The World Intellectual Property Organization was planning on having a discussion at its next conference on open collaborative projects (such as the internet), including open source software. So many participants were interested in the open source discussion that it started quite a buzz. Now, lobbyists with pockets full of money from Microsoft and other interests are pushing to have the meeting scuttled. They say that a discussion on open source has no place in a meeting about Intellectual Property (as if non-proprietary IP isn’t IP too).
IP is weapon employed by those who have run out of ideas.
Or the ability to build a monopoly.
Open Source makes this practice rather difficult.
Wonder why Microsoft would be against it. Hmmm.
“Simon insists that his group does not oppose open-source software, or discussion of the issue, but fights to defend the notion that a strong system of proprietary rights offers the best avenue for the development of groundbreaking software by giving its inventors economic incentive to do so.”
What about people who invent things who’s incentives have nothing to do with economics? IMHO, people who are purely economically motiviated tend to ‘invent’ a lot of crap that we don’t need (*cough* personalized ring tones *cough*)
IP is a joke, and the law is supposed to be arranged in such a way, that it is only protected for a short time, not indefinately, like it is today.
When are people going to realize that these unending copyrights, and now patents are only hurting this countries very fabric.
It does seem odd that Microsoft would be against this meeting. After all, I would suspect that an organization named “World Intellectual Property Organization” would probably be against open source since it doesn’t allow one to protect their intelectual property. Your algorithms and such are there for all to see.
Very strange…
The whole irony of IP is that it’s purpose was to create innovation by helping the little guy protect his ideas from corporations that have a brand name and that can quickly rip off ideas. Now it is being used by big corporations to keep competition away.
but i moderately agree with it.
capitilism is great. but when a handful of companies win the prize and then wield the law like a bludgeon to keep would-be competitors down….it’s not capitilism any more.
It does seem odd that Microsoft would be against this meeting. After all, I would suspect that an organization named “World Intellectual Property Organization” would probably be against open source since it doesn’t allow one to protect their intellectual property. Your algorithms and such are there for all to see.
I think they’re on the right track. We need to move away from this “This is my IP, it is magic, it does these things, and you have no idea how–let’s keep it that way. And by the way, those who do things differently are EVIL and should be expunged. Regards, MS..” mentality. Closed source is not Intellectual Proprietary; it’s Intellectual Prison!! I want to know exactly what Windows is doing in the background, but so called IP as MS sees it, insults my natural curiosity, and wishes that I remain intellectually deprived.
I would like to present a metaphor. In the world of mechanics, and engineering, tools are as important as productivity software is to an IT professional. The most powerful tools to mechanics and engineers are ones that not only survive the heavy workload they’re subject to, but also allow the said professional to repair, tweak, and revamp the tool’s every aspect and in any way imaginable.. Microsoft’s Office Suite deprives IT professionals this option by putting into place ludicrous proprietary methods.. Proprietary is okay, but not in this way where professionals are underestimated.
Yes Disney protects its intellectual property by preventing anyone from seeing it. Sony is terrified by the idea of people going out and watching their movies or even buying their CD’s.
I am going to burn all the copyrighted books I own because others may see the work which the IP holder obviously does not want anyone to actually see.
At the rate Microsoft is sharing it’s code with other countries it is only a matter of time until you can see that closed-source on the Internet anyway.
Sorry, slightly off track, but I really needed to say it.
Open source does protect your IP! It protects it from companies taking your intellectual property for themselves claiming it to be proprietary and then extorting money out of naive customers (mentioning no names such as SCO!!)
This is very ridiculous! How can you go so far as to try to supress even free discussion? Jeez, this is just plain ridiculous. Somebody had better do something about Microsoft before they buy the entire government.
“capitilism is great. but when a handful of companies win the prize and then wield the law like a bludgeon to keep would-be competitors down….it’s not capitilism any more. ”
agree – free markets are great – they aim to cater for everyone. until someone plays foul and distorts the free market.
where would microsoft be if it wasn’t for Akamai and their opensource linux – it saved “microsoft’s bacon” as someone on another discussion here put it.
are they not greatful.
seriously – a diversity in IP is healthy and necessary.
Somebody had better do something about Microsoft before they buy the entire government.
You mean they don’t already own it? /rimshot
I think you’ve confused Open Source software with GNU Free Software. Open Source does nothing to protect your IP from being proprietized. Its not much better than the public domain.
