"TV advertising is a terrible financial deal. The TV network charges the advertiser only around a penny for each viewer, sometimes less. That means a penny for 30 seconds of my attention, or $1.20 for an hour of it . . . For a typical hour of TV with 15 minutes of advertising, I would much rather pay them the 30 cents than give them my time to watch 30 commercials."

I own a TiVo, I never watch commercials, and I never watch live TV. I like it this way. I'm pretty sure if the TV industry tries to force me to watch their commercials, I'll just give up TV altogether.

Admittedly, while I haven't thought this through as carefully as Brad has, as a member of the cable-TV-subscriber subset of advertising-based-TV viewers, I pay enough for cable access that I don't think I'm cheating anyone out of anything by skipping TV commercials. On the contrary, I think I'm maximizing my cable ROI, which I hold to be a smart thing.

As Spidey says, "I think I missed the part where this became my problem."
1:49:29 PM |   

"Right now the Philadelphia public school system is being tortured by Microsoft. Acting on an anonymous tip, the software monopolist is making the Philadelphia system go through a lengthy and expensive audit of every computer in all 264 schools within the impoverished school system. Apparently, Microsoft heard that a teacher had illegally copied a Microsoft application onto a school computer. So now the school system must inventory every application on every computer in the system and produce proof of valid licenses for everything."

In contrast, if the school system were using open-source software like Linux, they'd be encouraged to make all the free copies they need, no strings attached. Savings: millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of inventory work.

Matthew clearly states the problem: "By extending their lock on the educational system, the proprietary software vendors have restricted choice, institutionalized inefficiency, and imposed artificially high prices (even after discounts) that hurt taxpayers. Your taxes are paying for the pricing practices of a proprietary monopoly."

Good thinking, good reading.
12:57:55 PM |   

Well, of course. It is to laugh; it is to compute joyfully.
11:42:57 AM |   

I think Dr. Nuñez's arguments in favor of free software apply to corporations as well as governments. I therefore reword his three main arguments this way:

• To guarantee access to corporate information, it is necessary that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats guarantees this free access.
• To guarantee the permanence of corporate data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason systems must be used whose ongoing development can be guaranteed by the availability of the source code.
• To guarantee corporate security, it is necessary to rely on systems that cannot allow the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible allow for code inspection by anyone, thereby increasing security, since ability to inspect the source code nearly eliminates the possibility of backdoor "spy code."