Hombros de Gigantes (Shoulders of Giants) » FUD http://www.hardings.cl/blog Ideas, opinions and references relating IT, FLOSS and Security (among others). Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:59:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 The same argument over and over http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/06/23/the-same-argument-over-and-over/ http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/06/23/the-same-argument-over-and-over/#comments Fri, 23 Jun 2006 21:35:38 +0000 Jens Hardings http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/06/23/the-same-argument-over-and-over/ The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) published an interesting ad in a Capitol Hill newspaper this week. It contains a few quotes of arguments that have been repeated over the time to oppose different technologies, and are basically the same we are hearing these days:

“I forsee a marked deterioration in American music…and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines…” -John Philip Sousa on the Player Piano (1906)

“The public will not buy songs that it can hear almost at will by a brief manipulation of the radio dials.” -Record Label Executive on FM Radio (1925)

“But now we are faced with a new and very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the videocassette recorder.” -MPAA on the VCR (1982)

“When the manufacturers hand the public a license to record at home…not only will the songwriter tie a noose around his neck, not only will there be no more records to tape [but] the innocent public will be made an accessory to the destruction of four industries.” -ASCAP on the Cassette Tape (1982)

Seen via El Diablo en los Detalles and Arstechnica.

]]> http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/06/23/the-same-argument-over-and-over/feed/ 0 Demistificando FUD: Patentes de Software http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/02/10/demistificando-fud-patentes-de-software/ http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/02/10/demistificando-fud-patentes-de-software/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2006 17:29:32 +0000 Jens Hardings http://www.hardings.cl/blog/2006/02/10/demistificando-fud-patentes-de-software/ Un argumento esgrimido en muchos ataques de FUD es que los proveedores de software bajo licencias privativas se encargan de velar por que los usuarios finales no se vean afectados por demandas por infringir patentes y otras herramientas legales. Pues bien, Microsoft se ha encargado de probar que eso no es cierto: los usuarios de Office deberán instalar una actualización para que dicha empresa no tenga que pagar más daños y perjuicios a un poseedor de una patente en Guatemala. El costo de esto obviamente lo paga el usuario, y para empresas que tienen decenas de miles de instalaciones de Office, el costo en horas hombre, interrupción de servicio, probables incompatibilidades y otros no es nada de despreciable.

En fin, es exactamente la solución que hubiese generado cualquier desarrollador de software Open Source. Así que los usuarios de productos privativos no están mejor en ese sentido de lo que están usuarios de software Open Source.

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