TCJ and other sites now gone
Randy McLaughlin
have the foresight to mirror while they were still available.
If others rebuild these lost sights let us know someone will probably be
able to post it.
I am definitely willing to post archives of TCJ but I may not be interested
in posting everything people come up with.
TCJ is just one example of lost information.
Maybe someone can scan the mags, I don't have any but I would be happy to
post them.
BTW http://www.hytherion.com/tcj/ appears to have the text but not the FTP.
In the past I downloaded snippets from the FTP site but I never downloaded
the whole site.
Randy
Randy McLaughlin
news:x_K_c.103265$_h.9...@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
I found and old link I had saved:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.psyber.com/~tcj/
Anyone working on TCJ may be interested.
Randy
French Luser
> I am definitely willing to post archives of TCJ but I may not be
interested
> in posting everything people come up with.
>
> TCJ is just one example of lost information.
>
> Maybe someone can scan the mags, I don't have any but I would be happy
> to post them.
Stupid question: Did you write to the man who last owned TCJ?
(If I remember well, TCJ collapsed after its ownership was passed
from somebody to somebody else. There must be a pile of stuff
somewhere. Maybe the source code of the TCJ journal and its
Web site?)
"Just my 2 cents", as you say in American.
Yours Sincerely,
"French Luser"
Herb Johnson
There was discussion in comp.os.cpm a few years ago, about putting
on-line or otherwise redistributing copies of "The Computer Journal".
I have some history with TCJ myself, as an author. So I have something
to say before someone runs their TCJ collection through a scanner and
uploads them to some Web site. I'll talk about the history of TCJ, and
the value of copyright and private publishing and republishing; and
how on-line "freely available" archives need to have some limits and
that they carry some risks.
The bottom line, if the reader is not interested in the details, is
that I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and PROHIBIT any
copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote (including as
part of a distribution of entire issues) WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT
PERMISSION. Other authors may have similiar objections, or have
already offered their works for access or distribution: ask them!
I have good reasons for objecting, beyond the principle of protecting
my copyrights. I hope people don't say I'm a jerk because Herb Johnson
is keeping them from some freebies; so I've taken some pains to make a
case. But since I have to act promptly to claim and protect my
copyright, I'm writing in haste and so can't edit and reflect on my
words: if what I say offends anyone I regret that, notwithstanding
conflicting interests and opinions.
Herb Johnson
-----------------------
For those not familiar with The Computer Journal, it was a small press
(privately printed) journal published six times a year in the 1980's
and 1990's for a modest annual subscription fee. It covered older
computers, software and hardware and new upgrades for them, some
embedded small computers stuff, and later some IBM PC as controller
work. Articles in TCJ were provided by the authors at no charge, in
exchange for free issues. Some advertizing was carried, and there was
an active letters column. Several of the authors were contributors to
comp.os.cpm in that era - including myself and my "Dr. S-100" series
of articles - and some notibles in embedded computing. The last issue
was sometime in 1998 I believe. There were three or four publishers of
TCJ, the last Bill Kibler who is most recently mentioned as his TCJ
Web site apparently went off line recently.
The Journal probably never made much money, and Kibler often told me
during his tenure it ran at a loss. In fact much of his TCJ income
came from RESALES of past issues. Please note - if some offered
"copies" of TCJ back then it would be detrimental to TCJ. I eventually
paid for a subscription, about the time it "died". But most
subscribers understood the economics of the Journal and the growing
interest in the Internet, and so they did not grouse much when Bill et
al were unable to publish further issues. Bill kept the TCJ Web site
at psyber.com going for some time, but he stopped responding to emails
to the site a few years ago. (psyber.com today may or may not be owned
by Kibler, it's hard to tell, they are now an ISP.)
But I'm a little annoyed at the notion that "TCJ is gone" and "lost
information"
just because the Web site is gone and there is no ON-LINE archive of
the 90 or so issues published. Many people still have those TCJ
issues, on paper, so the archives "exist". As I suggested above, many
of the authors are still active in computing, even old computing.
The comp.os.cpm discussion a few years ago on TCJ was also about
scanning those issues and offering them in some form as a collection
on CD or on line. But there's a catch. The articles are COPYRIGHTED BY
THE AUTHORS. Many articles have explict copyright statements by the
authors. Again, the authors were never paid for these articles, nor
did they give up their rights to those articles. I myself as an author
never recieved any money nor did I sign any rights away. Kibler, and
his predecessor publishers, also copyrighted the entire contents of
the Journal, but also referred to the copyrights of the authors in
doing so.
During the earlier comp.os.cpm discussion of copying TCJ issues, some
authors said they would put THEIR articles online or make them
available themselves. I have not looked today, but at other times I've
seen at least one individual's online Web archive, freely available.
My response in that discussion was that, as an author, I STILL CLAIM
OWNERSHIP of the articles I wrote, and in due course I may republish
them MYSELF. I repeat that claim TODAY.
Then, and today, if anyone republishes or redistribtes my "Dr. S-100"
articles, they will be violating my copyright and they will do so
against my wishes, and open in principle to legal actions.
Let me explain the value of my retaining copyright and control of my
work.
1) I can republish such work with updates, corrections and additions.
I can remove obsolete references. In this way I can add value to that
work.
2) Via correspondence with others, I can add to and revise those works
further. Correspondence from others will encourage me to do so.
3) By controlling distribution and charging reasonable amounts for a
copy, I can get economic value for my work past and present. This is
also an encouragement; it also compensates me for unpaid prior work.
Meanwhile, if someone copies and posts my articles,or the Journal:
1) I'll get inquiries that I'll reasonably need to respond to. That
takes time and effort that I did not offer or prepare for, due to
someone else's use of my name and works.
2) Some information may be misused. There were a lot of email
addresses in those articles: they will be captured by spambots and
used to send spam. This is ALREADY a problem for me from other Web
sites, and even my comp.os.cpm FAQ entries (the FAQ site has a list of
many email addresses, they've been alerted).
I've changed my email address in part because I get 100 spams a day,
every day. People can "post" my email address but not in a way that
programs can find and capture it easily.
3) I have less incentive to publish them myself. Why buy my "new"
articles for money and fuss, when with just a few clicks of the mouse
you can get them "free"?
4) If people can get my OLD articles for "free", and post them on
their Web site at no cost or loss to them; it will be easy for yet
someone ELSE to copy my NEW articles for "free" and post them as well!
So far, "freely available" sites have used discretion in not posting
items that are "current"; but when will my NEW articles or
publications become un-"current" enough to trigger someone with a
scanner?
-
Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA
<a href="http://njcc.com/~hjohnson"> my web site</a>
<a href="http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff"> web site mirror</a>
<a href="http://retrotechnology.net/herbs_stuff"> domain mirror</a>
my email address: herbjohnson ATT comcast DOTT net
wait a day and if that fails, try: hjohnson AAT retrotechnology DOTT
com
good used Mac, SGI, 8-inch floppy drives
S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100"
Bubba Jones
wrote:
Hey Herb,
Most of us that have written articles and contributed to journals
(computer, electronics, etc) have done so based on interest of the
topic and desire to share knowledge with others.
Given the declining interest on CPM, obsolescence of hardware,
inability to acquire replacement components, and the aging user base
of hobbyists (yes we are all getting older!), the future economic
value of information from TCJ is extremely limited. There just aren't
that many newbies interested to learn an OS that gave most of us
"middle age" folk a huge amount of enjoyment years ago.
Sure there are likely loads of complete collections of journals
stashed away. Unfortunately, these are usually put out to the curb
when we pass away. I think preserving obsolete content is a great idea
and support initiatives such as Project Gutenberg.
I understand your desire to preserve copyright for some future
recognition of your contributions to the hobby. I hope you are not
counting on a cash flow from this to help you in your "golden years".
BTW, I had a look at your site and noted that you are copying
equipment manuals (for fee) and distributing these materials. I trust
that you have obtained permission from the respective copyright
holders of these manuals. :-))
Cheers,
Bubba
Barry Watzman
But, the consequence of that decision will, ultimately, be that the
articles which he values so much will simply never be seen, and will AS
A PRACTICAL MATTER dissappear. In fact, one could argue, they already have.
I've never seen the articles -- had never heard of the publication --
and, assuming that they are not put on the web, never will. Now Herb
might say that he'd GIVE me the articles if I'd ask for them. But I
can't ask for something that I don't even know exists.
Let me tell you a story. A guy who many of you may have heard of, Stan
Sokolow, was the head of the Processor Technology User's groups. For
about ten years he was "Mr. Processor Technology" (well, ignoring Lee
Felstenstein and Bob Marsh and a few other true insiders). He devoted
his life to PT. In the early 1980's, after PT had ceased operations, he
published "Encyclopedia Processor Technica" ("EPT"), a 12-volume, 3,000+
page encyclopedia of virtually everything ever written or known about PT
hardware, including internal PT documents, service bulletins, production
test stuff, etc.
Stan is still around, he's a prominent dentist by profession, he's on
the west coast. I contacted him a few months ago after going to some
effort to track him down. A few years ago he had to move, and in the
process, he lost all his PT stuff. Not only the hardware -- all of it,
but his writings, notes, everything.
I've been trying to find a copy of "EPT", but very few were produced,
and as far as I can determine, the only thing that still exists from
over 3,000 pages of material is one copy of Volume 9 (which is on my DVD
and also on Howard's site, by the way). All of the work that he did for
all of those years is, basically, gone forever.
BUT WAIT !! -- he exclaimed! There probably are a few copies,
somewhere. And, indeed, somewhere, on a forgotten bookshelf, or in a
seldom opened file cabinet, a copy may still exist.
But it doesn't matter, because, like a beautiful flower that grows,
blooms and dies in the middle of the forrest, no one will ever see that
copy. It's owner will either pitch it himself (perhaps during his move
to a retirement community), or he will die, and the heirs, seeing not
even an antique piece of hardware that might be worth something on
E-Bay, but just some old, yellowed paper in a 3-ring binder, they will
pitch it. And THEN it will be truly gone, lost forever to the
Langoliers (Stephen King fans will understand).
So, Herb, you do have every right to retain the copyright. But know
that doing so will be the death of your works, because if they are not
distributed -- WIDELY distributed, while a significant number of people
still care -- they will succumb, first to obscurity, and then to
non-existence.
Randy McLaughlin
and I pointed out the few pieces I was aware of.
I went further and offered to host any reconstructed website (and TCJ
magazine scans).
Herb and I are very similar in most ways. He archives old documents and
provides them to others for a fee to offset his costs. I archive old
documents and provide them online.
Herb goes to more effort providing hardcopies, I dont.
Almost all of the documents we provide are copyright and we both ignore the
copyrights. We both do this knowing that we are breaking the copyright laws
but provide a greater good.
For me it is simple in ancient times there were few if any copies of
books/manuscripts. When the library at Alexandria burned most all knowledge
to that date was lost, never to be seen again.
I believe that I am right in how I am archiving documents, I also believe
that how Herb is archiving them is right.
My method is for the future without caring that it costs me (and others
money without being repaid). Herb's is for now he is asking a modest and
fair fee to support his efforts.
