Why intellectual property is such a confusing concept

[Louigi Verona]

Do you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?

Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.

There is very little reason to release software so much. And there is also very little reason to switch hardware. There are enthusiasts who code for old computers and what they do is that they write good code and manage to realize modern programs on inferior hardware so that it would run with the same speed. So it can be done. And basically the computers which we have today are very-very powerful machines - as a coder you should know that. And if you know Windows API, you also know that it is not the greatest thing in the world and not the best code, especially if you need to work with sound or video.

You ask how does that apply to the majority of software.
Well, in several ways.
First of all, the commercial battle between software producers, a fight to death which makes them rush releases in order to win the market.
Second, every major software company out there, with several exceptions, deliver proprietary software. That means huge upkeep on writing copy restriction modules (reg keys and all that stuff), publishing discs and packaging, delivering the product to the stores all over the world, having reg key check servers and all that other joyful hassle of a typical proprietary battalion. It means the company grows to a large number of people they have to feed. This means if they stop producing new software which will be bought - they are going bankrupt. Which means they come up with a new version.
And third - simply a habit and general context.

Now, I am not saying software should not be improved. It should. But releasing FL Studio 9 and demanding huge money for basically the same thing... I mean, since FL Studio 5 changes have been minor. And same goes for most of the proprietary software out there - Photoshop, Microsoft Office and the likes.

So - software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies? Yep.

[Saga Musix]

I see that you are extremely biased, or else you would probably also mention Software like Mozilla Firefox which is known to be free software, and it is certainly not made by capitalists. Remember when they dropped Win9x support, eh? Remember how it feels running Firefox on a P3-500? I heavily doubt that Mozilla Corp. has some deal with hardware manufacturers.

[Louigi Verona]

This is true, what you say about free software.

But not all free software gets upgraded so aggressively. In fact, most is not when it is completed. There is simply no reason to. It can get slight upgrades, but it will not change much and if Some Software was released as a stable 2.0 release, chances are it will take it several years to become 2.9 or 3.0, not 6 months.

With Firefox it is certainly competition with proprietary browsers. If there was no competition, there would be no rush.

I should have mentioned more reasons, I just did not think you would venture into the free software world.
First off, free software has to compete with proprietary, which gives it the initial speed boost. Lots of software, like Open Office, GIMP, various internet and music apps, video editing software - have to continue to deliver products which users will find attractive to use. Sometimes, like with Open Office they have to reverse engineer a proprietary product to make it relevant.
Second, I would name developer model. Like Canonical, who rush their releases once half a year since they believe it gives them incentives and more satisfaction. But I would argue an OS release differs from a software release.

As for being biased, I do not see in what way. I may not have all the information - it would arrogant to seriously claim so - but I have enough information to say that most of the "digital progress" is artificial and its origins lie in the desire to make more money rather than advance technology. Not all of it, but most of it. Such is my understanding of the situation.

[PPH]

Do you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?

Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.

In fact, when we had a course in economy in the university, they actually said that western economy is no longer a demand-production scheme. Instead the demand is created by various marketing techniques and cross-company agreements.

A simple example are computers. If you look at the software which you had in, say, 2002, you will see that it basically offers same functionality. The only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.

When you speak about providing information - this is true, ads do that. But information, especially in our digital age, can spread quite well and in fact more reliably without the need for slogans from people, who are trained to fool you.
There are whole countries which do not or did not have advertisements, yet people could find what they need. I've never heard or seen an ad of a Korg groovebox, but I've bought it because I saw fellow musicians using it and I decided I want it. How did I manage it without ads?

The difference between ads and word of mouth is that the latter does not lie. So why choose ads?

If the ads are able to peacefully convince people that they should buy something, then there's nothing wrong with it, and the fact that demand reflects what people want is still true.

If production didn't match more or less what people want and marketing were enough to make people buy things, everyone would have their homes full of useless things. Production would be random: companies wouldn't bother producing useful things. They would just produce things at random because people would buy them anyway. Or maybe the would produce nothing at all. They just would use marketing to convince people to give surrender all their riches to them. The standard of living wouldn't raise anywhere. It would be unimaginable chaos. Society would be wiped out. In fact, capitalism and socialism would be exactly the same. In a socialist society, a group of persons decides what is to be produced and how. This is the same: a group of people decides what is to be produced and how.

Sure, some ads lie. So do politicians. People won't keep buying useless things forever. If a person buys something, it's because she wants to satisfy a given want or need. If that something turns out to be useless, then that want remains unsatisfied. The person won't buy the same thing again. A company that sells useless things cannot survive because companies that do produce useful things will emerge, and people will buy things from them, not from the others. Unless, of course, that violence prevents these new companies from emerging.

[PPH]

I see that you are extremely biased, or else you would probably also mention Software like Mozilla Firefox which is known to be free software, and it is certainly not made by capitalists. Remember when they dropped Win9x support, eh? Remember how it feels running Firefox on a P3-500? I heavily doubt that Mozilla Corp. has some deal with hardware manufacturers.

