Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Apple, Lawyers, Backbones
We are from France! And we're doing fine ... PovRayMan writes "Mandrakesoft has denied rumors of it's recent layoffs and management change due to "financial liquidity." The article mentions how the former CEO, Henri Poole, agreed on the management change. The article even goes out to say that their "prospects never looked so good" with the recent release of Mandrake 8. Either way, I'm downloading Mandrake 8 iso's right now and look forward to playing with it."
Like Alar for the other kind of apple. Lots of people were interested in the possible security flaws in OS X; thanks to Alex Salkever of BusinessWeek, we have word from Apple SE Manager Jeff Gagne, who writes: "We have just posted a Mac OS security web page for people looking for information concerning security updates, security notifications, etc. involving Mac OS X. Please visit the following url for more information: http://www.apple.com/support/security/security.html."
Follow the bouncing lawyers, with a mallet and a browser. Mike Haisley of AOL watchdog Observers.net writes with an update to yesterday's AOL And The GPL story: "It seems that America Online has their legal team working overtime on this one, site was pulled, and back up, and we were just given notice that it's going down again." Here is the Emergency Mirror.
Go forth and legislate no more. mikey573, pointing to a Hartford Courant Article, writes: "It's nice to see that Connecticut governor John Rowland is protecting gamers' rights by vetoing a bill that would have limited access to arcade point-and-shoot games: "Asserting that government should not act as 'Big Daddy,' Gov. John G. Rowland said Thursday that he will veto a bill barring children under 18 from playing 'point-and-shoot' video games in public places." I'm going to play Duck Hunt now in celebration! My only concern is the Connecticut legislature got as far as passing the bill in the first place." Well said.
Erratus, errata, erratum. Jamie would like to make several corrections to Monday's story about Macromedia being blackholed:
(1) I really shouldn't have singled out Above.net in the headline. They're just one backbone that uses the MAPS RBL to block non-mail traffic from their subscribers. In fact, Teleglobe.net was the backbone that blocked web access from one of our submittors.
And (B), Paul Vixie, the co-founder of MAPS, is no longer the CTO of Above.net.
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
In the 80's, it was Dungeons and Dragons that was supposedly "causing" kids to go nuts. Todaqy it's guns. THere was probably something before dungeons and dragons (Rock 'n' Roll probably had similar responses when kids went off the dep end), and there will be more in the future.
Let'sface it; some people just aren't stable, and latch on to some type of fantasy as they leave reality behind. If it wasn't D&D or guns, it could just as well be Mickey Mouse comic books. You can kiill a *lot* more people trying to be Black Pete you ever could with guns and explosives. The kids at Columbine or McVeigh could have killed magnitudes more if they'd used poison. Or suppose they built their rocket to paint the moon black (one of Black Pete's escapades). Or messed with the highways, or the water supply. Shall we ban all of the classic comic books to prevent these?
hawk
...compares Williams' lawsuit to "a smoker suing a tobacco company."
Ne pas?
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
These are the same legislators who (in some states like Illinois at least) have made it illegal for minors to buy tobacco but not to possess it. Morons.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
But the GPL was never a click-through license in the first place. It never imposed any limits on use of the software, just on distribution, whereas most click-throughs work over the use of the software very thoroughly (no reverse engineering, don't use on Sundays, no liability of the author, etc.) and don't even touch distribution, because the existing copyright laws already handle that quite nicely.
The GPL is a license that adds to the usefulness of a software package, rather than detracting from it as normal licenses do. A defeat for the GPL doesn't seem to have much of an upside to me.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
But it isn't up to Midori. The Midori crew don't control licensing on Midori linux; it's GPL, and it's components have hundreds of authors, all of who released under GPL, so they GPL must be obeyed.
Yes, the intent seems fine, there's no real big problem with it... but if we stick to the letter of the wording, AOL is supposed to be offering source as well. Heck, all they have to do is form a deal with Midori and offer it through Midori... even that would work.
At any rate, I'm sure AOL, as big and evil as they are, didn't intend to 'screw the GPL crowd' over.... their lawyers thought they were in compliance, and once they figure out what to do, I'm sure they'll simply host a mirror of the Midori source archive and be done with it, perhaps changing some wording on their product. After all.. it's bad for business for a public company, especially a high-profile one, to take unecessary legal risks.
So let's cut them a wee bit of slack and see if they fix it, as most other infringers have done in the past.
Logically, this should mean:
"Something there's a huge flap over that turns out not to amount to squat in the long run."