Herb's documents has and will serve this community well.
The differences in how we archive our documents shows in how the TCJ scans
are viewed: I never even considered Herb's rights, and I am wrong. I just
wanted to archive it. Herb rightfully sees his efforts and property being
threatened.
Randy
Michael J. Mahon
<snip>
>Herb rightfully sees his efforts and property being
>threatened.
Certainly, his work is threatened.
Threatened by his mortality, and the mortality of those who have
"rightful" copies.
Let's not get lost in a quagmire of "everybody has an opinion
and they are right" nonsense. Some opinions work, and some
don't.
Copyright is intended to protect a work during its heyday,
when it generates income for the (starving) author, and even
more for the (not so starving) publisher.
A proper understanding of the purpose of copyright would
cause it to terminate after a reasonable period (dependent
on the "obsolescence rate" of the type of work) and have
the work pass into the public domain--with attribution, of
course.
This is not how copyright works in the US, and it won't be
as long as Disney exists. My own rule is that the term of
copyright protection is always adjusted so that Mickey
Mouse remains proprietary. ;-)
It is a simple fact: the only way to preserve information
is to share it freely, and subject it to the evaluation of
your successors. If they judge it worth preserving, then
they will preserve it--otherwise, it's gone forever.
You don't have to like it--you may even hate it--but that's
the way that memes survive or perish.
The corollary is that the more closely held information is,
the less likely it is to survive its holder.
And Herb, if you worry about non-updatable copies "getting
away" from you, that's exactly what publishing _always_ was
until very recently. Don't worry about it. Versions are versions.
Everything is fixed by dating the material with its revision date.
You can control your contributions, of course. I know of one
computer devotee who was so in a huff about copyright as a
metaphysical principle of the universe that he low-level formatted
his hard drive, containing all his works related to the platform.
How's that for taking your football and going home? ;-)
If science applied the principles of IP, we would still be
trying to make round wheels. Science is based on free sharing
of information, in the (well rewarded) hope that others will be
able to make better use of it.
Standing on principle in this case will make you "dead right".
And to what end? Shall we throw all your works on your pyre?
-michael
Check out parallel computing for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
Tom Lake
> that I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and PROHIBIT any
> copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote (including as
> part of a distribution of entire issues) WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT
> PERMISSION. Other authors may have similiar objections, or have
> already offered their works for access or distribution: ask them!
I don't know how TCJ worked but I do know that most magazines
require you to assign the copyright of any submitted material to them
exclusively so that the publisher owns the rights, not the author. The
logic is that you were paid for the article and that is your sole reward.
Exceptions were made for particularly interesting articles or well-known
authors but those exceptions had to be noted in the article itself.
Tom Lake
bud
Herb is defending his copyright. Under law, (IANAL) he _must_ defend
it,… or lose it.
I agree with him, regardless of his reasons, even if I would prefer
"easy access".
salaam,
dowcom
To e-mail me, add the character zero to "dowcom". i.e.:
dowcom(zero)(at)webtv(dot)net.
--
http://community.webtv.net/dowcom/DOWCOMSAMSTRADGUIDE
MSWindows is television,… Linux is radar.
John Elliott
: Herb is defending his copyright. Under law, (IANAL) he _must_ defend
: it,? or lose it.
As I understand it, that applies to trademarks but not copyrights.
<http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html>, section 5.
--
------------- http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html --------------------
John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
|SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------)
French Luser
1) Could you please not top post long texts?
2) What did you do, all those last years? Sleep?
"French Luser"
Norm Dresner
news:rsc0d.21407$2s....@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> I don't know how TCJ worked but I do know that most magazines
> require you to assign the copyright of any submitted material to them
> exclusively so that the publisher owns the rights, not the author. The
> logic is that you were paid for the article and that is your sole reward.
> Exceptions were made for particularly interesting articles or well-known
> authors but those exceptions had to be noted in the article itself.
>
Many magazines pay for "First Serial Rights" -- this may or may not assign a
copyright to them -- and you retain the right to sell the article again.
Norm
Barry Watzman
Barry Watzman
That's true for trademarks, not for copyrights.
Thomas Martin
> that I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and PROHIBIT any
> copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote (including as
> part of a distribution of entire issues) WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT
> PERMISSION. Other authors may have similiar objections, or have
> already offered their works for access or distribution: ask them!
>
> I have good reasons for objecting, beyond the principle of protecting
> my copyrights. I hope people don't say I'm a jerk because Herb Johnson
> is keeping them from some freebies; so I've taken some pains to make a
> case. But since I have to act promptly to claim and protect my
> copyright, I'm writing in haste and so can't edit and reflect on my
> words: if what I say offends anyone I regret that, notwithstanding
> conflicting interests and opinions.
>
> Herb Johnson
Herb is entirely entitled to hold this position, as under current copyright
law he controls the use of his articles. In fact, I support his position if
he is continuing to actually keep the body of work alive by continuing to
actually update the existing body of work and producing new work in that
area - so long as he makes it readily available.
Copyright law was provided for the SOLE purpose of protecting 'art' by
providing the original author with limited commercial rights for a set
period of time in return for the content of the art being contributed to
society in general after either the commercial utility of the art had
expired or initially a set period had passed; and now for a period of time
after the death of the author or a longer period of time if the author of
record is not a natural person. If this purpose is not honored by the
author, their art will not survive.
The net result is that in a few more years, Herb's contributions to vintage
computer lore will be limited to the publicly archived content of the Usenet
and everything else will fail the test of time; whereas other authors such
as Ward Christiansen will continue to be recognized because of their
decision to place their contributions to computing art into the public
domain.
I've never read anything Herb wrote except his web site, email he's sent me,
and posts on Usenet. That's actually pretty sad if you think about it. He
can't provide his articles in the context of their originally published
journals unless he has physical copies that he's willing to sell, because he
does not own the copyright to reproduce the rest of the content. The
original publisher is no longer available to sell copies of the original
magazine/newsletters and there were not enough of them published to make
them available through the library system. Herb has also forgotten that
copyright law provides a doctrine of fair use for academics, and while we
don't all have doctorates and grants in vintage computer studies, I'm sure
that we've all benefited from the photocopier at the local library in our
lives.
Last year, I contacted someone who posts regularly on this forum concerning
their modifications to CP/M. They didn't have a copy of the software readily
available, but I was chided (gently, I believe) for trampling on their
copyrights when I let them know that I had acquired a copy of CP/M with
their modifications from another source. I don't know if he would have been
able to find or recreate that 'art', or if he even had time or interest in
doing so. Of course, his 'art' would be useless without the 'art' that
represents CP/M, and unless his original license to distribute CP/M with his
modifications is still in force, he has no right to benefit from his 'art'
except through the good grace of the current owner of the CP/M copyrights.
In short, I believe that insisting on copyright protection when the
commercial utility of art has passed is pretty short sighted. Those of us
who have been lucky enough to have been involved in the computer industry
long enough to have used vintage systems when they were new are fading over
time. When we are gone, will any of our contributions be remembered?
Tom
R. Steve Walz
>
> There was discussion in comp.os.cpm a few years ago, about putting
> on-line or otherwise redistributing copies of "The Computer Journal".
> I have some history with TCJ myself, as an author. So I have something
> to say before someone runs their TCJ collection through a scanner and
> uploads them to some Web site. I'll talk about the history of TCJ, and
> the value of copyright and private publishing and republishing; and
> how on-line "freely available" archives need to have some limits and
> that they carry some risks.
>
> The bottom line, if the reader is not interested in the details, is
> that I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and PROHIBIT any
> copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote (including as
> part of a distribution of entire issues) WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT
> PERMISSION. Other authors may have similiar objections, or have
> already offered their works for access or distribution: ask them!
>
> I have good reasons for objecting, beyond the principle of protecting
> my copyrights. I hope people don't say I'm a jerk because Herb Johnson
> is keeping them from some freebies; so I've taken some pains to make a
> case. But since I have to act promptly to claim and protect my
> copyright, I'm writing in haste and so can't edit and reflect on my
> words: if what I say offends anyone I regret that, notwithstanding
> conflicting interests and opinions.
>
> Herb Johnson
-----------------
on what is actually old useless crud by reselling copies of it
to old fudds who can't grow out of it as often as possible! ;->
Now there is nothing whatever wrong with the reprint business, as
long as it is open to ALL comers, but writers who wish to be paid
more than precisely once for something they wrote, and publishers
who want to be paid for something they didn't physically print
after the info has been released into the world, are just trying
to obtain a license to steal so that they don't have to work
anymore. To them I'd say: GET AN HONEST JOB!!
And as much as I support socialized retirement pensions, some of
these greedy kids are NO WHERE *NEAR* retirement!!
> Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
Raj Rijhwani
<rsc0d.21407$2s....@twister.nyroc.rr.com>
tl...@twcny.rr.com "Tom Lake" wrote:
> I don't know how TCJ worked but I do know that most magazines
> require you to assign the copyright of any submitted material to them
> exclusively so that the publisher owns the rights, not the author. The
> logic is that you were paid for the article and that is your sole reward.
> Exceptions were made for particularly interesting articles or well-known
> authors but those exceptions had to be noted in the article itself.
But as Herb pointed out - he WASN'T paid for the original work published
in the Journal.
--
Raj Rijhwani | This is the voice of the Mysterons...
r...@rijhwani.org | ... We know that you can hear us Earthmen
http://www.rijhwani.org/raj/ | "Lieutenant Green: Launch all Angels!"
Raj Rijhwani
<23393-414...@storefull-3118.bay.webtv.net>
dow...@webtv.net "bud" wrote:
> Herb is defending his copyright. Under law, (IANAL) he _must_ defend
> it,… or lose it.
Very odd. My understanding of copyright is somewhat different. Over this
side of the water, copyright is a natural fact of authorship. Unless the
originator expressly re-assigns his copyright (by employment contract or
sale of rights, say) it is assumed to be retained for its life by the
author and his estate.
> I agree with him, regardless of his reasons, even if I would prefer
> "easy access".
Indeed. Ultimately the copyright of Herb's work is his to do with as
he pleases, for whatever reason. Furthermore, although he's gone out of
his way to explain his reasoning, he is under no obligation so to do.
As copyright holder of his works, if he says "no" that's all that matters.
Raj Rijhwani
Bill....@microsoft.com "French Luser" wrote:
> 1) Could you please not top post long texts?
He didn't top post.
> 2) What did you do, all those last years? Sleep?
"Helpful comments R us?"
bud
'Lo John:
Group: comp.os.cpm Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2004, 11:28am (CDT+6) From:
j...@seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott)
script:
> As I understand it, that applies to
>trademarks but not copyrights.
><http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html>>, section 5.
Ah! Thanks to you and Barry for the clarification.
Randy McLaughlin
news:12338-41...@storefull-3111.bay.webtv.net...
>'Lo John:
>
>Group: comp.os.cpm Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2004, 11:28am (CDT+6) From:
j...@seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott)
>
>script:
>
>> As I understand it, that applies to
>>trademarks but not copyrights.
>><http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html>>, section 5.
>
>Ah! Thanks to you and Barry for the clarification.
