Slashdot Mirror

Eunuchswear writes: After Mondays decision by the French CNIL (National Center for Computers and Freedom) that Facebook must stop tracking non-users, the DGCCRF (General Direction for Competition, Consumption and Repression of Fraud), has ruled that Facebooks terms of use are abusive and must be changed within 60 days." The linked story is in French, but for those of us who don't speak the language, Google translate works. Here's the DGCCRF's Facebook page.

Noryungi writes "The daily newspaper Liberation reports that at least one person got her money back, by suing EMI, no less. She was able to do that with the help of the largest consumer organization in France, which has its own list of articles on this subject. So, French people who cannot read their copy-protected CDs can get their money back, but copy protection is not made illegal by the court decision... It's certainly a step in the right direction, though..." For the French-impaired, an anonymous reader adds "The Register has a good article on EMI being forced to refund the cost of a copy-protected CD, because it was found to have a 'hidden defect' -- it wouldn't work on a car's CD player ... Is the tide changing?"

hysterion writes: "According to today's Libération, the Curie Institute is challenging a recent European patent which grants Utah's Myriad Genetics a de facto monopoly on genetic tests for breast cancer. The article (fish translation) quotes a Curie researcher: "Their patent is so vague that even using other techniques, one could be sued for infringement. (...) So European labs have to send all samples to Salt Lake City. This means that we risk losing our skills, our credits, and in the long term, any ability to do research. Meanwhile, Myriad overcharges 3.5 fold, and gets to build a nifty world wide database." The researchers complain about being prevented from improving the test so that it tracks a newly identified mutation."

hysterion writes: "According to today's Libération, the Curie Institute is challenging a recent European patent which grants Utah's Myriad Genetics a de facto monopoly on genetic tests for breast cancer. The article (fish translation) quotes a Curie researcher: "Their patent is so vague that even using other techniques, one could be sued for infringement. (...) So European labs have to send all samples to Salt Lake City. This means that we risk losing our skills, our credits, and in the long term, any ability to do research. Meanwhile, Myriad overcharges 3.5 fold, and gets to build a nifty world wide database." The researchers complain about being prevented from improving the test so that it tracks a newly identified mutation."

ovidus naso writes " Minister Tasca decided not to go forward with her computer tax project. My impression is that this was just political play (her strongest enemies are fellow socialists, naturally!). The Liberation is carrying the story with the retracation. " As always with non-fluent speakers, the fish is your friend. Remember: You get a twofold benefit with Babelfish: The translation to the story to get the main gist of the story, and the actual translation has so many laughable areas, you have an entry to a bad poetry competition.

hysterion writes: "A recent bill from the French government makes the headlines of the major daily paper Libération. (Translation here.) Currently, French law prohibits DVD sales of any movie during its first 9 months in theatres. While reducing this to 6 months, the bill aims to kill a thriving import market by now including foreign issues -- even if they are not dubbed or subtitled in French. In effect, starting January 1, "any importation of zone 1 DVD or VHS of movies which have obtained a visa of exploitation in French theatres is prohibited." Can they really hope to enforce this? Or will movies eventually have to come out simultaneously in all parts of the world? (Irony: the Secretary of Culture who wrote this bill is also on record speaking against software patents.)" Apparently the law will ban any Zone 1 DVD permanently if the French distributors have, or plan to, show the same movie in French theaters (and presumably release it on Zone 2 DVD some time after that).

hysterion writes: "A recent bill from the French government makes the headlines of the major daily paper Libération. (Translation here.) Currently, French law prohibits DVD sales of any movie during its first 9 months in theatres. While reducing this to 6 months, the bill aims to kill a thriving import market by now including foreign issues -- even if they are not dubbed or subtitled in French. In effect, starting January 1, "any importation of zone 1 DVD or VHS of movies which have obtained a visa of exploitation in French theatres is prohibited." Can they really hope to enforce this? Or will movies eventually have to come out simultaneously in all parts of the world? (Irony: the Secretary of Culture who wrote this bill is also on record speaking against software patents.)" Apparently the law will ban any Zone 1 DVD permanently if the French distributors have, or plan to, show the same movie in French theaters (and presumably release it on Zone 2 DVD some time after that).

Farid writes " This has ben published by one one the major french news papers. A court has ruled against www.altern.org, a free hosting site, because someone put in his site nude photos of "Estelle Hallyday" a famous french model. The court thinks that the provider is responsible for "all the content of it's site", the provider say he can't control 30 000 sites ! Iris a french association for the promtion of freedom on the net has lauched a campaign against this ruling."