Microsoft buy the government?
I can’t wait for the day corporations become more powerful than governments. Gibson predicted it. What a world that would be. Can you imagine a company you can work for that provides their own laws and police and all the products you would ever need? It may be illegal in the US, but globalization will take care of that problem.
The problems I have with capitalism relate mostly to money. How much money does it cost everyone to manage their money, collectively? I’m talking credit cards, bills, interest, taxes, currency, etc. How much does it cost? Anyone got a clue?
Nah, Microsoft doesn’t own the government. They are still new money. The old money owns the government (oil companies, power companies, and second or third, fourth, etc. generation company/industry owners). And we’ll never hear about it because they also own the “mainstream” media.
Most capitalists think time is money, right?
How much time does it cost you and everyone you know to manage your money? How much time standing in line, waiting for people to count coins or write checks? How much time doing your taxes, or working so you can pay someone else or some software to do them for you? How much time waiting through rush-hour, driving into work, when you could do the job from home? How much time away from your family, friends, or where you would choose to be?
How much is time worth to you? I have 1 life to live. Every day I lose time that I can never buy back. Its not for sale. On my death bed am I going to wish I could have spent that time with someone instead of counting my money or working some monotonous job that could have easily been automated with modern technology?
I’m sorry to say it, but I think love is the only answer. We must love eachother enough to realize that all of us are more valuable than money. So we can cope with a society that doesn’t have currency and people are asked to work instead of forced through psychological manipulation. Anything else just wastes our time because we become more concerned with getting the money than the bigger picture, life.
Lois Boland’s comments are filled with FUD, ignorance or malice, you decide. People do not seem to understand that GPL and BSD software still carry a copyright notice. The fact that the GPL allows you to reditstribute, copy and modify the software so long as you adhere to the letter and spirit of the license does not take away from the fact that the licenses do maintain attribution about authorship.
GPL software is copyrighted software. Anyway, I have no doubt that Microsoft will use its money to prevent any discussion of open source software. Too sad that the latest United Nations Development Report and the World Bank, too organizations with very distinct missions, have concluded that open source software would be an incredible boost to developing countries’ ability to pull themselves out of poverty, provide access to educational materials for children, and build transparent and faster e-government services.
I am sad, not for open source software, which is an abstract concept. I am sad that a few selfish men care little for the well-being of so many who truly need access to basic computer services and infra-structure.
I just came from setting up an educational network in rural Ecuador. Most of the hardware is old hardware that people here in the US no longer want. We created LTSP labs in 10 different villages. You should see the faces of the kids and the teachers who now have a whole new world available to them. In the three weeks that I was there, the teaches started to create their own testing materials and sharing them with other teachers via postnuke. They created learning communities to share their experience and even created teacher exchange programs, because now they could communicate in ways that they couldn’t before.
I apologize for the rant. It just seems to me that the human face is often missing from these discussions about software. And reall, that’s what is attractive to me about FLOSS.
Still, suppose that this meeting doesn’t happen. And the one after that – then the WIPO will not be used as the forum, and they set up their own meeting… Novell might host it. IBM. Suse. Red Hat. Even Ernie Ball (See OSNews a few artilces earlier, which links to http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh ). You see, the movement has enough momentum such that it cannot be stopped now. This is a mere hiccup in the general scheme of things. It’ll be fixed.
The other thing: Why are people so surprised that this is happening anyway? Of course there will be resistance. Of course there will be a fight. Don’t expect to win by magic – you earn your victories!
the establishment is scared shitless over what will happen when the revolt against them really starts to take off.
I wonder when the rest of the world will finally start ignoring the USA, and its slew of three/four letter organisations which have the sole purpose of restricting freedom of choice, thought and expression.
The BSA claims that all of its members supported its opposition to the conference. Five of the members of the BSA have some significant involvment with open source in the furtherance of their business interests. Thay are:
IBM, HP, Intel, Apple and Novell.
I guess we ought to ask them why they are taking that stand and not supporting a conference that is in their own interests. Are these companies suffering from corporate schizophrenia?
“I just came from setting up an educational network in rural Ecuador. Most of the hardware is old hardware that people here in the US no longer want. We created LTSP labs in 10 different villages. ”
Were you able to install Linux on those old computers? Somebody gave me a 5 year old computer, so I thought “I’ll just put Linux on it”. But it wouldn’t install – needed a bigger drive and more RAM.