>
>salaam,
>dowcom
<snip>
When are we going to put the last nail in this coffin?
I have been trying to archive as much S100 and related materials as
possible. I offered to post any material people had from TCJ.
I know I will never archive everything. I understand that almost EVERYTHING
I am archiving has a copyright that I am infringing upon. Herb also
violates copyrights every time he sends someone a copy of just about
anything.
Long ago I decided to post copyrighted material without going to any effort
to track down the copyright holder and asking for permission (with a very
few exceptions such as TriSoft). I also decided at the same time that I
would remove or not post material when requested by the copyright holder.
If anyone collects TCJ material I will not post it on my site without
redacting objectional material such as Herb's articles.
Randy
Bob Yates
http://www.zetetics.com/bj/papers/ Bradford J. Rodriguez
http://pygmy.utoh.org/ Frank Sergeant
http://www.hytherion.com/beattidp/ Douglas Beattie Jr.
http://members.psyber.com/dibsed//
Lee Hart
>> The bottom line... I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and
>> PROHIBIT any copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote...
R. Steve Walz replied [rudely]:
> ...writers who wish to be paid more than precisely once for
> something they wrote, and publishers who want to be paid for
> something they didn't physically print after the info has been
> released into the world, are just trying to obtain a license
> to steal so that they don't have to work anymore. To them I'd
> say: GET AN HONEST JOB!!
Herb, I'm sorry you have to read such nonsense. I hope you don't feel
that it in any way represents the opinions of the group, and hope it
won't discourage you from continuing your work.
I applaud Herb's work on behalf of the CP/M community. I've bought,
sold, and bartered stuff with Herb for *many* years. If it weren't for
him, I probably wouldn't have a working CP/M computer! When I need parts
or manuals or disks, he's got 'em. Likewise, when I've encountered stuff
I don't need and have no place to store, I pass it on to Herb -- I know
he'll keep it safe until he finds someone else who needs it.
Manuals, just like hardware and software, have value. If you need it,
and I have it, we have the basis for a trade. You give me something I
want, and I'll give you what you want. As long as it's a fair trade (no
cheating or coercion), then we can both be happy.
If Herb was trying to buy up all manuals, and destroy all but his, and
thereby have a monopoly so he could charge outrageous prices, that would
be unfair. But if I took his copyrighted manual, scanned it, and put it
on the web for free distribution, that would also be unfair. I am
opposed to both activities.
To the best of my knowledge, Herb is not prohibiting reproduction of his
copyrighted work to harm others or get rich. Last I heard, he was
writing a book, and planning to distribute this information himself. And
the money he gets for selling manuals, hardware, and software is what
allows him to continue in business.
--
"Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever
has!" -- Margaret Mead
--
Lee A. Hart 814 8th Ave N Sartell MN 56377 leeahart_at_earthlink.net
Raj Rijhwani
<x_K_c.103265$_h.9...@bignews3.bellsouth.net>
rand...@nospam.com "Randy McLaughlin" wrote:
> BTW http://www.hytherion.com/tcj/ appears to have the text but not the FTP.
> In the past I downloaded snippets from the FTP site but I never downloaded
> the whole site.
That page itself is just a pointer to the appropriate segments of
www.archive.org, which explicitly does NOT archive FTP materials.
R. Steve Walz
>
> Herb Johnson wrote:
> >> The bottom line... I retain copyright for my articles in TCJ and
> >> PROHIBIT any copying or distribution of those TCJ articles I wrote...
>
> R. Steve Walz replied [rudely]:
> > ...writers who wish to be paid more than precisely once for
> > something they wrote, and publishers who want to be paid for
> > something they didn't physically print after the info has been
> > released into the world, are just trying to obtain a license
> > to steal so that they don't have to work anymore. To them I'd
> > say: GET AN HONEST JOB!!
>
> Herb, I'm sorry you have to read such nonsense. I hope you don't feel
> that it in any way represents the opinions of the group, and hope it
> won't discourage you from continuing your work.
Nor do I, and you missed my point, Lee. I wasn't referring to Herb.
He charges for what he re-publishes. That's fine.
But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
get to!
> If Herb was trying to buy up all manuals, and destroy all but his, and
> thereby have a monopoly so he could charge outrageous prices, that would
> be unfair. But if I took his copyrighted manual, scanned it, and put it
> on the web for free distribution, that would also be unfair. I am
> opposed to both activities.
---------------------------
Nonsense, we're doing that with countless software items online
on the many archive websites cited here literally daily. But if
someone like Herb had previously been making these available
on disk for a fee, we'd have no more cause to protect his little
game than we do now with Herb.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
> I applaud Herb's work on behalf of the CP/M community. I've bought,
> sold, and bartered stuff with Herb for *many* years. If it weren't for
> him, I probably wouldn't have a working CP/M computer! When I need parts
> or manuals or disks, he's got 'em. Likewise, when I've encountered stuff
> I don't need and have no place to store, I pass it on to Herb -- I know
> he'll keep it safe until he finds someone else who needs it.
>
> Manuals, just like hardware and software, have value. If you need it,
> and I have it, we have the basis for a trade. You give me something I
> want, and I'll give you what you want. As long as it's a fair trade (no
> cheating or coercion), then we can both be happy.
>
Randy McLaughlin
news:4144C4...@earthlink.net...
<snip>
> If Herb was trying to buy up all manuals, and destroy all but his, and
> thereby have a monopoly so he could charge outrageous prices, that would
> be unfair. But if I took his copyrighted manual, scanned it, and put it
> on the web for free distribution, that would also be unfair. I am
> opposed to both activities.
I am doing exactly what you oppose in the second part of your statement. I
am freely distributing other peoples copyrighted material on the web. Herb
is charging a reasonable fee to distribute the same copyrighted material of
others.
I have stated many times that what I am doing is illegal but I believe that
what I am doing is none the less a good thing. I will continue to post
copyrighted material as long as it is no longer available from the original
source.
I will not post material when specifically objected to by the copyright
holder. I am sure that if someone that held the copyright to what Herb
sells objected he would not distribute it either.
Randy
Lee Hart
> Nor do I, and you missed my point, Lee. I wasn't referring to Herb.
I apologize if I misread your intent, Steve. It's easy to do with email.
But, it sure looked to me like you were slamming Herb.
> But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
> and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
> get to!
And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you saying
you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent them, but not
receive anything for each book they print from it, no matter how many?
I'm glad it doesn't work this way. If it did, there would be no
professional writers, musicians, painters, software engineers, etc.
There would be no creators of intellectual property except those willing
to do it for free.
Lee Hart
>> ...if I took [Herb Johnson's] copyrighted manual, scanned it, and
>> put it on the web for free distribution, that would also be unfair.
Randy McLaughlin replied:
> I am doing exactly what you oppose in the second part of your
> statement. I am freely distributing other people's copyrighted
> material on the web. Herb is charging a reasonable fee to
> distribute the same copyrighted material of others.
>
> I have stated many times that what I am doing is illegal but
> I believe that what I am doing is none the less a good thing.
> I will continue to post copyrighted material as long as it is
> no longer available from the original source.
> I will not post material when specifically objected to by the
> copyright holder. I am sure that if someone that held the copyright
> to what Herb sells objected he would not distribute it either.
The key point (which I failed to make clear) lies in whether the
copyright holder *cares* if you reprint his work. If the original
copyright holder is dead, out of business, or just plain doesn't care,
then by all means, go ahead and distribute it.
But in Herb's case, he explicitly does *not* grant permission to
reproduce his work. This should be respected. And, Randy is respecting
it.
So, I think Randy *is* taking the correct ethical stand, one that I
agree with. (It may not be legal, but it is ethical).
Herb Johnson
post out of the way, before those posts generate a lot of discussion
which
is moot, because the premises of the poster's arguement is/are wrong.
also some thanks from me are in order. - Herb Johnson
1) Barry Watzman says:
"But, the consequence of that decision will, ultimately, be that the
articles which he values so much will simply never be seen, and will
AS
A PRACTICAL MATTER dissappear. In fact, one could argue, they already
have."
"I've never seen the articles -- had never heard of the publication --
and, assuming that they are not put on the web, never will. Now Herb
might say that he'd GIVE me the articles if I'd ask for them. But I
can't ask for something that I don't even know exists."
Response: Barry has not asked me for these articles, I would not give
them
to him for free (or anyone else so this is not personal). As for
"I never heard of TCJ" - do a Google search, Barry.
2) Randy McLaughlin says he and I have similar goals but different
methods and he respects my methods. Thanks, I respect his. Sorry we
are at odds at times but
that comes out of different considerations.
3) Michael J. Mahon actually read my post and thought about it. Thank
you. I
appreciate your response and I'll take time to read yours as well.
4) Tom Lake wrote: "I don't know how TCJ worked but I do know that
most magazines require you to assign the copyright of any submitted
material to them
exclusively so that the publisher owns the rights, not the author. "
Well I do know how TCJ worked, many issues carried notice that authors
retained
copyright, many articles had copyright notices by the authors. TCJ was
not Byte
magazine.
5) "bud" says "Herb is defending his copyright. Under law, (IANAL) he
must defend it, or lose it."
You got it! Thanks. NOte Randy's subsequent response: he'll be careful
at least about my material, now that he's recieved notice. Whether my
notice is "law" or just good sense it serves the same purpose.
6) deleted.
7) Thomas Martin makes some thoughtful points. I'll read and respond
later. I appreciate he is responding to my explanation and discussion
of my motivations.
8) R. Steve Walz has some problem with certain publishers, but (so he
says) not me. I think he's having his own discussion. But Lee Hart and
Randy McLaughlin defend me anyway, God bless you both, and for keeping
this thread on track.
Finally, some general points from me:
a) The TCJ articles exist as long as people still have physical
copies of The Computer Journal. That would be on the order of a few
hundred people. As I am a child of the mid 20th century, I'm amazed at
times that some people of the 21st century think that some bit of
information only "exists" if it can be found on the Internet! Given
that old on-line software archives of years past have been brought
down (Simtel for example); and given the impermanace (sic) of magnetic
media and storage versus over the permanance and readability of
printed text; I think my notions are not completely obsolete.
b) Some mention has been made of "fair use". I'm not a lawyer and for
that reason I am not sure I can respond to discussions about legal
issues of what I do. But relevant to THIS discussion, I will say that
when anyone has asked me NOT to distribute documents for which they
have rights, I have followed their request. This has been EXTREMELY
RARE, I don't recall any such requests at this time. Also rare but
within my memory, are requests or permissions BY COPYRIGHT OWNERS for
me to continue to provide copies their materials - including to them!
In one case, a person SENT ME their materials so that I COULD provide
copies to others.
-----------------
I really don't have time to say much more for now, sorry. Thanks for
all the discussion, I'll read it more carefully when I can and
consider it all.
Herb Johnson
Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA
R. Steve Walz
>
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
> > Nor do I, and you missed my point, Lee. I wasn't referring to Herb.
>
> I apologize if I misread your intent, Steve. It's easy to do with email.
> But, it sure looked to me like you were slamming Herb.
Nope. Not for his business, but for wishing to protect so-called
"intellectual property", which isn't!
> > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
> > and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
> > get to!
>
> And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
> intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
> publishes it himself.
-------------------------
No, any writer should be paid for his work by whomever wishes to pay
him, PRECISELY ONCE, like ALL OTHER LABOR. After that he has no more
right to be paid for it than a complete stranger, the labor was done
and paid for. If he wants more money, do more labor, just like working
at Mickey-Dee's! Publishing is ALSO labor, anything published is worth
the labor to produce it, but the author has already been paid. The
author is just as free to reproduce his own work for pay as any other
publisher is. Anything else is seeking after a license to steal.
> If you wrote a book, for example; are you saying
> you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent them, but not
> receive anything for each book they print from it, no matter how many?
---------------------------------------
You should be paid for the labor hours it took you to write it if they
want to buy it. The cost of the manuscript can be born by whomever.
If you're not publishing it, publishing is not your labor, and you
shouldn't be paid, you should go write somemore and get paid for that!!
> I'm glad it doesn't work this way. If it did, there would be no
> professional writers, musicians, painters, software engineers, etc.
> There would be no creators of intellectual property except those willing
> to do it for free.
> Lee A. Hart 814 8th Ave N Sartell MN 56377 > leeahart_at_earthlink.net
---------------------
That's nonsense, like pretending that no employer's promise to pay a
wage has any legal standing. The work of inventive people will always
be salable.
jhking
> Nope. Not for his business, but for wishing to protect so-called
> "intellectual property", which isn't!
>
>
>
>
> No, any writer should be paid for his work by whomever wishes to pay
> him, PRECISELY ONCE, like ALL OTHER LABOR. After that he has no more
> right to be paid for it than a complete stranger, the labor was done
> and paid for. If he wants more money, do more labor, just like working
> at Mickey-Dee's! Publishing is ALSO labor, anything published is worth
> the labor to produce it, but the author has already been paid. The
> author is just as free to reproduce his own work for pay as any other
> publisher is. Anything else is seeking after a license to steal.
>
>
>
>
> You should be paid for the labor hours it took you to write it if they
> want to buy it. The cost of the manuscript can be born by whomever.
> If you're not publishing it, publishing is not your labor, and you
> shouldn't be paid, you should go write somemore and get paid for that!!
>
>
>
>
> That's nonsense, like pretending that no employer's promise to pay a
> wage has any legal standing. The work of inventive people will always
> be salable.
>
> -Steve
The system you're describing has been tried. Its called communism. One
of its bases is the labor theory of value, which is bunk.
Intellectual property is indeed property and should be protected. The
articles Herb wrote (for example) might save other people hundreds of
hours in dealing with S100 issues. If he gets paid for everybody that
reads the articles, whether on first publication or subsequent both he
and the readers are better off. Him, obviously, because he continues to
get paid and the readers because their work has been made easier by
Herb's brain. The readers are secondarily benefitted by paying him
because that encourages him to create new things or explain other things
in future articles. Destroying IP is the first step in destroying human
progress.
Larry Fosdick
"R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote in message
news:4145F8...@armory.com...
> Lee Hart wrote:
>>
[snip]
>
>> > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
>> > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
>> > and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
>> > get to!
This is not correct. My labor included many years of education, plus a lot
of work experience. I am now paid for my brain far more than for my hands.
You think of work as a physical thing. That's fine for some, but not for
many. A book or article is a physical manifestation, the result of many
hours of effort, trials, and tribulations.
> -------------------------
> No, any writer should be paid for his work by whomever wishes to pay
> him, PRECISELY ONCE, like ALL OTHER LABOR. After that he has no more
> right to be paid for it than a complete stranger, the labor was done
> and paid for. If he wants more money, do more labor, just like working
> at Mickey-Dee's! Publishing is ALSO labor, anything published is worth
> the labor to produce it, but the author has already been paid. The
> author is just as free to reproduce his own work for pay as any other
> publisher is. Anything else is seeking after a license to steal.
If the full value for a book could be paid once, then the buyer would own
the only copy of the book. It won't be available to anyone else, and it
would cost a lot. By selling many copies, the individual costs become more
reasonable. Right now, the typical DVD movie costs me less than it would to
take my family to the theater. If I could buy the only copy, I couldn'd
afford it.
> You should be paid for the labor hours it took you to write it if they
> want to buy it. The cost of the manuscript can be born by whomever.
> If you're not publishing it, publishing is not your labor, and you
> shouldn't be paid, you should go write somemore and get paid for that!!
Wow. Are you paid the same now as you were when you first entered the
workforce?
> That's nonsense, like pretending that no employer's promise to pay a
> wage has any legal standing. The work of inventive people will always
> be salable.
Hopefully many times over.
>
> -Steve
Larry
Anonymous Guy
On 2004-09-13 leea...@earthlink.net said:
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
>
> > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be
> > paid and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest
> > of us get to!
>
> And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
> intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
> publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you
> saying you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent
> them, but not receive anything for each book they print from it, no
> matter how many?
Gotta remember, Lee, our friend Stevie is a utopian
collectivist / communist / socialist.
He believes he has an inalienable right to your (and
everyone else's) Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor.
Such k00ks are relatively harmless and mildly amusing,
as long as they stay holed up in their own little
government-subsidized studio apartments while spouting
their wacky nonsense.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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Randy McLaughlin
news:4146...@post.usenet.com...
> On 2004-09-13 leea...@earthlink.net said:
>
> > R. Steve Walz wrote:
> >
> > > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> > > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be
> > > paid and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest
> > > of us get to!
> >
> > And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
> > intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
> > publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you
> > saying you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent
> > them, but not receive anything for each book they print from it, no
> > matter how many?
>
> Gotta remember, Lee, our friend Stevie is a utopian
> collectivist / communist / socialist.
>
> He believes he has an inalienable right to your (and
> everyone else's) Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor.
>
> Such k00ks are relatively harmless and mildly amusing,
> as long as they stay holed up in their own little
> government-subsidized studio apartments while spouting
> their wacky nonsense.
I have a huge amount of copyrighted material I am posting. I know that
copyrights exist for good and valid reasons.
I ignore people copyrights everyday but I understand that they exist and the
copyright holder has the right to control their work.
While I do not ask for permission to archive and distribute I still honor
any copyright holders request not to trample on their rights.
People do not understand the term "rights", in the American sense rights are
things individuals hold. These rights are not so far reaching so that we
have rights over other peoples properties. The articles under discussion
which includes Herbs articles are their individual properties.
If these properties were so important that the world would stop without them
I would say forget their rights and publish them anyway. I don't think the
world will end, the world continues the CP/M society continues. These
articles may be of interest to this group but that's it.
Randy
R. Steve Walz
>
> On 2004-09-13 leea...@earthlink.net said:
>
> > R. Steve Walz wrote:
> >
> > > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> > > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be
> > > paid and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest
> > > of us get to!
> >
> > And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
> > intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
> > publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you
> > saying you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent
> > them, but not receive anything for each book they print from it, no
> > matter how many?
>
> Gotta remember, Lee, our friend Stevie is a utopian
> collectivist / communist / socialist.
Not utopian at all. Communist, not socialist.
I have no such delusion that people are good.
The great minority of humans are criminals who
should be enslaved or executed.
> He believes he has an inalienable right to your (and
> everyone else's) Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor.
-------------------
Nonsense. You have no such "honor".
Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying. People are worth
the same per hour, difference in wage is merely the criminal
bullying and enslaving less corrupt people who are more productive,
which these organized criminals simply conveniently choose to deny.
> Such k00ks are relatively harmless and mildly amusing,
> as long as they stay holed up in their own little
> government-subsidized studio apartments while spouting
> their wacky nonsense.
--------------------------
I have no such subsidy, you lying coward.
R. Steve Walz
No, for one, neither the soviet or chinese systems were/are
actually communist. They are oligarchic feudalisms. And secondly,
they never tried that. The number of myths about supposed "communism"
that have been palmed off on people in the western world is quite
absolutely staggering.
> One of its bases is the labor theory of value, which is bunk.
---------------------------
All product comes from labor, without exception. You can't deny this.
The supposed value imbued in any manufactured product comes precisely
and ineluctably from the labor required to produce and deliver it,
and from nothing else. There is not any such thing as "investment",
except that people allow someone to abscond with their labor wage and
spend it to direct society's new endeavors, when THEY should do so
and these decisions should be democratically controlled and decided.
The pretense of accumulated wealth is merely the fictitious token
virtuality of undemocratic control of society by the fewwho abscond
with wealth by theft of profit and enslavement of renters and
mortgagers.
> Intellectual property is indeed property and should be protected.
----------------------
So-called intellectual property is nothing but knowledge, and should be
promulgated as widely as possible in each available brain. Pretending
that it is otherwise is merely stymying public education and the free
communication of ideas and methods.
The writer/originator of such is no magical being with some mystical
rights to be paid and re-paid over and over for his work so that he
need never work again, while the rest of us have to, like some sick
cult-of-personality pro-athlete. The rest of us should cut off his
food if he doesn't respond to our collective query: "But what have
you done for us LATELY??"
> The
> articles Herb wrote (for example) might save other people hundreds of
> hours in dealing with S100 issues.
------------------------
And anyone's labor might save countless similar expenditures of
effort, it still has nothing whatsoever to do with the labor that
the originator expended to produce it, which is what he should be
paid and NO MORE. A mailman saves us countless months walking to
deliver a parcel, but we don't bow down to him!! A garbage man
saves us our very lives from typhoid, and yet we don't make him
king!!
> If he gets paid for everybody that
> reads the articles, whether on first publication or subsequent both he
> and the readers are better off.
-------------------------
Anyone with a mind unpolluted by the western nonsense of pretending
that anyone who works with ideas is worth more than someone who works
with materials will see this as laughable!! There is no communication
of how many people are affected by something written that becomes
transmitted back and somehow justifies some magical enrichment beyond
the writer's original labor!! That's as ignorant as making people keep
track of who uses a hammer and making them all send payment for it!!
> Him, obviously, because he continues to
> get paid and the readers because their work has been made easier by
> Herb's brain. The readers are secondarily benefitted by paying him
> because that encourages him to create new things or explain other things
> in future articles.
--------------------
His need to work to eat does that, as it does with the rest of us,
he doesn't need some luxury stipend too!!! You're pretending that
writing is something no one would want to do unless they would not
only be paid to do it, but be ever re-paid so that they need not have
to work again!! You get MORE work out of them if they HAVE to work
for a living like the rest of us, AND if they CAN do so BY WRITING!!
Hundreds of thousands of professional writers write for a living and
are paid a simple salary for it, and they do just fine!!
> Destroying IP is the first step in destroying human
> progress.
-------------------------
Greedy Lying Garbage. People who are ABLE to write the things they
enjoy talking about are MORE than happy to be paid a living wage to
do it, even if they CAN'T get SO fucking rich so they don't HAVE to
write!!
It's a hell of a lot easier and more desirable than ANY laboring
job you can mention for the SAME WAGE!!
R. Steve Walz
>
> "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote in message
> news:4145F8...@armory.com...
