Let's take the State Department and DOD's view on this for one second. There's a guy you can't control fucking you up. You probably can't charge him under the Espionage Act or anything else under US law, or any other international law for that matter. How do you get to him? How do you do it in a way where he'd lose the most sympathy? How about funneling money to two women who seduce Assange and then accuse him of rape? Use the same backdoor money laundering schemes you've been using for years to prop up regimes, rebel groups, and any organization supporting your mission around the world for years.
The way to figure out what's going on is to talk to people in the intelligence community. I'm sure this is a classic play in some circles.
We're seeing a common problem here: really inexperienced developers trying to take on extremely complex problems. Maybe a symptom of all the Web 2.0 BS where you can just slap together a site in 2.0 seconds?
With these two projects, that's the commonality. It's much easier to come up with an idea than to execute it. As someone said, there are no good ideas, just execution. When you're 20 years old you don't necessarily understand that, and both these projects are not Zuckerburg throwing up a site called "thefacebook" -- they're really much more complex.
Swarm downloading using chunks from different peers was hardly new with BitTorrent. SwarmCast, Gnutella, and iMesh were all doing this before BitTorrent. Basically any P2P program that didn't use swarm downloading after about 2001 was getting stale.
The fact multi-source downloading is associated with BitTorrent has always been a mystery. I think everyone just didn't quite understand the fact that every other major p2p company was already doing it when BitTorrent came along, and that became the headline reporters used to explain what was different about BitTorrent.
So, "legally" (emphasis on quotes), this crazy approach applies to almost all p2p architectures out there!
@ Rich Kulawiec I'm talking about free as in beer. You've repeatedly misinterpreted my comments, and don't call me a newbie. I'd honestly be shocked if you know more about this topic than I do or have more experience in this field than I do.
There is a distinct difference between corporations contributing to Linux (which, despite your claim involves more companies than just IBM) and claiming that a single company is responsible for the entire OS.
No question I'm overstating my case to make a point. There are lots of companies that make Linux, with IBM being the biggest. The reality is Linux is essentially a cooperative project where many large companies share the cost and mitigate their risk.
The problem with your argument is that you don't "do" software - development, support, and other services are the scarce resources, not the actual finished product. And none of those things dictate that the end product should be charged for. Charging for the services and giving the software away makes perfect sense if the chosen business model is sound.
Depends on the software. You're point is true for IBM and Linux, for example, and not true for Microsoft Office.
So the logic behind your argument is that just because you can do business a certain way, then you should do business that way? It seems to me that a more sensible solution would be to investigate what model makes the most business sense, rather than what happens to be easiest.
The logic behind my argument is that you should bring in cash where you can, and I think more companies could bring in cash on the software side. The free software stuff is trendy, but to me often misguided because fewer and fewer companies can afford to hemorrhage cash. @FinanceGrad made that argument far more eloquently than me however!
@CVPunk Just to reiterate: I build free software that's also open source; I do think, however, that more companies should charge for software because I think:
1) More people will pay for it than you think
2) As a result of #1, many businesses that are currently unsustainable could be made sustainable
I'm really not attacking Linux or open source here. I actually think part of the problem is open source is associated with free. Myth #1 you point to is interesting:
1) If software costs nothing, it's no good
You don't have to convince me of that. There's also no shame in putting a price tag on something, though. There's a sort of badge of honor associated with making your open source software also free, and I think it's often a mistake if you want to make that software ultimately succeed.
@Rich Kulawiec I *think* you're referring to me? My entire business is built on open source and open protocols. I'm one of the people building the network you're talking about, and I'm a huge advocate of open standards, have helped the process along many times in MMUSIC and BEHAVE working groups at the IETF and elsewhere, etc. There are just a lot of illusions surrounding what's happening, and I think our discussion should be grounded in reality.
Again, it's not some big diss to Linux to say it's largely built by paid employees. We should be more interested in what makes these various models succeed than we are in whether or not they match our conceptions of them.
You can't call Facebook and Twitter different, model-wise -
I never said they were different model wise. I said they were different cost wise. That's a pretty key factor in running a profitable company.
they, like the myriad of other web companies out there at the moment, both sell the service rather than the software. Some companies doing this aren't profitable, but the fact there are plenty that make money shows the SaaS model is viable and hence you don't have to charge for software.
Except that the SaaS model says nothing about whether or not you sell it. It just says it's a service.
I'll admit I'm lumping together selling software with selling services on web sites, but the two are very closely related.
Good god, what have I gotten myself into? Back to writing SaaS so I can make some money...