Linux seems to be very bloated. It seems to need just as high spec a machine as Windows.
I still don’t get it. Please explain this to me.
I write a piece of software. I want to get $$$ from people who use this software. (Please don’t say service & support, because that is a bogus myth).
How do I do this if I release the software under the GPL or anyother OSS license?
Let’s suppose the software is all original. What are my options?
“Were you able to install Linux on those old computers? Somebody gave me a 5 year old computer, so I thought “I’ll just put Linux on it”. But it wouldn’t install – needed a bigger drive and more RAM.
Linux seems to be very bloated. It seems to need just as high spec a machine as Windows.”
Well you are right, Linux is bloated… except it’s quite common to associate “Linux” with “Red Hat” or “Mandrake” or “SuSE” all of which are bloated distros.
Linux in its simplest form is just a command-line Unix-like OS which will run fine on your 5 year-old computer just like DOS will run fine on the same system. So it’s not “Linux” as a whole that is to be blamed rather the software developed for it has become bloated.
The GPL does not have language to goven how you redistribute the source code and/or binaries. That is how distributions such as Libranet and SuSE can operate with their existing distribution policy. That is: SuSE is a retail boxed distro and does not allow downloads of ISO images of their latest version. Libranet has a similar setup, you pay for the CD or the download. The free ISO download is a generation or 2 behind.
Were you able to install Linux on those old computers? Somebody gave me a 5 year old computer, so I thought “I’ll just put Linux on it”. But it wouldn’t install – needed a bigger drive and more RAM.
Linux seems to be very bloated. It seems to need just as high spec a machine as Windows.
I ran Slackware 96 on a 5×86-133 (basically a 486-133 with a 33 MHz FSB and a 4x multiplier) with 16 MB of RAM and a 200 MB hard drive. New linux distros have much more installed by default, but every distro can be trimmed down and configured to run on lower-end hardware.
“I can’t wait for the day corporations become more powerful than governments. Gibson predicted it. What a world that would be. Can you imagine a company you can work for that provides their own laws and police and all the products you would ever need?”
That was the arrangement in the Soviet Union. The problem is that it doesn’t provide a good way to replace incompetent management. It also produces a very stratified society – but that may not be a bad thing.
No, open source does not protect my IP.
Example, I come up with some wiz bang new sorting algorithm that can sort a list 100 times faster than any current algorithm. What do I do?
1. Sell a library with no source code so that programmers can use my algorithm, but have to pay me a fee to do so.
2. Open source it so that everyone can simply copy the algorithm and use it in their own apps.
Open source works well in the academic and scientific communities where people tend to share discoveries. it doesn’t work so well in the capitalist economy where people want to keep their discoveries a secret.
Referring to the article: So if you have lots of money you can control what you see, hear, and talk about? I am not surprised that M$ do this. They shouldnt be allowed to. But people tend to excuse this behavior away always or just ignore or just dont know it is happening
RE: Ecuador Try “Damn Small Linux” I know some distros are big and need some horsepower but there are alternatives and choices to this like “Damn Small Linux” 50mb and you have a funtional, fast small Linux distro that can even run off the cdrom or you can install it. I have my “Damn small Linux” on a amd k6-2 300mhz 256mn 2.5gig hd.
“I can’t wait for the day corporations become more powerful than governments.”
It’s naive believing this did not happen already.
If you’re nothing more than a greedy capitalist whose sole purpose is to make big money, then OSS is not an option for you, just stick with CSS!
You just don’t get it – OSS is all about people that don’t care about the $$$ they can receive for their code, they’re just not thinking about that when they are spending time working on their projects! It’s just for the fun it gives!…
I said:
“I just came from setting up an educational network in rural Ecuador. Most of the hardware is old hardware that people here in the US no longer want. We created LTSP labs in 10 different villages. ”
And Don Cox inquires:
“Were you able to install Linux on those old computers? Somebody gave me a 5 year old computer, so I thought “I’ll just put Linux on it”. But it wouldn’t install – needed a bigger drive and more RAM. ”
You will notice that I stated that I said these computers are in an LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) lab. LTSP allows you to set up the beefier computer(s) as a server, in our case the beefiest computers were all Pentium III 1Ggz with 512 MB of RAM. The remaining computers all boot almost instantly over the network as thin clients. These old computers are Pentium I -133 with 32MB of RAM that are used for display and keyboard input. They don’t even have a hard drive.