This reminds me - pretty much OT but kinda the same mindset: I went to my local gun range recently for the first time. It's a range that's used by the police during the week and is open to the public on weekends. During my introduction to the range, the rangemaster told me that they don't allow any paper targets that have silhouettes or pictures of people on them. Apparently, someone had seen the police training with these, and went to the city council and complained that the police were learning how to shoot people.
I started to say, "But..."
And the rangemaster just put up his hand - "I know, I know..."
The only kinds of targets allowed at the range now are the basic circular style.
True story.
> that nonsensical and illusory 'freedom'
/way/ more important than keeping children's brains in their heads
You're right to life, and property is illusionary and nonsensical ?!
> promised by the Illuminati's Constitution is
That's a slippery slope argument.
You can make all the laws you want to stop people from from hurting and killing others, but it won't stop every "unbalanced" person.
Like the previous poster said: " No law, passed at any level of government, will ever be able to prevent kids going postal"
Ben Franklin said it best: "Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Cheers
hah, that's classic! still a little pet peeve of mine is when shareware authors say:
"you should pay the shareware fee to help ensure future development of the product."
because if the shareware author's motives for the payment were to "ensure future development" they would opensource the project instead. i have no problems with the shareware concept, but pretending that the program will only progress with money is a lame excuse for extracting a fee.
- j
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Ha, ha. People like you are a pain in my...
Anyway...
I think Microsoft sort of wussed out on this one, though. All they had to do was create their own rebranded BSD (based on an NTFS filesystem perhaps?) and they could keep it in the family...
(How hard would that be, anyway?)
/Brian
Interesting (cynical and a bit slanted, though not inaccurate) way of putting it.
So somebody is playing both ends against the middle in this scenario, but it's unclear who. I have to say, though, I don't think it's precisely a First Amendment issue (though it is partially that); it's more just a general affront to freedom.
I look at it this way: stickers and rating systems are a Good Thing, even if somewhat flawed (I think the TV rating system is probably the cleanest way of dealing with it -- general guideline plus specific warnings). But all they are is guidelines, and I don't think they should be treated as anything but. Gov. Rowland made the right decision. Some things you simply can't regulate like that.
/Brian
Would Transmeta really sue AOL? In the original article, here is a comment from one of the developers discussing how AOL's changes were rolled back into Midori and how they enjoyed working with AOL.
I am a little bit uncertain, though, about your positions on the following statements:
- ISP's should not be allowed to block spam; it should be done individually by the user.
- Even if small ISP's serving end-users are allowed to block spam, large ISP's that serve other ISP's should not be allowed to.
- Large ISP's and backbones are common carriers that cannot block anything.
- Only the specific IP address(es) from which spam originates should ever be blackholed.
- Operators of large, popular or heavily-visited sites should be given the benefit of the doubt before being blackholed, more than smaller, less-known or less-used sites.
It seems that opposition to MAPS occurs primarily when they block people's personal favorite sites, and never any other time. No one RBL'ed has tried to mail me for months, but this past winter there were attempts from dot.net.in, glptt.gx.cn, and insight.com. I don't recall hearing you, Bennett, or anyone else coming to the defense of *those* domains; in fact, everyone seemed to be pretty happy about not getting spam from them.I am unclear why Macromedia deserves to be treated differently if they spam than Insight was, or the others.
Maybe you could explain your thoughts on that, and on the position statements I listed. Thanks!
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We meaning the population with the Slashdot mindset.
If GPL wins, the victory is obvious.
If GPL loses, that means that a click-through license is not enforcable.
Take your pick. I'll take either.
But why is the rum gone?
I expect that blaming Canada would be next...
Hmm... here I think you are wrong. As you mentioned, people like to "point fingers at other than where the real blame lies." As everyone knows, Canada really IS the problem, so they will be the last to be publicly blamed.
Yeah, yeah, NT4 is worthless garbage, it crashes all the time, right? Monumentally insecure, right? Odd that, I haven't had a BSOD on my home machine for > 6 months (since the last time I started messing with kernel-space drivers), and it's been compromised, ooh... no times at all! Gosh I must be sooo lucky, huh? Oh yes, and it's had 90 day uptimes, runs a local web and mail server, caching-only BIND, NAT / IP gateway,... using mod_perl / Apache / BIND / all the std GNU utils (cygwin), bash, wget,... you name it.
NB: I am *not* saying IIS, or any of the other MS server products, are anything but embrace and extend in binary form, or anything other than hugely expensive pale imitations of far superior Free server products.
