Some of those publishers deserve to be bullied by Amazon.
Reasons not to buy from Amazon
81–90 of 152 posts
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#82Don't drive cars because they pollute the world.
People will always drive cars because convenience has a higher priority then polluting the world.
People will always buy from amazon because of convenience.
There's no point in justifying it. Most people just don't care...
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#83Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle" doesn't make for a very rational argument.
What he calls it really makes no difference to the actual argument. Only your perception of it.
So if one says, "I see you bought the latest Samesong Fandroid Phony", it brings no noise to the conversation?
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
So its like the Patriot Act of licenses? Everything you do must be done in the open for the sake of freedom!
In all seriousness - do you see an equivalence between the Patriot act and the GPL?
Playing devil's advocate here, as I whole-heartedly support OSS and the myriad license under which it is distributed, including the GPL. But ...
That's a really interesting argument. One could argue that the GPL is like the snake eating it's tail on the far side of liberalness. I'm sure this is not a new argument, but I'd never considered that the "polluting" of code with the GPL actually decreases individual liberty for the sake of communal liberty.
Again, not making a judgement one way or the other, but the world is nothing if not a series of bad compromises, and I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the GPL and OSS in general is included in "the world" :)
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
s/Swindle/Kindle/g and you're back. Just because somebody picks abrasive plays-on-words doesn't make their rhetoric any less rational. Unpalatable and annoying, yes, but that's got nothing to do with the argument structure and statements themselves.
When people revert to name-calling it really rubs me the wrong way, and makes me less likely to take their objections seriously. Like when people write "Micro$oft", "Microshaft", "CrApple", etc. If you have rational objections to something, you don't need to resort to such childish tactics. ...Frankly, I'd prefer more rationality from Richard Trollman. ;-)
I think legitimacy and respect go along with making a strong argument. If you resort to name-calling, the rest of your argument must not be strong enough—that's the perception, anyway.
Amazon and Kindle are legitimate whether Stallman likes them or not. And I don't think—given the tone of the rest of the article—that anyone would confuse using the proper name of the product in question as respect.
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#86"A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less of the events." You only need to make a good point once. Adding additional lesser points just weakens it. A fair few dubious and ridiculous claims here, same sort of claims can be made about any multi-national. No smoking gun here.
This does ring true; I'm sure I remember a study of retention of read material comparing paper books with e-readers which supports that point. I think it was something to do with not having an easy way to intuit position in a book with e-readers.
I think it sounds ridiculous. I read both hard-copy and electronic books on a variety of devices. The only device this would hold true for (sample size of one here) is on the computer. The angle of my eyes is wrong, and I need to hold it in my hands. Once I get immersed in the plot, I don't care what is serving it up.
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#87Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Restrictive in that it prevents you from fucking people over. Restrictive in that it controls how you must license derivative works and release source code. It imposes an ideology on others. > This is like saying laws against slavery restrict freedom (freedom to own slaves). No, really, it's absolutely nothing like saying that, and if you care about free software (however defined, but in particular along the lines…
If you build something you should definitely have something to say about what others can do with your work, especially if you give it away for free. And nobody imposes something on you - you are perfectly free not to use GNU licensed things.
I don't recall arguing otherwise. But compared to the BSD license, it's definitely more restrictive about derivative works. Also, the slavery analogy is stupid.
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite sure what your point is. I was referring to one of Stallman's points which was basically that they are "dodging taxes" in the US. They're not and are increasingly collecting sales taxes as they are opening facilities in more and more states as they expand their offerings, just as the law dictates.
Without a robust definition of "dodging taxes," I'm not going to buy the argument. A lot of people use phrases like that to refer to completely legal practices designed to minimize taxes.
And this is why there's a distinction between "tax avoidance" and "tax evasion".
Tax avoidance refers to using legal means to reduce your tax bill.
Tax evasion means illegally not paying your taxes.
Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon
#90Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle" doesn't make for a very rational argument.
I think it's counterproductive, but this page explains his rationale: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.html I sometimes make a point of saying "copy prevention" rather than "copy protection," or "digital restrictions management" rather than "digital rights management," but I don't go for stuff like "Swindle" or "Losedows."
Awesome link. Difference between subverting a proper noun (Kindle) and subjective word choice. The first is clear cut: it's a proper noun! The second can be a fine line: you don't make a compelling argument about abortion by calling pro-choicers "pro-murder".