We could have set up a very light distribution on this hardware, but the performance is much better when everything runs from the server. Furthermore, administration is far, far easier. Instead of updating each workstation individually, I can do it all of it remotely on the server. IF you with to learn more about ltsp, you can go here: http://www.ltsp.org or http://www.k12linux.org
I hope this clarifies things. It is true that you need a relatively new computer if you plan to run KDE/GNOME. I run it fine on a Pentium-II 400 Mgz -256 MB of RAM. The whole desktop will feel much more responsive with the upcoming KDE 3.2 and the 2.6 kernel.
Feel free to post your specs here.
Note that Red Hat 8 and 9 usually disable DMA access to the HD on older hardware, but this can be easily changed in /etc/sysconfig/harddisks by uncommenting the following lines (USE_DMA=1, EIDE_32BIT=3, LOOKAHEAD=1). Give Mandrake 9.2 or Red Hat’s next release a try.
Good luck
“If you’re nothing more than a greedy capitalist whose sole purpose is to make big money, then OSS is not an option for you, just stick with CSS!
You just don’t get it – OSS is all about people that don’t care about the $$$ they can receive for their code, they’re just not thinking about that when they are spending time working on their projects! It’s just for the fun it gives!…
“
Not always. Programmers have to eat too I’m sure you’re aware of that
Even Linus gets paid doing work.
Hollywood really reaps the benefits of OSS because they run open-source OSes for render farms, and use or create their own tools for special effects. They sell and make money off of the _product_ produced from using OSS software. The same can be done with web services and what ever else. Heck even restaraunts have terminals running Linux.
It sounds like youre contradicting yourself here. Its quite simple. If you use GPL software to create your work then you need to release your software under GPL. If 100% of your work is your own and you want your work to be free to the world then you release under GPL or BSD etc. If, however, 100% of your work is your own and you want to make money with it…..then you simply need to make it closed source, charge for it, and attach your own licensing terms. Simple. Only other option would be to release it GPL with free source available and charge for it and hope more people buy than download.
Not always. Programmers have to eat too I’m sure you’re aware of that
So you’d let a programmer starve rather than give them food for free?
How many years does it take a human to learn what is required to be able to write a program?
Its like the arguement that GPL software is worth nothing because its given away for free. If you think this you really just don’t get it.
Saying monopolies (through market forces) are not part of capitalism is like saying nobody will ever win a game of chess, just because at some point in time everybody has the same chances.
Capitalism allows for dumping, economies of scale, forced incompatibility and lots of other stuff to force people to use your system.
It IS part of capitalism. The proof ? In every capitalist society 5% of the population owns 95% of all capital. (and if you think it’s evenly distributed in that 5% is naive). There are a lot of people able to undercut other businesses into oblivion, and there is nothing to prevent it.
There are even economic incentives to cheat, and create a monopoly. Through vertical expansion you can eventually (and very slowly) get control over the government. Capitalism is a system that ultimately defeats itself, and there is nothing to do about that (except perhaps creating a “you as a person can not control more than X $”, which is something you people find stupid for some reason)
Obviously you miss the point. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to place the algorithm in open source.
Keep this in mind, though. Because you neglected to patent the process, don’t get pissed when someone else finds the algorithm and implements it as open source. Unless you can prove that he copied your source, which is closed to the public you are SOL.
You also directly open yourself personally to recourse from the vendor that currently holds a patent to the process or parts of the process that you are using. Let’s hope that you have more than a little lirary to support yourself with.
No, open source does not protect my IP.
Example, I come up with some wiz bang new sorting algorithm that can sort a list 100 times faster than any current algorithm. What do I do?
1. Sell a library with no source code so that programmers can use my algorithm, but have to pay me a fee to do so.
2. Open source it so that everyone can simply copy the algorithm and use it in their own apps.
While it’s true that if you wanted to maximize the amount of money you made on your discovery that an open source license would not be the way to go, that does not mean that your IP wouldn’t be protected. Intellectual property does not equal money. The GPL is a great way for someone who makes some software but does not have the inclination to try to sell it to get it out there, with the potential to be useful, but still have it be protected, and preventing someone else with more marketing resources from stealing it.
