tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post931659066781604562..comments2023-09-13T14:12:48.111+01:00Comments on YAB: Yet Another Blog: Apple. DRM, Rand...Puthalihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13482408621990138753noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-85234935534942386942007-01-12T17:24:00.000+00:002007-01-12T17:24:00.000+00:00my goodness what a discussion and to think it all ...my goodness what a discussion and to think it all started with an MP3 player lol.<br /><br />Basically the people who buy music off the net aren't worried about the quality rather they want to hear the music badly. Because the quality of music that you buy from any online store not even half the CD quality. So People who really want to enjoy their music in the highest quality will definitely go the store and buy music in CDs and Vinyls. <br /><br />@madcap://Free Software (or Open Souce as some prefer calling it)<br />hey free software and open source software are do different things. Don't combine them. basic difference is that with free software you don't get the source code and it need not be under the GNU GPL whereas in the case of open source software they are released usually under the GNU GPL and also u get the source code along with it.<br /><br />//but the fact is this whole model is pretty new...'n as obvious it aint tht profitable...now if M$ just made say Windows open source, there would be thousands who will just package it and prob offer better service than M$ itself...:D<br /><br />yup thats definitely true ;)Rakeshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05372580613148806275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-20027393841841612542006-12-29T14:31:00.000+00:002006-12-29T14:31:00.000+00:00"somehow its always like few gr8 ppl, develop an a..."somehow its always like few gr8 ppl, develop an awesome product, and then a big corp comes along packages it 'n makes money off it...it would have been nice if they (da ones who actually developed it) could also get a cut of that..."<br /><br />This big corp, usually recruits that person/group of people responsible for the product, or actively backs its development by donations. Like Red Hat employs Alan Cox and Andrew Morton (and perhaps a lot of others who've been part of the kernel dev team since the mid 90s), similarly IBM has a lot of people hacking on the kernel and other server stuff too, or how Yahoo even tho cant buy off FreeBSD, but it invests a lot in FreeBSD's development. Or like Novell bought Ximian, which was a small start-up doin great stuff. While some companies cant capitalize on the new model of business, doesnt mean it's inefficient. Besides, a part of the FLOSS biz model is making in-house custom software. Since, it's in-house and we dont see it, doesn't mean it dont exist.<br /><br />Plus at the end of the day if u're good in providing services, u've won the mkt. Like RedHat/Fedora's desktop feel and appearance is lame compared the SLED10, but at the end of the day RHEL4 is probably 10 times more stable and RH has a great team of ppl providing the essential support that enterprises need that Novel insn't able to provice or market properly. Similarly, RH doesnt care CentOS is actually a gratis RHEL distributor (when Novell isn't even challenged by such a stuff), cuz CentOS doesn't have the time/resources to provide the paid-for Tier 3 support. Or like Oracle thought "oh it's must be easy to create a RH knock-off and take away their customers by providing cheap service." Well, their Unbreakable Linux is majorly broken as some of the initial testers have reported and enterprises cant trust em cuz they dont have any credibility in the "Linux" mkt.<br /><br />Again the distros back other projcts too. Like Mandriva and SuSE (pre-Novell)invested a lot on the KDE project cuz that was their default desktop, while RH (and now also Novell) invest on GNOME.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-24998976892332148972006-12-28T13:53:00.000+00:002006-12-28T13:53:00.000+00:00Sounds more like the zamindars not giving the shar...<b>Sounds more like the zamindars not giving the share of their profits to the hard toiling farmers</b><br />Eggjactly...lol... :DPuthalihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13482408621990138753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-34204277086065258672006-12-28T06:22:00.000+00:002006-12-28T06:22:00.000+00:00I know the discussion is going completely off-trac...I know the discussion is going completely off-track from what it started, but its good none-the-less :-)<br /><br />You seem to be seeing things only from one side. Sounds more like the zamindars not giving the share of their profits to the hard toiling farmers :D. It isnt that bad. Here are some questions that might give you some extra perspectives. <br /><br />Great guys code great softwares in open source and few like-minded people come together to form a small company, what we know as start-ups. Why do you think they want to sell of these start-ups to big corporates ? No, its not just the money. Remember, these guys want to see their softwares sold. Apart from a great piece of code, what else do you need to sell a product ? Few things I can think of are, "brand name", "large sales force", "lots of money" and "good reputation in the market".