Yeah. Developers just use more resources because such resources are available and it's just not worth it to attempt difficult technical solutions in order to make the new software work with old hardware when almost everyone is getting new hardware. Hardware gets cheaper and cheaper.

I'm a developer and worked several years in a company that developed a product. Whether to maintain or not backwards compatibility is a tradeoff. It depends on the clients you have and on the effort you have to make. Software code gets smelly after years of changes and fixes. When you throw it out and make a new one, there is no reason to make it work in  hardware that is ten years old.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Do you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?

Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.

Well, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state  that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases. Software developers make use of the resources available to them, and advances in hardware mean that more ambitious software can be developed.

I would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.

[Louigi Verona]

Hm. I guess at this point we got our agrees and disagrees, so I am not sure if there is much point debating this on.

But just to show you that I believe the situation is not as simple, let me comment two things.

Well, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases.

In order for that to be true, you have to be exposed to 100% of the industry. How can you say that in 99% of the cases it is not true? Have you seen it all? By simply being a programmer you are not entitled to all information in the indystry. In my experience it is true - I am talking not about Small Sofware Company, I am talking about Microsoft & IBM. Those deals actually exist - and some of them are publicly known.

I would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.

This is turning the situation upside down.
And as for medical systems, perhaps this will also sound like paranoia to you, but in the medical world the companies actually go as far as to create the sicknesses themselves to sell their medicine. Doctors get the percentage from selling certain medicines to their patients, even if they do not really need it. So the so-called advancements are highly questionable in their necessity.

Yeah. Developers just use more resources because such resources are available and it's just not worth it to attempt difficult technical solutions in order to make the new software work with old hardware when almost everyone is getting new hardware. Hardware gets cheaper and cheaper.

Ha! This is the same thing I am saying. But if the hardware would not get old so fast, there would be no need for such a high upkeep. This might sound debatable, it is, but I tend to believe, at least with the available information today, that such fast hardware advancements are not needed as they undermine the real technological breakthrough. For instance, in music there are a lot of advancements in the software and one might say this is good and it is progress, but I sometimes wish the music software would stop somewhere on the 2005 level and stop advancing, since instead of focusing on being creative people are only upgrading and upgrading their sequencers and plugins.

[Saga Musix]

This is turning the situation upside down.

No, it's just a different view on the situation, which should definitely also not be neglected.

, but in the medical world the companies actually go as far as to create the sicknesses themselves

Yeah, now please stop with all those conspiracy theories. Looking at the current situation with the H1N1 disease of course, one might think that it's all about making money, but what I see here is also the media being a big part of the "hype".

[Louigi Verona]

Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.

Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.

[psishock]

its...kinda offtopic, but the H1N1 "thing" is a really powerful conspiracy (not conspiracy theory), most of the facts will be clear to anyone who watch this video, altho' she speaks with massive amount of information, so its not easy to keep the focus all the time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ranNpzlXIo
(highly recommended to check all of the parts, who is interested about it ocf.)

[PPH]

Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.

Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.

A cross-company agreement cannot be sustained in the long run. If the companies don't satisfy what consumers want, other companies will appear and will do it for them. Also, game theory shows that such agreements are unstable. Not honouring the agreement is a good chance of profit, so sooner or later, such agreements fall, especially because usually some of the companies are more efficient than the others, and therefore the agreement is no good for them.

Of course, if government prohibits other companies from being created, then the need for satisfying consumers disappears.

[uncloned]

let me throw in here that companies do use patents - like buying a competitive patent - to prevent the development of products or improvements.  Why? because it is cheaper and / or more profitable to buy the patent than develop what the patent covers.  Other inventions are never produced until the patent runs out and license fees are no longer applicable.

Of course this is ammunition to say patents are bad but also show the perversion of any market ideal - companies rarely think of consumers - or the public - first.

[PabloLuna]

But not all free software gets upgraded so aggressively. In fact, most is not when it is completed. There is simply no reason to. It can get slight upgrades, but it will not change much and if Some Software was released as a stable 2.0 release, chances are it will take it several years to become 2.9 or 3.0, not 6 months.

With Firefox it is certainly competition with proprietary browsers. If there was no competition, there would be no rush.

Examples of aggresively updated free software...

Google search engine
Orbiter space flight simulator (www.orbitersim.com)
Google Earth
Linux

Buy none, get one free
Is the business model of the future one where the customer no longer pays? Already products in the digital marketplace are being given away free, yet companies are still making profits. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7811481.stm

People won't keep buying useless things forever. If a person buys something, it's because she wants to satisfy a given want or need. If that something turns out to be useless, then that want remains unsatisfied. The person won't buy the same thing again. A company that sells useless things cannot survive because companies that do produce useful things will emerge, and people will buy things from them, not from the others. Unless, of course, that violence prevents these new companies from emerging.

There are 2 concepts of value.  One is "exchange value" (perceived value) and the other is "usefulness value" (real value).  The gap between those two is a toxic asset.

