All off topic discussions go here. Everything from the funny thing your cat did to your favorite tv shows. Non-programming computer questions are ok too.
I'd say the situation is more akin to a public library being able to lend books in the expectation that they will be returned.
The library analogy is the expectation of the programmer, but not how society works sadly. You just can't put something in someone elses hands and expect them to abide your rules.
Hacking stuff doesn't just apply to programs; people will literally shove a crayon up their anus just because. But the stupidity doesn't stop there, they'll write stories about their experience and convince other people to shove crayons up their anuses. Now people are suing Crayola for making 'questionably' shaped writing utensils, Crayolas suing the people who are writing articles for defamation, and somewhere on some thread, someone is saying we should make new laws about what people can and cannot do with crayons.
SoulofDeity wrote:The library analogy is the expectation of the programmer, but not how society works sadly. You just can't put something in someone else's hands and expect them to abide your rules.
I'm glad to say that, at least in my country, that's exactly how it works. I wouldn't want to live in a country where that wasn't possible.
SoulofDeity wrote:The library analogy is the expectation of the programmer, but not how society works sadly. You just can't put something in someone else's hands and expect them to abide your rules.
I'm glad to say that, at least in my country, that's exactly how it works. I wouldn't want to live in a country where that wasn't possible.
I dare you to rip a tag off a mattress and then sell it to a friend. Call the police and tell them. They'll just laugh and hang up. No one regulates or cares about what you do with your stuff in your own home.
Last edited by SoulofDeity on Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
We have built an odd society with our very own hands. We now observe our creation.
iansjack wrote:I'd say the situation is more akin to a public library being able to lend books in the expectation that they will be returned.
And we have some odd psychology (or is it culture?) as well. If something costs us nothing or nearly nothing, we often don't take it seriously enough. We don't consider the effort or the cost (material or emotional) of the provider of that (nearly) free thing or service nor the effect of us not returning a favor (in form of returning borrowed things, attending free events that we promised we would or actually studying and practicing when receiving free instruction). Things become sadder when you next realize two things. One, you have to charge people something to make them think a bit further ahead and weigh the losses against the gains. Another, you now owe taxes and the relevant paperwork for something you would've gladly done for free had it not been for the quirks of our reasoning about free stuff. As if you didn't try hard enough and dreamed of this extra responsibility and lost time.
Also, where do you even place the threshold for how much a product is covered under a license? Is it the structure? The format? The arrangement of the bytes and the size of the files? If I change 1 byte, is it still covered under the license? How about 2? What if I feed the software through a program that obfuscates all the assembly code and slightly changes all the sounds, images, and text. Is it still covered by the license?
You can try to prevent people from stealing your stuff, but in the end, data is data. There's nothing you can do to stop them.
SoulofDeity wrote:
I dare you to rip a tag off a mattress and then sell it to a friend. Call the police and tell them. They'll just laugh and hang up. No one regulates or cares about what you do with your stuff in your own home.
Of course they would just laugh. That's a perfectly legal activity (in this country).
alexfru wrote:And we have some odd psychology (or is it culture?) as well. If something costs us nothing or nearly nothing, we often don't take it seriously enough. We don't consider the effort or the cost (material or emotional) of the provider of that (nearly) free thing or service nor the effect of us not returning a favor (in form of returning borrowed things, attending free events that we promised we would or actually studying and practicing when receiving free instruction). Things become sadder when you next realize two things. One, you have to charge people something to make them think a bit further ahead and weigh the losses against the gains. Another, you now owe taxes and the relevant paperwork for something you would've gladly done for free had it not been for the quirks of our reasoning about free stuff. As if you didn't try hard enough and dreamed of this extra responsibility and lost time.
If I read you right you seem to be saying that public libraries and open source software shouldn't work. And yet - both do!
Last edited by iansjack on Sat Feb 21, 2015 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'd say the situation is more akin to a public library being able to lend books in the expectation that they will be returned.
