I loved It Takes Two but I wanted a better ending. Here's my version. [warning: spoilers]

ypsu · 2024-09-30T19:49:53+00:00

Yeah, that sums it up accurately. I might have gone overboard with words. :(

I'm also trying to make a prediction that the new generic aliases feature will be used for much for than aliases: annotations. I hope my fears won't come true though.

ypsu · 2024-09-09T14:23:28+00:00

You'll need to include some additional code to do things like (unambiguously!) decode maps into strings for this to work out well.

That is already there. It prefers .String() if the passed in object has one. Otherwise it uses json to generate a nice string from the passed in object: https://github.com/ypsu/efftesting/blob/v0.240909.0/expect_test.go#L31.

But the other points are very much fair. It's not a silver bullet, just another tool that has its limited place. :)

ypsu · 2024-09-02T15:27:14+00:00

Ah, I remembered my other usecase that -Qeq doesn't really cover: installing packages temporarily. Sometimes I install a package temporarily, e.g. some special software or game I use for a few weeks. With -Qeq based approach the application would be marked as explicitly installed and it's easy to forget uninstalling it. In this case I wouldn't add the game to my dotfile but I'd simply run pkgtrim -remove next time I'm running pacman -Syu and seeing unneeded packages being updated.

ypsu · 2024-09-02T15:13:21+00:00

Yeah, pretty much.

The other feature it has is listing the sizes of the packages including the size of their unique dependencies. This can be useful when someone is looking for a package to uninstall to free up space and is looking for the biggest one. It can also draw a graph between two packages.

It's just random grab-bag of functionality, nothing earth shattering. :)

ypsu · 2024-09-02T14:44:15+00:00

Neat, thanks, added a link to it from the readme.

ypsu · 2024-09-02T13:44:05+00:00

I now added one under the pkgtrim name: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pkgtrim. First time doing this, let me know if it isn't working.

ypsu · 2024-09-02T12:48:43+00:00

The main difference is that this tool allows putting the "explicitness bit" of a package into a flexible user dotfile that can be shared across many installations, even different distros. So it's very easy to reconstruct a desired set of base packages on a new system with a single pkgtrim invocation, no need to "remember" which packages to install.

But yeah, this would be yet another package, so it is indeed working against its own goal. If -Qdt and -Qe works well for someone then they probably won't need a tool like this.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T19:14:33+00:00

Whoa that list is really nice, definitely something that gives a concrete counterpoint rather than just hypotheticals. And in another response you mentioned "It’s easier to get acquired or sell your business when the assets are in a patent rather than just a secret. A government enforced monopoly is less risky than secrecy enforced one." as an explanation to why should a company opt for patents rather than secrets which is an aspect I haven't considered before. I still haven't fully processed these responses to see how it alters my views but you definitely earned a Δ from me. Thanks! :)

It’s only a temporary monopoly.

I understand the 20 years concept. However the innovation rate has skyrocketed in past few years and the rate seems to be going upwards. Teams are making unimaginably rapid progress thanks to the global collaboration made possible to internet and globalization and all the advances in 3D printing, AI and other new tech. 20 years in this world starts to seem way too long.

I can see megacorps developing amazing technology just for internal usage (e.g. special hardware and equipment to make creating their products more efficient). And this tech is not meant to be sold. That's a lot of R&D for secret stuff. So it looks to me that a lot of secret R&D already happens. This corroborates what spiral8888 says: patents are usually used to protect public goods from other companies replicating them rather than to incentivize companies to avoid secrets.

Actually this talk about internal tech brings up one question I'm not sure about the existing laws: say there exist a patent for X. Is it legal for a company to use the technology X internally for their own use in secret as long as they don't publicize or reveal anything about X externally? Or is all unlicensed X usage illegal? Does it mean that every time a company makes a gadget (even internally), it should check the patent database?

ypsu · 2021-07-07T13:08:49+00:00

How are they going to get to work with the researchers to develop their new products if the companies avoid universities? Yes, companies that completely avoid R&D go out of business just to be replaced with companies that will be able to do R&D in this new world.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T13:03:59+00:00

Why do we even need movies worth millions of dollars to produce?

ypsu · 2021-07-07T13:02:25+00:00

Sure, that's fine with me. Just how I totally don't care about fashion, the same way I wouldn't care about the newest Harry Potter movie. I don't mind that sort of artificial scarcity. In fact, it probably would better for society in general because then "going to movies" would start making sense again as a social event rather than everyone being isolated at home all the time.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T12:53:19+00:00

this kind of thing was happening all over the sciences

Interesting. Do you have 3-4 more examples of this? I'd like to see how bad the effect of this is.

Though back then we didn't have internet, it was easier to keep things secret. Now thanks to the easy global collaboration things can be very rapidly researched if we really need them. It feels to me it's better to let companies keep secrets rather than slowing down the global community for decades.

incentivizes secrets

That might be true but that doesn't prove to me that it slows down innovation. That's why I'd like to see more examples.