2 hours ago, the US and UK started an attack on Iraq. Under international law, this attack is illegal as it was not approved by the UN security council. In fact the UN security council has rejected repeated US requests to authorize it. Under international law, this is a war-crime. Under US law it is illegal, since Congress was not asked to approve it. (CT:Sengan is wrong here. Under Executive Order, Clinton can do this) The Pentagon estimates that 10,000 people will be killed. There are disturbing reports that Richard Butler, chairman of UNSCOM, has been in consultation with the US to draft his reports. Moreover, Cofi Annan, UN-head did not instruct Butler to evacuate the arms inspectors -- the US did. France, Russia and China have voiced opposition. Of relevance is that tomorrow, Clinton was to be impeached since most of the congress members wanted him impeached. Indeed, the Senate told the Whitehouse that he would be impeached tomorrow unless he bombed Iraq. Comments are disabled, as I expect a lot of people will believe the US/UK side of the story and will consider this story flame-bait or political. Lots of readers have submitted the story, so some of you are interested. I personally am disgusted at my country's behaviour (the UK) which always follows the US lead, because it believes it has some sort of special relationship with the US... yeah, right. Also, notice that the attack (5pm EST, 1am Iraq time) happened to be timed for prime-time US-TV, just like the Libya attack. Remember that Iraq was an ally of the US, and the US shipped Iraq weapons of mass-destruction, such as chemical weapons. Indeed, after the Gulf War, when the US was supposed to be enforcing a no-fly zone, Iraq used chemical weapons against the southern Shia Muslims.

Update: 12/16 08:53 by CT : I enabled comments. I didn't think it fair that a gag be placed here, especially not considering Sengan's fairly inflammatory statements. I won't bother harping on my political beliefs here, you guys can state your own. Feel free to refute the huge number of flaws in Sengans of writeup- including the fact that Legally a president can, under executive order declare military operations without congressional approval.

Update: 12/16 10:20 by CT : I'm getting a boatload of email about this thing, and I have no choice but to post this form response and to beg people to lay off until tomorrow at noon when I'll be done with my exams. I really don't wanna retake History next semester.

1. It was inappropriate for Sengan to disable comment posting and use Slashdot as his personal soapbox. I reenabled comment posting as soon as I noticed. I'm really sorry about this, it was inexcusable.
2. This story was inappropriate for Slashdot. We focus on technical news here, and geek humor, and free software. Not on international politics. That said, I give authors free reign to post stories on what they see appropriate. In this case, that free reign bit me in the ass.
3. The article has several mistakes, errors, and inaccuracies. The comments list many of them over and over again.
4. I really need to continue studying or I'm gonna bomb this exam, and I really don't want to retake a class next semester.
5. I'm sorry.

Update: 12/16 11:45 by S: I disabled comments in order to avoid /. going down. Not censorship. I apologize about that, since apparently /. can now support the load. The news source for the above is Pacifica Radio's Iraq coverage, and in particular Prof Chomsky. I'm sorry for the spelling mistakes. This morning Pacifica claimed it was illegal again according to US law, but I am no lawyer. However, the US did ask for the right to take military action in November, and the Security Council refused them. Why ask if they did not need it? I got a lot of email about this, about a 1/3 supportive, mainly non-US, and 2/3s against, mainly US. To the extent that I believe democracy is about questioning government motives, something I have not seen on US-media, I do not apologize for this post. I do think it is stuff that matters, and if I were not ill I would have come up with better sources. I am sorry though, about the reaction it caused. Further info is in Liberation and Democracy Now. World reaction is not all favorable.

This week's chronicle from Silicon Valley by Jean-Louis Gassée (CEO of Be Inc, and a Linux user) is rather interesting. He points out that Apple's testimony is unexpectedly strong evidence in favour of the DOJ, even though it relates to events occuring back in the 1980s (see below). Jean-Louis points out that the foundations of Microsoft's domination of PCs and Macs had been layed even before the Mac came out in 1984. Apparently the DOJ is so sure it will win it has started probing Silicon Valley experts as to what remedies would be effective. Dividing Microsoft up into pieces has apparently been discounted since Microsoft could effectively continue building apps into its OS by hiring more people to the OS division. The favorite contender is to force Microsoft to licence the Windows source code to three of its competitors. To me, this is ineffective: Microsoft could convincingly claim that its three competitors did not write the code and do not understand it as well (so you should rely on Microsoft for support) and make sure this is true by sending the final builds to the competition as late as possible. My sysadmin and I had a discussion which resulted in an alternative remedy: Win32 and the Windows kernels should be GPL'd with Microsoft losing all its rights as original copyright holder. This would prevent Microsoft from integrating other stuff into the kernel because they'd lose any unfair competitive advantage (think proprietary APIs) by doing so. If you'd like to support this idea, write to Joel Klein! As usual, Babelfish is your friend. Explanation of the GPL idea: If it's GPL'd Microsoft won't integrate apps into the OS since this would require them to release source-code (and thus an advantage). It would prevent Microsoft from having broken/extended protocols which prevent Windows from being used with other OS's (eg the Sun TCP/IP stack allegations). It would also not allow Microsoft to break other people's apps (eg: Quicktime and Realaudio's allegations.) Finally, it would create real competition in the OS market since others could duplicate the Windows API, warts and all. I added this paragraph since many comments reveal I should have explained the consequences of the idea better.