The library analogy is the expectation of the programmer, but not how society works sadly. You just can't put something in someone elses hands and expect them to abide your rules.
The library analogy is horrible because on the internet you never get the original, but always a copy. If you don't "return" anything, the library is missing something, but a webserver isn't.
The net result of this is that there's a bunch of people that keeps insisting on the library analogy and trying to make internet use as community has made it impossible in order to persist the old order, and people that realise this is unmaintainable, and charging for offering services rather than the data.
"Certainly avoid yourself. He is a newbie and might not realize it. You'll hate his code deeply a few years down the road." - Sortie
[ My OS ] [ VDisk/SFS ]
SoulofDeity wrote:The library analogy is the expectation of the programmer, but not how society works sadly. You just can't put something in someone else's hands and expect them to abide your rules.
I'm glad to say that, at least in my country, that's exactly how it works. I wouldn't want to live in a country where that wasn't possible.
I dare you to rip a tag off a mattress and then sell it to a friend. Call the police and tell them. They'll just laugh and hang up. No one regulates or cares about what you do with your stuff in your own home.
Not quite true. The world is more complex than the most advanced mattress technology. In some jurisdictions you must use professional contractors (certified, insured, whatever) to do certain things in your own home or get certified yourself or get some sort of permit. So, even if you can properly lay the new wires and move the walls (e.g. you were a good physics student), you may be forced to pay someone to do it or to allow you doing it.
Combuster wrote:The library analogy is horrible because on the internet you never get the original, but always a copy. If you don't "return" anything, the library is missing something
The library analogy was not addressing the consequences of theft, just the question of whether it is possible to make things freely available and still have an expectation that they will not be stolen. The fact that libraries can do this, even though the consequences to them of theft are greater, strengthens my point. It is possible, in a civilzed society, to make something valuable available to people without them stealing it.
I accept that not everyone here lives in a civilized society.
Combuster wrote:The net result of this is that there's a bunch of people that keeps insisting on the library analogy and trying to make internet use as community has made it impossible in order to persist the old order, and people that realise this is unmaintainable, and charging for offering services rather than the data.
Lol, yep
And now people are po'd about getting nickeled and dimed. I think there's a correlation where the more secure things get, the more po'd people are going to get. Many people would be fine with getting a virus or being hacked now and then if it meant they wouldn't have to continuously give away personal information or constantly be throwing out money for something that would work fine if left alone. There are still people using Windows 98 today for this very reason.
alexfru wrote:And we have some odd psychology (or is it culture?) as well. If something costs us nothing or nearly nothing, we often don't take it seriously enough. We don't consider the effort or the cost (material or emotional) of the provider of that (nearly) free thing or service nor the effect of us not returning a favor (in form of returning borrowed things, attending free events that we promised we would or actually studying and practicing when receiving free instruction). Things become sadder when you next realize two things. One, you have to charge people something to make them think a bit further ahead and weigh the losses against the gains. Another, you now owe taxes and the relevant paperwork for something you would've gladly done for free had it not been for the quirks of our reasoning about free stuff. As if you didn't try hard enough and dreamed of this extra responsibility and lost time.
In some situations is maybe true, but I think when we spend our hard earned money on something, we want to appreciate it more. (Since we traded part of our labour for it.)
What will taste better - a $5 burger or $50 burger?
MessiahAndrw wrote:What will taste better - a $5 burger or $50 burger?
The $5 one - I wouldn't pay $50 for a burger.
Not avoiding the question, I'd say the $50 burger. No one scarfs down a $50 burger. If I'm gonna pay that much, I'm gonna chew ridiculously slow and moan sexually as loud as I can to make sure everyone within a 100ft radius of me knows I'm eating a frikkin $50 burger.
I agree to the $5 one. Eating the costlier one would add the taste of guilt for spilling that much money on something that could have been at least a fifth the price.
"Certainly avoid yourself. He is a newbie and might not realize it. You'll hate his code deeply a few years down the road." - Sortie
[ My OS ] [ VDisk/SFS ]
