Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:The Pirate Bay (Score 1) 302

Profits are what drive capitalism (i.e., a return on capital, by definition). Competition rewards improvements.

Capitalism is a system, not an individual entity. There is no net "profit" over the system as a whole, we just move money around.
Profits can drive an individual corporation to reduce their production costs but it only works if there are reasonably modest profit margins.
If a corporation has a big fat profit margin then they are better of increasing their volume rather than reudcing unit costs.

There are so many labels these days, so many alternative forms of distribution, that the RIAA is crying.

Doesnt matter how many distribution methods there are, their members control copyrights and they have the exclusive rights to decide how each work is distributed.

Comment Re:The Pirate Bay (Score 1) 302

Competition is what drives capitalism, but copyright is a government granted monopoly, and monopolies over individual works end up collating and creating the cartel.
The cartel is free to charge whatever the market can bear, rather than charge amounts based on cost of production.
They have no incentive to become more cost effictive in the way they do things without compeition, and the only proven effective competition is piracy.
Of course the unfortunate victims are those artists who arent part of the evil cartel, which is almost tragic. But, sometimes you have to break a thing properly before it can be fixed.

Comment Re:The Pirate Bay (Score 2) 302

Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without becoming a victim of the global media cartel.

Comment Extremist news outlets (Score 4, Informative) 880

Its a lone gunman.

Police arent calling it a terrorism, it wasnt an IS flag being waved, airspace wasnt closed.

But hey, why not use criminal activity to drum commercial media activity.

If you want proper coverage journalism go to ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission), its govenment funded but independently operated.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

Comment Stop bad people being good ? (Score 1) 416

He did something bad, so now they stop him from doing good.

Imagine the drama if people had to make moral judgements themselves on the nature of a person... better to make it obvious and help them "decide" by preventing the "bad man" from being good.

Have to wonder about societies logic sometimes.

Comment Re:Marketshare (Score 1) 205

Freedom 0 exists to avoid making a moral choice between good and bad.

If we accept the argument that Free software is used for the purposes of good, then we also have to accept responsibility for some of the bad.

At the end of the day people could choose to use proprietry software for the "bad", they could still do it, but at least in theory it would be expensive for them.

Choosing ignorance is not a moral position.

Comment Re:Marketshare (Score 1) 205

Now your just trolling...

"they cannot stop you from doing whatever you want with the code", well they can put it in a box with no connections on it and sell the box (e.g TV's), or put it behind a webserver, or deny modified software even exists.

Freedom goes beyond code, what about freedom of speech and the right to privacy. Where would firewalls and surveilence networks be without free software. Or patent protected global ecommerce sites.

Free softare should be about more than software.

Comment Re:Marketshare (Score 1) 205

Why do people care about software freedom and not care about freedom in real life.

What is the point in making software free if its going to be used to make society less free. Which is what has happened, corporations use software freedom to leaverage their non-software power over society.

I dont think everyone forsaw that.

And yes i agree people dont have to use the GPL, but as long as people believe in Freedom 0 there is no hope of people who more deeply care about freedom from COLLABORATING ON SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, which is what its uspposed to be all about.

I like the idea of snowdrift, which is what the story is about, but it still demands all software treat corporations as equals to people.

Comment Re:Marketshare (Score 1) 205

Once you release your code under a license that allows people to use it (at least that version of it, which you released), you can't now come after those people's money!

You can allow people to use it under certain conditions, its not unusual.

And you dont have to agree with me about such a licence, people code for different reasons. It doesnt harm you if people release software under licences you dont like. (assuming your not "forced" to use it)

Comment Re:Marketshare (Score 1) 205

Stake YOUR livelyhood on it and i would take you more seriously, i.e. you first.

There needs to be a licence that obligates those who profit from software to contribute whilst still allowing colaborative development and still free for personal use.

Corporate freeloaders sponging off the hard work of volunteers is just crazy,.

Freedom 0 (free to use for any purpose) is much to blame, it abandons any sense of ethics, and even demands the freedom to make society less free.

Slashdot Top Deals

Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall

Working...