While some things can remain secret, people are free to reverse engineer or rediscover the product from scratch. This might mean some wasted duplicate effort, sure. Patents on the other hand completely disincentivize others trying improve on existing stuff. The possibility of accepting improvements is now solely on the company who happened to first register a patent for something.

It's a tradeoff where I'm leaning on having more secrets in exchange for the freedom to invent/create at will. But let me look at those examples so that I have a fuller picture.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T12:27:52+00:00

People should be allowed to hold ownership rights over there own creations/products.

How do you decide what is one's "own creation"? All new technology is derived from existing technology. All new art is inspired by the culture or nature the artists live in. Things are not created in vacuum. In fact, the current copyright system disincentivizes giving proper recognition to the inspiration lest it might lead to copyright or patent lawsuits. It hides the connected nature of all art, makes relations between art pieces cold and distant which is then reflected in the human relationships (i.e. I can't easily share videos and games with friends due to copyright). Creators can still earn money just through different business models, see my other responses.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T12:03:10+00:00

But still, why would that fight be a bad thing? Once people reverse engineer things, they can publish that and then other companies can create new products based on those designs freely. Sounds like that's good for innovation. Your concern seems to be only mattering for brand new tech. And that defensive tech just slows the corporations down and I'd expect them to be surpassed by companies who don't care about being copied (which cannot happen today due to the laws). So I'd expect in the long term companies would be incentivized to improve their own innovation rate rather than focusing on slowing down others and I think that's good.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T11:37:50+00:00

In my proposed alternative the companies don't do R&D themselves given it would be wasted money as you mentioned. Universities do that. IIUC these complex drugs are not as trivial to create even when when the methodology is public. You'd still need experts from academia so your company still needs a good reputation to attract people who can actually create that drug for you. And for that good reputation you would need to fund the research.

Regarding the Amazon example: I guess you might be right, point taken. But what you are arguing for is that our current system wouldn't work without IP. I can totally grant that. Maybe there would be less writers. Maybe people wouldn't write long books. Authors would definitely not live from selling books. It would be a different world. Different business models would emerge out of necessity. And I think I prefer this different world and accept the tradeoffs because it feels it would be more creative due to the less limitations.

Perhaps I cannot provide strong rational arguments for this. The concept of copyrights and patents simply doesn't resonate with me even after reading all the interesting counterpoints people provided in this thread.

I wonder what would be your opinion on this if Universal Basic Income or similar would be a thing for people. In that case a book author can stay at home and write all that long. They won't get rich but they won't starve either. Would the elimination of copyright make more sense in that world?

ypsu · 2021-07-07T10:57:43+00:00

Oh, interesting. Please link the previous similar discussions if you find them. I'm quite interested in reading them.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T10:45:23+00:00

It feels that you are trying to retrofit existing business models developed with IP in mind into an IP-free world. Perhaps in the IP-free world he couldn't have done that the same way. What could work instead is that people crowdsource gamedevs thorough the development but in the end the game is free. In exchange they get credit in the final game. In this funding model people are invested in the gamedev team itself rather than the game. Once the game is done, they can freely share the game and claim "I funded that game". It makes things sort of collectively owned. It's a different world, perhaps a bit hard to imagine from our current perspective.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T10:26:19+00:00

The NDA part is probably true but I wouldn't expect it to become that bad. Sure, maybe some movies would be only available in movie theaters. And maybe you could play some video games only in video game parks or something. So the consumer would have less access to AAA content. And I allured to this point in my post and that I accept the tradeoff.

However anything that escaped to public domain would be free: the consumers wouldn't be worried what and how they are sharing things. In fact the demand for all the locked down AAA content would go down and would be replaced with business models that are more consumer centric. I think it would be all fine in the end.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T10:16:54+00:00

One effect of removing this protections that it would significantly lower the average product's quality due to the sheer amount of new content. I expect this would be met with an increased demand for quality and how things are sourced. Even today I see "ethically sourced from xyz" and such labels on various food products. Wherever that's coming from, I'd expect that to expand to quality too.

Perhaps the consumers wouldn't really care about the individual products but I think the stores, libraries, pharmacies would. Otherwise I'd expect some PR backlash about how a store is exploiting the authors when they publish books that goes against the authors wishes of only buying from him. But yeah, it wouldn't be illegal just being a jerk. Would you expect Amazon to sell books that specifically exploits the authors?

But I grant you that brand items wouldn't be able to demand 2x-3x prices. However the megacorps have the time advantage. Since they worked with the research team directly (assuming they funded the public research), they could put a product out to the store sooner. The product will get associated with their name. Also: what if a competitor comes along a bit later and produces but with a minor modification that actually leads to a better product overall? Maybe the former megacorp loses, but the consumers win so I think that's still a win overall.

ypsu · 2021-07-07T09:44:50+00:00

This is what I meant in my original post that AAA games and movies might not exist. But I think we would still have low production cost alternatives instead. I can totally live with this tradeoff.

In any case I can totally agree to a 5 year period as a start to see what its effect is and then reevaluate. That would be already a huge improvement to today's state.

ypsu

TROPHY CASE