> > Lee Hart wrote:
> >>
> [snip]
> >
> >> > But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
> >> > republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
> >> > and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
> >> > get to!
>
> This is not correct. My labor included many years of education, plus a lot
> of work experience.
Which you SHOULD have already been paid for by the society.
Don't ask to be re-paid over and over. Also, you benefitted,
enjoyed it, and it prevented indescribable wear and tear on
your body that was avoided by your relaxed sit-down occupation
in a warm room with coffee at hand.
> I am now paid for my brain far more than for my hands.
--------------------------------
You are paid for your labor hours. Whether physical or mental
is hard to divide. We don't pay you to MERELY fantasize.
> You think of work as a physical thing. That's fine for some, but not for
> many. A book or article is a physical manifestation, the result of many
> hours of effort, trials, and tribulations.
----------------------------------
Indeed, and those hours should be paid like hard labor.
But no more than that.
> > No, any writer should be paid for his work by whomever wishes to pay
> > him, PRECISELY ONCE, like ALL OTHER LABOR. After that he has no more
> > right to be paid for it than a complete stranger, the labor was done
> > and paid for. If he wants more money, do more labor, just like working
> > at Mickey-Dee's! Publishing is ALSO labor, anything published is worth
> > the labor to produce it, but the author has already been paid. The
> > author is just as free to reproduce his own work for pay as any other
> > publisher is. Anything else is seeking after a license to steal.
>
> If the full value for a book could be paid once, then the buyer would own
> the only copy of the book. It won't be available to anyone else, and it
> would cost a lot. By selling many copies, the individual costs become more
> reasonable.
-------------------------
The cost of the writer's labor is the hours it took out of his life,
same as any other durance vile at work. One reader could never afford
him, ten thousand could make him rich for no real reason of any real
deservedness on his part. An idiot who gets a hundred thousand morons
to send him a dollar gets rich. That kind of crap should be prohibited.
So should it for the writer after his labor is paid like every other
worker's labor. Anything else is a stupid cult of personality that
makes someone famous and rich for no real cause.
> Right now, the typical DVD movie costs me less than it would to
> take my family to the theater. If I could buy the only copy, I couldn'd
> afford it.
-----------------------------------------
We all know this, no one is suggesting anything stupid here, so quit
letting such examples dominate your mind.
> > You should be paid for the labor hours it took you to write it if they
> > want to buy it. The cost of the manuscript can be born by whomever.
> > If you're not publishing it, publishing is not your labor, and you
> > shouldn't be paid, you should go write somemore and get paid for that!!
>
> Wow. Are you paid the same now as you were when you first entered the
> workforce?
-----------------------------
I should be, more then, and less now, approximately.
> > That's nonsense, like pretending that no employer's promise to pay a
> > wage has any legal standing. The work of inventive people will always
> > be salable.
>
> Hopefully many times over.
-----------------------------
That is nothing but theft.
Kelly Hall
> One of its bases is the labor theory of value, which is bunk.
To quote:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is
only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital,
and deserves the much higher consideration."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Whether or not you agree with Abe on this point, you have to admit it
has been a good long time since the White House saw a president that
could write things like that for himself.
Kelly
Christopher Browne
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
>> Nor do I, and you missed my point, Lee. I wasn't referring to Herb.
>
> I apologize if I misread your intent, Steve. It's easy to do with
> email. But, it sure looked to me like you were slamming Herb.
>
>> But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
>> republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
>> and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
>> get to!
>
> And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
> intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
> publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you
> saying you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent
> them, but not receive anything for each book they print from it, no
> matter how many?
>
> I'm glad it doesn't work this way. If it did, there would be no
> professional writers, musicians, painters, software engineers, etc.
I'm not sure you have been a paid writer.
It is quite rare for there to be extensive or continuing royalty
income available to authors.
It is particularly quite common for things like articles to be
produced as "works for hire" where there may be some up-front payment,
but NEVER any opportunity for royalties.
The notion that many people other than "superstars" like Steven King,
Tom Clancy and the like are likely to make their living off royalties
is the very same myth as the likelihood of "making your fortune" off
of selling software licenses.
The _typical_ writer is like the _typical_ software developer.
Neither ever see a penny of "royalty" income from the sale of their
works.
If there are royalties, which is quite unlikely, someone else,
normally the publisher, gets them. The authors are paid a salary or a
contracted fee or such, in exchange for signing over their "work for
hire."
There are vanishingly few people whose names have the cachet to allow
them to dictate terms to publishers. It may be some sort of "American
Way" to imagine otherwise, but it is a delusion.
> There would be no creators of intellectual property except those
> willing to do it for free.
It is a delusion to imagine that royalties have anything to do with
this. Vanishingly few such "creators" receive royalties. I have
produced quite a bit of it over the years, and what I received, in
return, was my SALARY.
--
"cbbrowne","@","linuxfinances.info"
http://linuxfinances.info/info/finances.html
"Tools that are no good require more skill."
Christopher Browne
> Destroying IP is the first step in destroying human progress.
The average publisher, whether a software house, music publisher,
magazine, or whatever is the largest enemy to paying out royalties to
authors.
Their habits involve working as hard as possible to keep works treated
as "works for hire," meaning that authors never see anything
resembling royalties.
--
wm(X,Y):-write(X),write('@'),write(Y). wm('cbbrowne','ntlug.org').
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/postgresql.html
cc hello.c, in Canada, results in:
eh.oot
Thomas Martin
Technologists have been seduced by "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric
Raymond into a line of thought similar to yours. What they fail to
understand is that today's technology could not have been created under your
idealistic society. If the greatest personal benefit to an individual is the
same as another individual, there is no drive to excel. The drives to excel
in the Open Source Community are economic and just as real as they are in
proprietary systems.
In case you haven't noticed, the world we live in doesn't resemble something
Krapotkin would have described, and we do in fact live in a society and
economy where people do seek to excel for financial gain. People do conserve
capital (make more than they need for immediate needs). People do provide
knowledge and services to others for less than the direct cost of creating
the knowledge or service with the expectation that they will gain economic
benefit by selling what they have of value multiple times.
Creativity should be rewarded more highly than mediocrity. Society should
protect intellectual property, whether an article about a vintage computer
or a major work of philosophical creativity.
The metric by which intellectual property's value is measured is by the
value that those that use it place on it. If an article is written that is
reprinted many times, the owner of the intellectual property (usually,
though not always the author) should be rewarded because the contribution to
society is greater than the contribution of someone whose article, book or
program is read once and forgotten.
Your statements indicate that you do not agree with this model. You believe
that an hour of work should be rewarded once, and if you were pinned down,
you would say that it should be rewarded no greater than any other hour of
work. Deep in your mind, I believe, you'll actually think that no hour of
work should be rewarded greater than yours! Your statement of "What have you
done for me lately?" gives you away. Your philosophy would have driven
squirrels into extinction because it doesn't provide for anyone to benefit
more than their immediate need.
Intellectual property is not free. It is created by people who have invested
years of their lives in education and experience that lead to its creation.
Sometimes, there is talent and occasionally genius upon which there can be
no price set. The creator of knowledge, skill or an artifact is entitled to
earn more than what someone arbitrarily sets as the value of the hour they
took to create it, if and only if, there is a demand for their work. Someone
who creates drivel should not be entitled to the same reward as the genius.
Society does have a vested interest in encouraging and rewarding the
creation of intellectual property. The western system of intellectual
property needs to be adjusted, but at it's core it has the right idea. The
creator of intellectual property is entitled to control and benefit... or
not... from their creations. But that protection comes at the cost of their
'art' becoming public domain when they lose the ability to benefit from it.
Since the pace of change has accellerated in the last century, intellectual
property has become a difficult issue. Many people believe that there is
some piece of knowledge somewhere that someone else controls that they can
build their reputation on. They want all information to be 'free', and feel
that since they are motivated by the 'thrill of creation' that everyone else
should be. They are missing the fact that it isn't the 'thrill of creation'
that they are motivated by, but that age old drive to impress chicks. ]:-)>
Unfortunately, you're blinded by your religion, and will never understand
any of this.
After reading your personal attack on Anonymous Coward, I'm rather glad that
I'm using a newsreader with the ignore feature because you have ceased to be
amusing.
-----
(C) 2004 by T. Martin, non commercial use permitted, Usenet use permitted,
Usenet archives permitted, excerpts and quotation permitted if properly
attributed and do not obscure the context, please contact the author for
commercial use. Any spam sent to this address will be considered a
solicitation for professional advice and an appropriate consulting fee will
be charged. My sister was bitten by a moose. Really...
Anonymous Guy
On 2004-09-13 rst...@armory.com (R. Steve Walz) said:
> Anonymous Guy wrote:
>
> > Gotta remember, Lee, our friend Stevie is a utopian
> > collectivist / communist / socialist.
>
> Not utopian at all. Communist, not socialist.
> I have no such delusion that people are good.
> The great minority of humans are criminals who
> should be enslaved or executed.
Heh. You ARE an amusing little k00k, Stevie.
> > He believes he has an inalienable right to your (and
> > everyone else's) Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor.
>
> Nonsense. You have no such "honor".
> Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying. People are worth
> the same per hour, difference in wage is merely the criminal
> bullying and enslaving less corrupt people who are more productive,
> which these organized criminals simply conveniently choose to deny.
Flunked Economics 101, did you, Stevie? Not surprising.
Communists never DID have a clue about real-world economics.
> > Such k00ks are relatively harmless and mildly amusing,
> > as long as they stay holed up in their own little
> > government-subsidized studio apartments while spouting
> > their wacky nonsense.
>
> I have no such subsidy, you lying coward.
But you DO spout a lot of wacky nonsense.
Listen, Stevie, it's a Free Country. You're allowed to spew
your nutty twaddle whenever you wish.
As long as you stay holed up in your little studio apartment
while you do it, there's no problem.
Probably wouldn't be a good idea to actually try to IMPLEMENT
those cockamamie notions, though.
After all, if you consciously choose to hurl yourself onto our
swords, well...we can hardly be held responsible for YOUR bad
choices.
Now go take your psycho-tropic medication, and try to get a grip.
Michael J. Mahon
>R. Steve Walz wrote:
<snip>
>> But people who want to be repaid every time someone ELSE copies or
>> republishes their work are merely greedy drones who want to be paid
>> and then repaid for the same labor in a way none of the rest of us
>> get to!
>
>And, to your point above, it sounds like you think any creator of
>intellectual property should not be paid for his work unless he
>publishes it himself. If you wrote a book, for example; are you saying
>you can charge a publisher for the one manuscript you sent them, but not
>receive anything for each book they print from it, no matter how many?
>
>I'm glad it doesn't work this way. If it did, there would be no
>professional writers, musicians, painters, software engineers, etc.
>There would be no creators of intellectual property except those willing
>to do it for free.
Actually, the vast majority of creators of "intellectual property"
are only paid a salary.
It is only in a few fields that we have "artists" being paid
royalties on their creations. The vast majority of royalties
go to the "publishers" of their creations.
Consider in your own mind which group is more creative
or makes more contributions to society.
We should be very thankful that scientists do not (at least
until recently) consider their IP proprietary, and retain rights
to all derivative works. ;-)
The creations worth having are made not for money, but
for the fun and the glory. The money just allows the creators
to eat while having fun.
