small businesses with five computers on their network don’t have to subsidize mega corporations with 10,000. In the case of some shareware licenses, this allows the maker to give his software away for free to those who probably wouldn’t buy it anyway, while still making a reasonable profit from corporate customers.
Please tell me exactly what is wrong with this system, other than “But I want it, and I don’t want to pay!”
Jesus. I’ve already explain my position multiple times. If you CHOOSE not to understand my philosophical points, while ignoring my legal points, I cannot help you by explaining it again. I’m bailing on this not because I feel you’ve won, but because I feel it’s pointless to have the two of us continue to agitate each other. If you want me to keep typing up long ass responses that you won’t read, it’s a waste of both our time. If you will please just open your mind for ONE MOMENT to allow for the POSSIBILITY that a business does not have YOUR best interests at heart, then I might be convinced to continue to help educate you.
Oh, and Spoofe? Stuff it. I never said it was a legal battle. You’ve known that the whole time. Don’t go on the offense simply because you cannot answer the ‘tough questions’ without resorting to parroting the law. Think for yourself.
Except that we proved your legal points wrong. And I just left a very long message attempting to debate your philosophical points, which you claim we are ignoring.
So, have at it. Or run. If you run, I’ll have no choice but to assume that you in fact don’t have a philosophical leg to stand on. In other words, you are wrong on both practical and philosophical grounds.
Of course, you are free to prove me wrong. Take my last message and respond to it. Give us your notion of what would be a ‘fair’ license for software, and I’ll debate it with you on the merits. If you can’t, admit defeat and go away.
‘Bailing’ with a claim that we aren’t listening to you or don’t understand your point of view is a cop-out.
capacitor, I know they are easier to spoof than Windows sockets. However, raw socket standards do make it easier for legitimate network interface programmers (and anyone else who needs to program anything to do with sockets) to program for it. I was also pointing out that spoofing an IP address is still traceable. It’s difficult, but hackers using it have still been caught.
Again, I stand by my prediction that future DDoS attacks will still be primarily be attributed to Linux and UNIX OSes.
BULLSHIT Sam! You have repeatedly ignored every major point I’ve made in exchange for babbling on and on about how “this is the law regardless of the morality of the situation so deal with it.” Jesus Christ! Where did you learn to debate? Blockhead school? Why are you so entrenched in worship of big business that you REFUSE to see that PERHAPS big business is NOT IN YOUR INTEREST?
Fine, I’ll reply to your goddamm message but if you keep up your bullshit evasion tactics and then claim that I’ve left the debate because you’ve ‘proved me wrong’ then you’re not half the person I’d expect you to be.
This discussion is getting long and dreary so I’ll add my two cents, also.
I haven’t seen the XP license and I probably won’t, but Microsoft has had more liberal licenses in the past. My copy of Visual Basic 6.0 Pro stated that I could install it on as many computers as I wanted as long as I only used one copy at a time. This seems eminently reasonable to me.
Homer, if you feel so strongly about the the problem, the best way is to work within the system to get it changed. I suspect you know how this would work. Expect a big fight, though from anyone who produces ‘intellectual property’. It isn’t just software and music. With eBooks becoming very popular, I suspect that will be the next big controversy.
Incidentally, I am also a developer, albeit, not an independent one. I know just how much work goes into producing a product. Anyone stealing a copy of my work is cheating me out of money (if I were an independent developer, that is).
WHAT are you talking about? In my last message, I started by saying, “Okay, let’s forget about what the law IS, and talk about what it SHOULD be.”
I also said to forget about the issue of whether companies make too much profit. I said we could start from a hypothetical altruistic company that just wants to break even. So let’s talk about what is the most FAIR type of license agreement for everyone.
I then went on to show how some people would be hurt by the type of license you are espousing. Specifically, the people who don’t want to run the software on more than one machine.
I then described the dynamic pricing model, and how it is the most efficient way to sell goods and services. I described several manifestations of dynamic pricing, and how they helped out the poorest people. AIDS sufferers in Africa, small business operators vs big business, etc.
It seems apparent to me that you never read my last message. Or if you did, your impression of what I was saying was so wildly off the mark that you are either being intentionally obtuse or you have a learning disability.
Dammit, I had a LONG reply written, but fucking Microsoft Internet Explorer lost it. Huh! Who’da thunk that?
Please show me what is ridiculous about the money pump argument. Microsoft works exactly as I described, which you admit to right here:
So then Microsoft has exclusive rights to the code that they paid for one time. Because of the exclusivity, they are allowed to copy this code millions of times and sell each iteration of the code separately. However, when the customer purchases their copy of the code, they are only ‘licensed’ to use it once, and must pay Microsoft separately for each copy they use.