First of all, even if we grant the premise that Linux was created by IBM (which isn't true...),
Ever talked to anyone who actually works on Linux? Ever looked at who is actually doing it full time? Company employees. That's fine. It's just a reality most people don't know.
how does that change things. If anything that makes the case for giving away software and charging for other things even STRONGER. Based on your own reasoning, IBM is spending its own money and resources to develop software that is given away totally free, and is doing just fine profiting from that.
That SUPPORTS the idea of giving away software for free. Not the other way around.
Depends how you look at it. IBM latched on to an already extremely healthy open source project that had momentum and community. They (along with Red Had, Novell, etc etc) made it stand up against enterprise offerings, but most of the risk had already been take. Sun's approach is the other way around -- trying to create an open source community from a corporate code base.
I would suggest that learning a little economics might help here. Again, you seem to be missing the point that IBM, for example, is making a ton of money by giving away software for free.
You seem confused. No one said that you don't make any money. We said you make money from a different part of the business.
Gee, thanks for the tip pal. I'll get on that. Arrogance is always flattering. My larger point is there's this dominant idea floating around that you shouldn't charge for software, and that you should build businesses based on users. I understand Sun's strategy of giving away the friggin software to sell the hardware. The problem is, the vast majority of their customers just want the best product available. They're not saying "sweet Sun's giving us Solaris for free!" they're asking "what is the best product in the market."
I thought I wrote all of this in the post, so I'm not sure why you seem to be reiterating these obviously false points that you want to make.
Oh, I'll re-read it. Oh no wait, I just disagree with you buddy. Are you serious?
Those are pretty much the 3 points I want to make:
1) Open source is a myth. Linux is essentially built by IBM, and don't let anyone tell you different. I'd like to believe at least as much as the next guy or gal there's this amazing open source army out there teaming together to get it done. The reality is far different. Don't take this the wrong way. It doesn't mean open source sucks -- I love open source, have managed open source projects with millions of users, and I open source every line of code I write (a lot of lines).
2) Software should cost money. Anyone reading the papers lately? These companies built on infusions of millions of dollars of investment capital are a friggin joke. What ever happened to good old fashion profits and losses? Turns out nothing. Sure, if you've got millions to spare, you can gamble it all on Facebook or whatever, but if the fundamentals of the business suck, you've got the same old problem. I actually don't put Twitter in this category. Why? Their costs are low low low in comparison. All the other names likely popping up in your mind are a joke to me.
That's why software should cost money. If you're doing something valuable, you should charge for it and actually run a profitable company. Sure, there's the whole "loss leader" thing in Sun's case, but why not charge for what you can? It also adds legitimacy. Sun seems desperate, further diluting their brand. It's like they don't respect themselves enough to charge for the software they're writing. That pretty much covers both #2 and #3.
@Anonymous Coward People are posting to Facebook because that's where everyone else can easily see the videos. With a video on a random server, you'd have to manually e-mail everyone for them to see it. Wedding videos are the perfect example of when the social graph adds value to content.
The point you bring up is a good one, though. If you want to control your content, don't give control of it to someone else (duhh). With LittleShoot (aka my software), for example, your videos are hosted on your own computer and distributed via p2p. You can tag your file however you want. When someone goes to download it, they get it from all available peers automatically (always swarms), and you can include public HTTP servers in the swarm if you want to speed things up. The sort of automated scanning Facebook is doing is impossible since we don't have the content, but if LittleShoot gets a takedown notice, the videos are no longer available in search results. There should be room for the best of both worlds if/when Facebook opens up Facebook Connect to more than the initial launch partners, depending on how much they make available via the API.
All it will take is a single movie to succeed with the model you're describing, most likely an independent film along the lines of the Blair Witch Project. It's amazing how much online buzz that film was able to get what, almost 10 years ago? Way before the Internet had hit its stride. What could you do now?
Clearly the "official sanction" such a move would give is holding the studios back. It wouldn't play well in future court cases, but again, the market could dictate something along these lines as soon as someone starts succeeding with it. Let's hope.
Oh, by the way, generally fantastic posts, Mike. I'm continually amazed at the percentage of your posts I find interesting -- a far far higher percentage than anyone I can think of, particularly for how often you post (I find probably 90% of Cringely's posts interesting, for example, but he's much less frequent). It's not an easy feat!
I'm increasingly amazed at the massive number of copyrighted works on many, many sites that *have not received takedown notices.* Before you say, "duh, that's because there are zillions of files on the Internet -- they can't police all of them, hence the lawsuit", it's increasingly obvious on sites from YouTube to LittleShoot that copyright holders like Viacom are intentionally leaving a great deal of material up because it promotes their content so well. There's a gargantuan gray area between Viacom distributing on LimeWire, on YouTube, and then whining about it in the courts.