<br /><br />So, its basically the "economies of scale", where you can sell more at a lesser cost, and yet earn more profits just because you can sell large quantities of the product that drives people to sell their startups to larger corporates. And ofcourse, they get a very handsome amount of share in the profits. First with the initial sale of their start-up and later on with various incentives while working as part of the bigger corporate.Sarfraaz Ahmedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05627188302724560435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-50656370540542279952006-12-28T04:31:00.000+00:002006-12-28T04:31:00.000+00:00well the key thing thr was 'not tht profitable'......well the key thing thr was 'not <b>tht</b> profitable'... :)<br />'n abt services...thr are services 'n thr are 'services'... :)<br />me was talking abt packaging the opensource products...prob 'm da only one who doesn't feel all right with it...somehow its always like few gr8 ppl, develop an awesome product, and then a big corp comes along packages it 'n makes money off it...it would have been nice if they (da ones who actually developed it) could also get a cut of that...<br />or it may be that i haven't got the picture right...(very likely) :D<br />so feel free to correct my notions... :)Puthalihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13482408621990138753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-46195902421853917122006-12-27T17:29:00.000+00:002006-12-27T17:29:00.000+00:00"Providing services aint that profitable"
Sorry, ...<i>"Providing services aint that profitable"</i><br /><br />Sorry, i dont believe that is right. You cant generalise something like that based on a single company's performance. To earn profits, you need to have less costs and more service deals. This formula is a bit skewed on the wrong side for your company. <br /><br />Not just software, there are quite a lot of non-software companies that provide services [ like providing security, or say free home delivery ] that spend less but earn more. There is a huge number of software services company and mostly from india that are profitable. So, providing services isnt a new model at all.<br /><br />And coming back to companies using open source products to give services and earn profit, you have RedHat that is profitable [ and also in a way affecting the services of your company ].Sarfraaz Ahmedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05627188302724560435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-36290002118801682552006-12-26T15:26:00.000+00:002006-12-26T15:26:00.000+00:00'n yeah....considering 'm in a company which does ...'n yeah....considering 'm in a company which does exactly da same...i.e. make money off services...i shd be all for it...<br />but the fact is this whole model is pretty new...'n as obvious it aint tht profitable...now if M$ just made say Windows open source, there would be thousands who will just package it and prob offer better service than M$ itself...:DPuthalihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13482408621990138753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-50207295855882809672006-12-26T15:20:00.000+00:002006-12-26T15:20:00.000+00:00"There are probably 1 in 10,000 who know in order ...<b>"There are probably 1 in 10,000 who know in order to compile u need to follow a ./configre && make && make install."</b><br />seriously wud have argued abt this point...if i hadnt come across a colleague this very morning, who dint know it! :DPuthalihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13482408621990138753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-45878826687831489242006-12-25T12:46:00.000+00:002006-12-25T12:46:00.000+00:00Try reading this http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2...Try reading this <a href="http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-19.html">http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-19.html</a>Sarfraaz Ahmedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05627188302724560435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-10210824170325963312006-12-24T13:29:00.000+00:002006-12-24T13:29:00.000+00:00Woops, this is the actualy writeup that I remember...Woops, this is the actualy writeup that I remembered reading: http://www.scottandrew.com/blog/archives/2004/11/different_currencies.html<br />Anyway, its a good read if you like to know the opinion of a low-key indie musician.<br /><br />"But even worse: DRM doesn't help me sell records. Am I really going to put a big sticker on the CD that says "now with DRM!" and then expect to sell more records? DRM is the opposite of the "free toy inside" approach. Or maybe it's the same thing, except the free toy comes to life, grabs a toy you already own and escapes down the heating vent with it."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-5110581123393209892006-12-24T13:16:00.000+00:002006-12-24T13:16:00.000+00:00Here's Scott Andrew's, a folk-rock indie part-time...Here's Scott Andrew's, a folk-rock indie part-time musician, take on artists against p2p.<br /><br />http://www.scottandrew.com/blog/archives/2005/03/aint_worth_stealing.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-35158287477761538572006-12-24T13:01:00.000+00:002006-12-24T13:01:00.000+00:00ooh I missed out this one... grrr!! lol!! Just my ...ooh I missed out this one... grrr!! lol!! Just my add my thoughts to ur writeup.