Let’s look at this a little more closely.
Microsoft wants to hire a programmer. To obtain this job, the programmer must sign away all rights to the code which he creates. He has no legal footing wherein he could obtain a job with Microsoft and still retain the rights to his own creation. If he attempted to take his case to court to preserve his rights to his creation, he would be laughed at.
Consumer wants to purchase a product. To obtain this product, the consumer must sign away all rights to the code which he purchases. He has no legal footing wherein he could obtain this program and still retain all rights to his purchase. If he attempted to take his case to corut to preserve his right to his purchase, he would be laughed at.
Do you not see the parallel here? Why does is the law structured so that product, coming and going, is in Microsoft’s favor? Why can Microsoft force a programmer to give up his rights to his creation, and then force a consumer to give up the rights to his purchase? How can you stand by and say that this is a good law, a fair law, and a law worthy of our respect?
A corporation is a legal entity. Yet, AFAIK, a corporation is NOT a citizen. Simply a legal entity. However, in this situation, the rights of the legal entity usurp the rights of the citizens of this nation. If I am not mistaken, this nation is founded on the principles that the government is of, for, and by the people. However, if the government removes the rights of the people, the citizens, in favor of the rights of a corporation, a legal entity, a non-citizen, then the government is not acting in the interests of it’s citizens.
The law has upheld the fact that Microsoft can remove the rights from the creator, and remove the rights also from the purchaser. How does this make sense to you? Can you not see what I mean when I say it’s a money-pump? By restricting or removing the rights of all parties involved except for it’s own, it has created a system wherein it can absorb the highest possible profits and neither the programmers who actually created the program, nor the consumers who actually paid for the program’s creation, have any recourse. Why would you, Sam, wish to back a law that is this corrupt?
If the law were reversed, and the programmer retained all intellectual property rights to his creation, and the consumer retained all physical property rights to their purchase, that would be what I called a money vacuum. The profit income is limited by the personal property rights of the purchaser, and the internal profit is absorbed solely by the programmers who have licensed their intellectual property.
Neither of these scenarios creates a healthy free-market economy. This is why I say that you cannot mix the two, they are mutually exclusive.
If you wish to argue for intellectual property rights, then the programmer would license the code they wrote to Microsoft, who would then license the complete creation to the purchaser, who would pay for each iteration of the code they use. I would have no problem with that.
If you wish to argue for personal property rigths, then the programmer would release all rights of their creation to Microsoft, and then Microsoft would release all rights of their product to the purchaser. I have no problem with that, either.
See, Sam, if you mix both systems, you create an unstable and unjust system. In the first system, which is currently employed, the programmer and the consumer are being treated unjustly by both Microsoft, and the laws which we have in place. In the second system, the money-vacuum, it is Microsoft and it’s founders and financial backers which are being treated unfairly and unjustly by the programmers and consumers.
What are the net profits Microsoft has realized in all years of it’s public operation? More than 100 billion? Bill Gates is worth, IIRC, 54 billion, so it must be much more than that. This company has spent it’s entire existence bleeding the public dry by taking advantage of laws which are heavily scaled in it’s favor, and it has taken full use of it’s power, both political and monetary, to push for the creation and enforcement of even further draconian laws to increase the efficiency in which it can absorb the money of the public.
In a fairly structured free-market system, we would not see this amassing of huge amounts of money, because it would be constantly recirculated amongst the mass of the public.
Additionally, as you have ignored, Microsoft refuses to publish it’s source code. You claimed that a corporation gains public protection of it’s creation by publishing the methods necessary to create it’s product via use of the United States Patent and Copyright Office. A second feature of the USPCO is the ability of the public to create ‘derivative works’ such as Jackson Pollock using the Campbell’s Soup cans in his own creation, or valdenafil, a derivative work of silnadefil (I apologize if I have the names wrong, I didn’t look them up). However, by refusing to publish their source code, by YOUR OWN ARGUMENT, Microsoft should have been derived of the public protection of it’s creation, and forced to resort to trade-secrets. However, it has not done so, it has relied heavily on the American legal system to protect it’s works. How can it rely on the legal system to protect it when it has continuously refused to abide by the very laws in place to ensure it’s own protection? Furthermore, by not publishing it’s source code, it has effectively removed the legal right of the public to create derivative works. IIRC, Microsoft has prosecuted people for attempting to create derivative works, which are very well established in the legal system.
Why, Sam, do you think this is? How can you claim that this system is fair and necessary when presented with the realities of the situation?