Since Jean-Louis worked at Apple, he can detail from personal experience what Microsoft's relation with Apple was. In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs feared a lack of apps for the Mac before it was even released. Bill Gates made a deal: he would make the apps, and Steve would license the GUI to Microsoft. The license would last until 1985 or 86 and Microsoft would ensure apps came out on the Mac first. The Mac came out late, while Microsoft demoed its first versions of Windows. In 1985, Gates threatened to suspend Mac App development unless his license was renewed: Jean-Louis knows because he was there. John Sculley (Steve had left) consulted his staff who, unanimously, begged him to send Bill back to rainy Seattle. Sculley dined with Gates and Bill Neukom (vice-president of Microsoft's legal wing), gave in and signed a lame contract that the 1988 court-case could not anull. The article goes on with other interesting revelations (why MacBasic was cancelled, why Apple did not make its own Postscript interpreter, etc.)

Liberation, one of the major french newspapers published two articles on Linux today. The first discusses Linux as a threat to Microsoft and contains a quote from Bernard Dufau, president of IBM France: Nous pensons que Linux représente à terme une menace pour Windows (We believe that Linux is a threat to Windows). It also reveals that France Telecom's portal Voila uses Linux (nice Tux logo at the bottom). The second article reveals that AFUL's agreement with the French ministry of Education is similar to the one Microsoft signed with them when Bill Gates was in Paris. Apparently, headmasters and schools boards of directors would often frustrate teachers efforts to introduce Linux into their schools because while other software providers had signed agreements with the French State, Linux had not. As usual, try babelfish if you can't read french.

Liberation, one of the major french newspapers published two articles on Linux today. The first discusses Linux as a threat to Microsoft and contains a quote from Bernard Dufau, president of IBM France: Nous pensons que Linux représente à terme une menace pour Windows (We believe that Linux is a threat to Windows). It also reveals that France Telecom's portal Voila uses Linux (nice Tux logo at the bottom). The second article reveals that AFUL's agreement with the French ministry of Education is similar to the one Microsoft signed with them when Bill Gates was in Paris. Apparently, headmasters and schools boards of directors would often frustrate teachers efforts to introduce Linux into their schools because while other software providers had signed agreements with the French State, Linux had not. As usual, try babelfish if you can't read french.

Microsoft is not going to wait for the outcome of its trial with the DOJ before attacking Linux. The battle scene is France, where Microsoft's new (expendable?) regional director Marc Chardon has just issued an open letter to his clients. Click below to read the translation of the Linux-section (it's in French) and some commentary. The new director of Microsoft France (MF) has just issued an open letter to his clients. Most of the letter says essentially "We're right. Critics aren't. Millions of people use our products." and other fascinating insights. However it does contain two interesting revelations: Microsoft's OS is an integral part of your PC, and Linux is of very limited interest to anyone but fringe groups (students and researchers).

As previously reported, it is illegal in the EU to tie the sale of a product with another in the EU. However Microsoft France (MF) argues that because a computer can be argued non-functional without an operating system (or a hard-drive), what is being sold is a single product, not two. A little later, MF's director contradicts himself by stating that "assemblers" (basically small computing shops that will assemble a computer from standard components according to your desires) will sell you a computer without an OS -- is that a broken computer? Indeed, since the same letter claims there are more OS's for PCs than any other computer, we must be dealing with a product tied to another precisely because no other OS is sold (according to the letter) with a computer.

Further down, you'll see a whole section devoted to Linux. While today Microsoft's lawyers declared Linux to be developed by a single person, MF's director claims it to be a movement. I've translated the rest of what he had to say about Linux since it's interesting...

"It would seem that Linux does not satisfy the requirements of most companies, let alone the general public.

Linux presents limits that will slow down its widespread distribution, particularly in companies and the general public

In terms of the system's stability, Linux has problems of general coordination, and one feels strongly the lack of a project leader. Linus Torvald ( S: Microsoft can't spell!) left university last year to join a Californian company. The development of Linux has since considerably slowed down. Similarly, the maintenance of Linux' functionality depends on the mobilization of its teams. Thus, certain of its functions have not been updated in the last two years.

The installation of Linux is delicate. For optimal system performance, each version must be tuned on each computer at each installation, by a competent computer-technician. Setting it up and its administration are therefore not within the reach of a computer-technician used to more friendly operating systems, let alone basic users. Using Linux is complex, its programs generally take text commands.