-michael
Check out parallel computing for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
Michael J. Mahon
<snip, snip, snip>
>His need to work to eat does that, as it does with the rest of us,
>he doesn't need some luxury stipend too!!! You're pretending that
>writing is something no one would want to do unless they would not
>only be paid to do it, but be ever re-paid so that they need not have
>to work again!! You get MORE work out of them if they HAVE to work
>for a living like the rest of us, AND if they CAN do so BY WRITING!!
>Hundreds of thousands of professional writers write for a living and
>are paid a simple salary for it, and they do just fine!!
(Frankly, Steve, the nature of your diatribe is giving the
argument for loosening the grip on IP something of a
bad name. ;-)
But I can't help but mention that we would have a lot
less of Dickens to read if he had not been getting paid
by the word. ;-)
Michael J. Mahon
<snip thoughtful defense of IP>
>Someone
>who creates drivel should not be entitled to the same reward as the genius.
Sounds good--I'd like to see it tried in the industry! ;-)
You have as ideal a picture of the world as Steve.
In the real world, it's not a "rule by the best"--it's something quite
different, dirtier, and dumber.
Hard science is the only area of life where truth seems to
eventually win out over marketing and "perceptions".
I'm reminding myself of the guy who said, "I'm not a
cynic, just a realist." ;-)
> They want all information to be 'free', and feel
>that since they are motivated by the 'thrill of creation' that everyone else
>should be. They are missing the fact that it isn't the 'thrill of creation'
>that they are motivated by, but that age old drive to impress chicks. ]:-)>
I've created a bunch of IP, and I never met a chick that was
impressed by it. ;-) They were impressed by my intelligent
sense of humor (more IP ;-), but the "valuable" IP was of
no interest to them at all.
The biggest concern I have about IP is that it is being used
as myriad little (or big) "tollgates" to keep people from doing
something that the tolgate creators never thought of, but which
is valuable, so the tolgate keepers must be paid so that the
really valuable ideas can be used.
The irony is that most of the tolgates are held by organizations
that couldn't create their way out of a paper bag, but they sure
know how to threaten suits!
Invariably, the "technology" behind their tollgate has been common
knowledge for years, but they successfully found a "submarine"
patent (that in no way stimulated any of the many re-inventions
or led to any real value) that can be used to blackmail all the
re-inventors.
This is a corrupt system.
We observed several years ago that when creating a new
piece of software, for each hour spent writing code, we'd have
to spend five hours doing patent searches to be sure that some
idiot wasn't claiming that XORing a cursor with the background
was their personal breakthrough, for which everyone would have
to pay them royalties.
Instead of encouraging creation, our system is now being used
primarily to prevent "infringing" creation.
I say that if you create something, and can't get it to market
before someone else creates it and markets it successfully,
then YOU LOSE. Priority of "invention" is irrelevant.
Patent terms that extend for five times the time to obsolescence
for a technology are also ridiculous. The very concept that _all_
ideas should have the same term of patent protection is absurd
on its face. Clearly patent monopoly terms should be tied to
the value being delivered by the patent holder.
Look at all the market confusion and delay in growth that results
from the creation of multiple (incompatible) standards to do the
same thing, just because of the desire to bypass IP royalties.
We all suffer because of this every day.
And don't think for a minute that DVD technology wouldn't have
been developed without IP rights--in fact, it almost wasn't developed
_because_ of IP rights. A technology will be developed if it can
be sold profitably. And in the world we live in, if you don't have
a better model next year, then you won't be able to compete.
That's the motivation I want companies to have, not that they
can rest on their laurels because they can prevent anyone else
from improving their technology.
The original developer gets credit forever in the history books,
but they have to work every day to earn their keep with the
marketplace, and be better than others if they want to win.
Michael J. Mahon
<snip>
>Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying.
You left out the most important source: luck. ;-)
Thomas Martin
news:20040914051040...@mb-m06.aol.com...
> Thomas Martin wrote:
>
> <snip thoughtful defense of IP>
>
>>Someone
>>who creates drivel should not be entitled to the same reward as the
>>genius.
>
> Sounds good--I'd like to see it tried in the industry! ;-)
>
> You have as ideal a picture of the world as Steve.
>
> In the real world, it's not a "rule by the best"--it's something quite
> different, dirtier, and dumber.
Agreed, and I understand. I was describing the basis of western IP Law.
There are a lot of issues with IP law as presently implemented. Music
publishers 'renewing' copyrights by changing the spacing of staffs is
commonplace. The ownership of IP by corporations which can and do die, but
by virtue of their unnatural existance throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Weasel Patents such as what you described. All are problems that need to be
addressed.
My personal IP issue is abandonware. When something is no longer
commercially viable, say for a period of 5 years, I believe that derivative
works should still be protected, but duplication of the original work for
noncommercial use, i.e. MicroPro WordMaster, should be allowed.
Many companies and authors have taken this view and thus the same monster
that is threatening everything Linux has given us all the right of
noncommercial use of CP/M.
HP has a hobbyist license where many of their proprietary operating systems
and software are available for noncommercial use at no charge, except for
the cost of media if you don't already have it.
Then there are people who have taken patents and have engaged in industrial
extortion.
No, the current implementation of IP is not ideal. We're suffering from
greed and growing pains. But I don't think that throwing the baby out with
the bath water is the solution.
GPL and Copyleft are eventually going to be the downfall of SCO, because SCO
has GLP and Copylefted code in UNIX. SCO didn't create the IP they are
exploiting, and they have no sympathy from anyone who actually has or is
creating new IP. Courts applying IP law will eventually find that SCO's code
has benefitted from the use of protected (through GPL and Copyleft
techiques) and will wind up in worse shape than they started.
Of course, the 'Holy Grail' of free software is something that seemed to
evaporate after CP/M faded and that is public domain software, including
source code.
The rest of your reply deserves thought and a considered reply, but I'm out
of time this morning. You'll have to wait for a bit. I don't consider this
to be a rebuttal, by the way. We agree on a number of things, but disagree
on how to get there.
Tom
jhking
> I have no such delusion that people are good.
> The great minority of humans are criminals who
> should be enslaved or executed.
I'll give you credit. You're an honest communist. Enslavement and
execution is the destination of mankind if it embraces communism and
you're straight-up enough to admit it. Most communists are liars who
isist that slavery and mass executions aren't a part of that
political/economic system. You are, however, quite scary and I hope
fervently that you and your ilk never control the US.
> Nonsense. You have no such "honor".
> Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying. People are worth
> the same per hour, difference in wage is merely the criminal
> bullying and enslaving less corrupt people who are more productive,
> which these organized criminals simply conveniently choose to deny.
Wow. You're telling me you believe that your time is no more valuable
to anyone than a Pointy Haired Boss's time? If you respond, don't
change the subject by ranting about the PHB getting paid more than you.
Barry Watzman
bypass operation on Clinton and 4 hours of the time of the Janitor at
McDonalds (who never graduated high school) are worth the same amount of
money.
He's entitled to that opinion, but in my opinion, he's really, really
wacked.
jhking
The janitor is performing worthwhile useful work that might be to the
betterment of the community and the country<G>
Axel Berger
>Which you SHOULD have already been paid for by the society. Don't ask to
>be re-paid over and over.
Even if education is free, which in the US to my knowledge it is not,
what you say is equivalent to stating that members of of builder's gang
who have their meals and accomodation paid for while out on a job
deserve no further payment.
There are school dropouts who start to work because of the money earnt
NOW. A student, unless receiving a generous allowance from wealthy
parents, has to wait many years and work hard through all of them
before he can afford the living standard of a young labourer. To
compare them only only when they are both about fifty and the former
has achieved a nice position - which many less successful students
never do in spite of losing as many years of potential income - tells
only a very small part of the story.
R. Steve Walz
>
> **** Post for FREE via your newsreader at post.usenet.com ****
>
> On 2004-09-13 rst...@armory.com (R. Steve Walz) said:
>
> > Anonymous Guy wrote:
> >
> > > Gotta remember, Lee, our friend Stevie is a utopian
> > > collectivist / communist / socialist.
> >
> > Not utopian at all. Communist, not socialist.
> > I have no such delusion that people are good.
> > The great minority of humans are criminals who
> > should be enslaved or executed.
>
> Heh. You ARE an amusing little k00k, Stevie.
Out of ideas already? Poor little kid.
> > > He believes he has an inalienable right to your (and
> > > everyone else's) Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor.
> >
> > Nonsense. You have no such "honor".
> > Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying. People are worth
> > the same per hour, difference in wage is merely the criminal
> > bullying and enslaving less corrupt people who are more productive,
> > which these organized criminals simply conveniently choose to deny.
>
> Flunked Economics 101, did you, Stevie? Not surprising.
> Communists never DID have a clue about real-world economics.
----------------------------------
You just never got to the advanced material where they tell you that
capitalism is a form of crypto-feudalism. Try grad school.
> > > Such k00ks are relatively harmless and mildly amusing,
> > > as long as they stay holed up in their own little
> > > government-subsidized studio apartments while spouting
> > > their wacky nonsense.
> >
> > I have no such subsidy, you lying coward.
>
> But you DO spout a lot of wacky nonsense.
>
> Listen, Stevie, it's a Free Country. You're allowed to spew
> your nutty twaddle whenever you wish.
----------------------------------
You're frightened.
> As long as you stay holed up in your little studio apartment
> while you do it, there's no problem.
-------------------------------------
I have no such "studio apartment" as you imagine.
> Probably wouldn't be a good idea to actually try to IMPLEMENT
> those cockamamie notions, though.
-------------------------------------
That will rely on the human species maturing a bit, but it won't
take too long. Democracy will finally have to implement it.
> After all, if you consciously choose to hurl yourself onto our
> swords, well...we can hardly be held responsible for YOUR bad
> choices.
-------------------------
You've gone delusional. You clearly have no idea what I have said,
your eyes glazed over and you panicked and entered a pre-programmed
fugue state at the first mention of Communism. You were taught to
do that by your trainers to keep you from learning anything.
> Now go take your psycho-tropic medication, and try to get a grip.
---------------------------------
None such exists.
You're the one who is distorted.
You have said nothing here of any value or meaning.
R. Steve Walz
>
> *R. Steve Walz* wrote on Tue, 04-09-14 02:35:
> >Which you SHOULD have already been paid for by the society. Don't ask to
> >be re-paid over and over.
>
> Even if education is free, which in the US to my knowledge it is not,
> what you say is equivalent to stating that members of of builder's gang
> who have their meals and accomodation paid for while out on a job
> deserve no further payment.
Education is a working position that achieves an end the People's State
wants and should fund with a wage for good performance. That obviates
the claim that someone needs to later be recompensed for their
education.
jhking
> Education is a working position that achieves an end the People's State
> wants and should fund with a wage for good performance. That obviates
> the claim that someone needs to later be recompensed for their
> education.
>
wants".
No use for messy things like freedom or rights in your dystopia.
R. Steve Walz
>
> > Not utopian at all. Communist, not socialist.
> > I have no such delusion that people are good.