If Linus Torvalds has created Linux and tried to sell it commercially, it would have gone nowhere. Same with Apache, most likely. But the licenses they were released under protected their authors’ IP. The copyrights and trademarks that protect them are the reasons that Linux and Apache exist as thriving entities, and their authors are known and recognized.
Now, the original author of the story Cinderella, on the other hand, did not have his or her IP protected. Nobody knows who wrote that story, and it’s been told and retold and changed and when Disney made a bunch of money on the movie that author didn’t get so much as a screen credit, much less a royalty. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, since that author is long dead anyway, and the world is richer for having the Cinderella story in the public domain. I mention this to demonstrate what it means to not have your IP protected by protections in the open source licenses, backed up by international copyright laws,
Open source works well in the academic and scientific communities where people tend to share discoveries. it doesn’t work so well in the capitalist economy where people want to keep their discoveries a secret.
It depends on what you mean when you say “works.” If you mean that it allows the creator of some code to make money without doing any further work, then open source is not a good way to do that. If you mean that it lets programmers create and/or contribute to a project that may have worldwide positive impact and maybe even make them famous, then it works very well. Remember, most of the software that’s written is only used by one organization. There are thousands of companies reinventing the wheel, developing and maintaining mundane software. The availability of open source versions of this mundane software like Bind, Sendmail, and Apache have freed them from countless hours of drudgery, yet again reinventing the wheel. That has contributed to worldwide productivity and a positive boost to the economy. There was no Bill Gates to get rich off of BIND, but if there had been, would there be any positive impact to the economy because of that? Not much. Bind and sendmail have contributed much more to the economy as a result of being free than they would have if their original authors had demanded payment instead of freeing the code.
People seem to confuse intellectual property with “mine! you can’t touch it!” Intellectual property and open source go hand in hand. The same laws that protect proprietory software from being copied protect GPL’ed software from being incorporated into proprietory software. That’s what intellectual property is all about — respecting the wishes of the author. Now, some authors are more magnanomous than others, they allow people to use their software as long as they give any improvements back to the community. Other authors are less so. But just because one author is more liberal with his work than another does not mean that he supports IP law any more or less.
PS> In reference to the sorting algorithm — If you just release the software under a closed license, you’re a moron. It is trivially easy to reverse engineer a simple algorithm like that, and once that reverse engineering is done, you can get no further protection under copyright law. If you want to keep wraps on your algorithm, then you would patent it, which requires making the details of the algorithm public. Of course, software patents are a hairy subject. A great many people believe that algorithms should *not* be patentable. The logic behind this is rather convincing. Any software algorithm can described in terms of computational mathematics (say, lambda calculus). Since mathematical algorithms are not patentable, because they are merely expressions of truth, why should software algorithms be patentable? In another example, consider a writer. Writers cannot patent their sentence structures, they can only copyrigh an exact series of words. Beyond that, consider how disastrous the results would have been if the great mathematicians had patented their algorithms? The progress of science would grind to a halt, and companies like Microsoft would be bankrupt because we would have no computers for them to sell software for!
So you’d let a programmer starve rather than give them food for free?
How many OSS programmers have you heard of that are starving? We all have jobs and live our lives. Writing OSS software is a hobby, some select individuals are lucky to get paid to do it though. No one ever said OSS programming is a real profession to live on. Those programmers write OSS software by choice, so I don’t owe them anything, except maybe show my graditude in non-monetary ways.
How many years does it take a human to learn what is required to be able to write a program?
Depends. To simply write a program: days, weeks, months. Shouldn’t take a year unless that person is not really committed. What would take up to or more than a year is kernel hacking and more sophisticated programming.
Its like the arguement that GPL software is worth nothing because its given away for free. If you think this you really just don’t get it.
I hope that’s not directed at me, between my comments in various OSNews stories and my one small article contribution to OSNews I believe I’ve shown that I do understand the OSS culture and support it.
YOur actually pretty wrong. A pure free market would allow for most of what you said not capitalism. Which is why a pure free market is not a good idea.