You may have a $1000 pair of shoes and a $40 pair of shoes.  From usefulness point of view, both are covers for your feet.  But perceived value, given some social values, distort perceived value, creating artificial and imaginary value that allows sellers to make more money.

This perceived value is what makes cheap stuff to be expensive, and it helps speculation and the creation of toxic assets.

Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.

Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.

Right.

Corruption threatens "soul and fabric" of U.S.: FBI
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B74AI20091208

What I do is that I try to evaluate conspiracy theories on my own, without taking sides.

There are plenty of senseless conspiracy theories in US that say humans do not have an effect on climate.  It includes "sun heating Earth" (The Telegraph UK) where NASA says we are facing low sun activity, "vapor as greenhouse gas" theory while chemistry says water has more heat capacity than water so if water became vapor Earth would cool down, or "since science models are inaccurate, earth is cooling down" (Wall Street Journal) and many other stupid theories.

Here some evidence of the problem.

An animated journey through the Earth's climate history
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8386319.stm

This decade 'warmest on record'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8400905.stm

'Scary' climate message from past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299426.stm

Science Explained: Greenhouse effect in a bottle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm

But one that is true is the documentary "Money as debt"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544#
I have checked this out with non US economists who studied macroeconomics to have an impartial view.

And you may like this BBC documentary on the same matter

Episode 1: Dreams Of Avarice (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIe3-5GyopE&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=0

Episode 2: Human Bondage (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvyRQlXoMA0&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=5

Episode 3: Blowing Bubbles (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIFSyEyv4g&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=10

Episode 5: Safe As Houses (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajNffYAhILs&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=20

Episode 6: Chimerica (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgHmRfYYQ8&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=25

I did not include episode 4 for it has some statements that I consider flawed, because it defends a private insurance system that failed in US and caused 47 million not to be insured.

Do you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?

Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.

Well, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state  that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases. Software developers make use of the resources available to them, and advances in hardware mean that more ambitious software can be developed.

I would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.

You think like a developer, not like a customer.

It may work for a company that is willing to pay $150,000 for a 24/7 non stop support.  But there are companies that can hardly renew their equipment because of budget contraints, let alone making new software.

In 2004, there were approximately 24.7 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates there were 29.3 million nonfarm business tax returns in 2004; however, this number may overestimate the number of firms, as one business can operate more than one taxable entity.

Census data show there were 5.7 million firms with employees and 17.6 million without employees in 2002 (and 18.6 million without employees in 2003). Applying the sole proprietorship growth rates to the nonemployer figures and similar Department of Labor growth rates to the employer figures produces the 24.7 million figure. Small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the 24.7 million businesses, as the most recent data show there are 17,000 large businesses.

[Louigi Verona]

A cross-company agreement cannot be sustained in the long run. If the companies don't satisfy what consumers want, other companies will appear and will do it for them. Also, game theory shows that such agreements are unstable. Not honouring the agreement is a good chance of profit, so sooner or later, such agreements fall, especially because usually some of the companies are more efficient than the others, and therefore the agreement is no good for them.

Ha! Well what you are speaking about is slightly different.

Let me give you an example of what kind of a cross-agreement I am talking about. The situation is simplistic, but actually pretty close to how it is usually done.

You have Microsoft, a video card company and a game company, which are developing an anticipated game.

Microsoft develops Vista. Vista has almost no backward compatibility, so Microsoft has to make sure people make a switch. One of the things they do is go to a video card company and say - let's make a deal - you do not develop drivers for Win XP, MacOS and GNU/Linux, only for Windows Vista. You can develop those drivers only after 6 month after Vista release. In return Microsoft arranges for the video card company to be advertised as compatible with the new Windows and included into Vista laptops.

At the same time the video card company needs people to switch to their card. So they go to the game company and say - hey fellas, can you make the game more demanding? Our video card will provide for that, so you can have more resources (yay, progress!) and people will have to switch. In fact, we will fund your game development.

So in the end what happens is that the new OS came out and people have to buy "better" video card in order to use OS and to give them even more reason the new 3D shooter requires that new OS and the new video card to run.

This is how it usually works. And for the companies it is a great way to work. And customers sort of get a video card that seems better and a new OS, which seems better - because it supports the new card and the new game and because seemingly it is better resources.

But in the end it means a false feeling of progress, badly written game code and unnecessary tech race. We are sort of jumping forward without actually exploring one step at a time.

Consider - in order to benefit from more resources, one has to push to the limit. But that is rarely done.

I would say, Blizzard is a company that creates games that are really nice and which are very long-term. Most of their games would run even on older hardware at the time of release.

[Louigi Verona]

Pablo: just to make things clear, I do not thing Linux is agressive development. When kernel versions are like 2.6.31 to 2.6.32 in a year this is not aggressive development. By agressive development I mean smth along the lines of 2.0 to 3.0

Also, I wouldn't put the OS kernel development cycles with software. While there are examples of aggressive releases, which I argue are tied to competition with proprietary vendors, most of the free software development is pretty calm. It might be active and fast, but it is not rushing releases and certainly almost never creates new incompatible versions of the same software.