Finally found them back!
Back in the days when Napster was underground and we could download music without anyone bothering us, I discovered a lot of great bands. Since I was young back then, I couldn’t afford music CDs anyway. A few years after, I tryed finding the albums to actually buy them. The great record industry simply wouldn’t allow me to do so. While browsing Amazon today, I actually had results for one of those old bands. I had been searching for that band in my music collection every few months for the past 3 years. Since Amazon did not have the track list, I had to search on Google and found out the albums were even cheaper from the record label’s web site. I just ordered 3 CDs of Choke, including one released this year!
Now, why have I been searching for the same band for the last 3 years? Because it’s great! And RIAA does not want me to download new music and listen to new bands. I don’t really like what plays on the radio, and I seriously doubt what I like will ever play on the radio. Peer to peer was a great way to find new music. They should simply trust people enough to actually encourage the music they like instead of trying to sue everyone and step away from all this free publicity. I would actually spend a lot more on music if I knew what to spend on.
I still have a lot more to find…
Linux Consolidation
Every once in a while, a Windows user step in the GNU/Linux world and think things are simply wrong. There is a wonderful example right here. Thinking Linux will ever be consolidated makes no sense. Of course, there are many distributions and it can be complex to find the one that suits your needs the best. Microsoft does make the choice simple by offering a single solution and having a single GNU/Linux offering wouldn’t be any close to freedom.
The main reason why there won’t ever be a successful “United Linux” effort is that there is no such thing as a Linux CEO. Linus Torvalds is only envolved with the kernel development. What makes GNU/Linux an operating system is the whole community around it and all those people have different opinions. Some work on applications, others on packaging and distributing them, but in the end, they are all sharing the results: there is no “waste of ressources”.