> > The great minority of humans are criminals who
> > should be enslaved or executed.
> Steve,
>
> I'll give you credit. You're an honest communist. Enslavement and
> execution is the destination of mankind if it embraces communism and
> you're straight-up enough to admit it.
You're a liar. Only inhuman criminals need be eliminated or enslaved.
They are a small minority. And after the first batch dies they will
be FAR smaller.
> Most communists are liars
----------------------
You don't KNOW any such group and neither do I. Quit lying and
posturing.
> who
> isist that slavery and mass executions aren't a part of that
> political/economic system.
---------------------------
They don't have to be, but I think they are the wonderful.
Economic political crimes are intentional and premeditated beyond
question, and these deserve the harsh penalties the rich have visited
upon the desperate and the panicked and abused in the past who acted
without such premeditation and without calculated vicious intent, but
only out of need or momentary terror.
> You are, however, quite scary and I hope
> fervently that you and your ilke never control the US.
----------------------------------
I know that I'm doing the right thing when your kind tells me that
I'm scary. Very rewarding. And Democratic Communism will finally
indeed control the entire human species! Collectivism has been
the persistent trend of human organization since the beginning of
our species. Even republicans are now much more liberal-collectivist
than only a short time ago. The middle is moving Leftward, and the
People are demanding more collectivist protection and entitlements
from whomever is fighting to take over that middle that is moving
inexorably to the Left!!
> > Nonsense. You have no such "honor".
> > Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying. People are worth
> > the same per hour, difference in wage is merely the criminal
> > bullying and enslaving less corrupt people who are more productive,
> > which these organized criminals simply conveniently choose to deny.
>
> Wow. You're telling me you believe that your time is no more valuable
> to anyone than a Pointy Haired Boss's time?
------------------------
Sure, after we give him the choice of starving or being put to honest
work as an assembler! We all deserve the same wage IF WE WORK, and NOT
if we DON'T!
R. Steve Walz
>
> He's telling you that 4 hours of the time of the Surgeon who did the
> bypass operation on Clinton and 4 hours of the time of the Janitor at
> McDonalds (who never graduated high school) are worth the same amount of
> money.
Sure, that surgeon saved only one person. A garbage collector saves
everyone from typhoid.
> He's entitled to that opinion, but in my opinion, he's really, really
> wacked.
------------------------------
Undefined. Unworthy.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
R. Steve Walz
Eeeeeeyup.
R. Steve Walz
>
> Steve Walz wrote:
>
> <snip, snip, snip>
>
> >His need to work to eat does that, as it does with the rest of us,
> >he doesn't need some luxury stipend too!!! You're pretending that
> >writing is something no one would want to do unless they would not
> >only be paid to do it, but be ever re-paid so that they need not have
> >to work again!! You get MORE work out of them if they HAVE to work
> >for a living like the rest of us, AND if they CAN do so BY WRITING!!
> >Hundreds of thousands of professional writers write for a living and
> >are paid a simple salary for it, and they do just fine!!
>
> (Frankly, Steve, the nature of your diatribe is giving the
> argument for loosening the grip on IP something of a
> bad name. ;-)
Keep the radicals quiet or they'll queer the deal, eh?
What deal?
> But I can't help but mention that we would have a lot
> less of Dickens to read if he had not been getting paid
> by the word. ;-)
>
> -michael
-----------------
I LIKE Dickens! Why would you wish to read less of him?? ;->
R. Steve Walz
>
> Steve Walz wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >Fortunes are acquired by theft/bullying.
>
> You left out the most important source: luck. ;-)
>
> -michael
Ah well, that's true, but that's the same thing, like gambling.
> Check out parallel computing for 8-bit Apples on my
> Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
------------------
R. Steve Walz
>
> "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote in message
> news:41463E...@armory.com...
>
> Technologists have been seduced by "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric
> Raymond into a line of thought similar to yours. What they fail to
> understand is that today's technology could not have been created under your
> idealistic society.
Ah yes, sure, and how praytell do they know this again?????
The posture that humans would not have come up with so many things
that were invented in multiple places by multiplepeople at virtually
the same time is HIGHLY specious!!
If we had centralized invention and promulgation of technology we'd
have probably had the Internet in the 1920's, for all you know, and
you can't really argue one or the other, you have no basis to believe
either one, except some specious "absence" principle that demands
everything happen as it did this time or which therefore insists we
believe it wouldn't have AT ALL, which is TOTALLY nuts.
This is like unto the insipid puerile "deduction" that because it
seems to have this time, that it is "glorious capitalism" that caused
all our modern technology, rather than having hindered the shit out
of it, for which argument MUCH better evidence can be presented!!
Or similarly, that America is so rich because of "the free market",
while totally ignoring the fact that we land-grabbed the richest
remaining continent on the planet which had 3 feet of top soil and
hardwood and pine trees from the Atlantic to the Mississippi while
Europe had three inches and Persia has 1/2" and NO trees left unless
hand-planted!!!
ANY system would have been THIS RICH HERE!!
> If the greatest personal benefit to an individual is the
> same as another individual, there is no drive to excel.
--------------------------------
That suggests that everyone would go into real estate.
Nonsense.
People go into science and technology because they're interested
in it, because it sure doesn't fucking pay all that well!! The
exception is medicine, which would be better WITHOUT all the
wannabe-rich people in it who would make LOTS better car salesmen!
We should find the people who WANT to be physicians and make it so!
> The drives to excel
> in the Open Source Community are economic and just as real as they are in
> proprietary systems.
----------------------------
More pie in the sky miracle authorship dreams, eh?
Nonsense.
Never work again? People who want that should be CULLED!
> In case you haven't noticed, the world we live in doesn't resemble something
> Krapotkin would have described,
-----------------
Who dat?
> and we do in fact live in a society and
> economy where people do seek to excel for financial gain.
--------------------
No, they seek to get rich quick, which is MONSTROUSLY different than
excelling!!
> People do conserve
> capital (make more than they need for immediate needs).
-------------------------------
People should decide what they want together.
Then they should work to make it and deliver it to each other.
Then they should go home and use it till they want more!
An order for goods authorizes the labor and payment for labor
in the form of the goods ordered, a closed circle!!
You order what you want and the order authorizes the People's
State to offer pay for the labor to make it. If no one wants
to work then they won't get what they order!
If they don't work a minimum work-week they won't get groceries!
If they need to keep emergency supplies around, they won't
wish to deplete them except in emergencies.
> People do provide
> knowledge and services to others for less than the direct cost of creating
> the knowledge or service with the expectation that they will gain economic
> benefit by selling what they have of value multiple times.
------------------------------
Everyone knows that! Do you suppose that's something profound?
The first purchaser of that pays the whole frieght, then sells
it by amortized shares to a number of others who want it, and
he recovers his costs and is paid for his labor to publish it.
But he does NOT GET TO SELL THAT AUTHORSHIP VALUE EVER AGAIN ONCE
HE HAS PAID THE AUTHOR COST!! He only gets to publish more copies
for his value in material and his labor value!
> Creativity should be rewarded more highly than mediocrity.
------------------------------
It is its own reward.
Everyone would rather do that than dig ditches.
Even if it pays the same or less!
People who are overpaid to "create", don't.
> Society should
> protect intellectual property, whether an article about a vintage computer
> or a major work of philosophical creativity.
-------------------------------------
The Library of Congress/Internet, sure. And?
> The metric by which intellectual property's value is measured is by the
> value that those that use it place on it.
---------------------
That's NOT "value"!!!!
That makes nude pix of Paris Hilton the most valuable thing on the
planet. That's stupid, that's called a cult of personality, and
is totally artificial. You can get a ridiculous number of people
to send you money for nothing. You can get people to send you money
by being cute. This must end. Fame must end, fortune must end. It
is a wasteland of insipidity.
> If an article is written that is
> reprinted many times, the owner of the intellectual property (usually,
> though not always the author) should be rewarded because the contribution to
> society is greater than the contribution of someone whose article, book or
> program is read once and forgotten.
---------------------------------------
No one is irreplacable. While he's employed as a writer we'll pay
him the same, but if no one wants to read him the People will notice,
and he'll be told to take it home as his hobby and get a different
job. But while he is employed as an author, we'll pay him the same.
If enough people like him in the future and they ask for him, then
he can try for the job again.
> Your statements indicate that you do not agree with this model. You believe
> that an hour of work should be rewarded once, and if you were pinned down,
> you would say that it should be rewarded no greater than any other hour of
> work. Deep in your mind, I believe, you'll actually think that no hour of
> work should be rewarded greater than yours!
--------------------------
Actually, my politics would cause me to lose salary.
> Your statement of "What have you
> done for me lately?" gives you away. Your philosophy would have driven
> squirrels into extinction because it doesn't provide for anyone to benefit
> more than their immediate need.
-----------------------------------
Squirrels? Nonsense. Most people don't EVEN GET their immediate
needs NOW, because of the thefts of their productivity by the rich
seeking after luxury! That would end!! Purchasing power by workers
would double or more! I've done the math, it's available in every
Almanac.
> Intellectual property is not free.
------------------------
It doesn't even exist!!
> It is created by people who have invested
> years of their lives in education and experience that lead to its creation.
---------------------------
This is true of every single human product. Irrelevant!
Expert systems show that many "experts" are only a simple
set of a few dozen applied rules more "educated" than a
mildly bright counter clerk!
> Sometimes, there is talent and occasionally genius upon which there can be
> no price set.
----------------
Same price per hour then, just to be fair, of course.
> The creator of knowledge, skill or an artifact is entitled to
> earn more than what someone arbitrarily sets as the value of the hour they
> took to create it, if and only if, there is a demand for their work.
-------------------
No, everyone's hour upon the earth is just as important and valuable
than anyone else's, and NO ONE is politically empowered to assert or
decide OTHERWISE!!
> Someone
> who creates drivel should not be entitled to the same reward as the genius.
-----------------------
The Democracy gets to decide what is drivel, and it need not pay for
it, but IF the Democracy decides that it WANTS the product of someone's
work, then that person has the right to the SAME WAGE AS THE REST OF
THE PEOPLE VOTING TO BUY IT FROM THEM! You would scream bloody murder
if the Democracy decided to pay him a pittance for it, so why wouldn't
you protest him being overpaid for it??? The ONLY Democratic way to
assign value to labor is EQUALLY, because that's what Democracy MEANS!
> Society does have a vested interest in encouraging and rewarding the
> creation of intellectual property.
-------------------------
Which interest it represents by establishing paid positions to employ
people to produce it, at an equal Democratic wage to everyone
else who are capable of appreciating it!!
> The western system of intellectual
> property needs to be adjusted, but at it's core it has the right idea. -----------------------
Meaningless vague assertion.
> The
> creator of intellectual property is entitled to control and benefit... or
> not... from their creations.
------------------
Yeah right, ask most professional writers.
> But that protection comes at the cost of their
> 'art' becoming public domain when they lose the ability to benefit from it.
---------------------------
When they are paid for their labor it becomes public domain.