Anyway it is strange, the system you say defeats itself is responsible for societies where unemployed people consider cable and air conditioning to name a few to be a basic human right. The gap between rich and poor may be large but the poor are extremely wealthy compared with what they would have without this system. If you have a better solution please share it with us. One that has not in practice failed. Please don’t give us any academic idea which relies on man being good, generous etc. Those systems fail miserably. And no, education does not make people good, generous noble etc. Just more intelligent.
The IPR situation is worse than you might think. IPR is being used by large companies to shut out small ones. Worse yet, European, Japanese and US companies are out on a patent drive at the expense of the “developing world.” I spoke to someone who is working on a thesis on this exact topic and was shocked to find out that there is a patent free for all going on with companies patenting everything in sight that belongs to the third world. Its so bad that africans might find themselves paying EMI for rights to sing their own folk songs.
IPR has become real evil. Open source is a good thing.
“One that has not in practice failed. ”
I suspect you are referring to socialism/communism. The point was to reduce inequality. It succeeded. Now to say all of these systems failed because of the soviet union is a bit unfair. Western Europe has mixed capitalism with socialistic controls. They have a higher standard of living than US residents.
The soviet union’s failure was not in the least a consequence of an arms race promoted by the US. I also can’t understand how you can whole heartedly say that capitalism is a success. Look at the voilence rates and look at the entire picture. Western capitalism wouldn’t exist without massive exploitation (basically colonialism) of the developing world. What happens when the Africans, S. Americans, Chinese, Arabs, and Indians tire of that?
Would every american have three TV’s to view cable on if they didn’t underpay some poor soul in malaysia to build it with near slave-like conditions? The soviet variant of socialism failed. The European one has not. The US variant of Capitalism has plenty of problems. If you are american like me then you will soon learn about that. white collar jobs are also leaving the US for cheaper areas.
So you’d let a programmer starve rather than give them food for free?
How many OSS programmers have you heard of that are starving?
It’s bad humor I know, but I can’t help myself 😀
(the famous “will code html for food” pic)
http://carcino.gen.nz/images/image.php/76e0ccae/job2.jpg
Microsoft knows that open source means competition. If Microsoft was secure in their work, which you cant when you have that many holes, they would be able to let this meeting go. But the fact that their work is such crap, they cant let this competition go. And thats sad. Sad because Microsoft has so much clout that they could do this.
ever hear of trolltech? I have no clue how well they’re doing but arent they making money off of software they GPL’ed? I know their win32 qt version isnt GPL’ed yet but it doesnt nullify that you cant make money on open software.
You make it sound like Capitalism is in some way responsible for violence and crime. That is a hard connection to make.
Anyway my Swedish roommate a few years ago was telling me that Sweden is trying to reform and become less Socialistic.
Anyway unless I am mistaken California is one Capitalist and Socialist State. So it seems obvious is that socialism is not the antithesis of capitalism. Communism is.
1) If I am a great composer, write a symphony and make the sheet music available for people to buy, am I giving away my “Intellectual Property”? By some peoples definition, I am giving away my “Intellectual Property”.
Using that logic, how then did Rachmaninoff (the paino play and composer) make money once he immigrated to the US? he made his compositions available for people to purchase, yet, he also played the piano and made money playing his own works.
Again, using some peoples logic, this should have been possible.
2) In the future pure closed or opensource companies won’t exist, there will be a hybrid model. The bybrid model I speak about will be something close to the OpenDarwin project, Ximian, Codeweavers or what TheKompany provides.
TheKompany, for example, makes Aethera available free, both in chocolate and speech, YET, they make money selling “plugins”. Ximian has a model similar to that by offering support and plugin for Evolution. YET ANOTHER company, Codeweavers, offers an easy to use version of Wine to run Microsoft Office, yet, again, it is based off an opensource product.
Apple makes the core of their operating system available to public scrutiny so that not only enthusiastic programmers can learn about the MacOS X internals but to also foster development by developers who write applications on MacOS X. For example, I maybe Jane developer, come accross an issue, however, since I have the source code available, I can fix the problem, submit a patch and continue working.
Imagine if this sort of model was adopted by Microsoft and they opensourced win32 under a license similar to the ASPL used by OpenDarwin.
Another high profile example would be the adoption of Apache 2.0 as the core of a webserver. I don’t have the name of it on me right now, however, IIRC, it was started up by a former Microsoft executive.
All the issues we see today could have been fixed when the programmer came across the problems rather than what we have today, that is, walking the fine line of security vs backwards compatibility.