Finally most Linux application software has limited functionality. Word processors rarely have functionality common on today's PC or Macintosh: dynamic spelling correction, graphic input of tables, integration of imported graphics. Most Linux word processors bear more resemblance to Microsoft Write written in 1985.

Linux' advantages of zero-cost and open source are not relevant criteria for most users.

The zero-cost of Linux is a non decisive advantage: the cost of an OS is minor in comparison to the other costs of a company. The price of the OS is only one of the elements of computers in companies. Putting a traditional OS into place costs many times the price of the OS itself, and the same goes for the creation of an application program and its maintenance. So, by installing Linux, one saves the cost of the OS, but one increases the cost of installation, and one takes risks for the maintenance of the applications and the system itself.

If certain people consider the permanent availability of source code to be an absolute guaranty of independence from software editors, we fail to see the benefit for a company or a person to have access to the source of his OS.

However, the distribution of the OS source code is very useful for students and researchers, to understand the inner-workings of the OS and eventually to change it. Linux will therefore probably stay for a long time a good subject of study for computer-scientist, rather than an OS destined for widespread distribution. "

I must apologize for any mistakes in my translation. Use babelfish to get an alternative translation. I'm open to any corrections. update! Linux Weekly News has just published a de-babelfished translation of the whole letter.

S: This letter obviously contains many "inaccuracies":

If I buy a car, is the fuel a separate product or not? What about electricity? Computers are non-functional without it. I hope the EU lawyers will notice this wriggling.

His attacks on Linus stating that Linux development has slowed down are not credible with the inflow of new developers and the number of ports now in the standard kernel. The letter very much ignores the fact that Transmeta lets Linus hack on Linux during office hours and has other employees that contribute, underplays Red Hat employing kernel developers, and completely ignores the current tidal surge of major corporations towards Linux: Intel, Compaq, Oracle, Sun, to name but a few.

Anyone who has had to install Windows from scratch, as I do every 3-6 months when it has corrupted its hard-drive beyond repair at work, knows that installing Windows is a royal pain. It takes over an hour, requires minding (yes... I'm just here to click OK)... Linux takes me 20 minutes on an 100 Mhz system. The only argument here is: when Windows is pre-installed (i.e. when you buy your machine) it's easier than it is to install Linux. Duh!

I, and many others don't view GUI's as necessarily friendly. Until they are a substitute for true understanding, I prefer to have control over my system and to be able to repair it. The usual answer for Windows to reinstall everything, and then try eliminating various components until you've found the "culprit". The same applies for source code. Funny that the latest C'T has devoted 19 pages to "Hacks & Bugs & Workarounds: Large Projects with Word, and how one survives them". To me, and many others, this is an unacceptable hit on my productivity.

Indeed, the whole notion that Linux is too hard for the average user is nonsense to me. I gave my mother a Linux box -- I'm living 8 timezones away so I cannot help her fix an unreliable OS. She cannot rely on computer-savvy neighbours either, since she's in a very rural area. But, with Linux as her first computer, she is happy using it laying ridicule on Microsoft's claims about the difficulties that the average layman will experience.

Complaints about Word processors are unfair since most Windows word-processors are also not very advanced. Percentage-wise (if you count all the free, shareware, and old ones), I expect Windows/DOS have a worse ratio. Only a few products provide the features Marc discusses. Similarly, on Linux, we have WordPerfect 7 (hey Corel, port WordPerfect 8!), Applixware, and StarOffice (which I sometimes use), Angoss, Dtop, and Axene's Xclamation, On the free front we have Emacs which is also used by a very large number of people under NT and which will soon have a WYSIWYG interface, Thot, EZ, Papyrus, Cicero, Doc, Maxwell, and new promising upstarts such as Glue. And let's not forget TeX: I and my fellow PhD students wrote their theses in it because it copes well with 700 page documents. Most academic papers must be written, and many books are written in it. It also accepts any graphics as encapsulated postscript. TeX is still the only format which is guaranteed to come out looking the same on any computer, and still looks better to me and many others than the output of any other product. As to dynamic spell-checking, I turn it off: I think, I write, I reread, I spell-check. Dynamic spell-checking just breaks the flow of my thoughts.

The attack on zero-cost software is a pretty obvious diversion, and tries to draw the reader's attention away from the fact people use Linux because of its stability and features rather than its cost.

Finally, Microsoft's attempt to make academics and students irrelevant is interesting, since they are the ones pushing Linux, but also very dangerous. France values intelligence and high education more than most other societies, as Marc Chardon's own CV shows.

So what do you think of all this?

I'd like to thank A Dark Elf, Jacky Liu, and Linux Weekly News Daily for some of the material I used here.