Sam, sorry, I had missed your last post. I’ll answer it momentarily. I’ve been typing bits and pieces all day while I was working on getting one of my cars together. Now it’s time for dinner. I’ll answer you after dinner.
Sorry, but the ‘money-pump’ argument is still ridiculous. Permit me to elaborate:
Look: When you go to work for someone, they have a reasonable expectation that what you create while in their employ should be their property. If not, why hire you?
Let’s look at it another way: Do you think that Microsoft programmers are paid fairly? If not, why are they working there? It’s not like programmers don’t have options. In fact, Microsoft pays its programmers very well.
If Microsoft paid them a share of each copy sold, then what about programs that don’t sell? Should those programmers starve? Or are we going to pay them a salary plus royalties? If so, then the salaries have to be much smaller. This means the employees are taking a risk - a smaller salary for a share of the proceeds of the software they create, IF it is successful.
This system would be completely unworkable. For one thing, how do you get people to work in non-commercial R&D, when the guys writing Flight Sim are making millions?
What happens when an employee writes a piece of software for Microsoft, but management scuttles it for any number of reasons?
The fact is that in an employee-employer relationship, there is a contract. The employee agrees to provide a service, and the employer pays him for it. In return, the employer rightly demands the rights to what the employee created.
Both parties benefit from this - the employee receives an income, the employer provides resources for him, takes all the risks, raises the capital required to produce a new product, etc.
If you want to claim that employers exploit their employees, the LAST place you should be looking is in the current computer industry. We have full employment, and programmers have plenty of choices.
You may not realize this, but your ‘money-pump’ is just a high-tech restatement of Karl Marx’s “Social Surplus”, which was the justification behind Communism.
He does not sign away ‘all his rights’. He signs away a very limited subset of rights - the courts will reject any software contract that attempts to set limits that are not justifiable. Microsoft cannot demand that you vote Republican to use their software.
What is his ‘right to purchase’? If I make something and you want to buy it from me, do you have a ‘right to purchase’ it? If so, what happens to might right to dispose of my own property as I see fit?
You have your rights exactly backwards. I designed a piece of software. I own it. If you want to buy it, you have to agree to MY conditions. You have no rights to my work, because it’s my property.
And once again, with feeling: YOU DID NOT PURCHASE ANY SOFTWARE. You purchased the media it was transported on. You’re free to do whatever you want with the CD itself, as long as you do not use it to give someone else a copy of the software. Use it for a Frisbee, paint it green, Microsoft doesn’t care.
[quote]
Do you not see the parallel here? Why does is the law structured so that product, coming and going, is in Microsoft’s favor? Why can Microsoft force a programmer to give up his rights to his creation, and then force a consumer to give up the rights to his purchase? How can you stand by and say that this is a good law, a fair law, and a law worthy of our respect?
[/quote
What are you talking about? Microsoft didn’t FORCE anything on anyone. They offered a programmer a job, on their terms. He or she can either accept or refuse. And they offer to sell licenses for their software, on their conditions. You are free to either accept that contract or refuse to purchase the license.
There is no sinister Microsoft bias here - there is only contract law. Trust me, Microsoft would love to make you work for them for nothing, and to give them your first-born child for their software. They are limited by the same laws you are.
What would you suggest as a replacement?
Again, no one’s rights are being ‘usurped’, unless you think you have the right to just take something that doesn’t belong to you.
Actually, Microsoft is simply benefitting from the codification of property rights in our society. Any contract involves the restriction of rights - that’s the whole purpose behind them. Are you arguing for the abolishment of contract law? If not, how do you suggest they be modified?
Well, first of all you are making the claim that our economy isn’t healthy because of this. Do you have any evidence of that? Can you show how we would be better off as a society if the laws were modified?
That’s just ridiculous. Both of your examples ignore the rights of people and businesses to selectively abrogate their rights through contract. Explain what’s wrong with that.
We’re just repeating ourselves now. Microsoft is simply offering contracts to free people - you have the right to refuse those contracts, both as an employer and a customer. What you don’t have the right to do is selectively ignore portions of the contract you have agreed to.
Why? Are you a socialist? A communist? Why can’t highly successful people be rewarded? As a capitalist, I would argue that a system that rewards success is the most efficient. And one of the foundations of capitalism is that capital flows to those who are best able to utilize it, which is also efficient. And I would also point out that accumulation of capital is what allows large-scale projects to be undertaken. Microsoft spends billions of dollars on Research, which eventually benefit us all. Companies like GE, Boeing, and other hugely profitable companies have resources to develop new aircraft, new medical scanners, jet engines, you name it. Without allowing such concentrations of capital, such things would never happen. In communist countries, the state accumulates the capital to achieve large-scale works. You have to provide some mechanism for it, or your economy will perish.