The moral of the story is everyone's still trying to figure out how to make money on Internet video, and they're following all paths simultaneously. The dirty little secret is no one's making money except the companies that can eliminate bandwidth costs using p2p -- aka my old boys at LimeWire and hopefully someday soon, my latest project everyone should definitely sign up for:
It's interesting that "angry dude" won't identify who he actually is. My guess is he's not identifying himself because he has some interest in your article not being true. Does "angry dude" == "patent troll"? Quite possibly.
I'm always amazed when I find myself in NDI land -- amazed that startups are wasting their precious time on them. That time is far better spent coding, working out the marketing plan, etc etc -- aka executing. The reason people often deal with NDIs is because they don't have confidence in their ability to out-execute the competition. In that case, you're in the wrong business anyway. The people who can't execute resort to loopholes in the system like trolling for patents that undermine the process of innovation.
I feel the need to defend you, Mike, because I agree with you so damn strongly and object to these constant attacks. I'm also friendly with Brad Burnham and a great deal of respect for both him and Andrew Parker over at USV.
The mildly attacking nature of the original post has diverted this whole thread away from the central point: execution is harder than ideas. I couldn't agree with you more, Mike.
In fact, I think Myhrvold & co. illustrate that point most vividly: ideas are easy. The number of patents these guys file is not an illustration of how brilliant they are, it's an illustration of how much easier ideas are than executing anything at all. I know many, many people I could throw in a room and create patentable ideas with quickly. I know very few who could turn those ideas into products people actually use.
Your point is vital to keep hammering away at, Mike. Don't let the hurt egos of the patent trolls sway you.
I've gone into details on my blog of how Google's new pricing model clarifies the differences between App Engine and Amazon's AWS. For web applications, it's shocking how badly Google beats Amazon for:
1) Scaling
2) Database details
3) Price
The details are here:
http://tinyurl.com/5g934j
Amazon still has a place for many applications, but Google wins by a wide margin for the most common applications type -- web apps. They're more of a domain-specific cloud service.
It's hard to learn this lesson unless you've had to execute something, but your point is unbelievably true. The degree of its truth struck me recently when discussing an idea with a group that did not have the skills to execute the idea. The conversation immediately turned to patents and legalities, and I was left scratching my head because all I cared about was the execution.
The correlation with patents is what struck me. Patents make a lot more sense *if all you have is the idea*. If you have the capacity to execute, you know someone else would have to out-execute you to hinder your success. If you're good, then you have reasonable confidence in your ability to out-execute many comers. If you don't have the capacity to execute, however, the idea is all you've got. Then the conversation turns to the drudgery of patent law, forming a barrier to the next person who comes along with the same idea who might actually be able to do something with it.
You're point is something much of patent law misses: ideas are worthless.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Adam Fisk.
trumped up
Let's take the State Department and DOD's view on this for one second. There's a guy you can't control fucking you up. You probably can't charge him under the Espionage Act or anything else under US law, or any other international law for that matter. How do you get to him? How do you do it in a way where he'd lose the most sympathy? How about funneling money to two women who seduce Assange and then accuse him of rape? Use the same backdoor money laundering schemes you've been using for years to prop up regimes, rebel groups, and any organization supporting your mission around the world for years.
The way to figure out what's going on is to talk to people in the intelligence community. I'm sure this is a classic play in some circles.
Haystack 2.0
We're seeing a common problem here: really inexperienced developers trying to take on extremely complex problems. Maybe a symptom of all the Web 2.0 BS where you can just slap together a site in 2.0 seconds?
With these two projects, that's the commonality. It's much easier to come up with an idea than to execute it. As someone said, there are no good ideas, just execution. When you're 20 years old you don't necessarily understand that, and both these projects are not Zuckerburg throwing up a site called "thefacebook" -- they're really much more complex.
BitTorrent copied this architecture...
Swarm downloading using chunks from different peers was hardly new with BitTorrent. SwarmCast, Gnutella, and iMesh were all doing this before BitTorrent. Basically any P2P program that didn't use swarm downloading after about 2001 was getting stale.
The fact multi-source downloading is associated with BitTorrent has always been a mystery. I think everyone just didn't quite understand the fact that every other major p2p company was already doing it when BitTorrent came along, and that became the headline reporters used to explain what was different about BitTorrent.
