flushit (u/flushit) - Readit News

flushit commented on Write Free Software writefreesoftware.org/... · Posted by u/stargrave

simiones · 3 years ago

I don't see why it's sad. As long as the code isn't forked and maintained internally as part of some proprietary piece of code, why would you care whether it's technically legal to do so or not?

flushit · 3 years ago

It's sad because it basically gives a huge drawback to picking a copyleft license that has little to do with the actual contents of the license but mostly with market share of the license.

(I won't start discussing the merits of copyleft itself, if that's what your "why do you care?" question was aiming at.)

flushit commented on Write Free Software writefreesoftware.org/... · Posted by u/stargrave

ltr_ · 3 years ago

just curious: what would be the answer from FSF/OSS people to , cheating and opensource games/libraries?. i mean if for example dota2 were open source it would be fairly trivial to make scripts to send commands on events (even closed source games get cheat mods!).

off topic : on the other side, i think is inevitable that at some point in the future players will have AI assistants looking at their screens , making decisions and inputs just like a real human, (heck! you can sort of do that now with linux/x11 , screen grab and proton very easily), i personally would love to see competitive gaming involving AI agents and assistance.

flushit · 3 years ago

Cheat mitigation needs to be server-side. Anything coming from the client has to be fair game. No matter what you do, this is inevitable in the light of reverse engineering and AI progress.

Chess is already there. It's really easy to cheat. You can though analyze games after the fact and pretty reliably conclude whether somebody cheated. That's one example of server-side cheating mitigation. No matter what the client feeds you, cheaters are detected and eventually banned.

flushit commented on Write Free Software writefreesoftware.org/... · Posted by u/stargrave

simiones · 3 years ago

Most free software is not copyleft though, and fewer and fewer new free software projects are choosing copyleft licenses.

Ultimately copyleft is mostly a bureaucratic exercise, and it ends up stifling collaboration in all but the most hostile environments (such as the one Linux faced in its early days).

flushit · 3 years ago

This is pretty sad. I believe there needs to be a critical mass. If, say, 90% of all FOSS projects were copyleft, then it would be much easier to introduce copyleft-licensed FOSS in companies, since they'd already know how to deal with it and it would not be a big deal.

Today, many companies basically ban GPL-licensed or otherwise copyleft software projects, perhaps apart from a handpicked list of exceptions, because they don't want to deal with the hassle. MIT, fine, GPL, no. And that's pretty sad. Because it means that if write a new project you need to choose between "people will use it but it won't be copyleft" and "copyleft but a sizeable part of the community won't touch it with a 10ft pole".

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

activitypea · 3 years ago

> Every reasonable company cancels projects not bringing in enough profits, since shareholders want to see a return on investment. Non-zero profit is not enough.

I see very little reason in cancelling profitable projects. Also, framing my comment as a "misconception" is kinda indisgenious. This is a philosophical disagreement, hard to frame my point of view as objectively wrong.

flushit · 3 years ago

> I see very little reason in cancelling profitable projects.

Happens all the time everywhere. Money wants to maximize profits. If company A brings you 2% return and company B 5%, then the money will gravitate towards company B. It's not that company A doesn't have profitable projects, perhaps all of their projects are profitable. But just less so than company B, on weighted average. And that's not bad. A reasonable society prefers to use its resources optimally. That's where market mechanisms and society objectives align, and that's why we are embracing a market-based economy. (There are other factors than profits of course, and that's where government regulation comes in. But all else equal, the above example of companies A and B holds and illustrates my point.)

I encourage you to try a management role in a for-profit business and after a few years we can chat again.

> Also, framing my comment as a "misconception" is kinda indisgenious.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I just see this line of arguments now and then and it seems to me that there is some fundamental knowledge of the involved mechanisms lacking.

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

activitypea · 3 years ago

Unless Sennheiser can prove that the 555s are being sold at a loss, there is no "cross-subsidizing" happening here. You talk as if "the markets" and "the economy" are some naturally occuring phenomena that are matter of fact and non-negotiable.

flushit · 3 years ago

> Unless Sennheiser can prove that the 555s are being sold at a loss, there is no "cross-subsidizing" happening here.

Nope. That's part of the misconception here. It suffices that they are being sold for less profit than the target profit margins of the company. And that's very likely the case, given the situation with the premium-tier offering. Every reasonable company cancels projects not bringing in enough profits, since shareholders want to see a return on investment. Non-zero profit is not enough.