<br /><br />The point that ppl miss is, the freeloaders/downloaders are still as active as they were before DRM surfaced happened. Meanwhile, some of the ones who'd rather have their CDs in that official jewel case it comes in are turning to p2p cuz they cant rip or copy or mix the songs off of it -- remember mix tapes & CDs? Maybe now it's mixed mp3s?<br /><br />AFAIK Metallica didnt sue Napster for an album song or a published single, but _they_ claimed it was a demo, not-for-release, not-meant-to-be-heard-by-the-public song that cheesed em off. Cuz they claimed a bad-quality song may damage their reputation (something like that, dont exactly remember it now).<br /><br />Fact: When SP wanted to release their left-over demos as one last treat to their fans, Virgin backed out cuz they said it's too early to release a second album and they wanna see how well Machina does in the charts. Which cheesed off Corgon (the Pumkins frontman) and he released the album to his fans online for FREE to download. (It's still available at archive.org for d/l as of today and many other places) <br /><br />FACT: The Allman Brothers claimed last year that out of the 99 cents iTunes is selling their songs for, after iTunes and their label have had their share, the band's getting less than 5 cents for each song sold. Meanwhile, the labels, RIAA and the DRM backers and distributors claim how DRM is to protect the musicians and ensure they get paid for their music.<br /><br />Fact: Music spreads thru sharing. People have been sharing their LPs, then tapes and then CDs with their friends or foes since ages. So, u now have Internet and you also share music with strangers. RIAA calls it piracy. A pirate is someone who takes your money by force for his own profit. The ones who're sharing music over p2p aren't making any profit -- they probably love the music and what others to have a listen to. mp3s dont give u the CD-quality sound; flac and wav files do. Now, lets compute the percentage of songs floating in lossless formats over p2p networks.<br /><br />Fact: The lables/distributes dont care a fidler's fart if say I'm looking for Van Halen's Right Here Right Now at the stores, unless another 100 thousand are looking for that too. So the labels should stop cribbing if I turn to p2p to get the stuff. The bands hand over the responsibility to the labels to take care of distributing their stuff. Meanwhile the labels are not doing their jobs properly.<br /><br />Fact: 99 cents for a lousy mp3 is very expensive, when u get the full album for 10 dollars in proper packeging. <br /><br />Fact: An overwhenming majority of listeners aren't tech savvy. They are the ones who get pissed off when their songs refuse to play in a devise where DRM lock comes into play. iTunes songs dont play anywhere but iPods is a major hurdle cuz maybe it wont play in the damn car stereo or if one moves sonewhere else in the planet. Does Apple warn a customer before they buy the song of these facts apart from that license agreement or whatever they display which probably has 10,000 words that noone reads? How about an easy to read FAQ? Meanwhile, since there non-tech savvy ppl dunno how to break the DRM (even if it's legal in their country).<br /><br />Fact: All big corps cry out loud for fair play and free mkt economy when they're in the 2nd place, yet the mkt leader puts as much restriction to free mkt economy and fair play as they can. <br /><br />Fact: I forgot my thought process in the way. lol<br /><br />[quote]"if I want to make money off what I code is it a bad thing? ‘Coz if you release the source, any normal intelligent person can compile it himself ‘n use it for free."[/quote]<br /><br />Free Software (or Open Souce as some prefer calling it) never denies u to make money off of ur code. RMS used to sell an Emacs tape w/ souce in it for $150 in the 80s. Red Hat makes a helluva lot of money by selling services around whatever it distributes. (Note: CentOS, which is actually a RHEL minus the RH artwork, gives u 100% binary compatibility with RHEL, but it hasn't thrown RH out of biz has it? On the contrary RH claims it has more than 3/4 of the GNU/Linux server mkt) <br /><br />There are probably 1 in 10,000 who know in order to compile u need to follow a ./configre && make && make install. And of those few maybe 10 pencent know how to tinker with the code to suit their needs. So if you're a good enough coder or a group of em, u can build a career around services for ur code, like RH has done. (It doesnt matter how much I dislike looking at that RH desktop, lol)<br /><br />FSF inists that not giving ur code to your customer is bad, but they put no restriction on what you charge for ur ur work. Of course in a free mkt economy u have compititors driving the prices down, but the dinosaur corps dont get it and want as much restriction on free mkt as a Communist country's govt. So, when Ballmer and Gates calls GPL a cancer and compares Free Software to communism, they look like complete idiots, which they are obviously not and thus you can only derive they are just lying.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4752247183054428289.post-39556305683905255222006-12-20T00:02:00.000+00:002006-12-20T00:02:00.000+00:00ipod.. allows radio attachments.. add ons :) dont ...ipod.. allows radio attachments.. add ons :) dont say bad things about ipods! or i'll send you the zune :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com