So, "legally" (emphasis on quotes), this crazy approach applies to almost all p2p architectures out there!
Re: Re: Re: Re: open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
@ Rich Kulawiec I'm talking about free as in beer. You've repeatedly misinterpreted my comments, and don't call me a newbie. I'd honestly be shocked if you know more about this topic than I do or have more experience in this field than I do.
Re: Re: open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
@DanC
No question I'm overstating my case to make a point. There are lots of companies that make Linux, with IBM being the biggest. The reality is Linux is essentially a cooperative project where many large companies share the cost and mitigate their risk. Depends on the software. You're point is true for IBM and Linux, for example, and not true for Microsoft Office. The logic behind my argument is that you should bring in cash where you can, and I think more companies could bring in cash on the software side. The free software stuff is trendy, but to me often misguided because fewer and fewer companies can afford to hemorrhage cash. @FinanceGrad made that argument far more eloquently than me however!Re: some more myths for you...
@CVPunk Just to reiterate: I build free software that's also open source; I do think, however, that more companies should charge for software because I think:
1) More people will pay for it than you think
2) As a result of #1, many businesses that are currently unsustainable could be made sustainable
I'm really not attacking Linux or open source here. I actually think part of the problem is open source is associated with free. Myth #1 you point to is interesting:
1) If software costs nothing, it's no good
You don't have to convince me of that. There's also no shame in putting a price tag on something, though. There's a sort of badge of honor associated with making your open source software also free, and I think it's often a mistake if you want to make that software ultimately succeed.
Re: Re: open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
@Rich Kulawiec I *think* you're referring to me? My entire business is built on open source and open protocols. I'm one of the people building the network you're talking about, and I'm a huge advocate of open standards, have helped the process along many times in MMUSIC and BEHAVE working groups at the IETF and elsewhere, etc. There are just a lot of illusions surrounding what's happening, and I think our discussion should be grounded in reality.
Again, it's not some big diss to Linux to say it's largely built by paid employees. We should be more interested in what makes these various models succeed than we are in whether or not they match our conceptions of them.
-Adam
Re: Re: open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
I never said they were different model wise. I said they were different cost wise. That's a pretty key factor in running a profitable company.
Except that the SaaS model says nothing about whether or not you sell it. It just says it's a service.
I'll admit I'm lumping together selling software with selling services on web sites, but the two are very closely related.
Good god, what have I gotten myself into? Back to writing SaaS so I can make some money...
Re: Re: open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
open source is a myth, software should cost money, VC business is nuts
Those are pretty much the 3 points I want to make:
1) Open source is a myth. Linux is essentially built by IBM, and don't let anyone tell you different. I'd like to believe at least as much as the next guy or gal there's this amazing open source army out there teaming together to get it done. The reality is far different. Don't take this the wrong way. It doesn't mean open source sucks -- I love open source, have managed open source projects with millions of users, and I open source every line of code I write (a lot of lines).
2) Software should cost money. Anyone reading the papers lately? These companies built on infusions of millions of dollars of investment capital are a friggin joke. What ever happened to good old fashion profits and losses? Turns out nothing. Sure, if you've got millions to spare, you can gamble it all on Facebook or whatever, but if the fundamentals of the business suck, you've got the same old problem. I actually don't put Twitter in this category. Why? Their costs are low low low in comparison. All the other names likely popping up in your mind are a joke to me.
That's why software should cost money. If you're doing something valuable, you should charge for it and actually run a profitable company. Sure, there's the whole "loss leader" thing in Sun's case, but why not charge for what you can? It also adds legitimacy. Sun seems desperate, further diluting their brand. It's like they don't respect themselves enough to charge for the software they're writing. That pretty much covers both #2 and #3.
-Adam
Re: Re:
You used the word "fail," so you fail. Oh wait, so do I...
own your content
@Anonymous Coward People are posting to Facebook because that's where everyone else can easily see the videos. With a video on a random server, you'd have to manually e-mail everyone for them to see it. Wedding videos are the perfect example of when the social graph adds value to content.
The point you bring up is a good one, though. If you want to control your content, don't give control of it to someone else (duhh). With LittleShoot (aka my software), for example, your videos are hosted on your own computer and distributed via p2p. You can tag your file however you want. When someone goes to download it, they get it from all available peers automatically (always swarms), and you can include public HTTP servers in the swarm if you want to speed things up. The sort of automated scanning Facebook is doing is impossible since we don't have the content, but if LittleShoot gets a takedown notice, the videos are no longer available in search results. There should be room for the best of both worlds if/when Facebook opens up Facebook Connect to more than the initial launch partners, depending on how much they make available via the API.
