[Gllug] To LLU or Not to LLU?

[Richard Jones]

On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 04:43:25PM +0100, Peter Corlett wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 04:23:53PM +0100, Richard Jones wrote:
> [...]
> > On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 01:40:39PM +0100, Peter Corlett wrote:
> [...]
> >> This seems to work just fine with Skype, even on 400kb/s uplinks.
> > You have to be joking. I _work_ at home, and, sure Skype works in limited
> > cases, except when it doesn't, or when I'm uploading anything, or just
> > _using_ the connection for anything else.
> 
> Well, if you're routinely doing heavy uploading on ADSL, you've bought the
> wrong product. You can purchase SDSL right now, and it works over the same
> copper you've already got. No need for fibre here.

SDSL buggers your download bandwidth, and it's five times more
expensive than consumer ADSL.  But hey, who needs downloads when they
can pay hundred quid a month for a slightly increased upload speed?

> > [BBC]
> >> Purchasing the content outright would be prohibitive.
> > You seem to be forgetting that we already paid for it.
> 
> No we haven't. A lot of productions are collaborations and so the BBC don't
> own the rights. Even for those productions which are entirely in-house, the
> actors still need to be paid repeat fees due to the Equity agreements.

Yes we did pay for it.  We paid for the actors to work first time.  We
paid the producers and bought all the technical equipment.

(What other job, I'm wondering, do you get paid well first time, and
then you get paid well over and over again forever afterwards?  I
think we could all do with such a cosy arrangement.)

If the BBC entered into crappy contracts with its workers, that's not
my fault, and can be revoked immediately by a vote in Parliament.  In
any case, the BBC shouldn't be making the same mistake for current and
future contracts (which it seems to be doing).

> >> Also why "should" universities make their valuable lectures available for
> >> free, given that students pay a lot of money for that service?
> > Because we paid for it already!
> 
> Again, we haven't. There may be some subsidisation of tertiary education,
> but that doesn't mean it's ours to view for free, much like subsidies of the
> arts doesn't mean we can demand free live streaming of concerts from the
> Royal Opera House either.

We (you know, the poor taxpayers) spend billions funding education and
the arts, and we can get free access to the products of that if we
want.  Total education funding is 5.6% of GDP and HE funding is around
1% of GDP.  How many universites will "go it alone" if we refuse to
fund them unless they put their lectures online?

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat
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