3) The US isn’t a freemarket, anyone who views anything besides Murdochs propaganda wing, aka, Fox, will realise the amount of government intervention that takes place in the US. Spotanious “contracts” being won for services no required and given to companies that are in the financial crapper, aka, WorldCom/MCI.
I am not saying this is good or bad, however, people who some how think the US is the “true” freemarket are really deluding themselves.
You make it sound like Capitalism is in some way responsible for violence and crime. That is a hard connection to make.
Anyway my Swedish roommate a few years ago was telling me that Sweden is trying to reform and become less Socialistic.
Most Swedes I know want less government, however, they don’t want to go to the opposit extreme, aka, the USA. The swedes I have talked to want a centre left direction where by there is less government but there is a safety net for those who need it. Most countries have gravitated towards that centre as they have realised that neither extremes, Socialism and Freemarket, produce something that is socially desirable either short or long term.
Most swedes I also talk to are generally peeved off at the amount of tax they pay for no real perceived benefits. Worse still, the high rate of tax discourages innovation. If an inventor is punished for being innovative via heavy taxes on profits, that works as a disincentive not only to the inventor but also to the average worker. If the average worker sees that when his pay goes up, he is taxes terribly, and in some cases, worse than he was, how will that encourage people to work harder?
New Zealand 20 years ago was VERY much like Sweeden. Free health, free education, generous welfare system, full employment. All this, however, came at a cost, namely the top tax being 66% and a progressive larger deficit. Ultimately in 1984 the NZ government had to make the big decision, either turn into a banana republic or reform.
Today the top tax rate is 39% for income over $60,000 and the budget surplus is $4billion this year, considerably MORE than Australia. Yes, we have a centre left government in, however, if you looked at the conservative budget, you’d think that the Tory’s were in 😉
Anyway unless I am mistaken California is one Capitalist and Socialist State. So it seems obvious is that socialism is not the antithesis of capitalism. Communism is.
Being a spend-thrift, “lets run the budget in the red for years and years” doesn’t mean that they’re socialist or freemarket.
Sure, socialists have a netorious reputation for running a country in the ground in terms of fiscal responsibility, however, the US federal government is doing no better, just look at the wopping big $600billion blackhole.
You sell it! That statement may go against conventional wisdom, but it does not go against historical fact[1].
Also, you can sell your labor. If you are a programmer that is probably what you do now. If you do “work for hire” then you give up all rights to your ideas in exchange for a salary.
> Let’s suppose the software is all original. What are my
> options?
LOL, good one! If you manage to write an original piece of software then money isn’t your problem. Seriously, forget everything–the wheel, how to speak, which berries are poisonous–and then create this mythical piece of software that you wish to sell. It can’t be done.
[1]: In “Perfectly Competitive Innovation” (http://www.dklevine.com/papers/pci23.pdf) Boldrin and Levine give several examples of innovation thriving in the absense of government grants of monopolies.
I agree with what you say. A couple of your comments were a result of me not being clear, or trying to be to brief.
I use California as an example of a State within the USA that is more socialist on orientation than other States yet is Capitalist. I am not making any comment on the State’s current budget problems.
The USA is not the opposite extreme of a socialist state. I think Hong Kong is about as free market as it gets. Unless I don’t understand the meaning of the word capitalist, I would say that the word capitalist is being used mistakenly for the phrase “free market”. A pure free market will also never work in the long run.
Anyway you can be free market and socialist, well sort of. Sweden is a capitalist country and a socialist country, as is New Zealand.
P.S. I am a South African so I kind of like New Zealanders
Even though you have kind of owned us in the Rugby of late.
Well, as I say to people, I don’t care who wins the world cup as so long as it isn’t Australia 😉
They are just scared about something they don’t control and don’t understand. That’s always like this with people with old mind
People seems to think that when the code is written all you can do is sell it adn get money.
It is a little naive to think that code is usable by everyone as it is. The people working on the code is just as important because they are the ones who know what and how it does. For a company to use some code to implement a service they need techies to integrate it into their system, tailor it to their needs and maintain support for the system. This is where you make money.
Say you have three secret solutions to a problem ten people know about each and make money selling it. Thats food for 30 developers.
Say you have one open solution to a problem, thousands of developers know it and can integrate/tailor it for companies, thats food for thousands of developers.