Could not agree more...
All it will take is a single movie to succeed with the model you're describing, most likely an independent film along the lines of the Blair Witch Project. It's amazing how much online buzz that film was able to get what, almost 10 years ago? Way before the Internet had hit its stride. What could you do now?
Clearly the "official sanction" such a move would give is holding the studios back. It wouldn't play well in future court cases, but again, the market could dictate something along these lines as soon as someone starts succeeding with it. Let's hope.
Oh, by the way, generally fantastic posts, Mike. I'm continually amazed at the percentage of your posts I find interesting -- a far far higher percentage than anyone I can think of, particularly for how often you post (I find probably 90% of Cringely's posts interesting, for example, but he's much less frequent). It's not an easy feat!
Viacom needs YouTube, LimeWire, LittleShoot etc
I'm increasingly amazed at the massive number of copyrighted works on many, many sites that *have not received takedown notices.* Before you say, "duh, that's because there are zillions of files on the Internet -- they can't police all of them, hence the lawsuit", it's increasingly obvious on sites from YouTube to LittleShoot that copyright holders like Viacom are intentionally leaving a great deal of material up because it promotes their content so well. There's a gargantuan gray area between Viacom distributing on LimeWire, on YouTube, and then whining about it in the courts.
The moral of the story is everyone's still trying to figure out how to make money on Internet video, and they're following all paths simultaneously. The dirty little secret is no one's making money except the companies that can eliminate bandwidth costs using p2p -- aka my old boys at LimeWire and hopefully someday soon, my latest project everyone should definitely sign up for:
LittleShoot
right on again
It's interesting that "angry dude" won't identify who he actually is. My guess is he's not identifying himself because he has some interest in your article not being true. Does "angry dude" == "patent troll"? Quite possibly.
I'm always amazed when I find myself in NDI land -- amazed that startups are wasting their precious time on them. That time is far better spent coding, working out the marketing plan, etc etc -- aka executing. The reason people often deal with NDIs is because they don't have confidence in their ability to out-execute the competition. In that case, you're in the wrong business anyway. The people who can't execute resort to loopholes in the system like trolling for patents that undermine the process of innovation.
I feel the need to defend you, Mike, because I agree with you so damn strongly and object to these constant attacks. I'm also friendly with Brad Burnham and a great deal of respect for both him and Andrew Parker over at USV.
Stay strong.
-Adam Fisk
right on mike
The mildly attacking nature of the original post has diverted this whole thread away from the central point: execution is harder than ideas. I couldn't agree with you more, Mike.
In fact, I think Myhrvold & co. illustrate that point most vividly: ideas are easy. The number of patents these guys file is not an illustration of how brilliant they are, it's an illustration of how much easier ideas are than executing anything at all. I know many, many people I could throw in a room and create patentable ideas with quickly. I know very few who could turn those ideas into products people actually use.
Your point is vital to keep hammering away at, Mike. Don't let the hurt egos of the patent trolls sway you.
-Adam Fisk
Re: Re: Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
By "we" you mean "you"? Sorry, but the collective we in public places is a little annoying too. That said, I can understand your apprehension.
Here's the full URL:
http://adamfisk.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/where-google-app-engine-spanks-amazons-web-services-s3-ec2-simple-db-sqs/
Re: Re: Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
Where App Engine Spanks Amazon's Web Services
I've gone into details on my blog of how Google's new pricing model clarifies the differences between App Engine and Amazon's AWS. For web applications, it's shocking how badly Google beats Amazon for:
1) Scaling
2) Database details
3) Price
The details are here:
http://tinyurl.com/5g934j
Amazon still has a place for many applications, but Google wins by a wide margin for the most common applications type -- web apps. They're more of a domain-specific cloud service.
-Adam
Couldn't Agree More
It's hard to learn this lesson unless you've had to execute something, but your point is unbelievably true. The degree of its truth struck me recently when discussing an idea with a group that did not have the skills to execute the idea. The conversation immediately turned to patents and legalities, and I was left scratching my head because all I cared about was the execution.
The correlation with patents is what struck me. Patents make a lot more sense *if all you have is the idea*. If you have the capacity to execute, you know someone else would have to out-execute you to hinder your success. If you're good, then you have reasonable confidence in your ability to out-execute many comers. If you don't have the capacity to execute, however, the idea is all you've got. Then the conversation turns to the drudgery of patent law, forming a barrier to the next person who comes along with the same idea who might actually be able to do something with it.
You're point is something much of patent law misses: ideas are worthless.