> You talk as if "the markets" and "the economy" are some naturally occuring phenomena that are matter of fact and non-negotiable.

I'd indeed claim that market mechanisms can be treated like natural laws, just like gravity or natural selection. You can steer them with taxes or other incentives, just like you can steer how gravity or natural selection impact you. But the mechanisms themselves work no matter if you like them or not, or if you find them "evil" or not.

And I say this as a lefty who is in favor of radical inheritance tax and such. It's important to understand the thing you try to regulate.

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

erulabs · 3 years ago

Very correct, but you’re missing their point. What’s “evil” is that the folks who’ve spent their life designing, optimizing, investing in, and producing these products aren't doing it purely out of the goodness of their hearts, but selfishly in the pursuit of a better life.

What is “evil” to these posters is always “profit above the value of goods provided”. It doesn’t matter whatsoever that the (subjective) material and emotional situation of every happy sennheiser buyer, employee, and investor is better than before.

flushit · 3 years ago

> What’s “evil” is that the folks who’ve spent their life designing, optimizing, investing in, and producing these products aren't doing it purely out of the goodness of their hearts, but selfishly in the pursuit of a better life.

Sure. That's true though to different degrees for everybody participating in a market-based economy. You can call all of us "evil", but then the term loses most of its meaning.

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

optymizer · 3 years ago

I said companies are acting 'evil', not that customers are evil for not spending money.

You don't get what's evil because you're reacting to the environment you know, but you don't have to. Imagine a better environment where your options are not limited to "expensive headphones" or "less expensive headphones".

flushit · 3 years ago

The alternative to the "'expensive headphones' vs 'less expensive headphones'" choice is not "less expensive headphones". Best case scenario, it's "slightly less expensive headphones but still more expensive than the originally less expensive ones". Or perhaps "they stop manufacturing headphones".

We're not living in a dream world. The conditions you set have consequences in how people behave. Not just individuals, but also companies.

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

optymizer · 3 years ago

> it's not about being evil, it's about economy

Instead of justifying the status quo, I think we would all benefit if we retired the concept of an economy that incentivizes companies to act evil in order to succeed in it.

Edit: 'evil' is a loaded word. I'm generally referring to profit being the only measure of success. I for one would like to see other KPIs enforced by government institutions, such as 'environmental impact' or 'human benefit'.

flushit · 3 years ago

Everybody arguing like this in the thread seems to be missing that the company is offering cross-subsidized headphones for $150. If you actually make them stop the two-tier system, then they would stop offering those for $150 and would need to sell the single-tier product for over $200. There will be some people who can't afford that. So your activism would prevent them from getting nice headphones for $150. Who's evil now?

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

wahnfrieden · 3 years ago

Sounds like a "bullshit job". Note that I did not say: it should be illegal, or that it’s not maximizing profits for ownership, so please go away if that’s what you want to say to me.

flushit · 3 years ago

No, sounds like "maximizing profits". Nobody is suffering here, so I don't really see how this should be illegal.

flushit commented on Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod mikebeauchamp.com/misc/se... · Posted by u/edent

kcatskcolbdi · 3 years ago

But they are selling the premium tier for $150. It's the same set of headphones.

It would be as if Apple sold you one computer for $1,000, but the exact same computer in a different case for $2,000, with the only difference being they put a bunch of malware on the first one so it runs slower.

That's not "re-use design and manufacturing processes for multiple segments", it's intentionally breaking half the product line to sell at a lower price.

flushit · 3 years ago

> That's not "re-use design and manufacturing processes for multiple segments", it's intentionally breaking half the product line to sell at a lower price.

Sure, you can call it like that if you will. You are free not to buy any products from a company doing this if you don't like it.

As I explained above, they could stop doing that, but then the product would cost more. That may be nice for somebody who wants the premium product version for $280 instead of $350. But I'm sure there are people around who are fine with the simpler ("broken") one if that means they only need to pay $150. And since there are, there is obviously a demand, so it's obviously not all bad what the company is doing.

Again, if you don't like it, don't buy it. (Oh, and in this particular case, you can just buy the cheap one and do the mod. Be happy that you saved $200 instead of ranting that this is wrong in the first place. The more you rant, the harder they will make it for next time.)