Avoiding LispWorks Personal annoyances
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From: vippstar on 1 Oct 2009 16:57 On Oct 1, 11:43 pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 2009-10-01, Tim Bradshaw <t...(a)cley.com> wrote: > > > On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnube...(a)gmail.com> said: > > >> Circumventing limitations in a > >> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after > >> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use > >> the software > > > Why do you think that is true? > > Because you can prove it? You can put a programmer in a blackbox, and tell him > to either reverse-engineer a program on the computer therein, or to do some > other kind of development not related to that program. > > No events escape from the black box which will let you detect whether he has > done the reverse engineering. But that black box doesn't actually exist and the programmer is part of the world in which all his actions have effects.
From: Tim Smith on 1 Oct 2009 17:17 In article <b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682c55(a)a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally > wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to > society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property. I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park. The same things happens with piracy. We, as a society, have picked a solution to the problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use of resources when it comes to intellectual goods. That solution is the copyright system, which imbues intellectual goods artificially with the attributes that allow a free market system to lead to optimal resource use. When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it would destroy the system. The system itself is the public property that is analogous to the park. Also, pirates do cause noticeable harm to the non-pirates, even when the pirates are operating at a level well below the "destroy the system" level. Content producers believe pirates represent lost sales. Whether this is true or not is open to debate, but it is not relevant. The producers believe it is relevant, and so give us things like DRM. Those who obey the rules not only have to put up with the annoyance of DRM on the content itself, the costs of its development and implementation are passed on to us. (This is like a public park requiring an admission fee from everyone to cover the cost of cleanup for those that dump trash). So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are its public property and correspond to the park. -- --Tim Smith
From: Alessio Stalla on 1 Oct 2009 17:54 On Oct 1, 11:17 pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: > In article > <b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682...(a)a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>, > Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally > > wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to > > society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in > > It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose > people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and > dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the > park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of > not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my > trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me > to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property. > > I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to > the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is > that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park. I agree up to this point. > The same things happens with piracy. We, as a society, have picked a > solution to the problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use > of resources when it comes to intellectual goods. No, it's not we as a society - it is corporations that exert control on this society, control they shouldn't have. > That solution is the > copyright system, which imbues intellectual goods artificially with the > attributes that allow a free market system to lead to optimal resource > use. It is ONE possible solution, and is a bad solution, as it has heavy drawbacks. The only way to enforce copyright globally is to invade the privacy of the citizens, to limit excessively what they can do with their computers, to punish them hard if they break the rules. Sounds like a police state to me. > When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no > measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it > would destroy the system. The system itself is the public property that > is analogous to the park. Only if you prove me this system is the only possible one. > Also, pirates do cause noticeable harm to the non-pirates, even when the > pirates are operating at a level well below the "destroy the system" > level. Content producers believe pirates represent lost sales. Whether > this is true or not is open to debate, but it is not relevant. The > producers believe it is relevant, and so give us things like DRM. "Give us things"? What are they, gods on earth? > Those who obey the rules not only have to put up with the annoyance of > DRM on the content itself, the costs of its development and > implementation are passed on to us. (This is like a public park > requiring an admission fee from everyone to cover the cost of cleanup > for those that dump trash). > > So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are > its public property and correspond to the park. I agree. But in the case of copyright, the rule has not been decided by society. It is an old rule which worked in an old system and has been kept only because it is the only way for a bunch of powerful corporations to keep their high earnings.
From: Alessio Stalla on 1 Oct 2009 17:59 On Oct 1, 10:08 pm, Dave Searles <sear...(a)hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote: > Alessio Stalla wrote: > > Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much > > more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by > > messing with it at the atomic level. > > Yet. > > It's called molecular nanotechnology, and it's coming Real Soon Now. > When it does, maybe before 2030, the upheavals recently observed in the > music industry will look like a minor puff of warm breeze besides the > Category 5 howler that will rattle the timbers of the major > manufacturing industries at that time. We'll see. > > Does this mean that when you reach the technical level necessary to > > copy something almost freely, and to change it at the level of its > > basic constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist? > > No, it just means that after copyright goes the way of the dodo, patent > law will follow it into extinction (or maybe just irrelevance) in due > course. But if I can cheaply copy your chair, no one will sell chairs anymore, don't you agree? Or more likely they'll sell complex, beautiful, carefully designed chairs - whose design is the true value people will spend for. > And there's another huge upheaval coming sooner: the death of privacy. > Hopefully it will cause the birth of a new era of unprecedented > tolerance and understanding, rather than, as I fear, everyone being > smeared by everyone else and looking really bad. Why the death of privacy? I think privacy is important. > Probably the latter will happen, then the former, and a fairly elaborate > almost Victorian system of politeness norms will arise regarding what > one is permitted to call attention to and discuss in public about other > people without it being considered very rude, or at least gauche and > gossipy. Mostly we already have such norms but they'd have to strengthen > enormously to compensate the inability to keep things secret. I hope this never happens. > We'd also have to acknowledge and accept a lot of truths about ourselves > as a species; for instance, that we are not naturally monogamous, > contrary to popular and semi-legislated myth. You have my complete approval here. -- Alessio
From: gnubeard on 1 Oct 2009 18:20
On Oct 2, 1:19 am, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > >> Would this analogy do: > > >> He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. He noticed that > >> when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that > >> sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account. > > > He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle > > with it. > > He didn't fiddle with it. He only fiddled with the utility providing > the ATM its power. This analogy sucks too. a) neither the ATM, nor the lamp post are mine to be messing with. b) much more importantly, if I were to withdraw $1500 bucks this way, that is 1500 dollars in real cash that will be unavailable to someone else, or to the bank. I.e. it is REAL theft. I have deprived LW of nothing, except - perhaps - a POTENTIAL sale. That is, I (arguably) prevented them from making a sale. I can't prove that I actually maintain an interest in buying it, so while I know this potential sale is in fact not lost - I realize you may be skeptical of it. |