> Since the pace of change has accellerated in the last century, intellectual
> property has become a difficult issue. Many people believe that there is
> some piece of knowledge somewhere that someone else controls that they can
> build their reputation on. They want all information to be 'free', and feel
> that since they are motivated by the 'thrill of creation' that everyone else
> should be. They are missing the fact that it isn't the 'thrill of creation'
> that they are motivated by, but that age old drive to impress chicks. ]:-)>
---------------------------------
Face it, most of this IP crap is just a posturing lie, similar to
defending gambling on some contrived principle of "freedom" when
gambling starves children and impoverishes families of those who
are addicted to it. The desire for IP is only the desire to get so
rich by a stroke of luck in the public desire for your work so that
you "never have to work again", which is actually nothing more than
the motive of the criminal thief or robber.
> Unfortunately, you're blinded by your religion, and will never
> understand any of this.
-------------------------
Another posturing lie.
My ethical conscience requires fairness to each.
Jesus was also against wealth.
I'm in good company.
> After reading your personal attack on Anonymous Coward, I'm rather glad that
> I'm using a newsreader with the ignore feature because you have ceased to be
> amusing.
-------------------------------------------
Posturing little coward.
R. Steve Walz
Nonsense, all freedom and property rights must be approved by
Democratic Majority which defends them, or they won't BE defended,
and without that cannot exist. People will authorize the rights for
all which they want for themselves. But these rights change as the
People see defects in permitting what will be very soon seen as new
crimes, and new rights/entitlements will be born in that same process.
Someday people will no longer have the freedom of speech to LIE.
It will be considered public fraud to try to promote a falsehood,
personal, scientific or political! There need be no freedom to lie,
only freedom to tell the Truth.
Someday people will not be permitted to demonstrate in a mob, they
will be shot down like dogs, it will be seen as a criminal conspiracy.
The right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances will
be required to be peaceful, or it will be deemed an insurrection!
Someday a person trying to collect rent or mortgage payment from
another for the home they live in will be taken and executed,
claiming to own another's home will be unthinkable terrorism!!
Legal ownership of a home will only be permitted by its residents.
Someday anyone who refuses to work will be denied grocery store
admittance, and anyone who feeds him will be taken and executed.
Someday anyone will be able to make any drug they wish for their
own use, but if they try to sell it they will be sentenced to death
or to be enslaved.
Someday anyone with an incurable STD will be tattooed in a publically
recognizable place on their body, to warn others. Anyone removing it
will be killed.
Lots more...
Shawn Sijnstra
>
> Heh. You ARE an amusing little k00k, Stevie.
>
> Flunked Economics 101, did you, Stevie? Not surprising.
> Communists never DID have a clue about real-world economics.
>
>
> But you DO spout a lot of wacky nonsense.
>
> Listen, Stevie, it's a Free Country. You're allowed to spew
> your nutty twaddle whenever you wish.
>
> As long as you stay holed up in your little studio apartment
> while you do it, there's no problem.
>
> Probably wouldn't be a good idea to actually try to IMPLEMENT
> those cockamamie notions, though.
>
> Now go take your psycho-tropic medication, and try to get a grip.
>
>
>
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Quite frankly, I'm a getting a bit annoyed by this discussion thread
which used to have something to do with cpm some time ago. I have
a funny feeling that this "yes it is" "not it isn't" "yes it is times
infinity" "no it isn't times infinity plus one" grade of arguement
should be in a new newsgroup called comp.os.cpm.pointlesspoliticaldebate
or comp.os.cpm.ihavetoomuchsparetime
Why also are there such a level of personal insults coming from such an
anonymous address?
Can someone say something CP/M related again please? Maybe we can argue
about how free software/open source is a communist plot or something
but can we have some other place to do it?
Thanks,
Shawn
Jason King
> Nonsense, all freedom and property rights must be approved by
> Democratic Majority which defends them, or they won't BE defended,
> and without that cannot exist. People will authorize the rights for
> all which they want for themselves. But these rights change as the
> People see defects in permitting what will be very soon seen as new
> crimes, and new rights/entitlements will be born in that same process.
head into the noose?
>
> Someday people will no longer have the freedom of speech to LIE.
> It will be considered public fraud to try to promote a falsehood,
> personal, scientific or political! There need be no freedom to lie,
> only freedom to tell the Truth.
offense. I'm pretty sure they did try that part of communism in
Stalin's Russia.
>
> Someday people will not be permitted to demonstrate in a mob, they
> will be shot down like dogs, it will be seen as a criminal conspiracy.
> The right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances will
> be required to be peaceful, or it will be deemed an insurrection!
>
> Someday a person trying to collect rent or mortgage payment from
> another for the home they live in will be taken and executed,
> claiming to own another's home will be unthinkable terrorism!!
> Legal ownership of a home will only be permitted by its residents.
>
> Someday anyone who refuses to work will be denied grocery store
> admittance, and anyone who feeds him will be taken and executed.
>
> Someday anyone will be able to make any drug they wish for their
> own use, but if they try to sell it they will be sentenced to death
> or to be enslaved.
>
> Someday anyone with an incurable STD will be tattooed in a publically
> recognizable place on their body, to warn others. Anyone removing it
> will be killed.
Jason King
> You're a liar. Only inhuman criminals need be eliminated or enslaved.
> They are a small minority. And after the first batch dies they will
> be FAR smaller.
I'm no liar, I'm merely reading what you said and applied it.
"The great minority of humans are criminals who should be enslaved or
executed." Is your phrase, not mine.
>
>
>
>> Most communists are liars
>
> ----------------------
> You don't KNOW any such group and neither do I. Quit lying and
> posturing.
I've spoken to low level functionaries in the government of the former
USSR so yes I do. You don't know my life, so don't presume to call me a
liar based on your own ignorance.
> They don't have to be, but I think they are the wonderful.
That's why I said you were honest and self-consistent.
>
> I know that I'm doing the right thing when your kind tells me that
> I'm scary. Very rewarding. And Democratic Communism will finally
> indeed control the entire human species! Collectivism has been
> the persistent trend of human organization since the beginning of
> our species. Even republicans are now much more liberal-collectivist
> than only a short time ago. The middle is moving Leftward, and the
> People are demanding more collectivist protection and entitlements
> from whomever is fighting to take over that middle that is moving
> inexorably to the Left!!
Democratic communism is a contradiction. No nation that's ever
attempted to have communism as an economic system has had a
representative government with free elections.
>>Wow. You're telling me you believe that your time is no more valuable
>>to anyone than a Pointy Haired Boss's time?
>
> ------------------------
> Sure, after we give him the choice of starving or being put to honest
> work as an assembler! We all deserve the same wage IF WE WORK, and NOT
> if we DON'T!
Ah, you ducked the question.
R. Steve Walz
>
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
>
> > You're a liar. Only inhuman criminals need be eliminated or enslaved.
> > They are a small minority. And after the first batch dies they will
> > be FAR smaller.
>
> I'm no liar, I'm merely reading what you said and applied it.
You're a liar and misapplied it with bias.
> "The great minority of humans are criminals who should be enslaved or
> executed." Is your phrase, not mine.
------------------------
Should is a preference, need is the minimum requirement.
> >> Most communists are liars
> > ----------------------
> > You don't KNOW any such group and neither do I. Quit lying and
> > posturing.
>
> I've spoken to low level functionaries in the government of the former
> USSR so yes I do.
-------------------------
Liar. You did not. Saying you did proves you're an idiot.
What's a "low level functionary", oh, you mean the gardener.
And Russia was never communist. You believed the lies the feudal
rulers told their people to explain why the mass was equally poor
instead of equal. The Politburo families were a feudal nobility
who used the army to steal everything Russia made, sell it abroad,
and sock the money away in offshore foreign banks! They now run
the Russian mafia worldwide and the Putin govt!!
> You don't know my life, so don't presume to call me a
> liar based on your own ignorance.
=--------------
Don't whine and cry, it's embarrassing.
I KNOW you're a liar.
> > They don't have to be, but I think they are the wonderful.
>
> That's why I said you were honest and self-consistent.
----------------------------------
My preference for moral revenge is unrelated to the minimal
requirements needed to improve society.
> > I know that I'm doing the right thing when your kind tells me that
> > I'm scary. Very rewarding. And Democratic Communism will finally
> > indeed control the entire human species! Collectivism has been
> > the persistent trend of human organization since the beginning of
> > our species. Even republicans are now much more liberal-collectivist
> > than only a short time ago. The middle is moving Leftward, and the
> > People are demanding more collectivist protection and entitlements
> > from whomever is fighting to take over that middle that is moving
> > inexorably to the Left!!
>
> Democratic communism is a contradiction.
--------------------
No, it is the only possible outcome of democracy.
Only a capitalist democracy is the real oxymoron.
> No nation that's ever
> attempted to have communism as an economic system
--------------------------
Attempted? So then you deny any succeeded, or are you
just being smarmily deceptive?
> has had a
> representative government with free elections.
----------------------------
That's only because it hasn't yet even been attempted without being
co-opted and reconquered by the rich in its crib.
But humans lived and evolved in such systems for 100,000 years.
> >>Wow. You're telling me you believe that your time is no more valuable
> >>to anyone than a Pointy Haired Boss's time?
> >
> > ------------------------
> > Sure, after we give him the choice of starving or being put to honest
> > work as an assembler! We all deserve the same wage IF WE WORK, and NOT
> > if we DON'T!
>
> Ah, you ducked the question.
------------------
Nope, I answered the deeper one that you wished avoided.
Rosso
> Quite frankly, I'm a getting a bit annoyed by this discussion thread
> which used to have something to do with cpm some time ago. I have
> a funny feeling that this "yes it is" "not it isn't" "yes it is times
> infinity" "no it isn't times infinity plus one" grade of arguement
> should be in a new newsgroup called comp.os.cpm.pointlesspoliticaldebate
> or comp.os.cpm.ihavetoomuchsparetime
Ah!!, an educated person, i.have.too.much.spare.time sounds great, could that
be arranged for that to be created?
> Why also are there such a level of personal insults coming from such an
> anonymous address?
Something to do with Spam, I get fewer now thanks to some spam control from my
ISP.
Regards,
Rosso.
French Luser
> When we are gone, will any of our contributions be remembered?
Personally, I am almost certain that everything I have done
will disappear. Witness the fact that nobody has been
interested over all those years in what I am doing.
The problem is that, if I don't do it, who will?
So, I simply work as much as I can, given my time and money.
I also think that most people (especially the Americans,
who are entertained to death) don't have a rational way
to evaluate the value of things. As we say: "History will
be the judge...". If everything I have done is worthless,
it will disappear for ever. If, one day, people re-get
interested in programming interpreters or compilers
in assembly language in less than 8K bytes, then
maybe my collection will be saved. (But probably
after my death, if it managed to survive.)
Yours Sincerely,
"French Luser"
Michael J. Mahon
>Michael J. Mahon wrote:
<snip>
>> But I can't help but mention that we would have a lot
>> less of Dickens to read if he had not been getting paid
>> by the word. ;-)
>>
>> -michael
>-----------------
>I LIKE Dickens! Why would you wish to read less of him?? ;->
So do I--I didn't say I wished to read less of him, only that
there would be a lot less of him to read.
-michael