Microsoft’s source code isn’t a secret - you can buy a source code license if you wish. It’s not freely distributable, for plenty of reasons. One is that they can sell the rights to use the source for a LOT of money, which they would then lose if they gave it to anyone. Another is that software patents and copyrights are tricky - people could learn a lot from the Windows source code that Microsoft doesn’t necessarily want to give away for free.
Another reason for controlling access to the source is to prevent Windows from being modified, which would create a support nightmare for them.
Sorry, but copyrights don’t work like patents. The creator of a work is assigned a copyright at the moment of its creation. Whether Microsoft chooses to publish their source or not is irrelevant.
I’m not as familiar with the law as it pertains to derivative works, but I can guarantee you that if you start printing out your own copies of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos and selling them, you’ll be busted, even if you paint a little happy face on each one.
Which laws has it failed to abide by?
That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying Mapplethorpe didn’t allow the public to make derivative works because he didn’t train them in how to paint like him.
Because the ‘realities’ you speak of are gross distortions based on a lack of understanding of economics, or they are completely incorrect.
Anyway, I’m glad that we’ve moved the discussion back to a civil one. I’d like to apologize for some of the little shots I took in my last couple of messages. I shouldn’t have done that.
“Wah wah”. Bring it to the Pit, kid. As I’ve said before (which just doesn’t seem to permeate your skull): If you didn’t want this to be a legal battle, then why did you deny the law to be as I described it?
Like I said, don’t backtrack just because you’ve been proven wrong.
Or, hey, maybe YOU lost it! Who’da thunk that?
Yes.
Know why?
'Cuz the programmers arranged the transfer beforehand.
If you want the right to the source code, you’d better be prepared to pay a HELL of a lot more for a copy of Windows. You think $300 is steep? Try thinking about paying $300,000.
It DOESN’T remove the rights from the creator. The creator GIVES AWAY their rights in exchange for money. The purchaser’s rights are only what they agree to when they use the software. If you agreed to Microsoft’s license (you wouldn’t be able to install Windows if you don’t), then what it says in the license is exactly what your rights are.
Do you just have trouble understanding the word “agreement”? I can go get a dictionary for you, if you want.
You really DON’T know anything about the situation, do you? The law has nothing to do with the programmers. The programmers enter into a contract, by which they agree to forfeit all rights to the end product in exchange for a decent salary and work benefits. It’s what is known as “being employed”.
::sigh::
Seeing as how the rest of your post seems composed of absolute rubbish, with no basis in fact, I’m not even going to bother trying to deal with it.
Let’s sum it down to two points, shall we, Homer?
Your rights with the product in question go only as far as the license agreement says.
You do NOT have the right to use anything in any way you wish. Even with your “as long as I don’t make a profit” line attached to it (what does it matter if you make a profit or not? The company still loses money, hence it’s still theft).
Monster, the threat here lies in the probability that WinXP will not be a completely secure operating system. Please keep in mind, that no operating system which is connected to the internet is invulnerable, and that maintaining a secure system through updating virus scans, implementing OS patches, and installing new service packs takes a certain amount of knowledge, foresight, and perserverance.
If Microsoft’s marketing for XP succeeds, millions of copies of XP will be installed on home computers.
Home users are less likely than sysadmins to make sure their security is up to par.
What we’re talking about is millions of new potential hosts to zombies, the programs that participate in distributed denial of service attacks.
Spoofed IP addresses are traceable, sure. But it is more difficult to trace them back, and it’s much more difficult to configure filters that will block an IP address that can be programmed to change every few attacks. And keep in mind, hundreds of computers can be involved in a DDOS attack.
Why in the world would future DDOS hackers plant their bots primarly in Unix and Linux environments, when in all probability they’re more secure than your average XP system, and XP is just as powerful a DDOS host? Do you really see hackers ignoring this new operating system, and its potential power as an attack tool?
As to the usefulness of full raw socket support, I refer again to grc.com. If you have a chance, please read the page it came from. It’s a worthwhile read.
That was entirely out of line on my part, and I’d like to apologize to Homer beforehand. No, the rest of his post WASN’T absolute rubbish… but, in my mind, is old, rehashed material that’s been dealt with already.
My old recommendation still stands, Homer… if you want to debate how the law SHOULD be, then start a new thread. I’ve long maintained what the law IS, and it is my opinion that I have been clear on that point.
Of course, I fully expect the next message will be Monster104 telling us all why this is a good thing, and how Unca Bill Gates just has our best interests at heart.