Sooo much better than Linux, which *never* crashes, and *never* suffers security problems, huh? So how come NTBugtraq has had less traffic this year than Bugtraq gets in a week?
Given the choice, I'll use Free software rather than Microsoft software because it's Free . Yes, it might be more flexible /secure/powerful/stable or whatever, but don't rely on that as a reason to get people to ditch MS. That's why you zealots have to contort yourself into the absurd idea that all corporate users of Microsoft software *must* be drooling morons, cos *everyone* knows Windows crashes|gets 0wned all the time, right? Try getting your information from personal experience (with a well configured NT machine, rather than a PoS win9x|ME home box.) Like anything else, it can be done well or badly. Freedom is the only reason to choose Free software. Anything else is delusion. IMHO :)
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"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
"I'm going to play Duck Hunt now in celebration!"
Duck Hunt nothing... Lethal Enforcer is way better, and that's not even a 3-D shooter. Anyway it's better to shoot criminals and terrorists than those poor helpless ducks!
Here's their part of the traceroute from the Slashdot submittor from Greece who reported being unable to access www.macromedia.com. This is as reported to me on Friday, after macromedia.com was taken off the RBL:
5 310 ms 311 ms 250 ms oteny-otenet2.ote.otenet.gr [194.153.81.13]
6 311 ms 310 ms 310 ms if-2-0-0.bb3.NewYork.Teleglobe.net [207.45.199.2 25]
7 300 ms 311 ms 310 ms if-3-1.core2.NewYork.Teleglobe.net [207.45.221.9 8]
He also reported that many of his friends in Greece were unable to access the site, writing: "Every person in business (I am web developer/designer) couldn't not see Macromedia server for the past 4 days. They 'see' internet from different ISPs. I am very certain." This meshes with your pointing out that Teleglobe often is the primary access provider for entire countries.
Teleglobe is a licensed subscriber to the RBL, but as for whether they use it to block traffic other than mail, a quick Google search on "teleglobe MAPS RBL" turns up good leads. See e.g. "JANET, Teleglobe and the RBL," in which one of Teleglobe's clients -- itself a well-known internet provider -- explains to its own customers the situation which has been forced upon them:
On another page, they hopefully claim "it is not likely that any valid use of JANET requires access to such networks." Well, maybe that page needs to be updated.
You see why I think this is important?
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
TeleGlobe happens to be the primary connection to the Internet for some COUNTRIES in this world.
From their marketing propaganda (which is to be believed) "Teleglobe's Internet customer base represents 15 percent of the world's Internet routes."
I can't believe it's true that TeleGlobe as a whole subscribes to the MAPS RBL as Jamie states above.
While I might believe that they offer it as a service to some of their customers, I just can't see one of the world's top five IP carriers refusing to route any part of the Internet.
You are most likely correct. AOL can argue that they have not violated the GPL because they never agreed to it in the first place (no signature, etc etc).
However, by doing this they would be arguing that they have breached the copyright on the software by distributing it without a licence to do so.
Fun eh!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The other problem, of course, being that the real process of governing is just not fun. Sure, if you get up high enough, you get some power and maybe some bribes/kickbacks/perqs. However, realize that you are no longer permitted to express your own thoughts on anything, because the media will lynch you. Your entire day consists of sorting through arcane bits of legal code and mile-high stacks of budget figures, trying to figure out what it all says and what changes might actually work. Meanwhile, your door is being beaten down by thousands of special-interest groups, all of whom say that you must do as they say or the country will go to Hell *and* they'll run ads showing you kicking a small child in the face. Oh, and did we mention that even though you're not allowed to express your true opinion on anything, you've got to have a position on everything? Or the party whip, whose sole job is to keep you in line with The Platform and The Agenda by whatever means necessary? And all your college buds who own companies and law firms make about ten times as much as you?
You want a game that'll drive people to murder, that'd be it.
"John G. Rowland said Thursday that he will veto a bill barring children under 18 from playing 'point-and-shoot' video games in public places."
Imagine what would happen if they passed a bill prohibitng kids from shooting real guns at human shaped targets at a public firing range. I cna guarantee you that it would go nowhere...
Of course if it had passed, they'll have started running out of things to point fingers at other than where the real blame lies, which is with the disinterested parents and the school system that doesn't do a damn thing to prevent children from behaving like animals. I expect that blaming Canada would be next, which ultimately would only result in the Canadian Royal Air Force bombing the Baldwin Residence.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Right off that site, the best terms for shareware I ever heard!
Registration BrickHouse is a shareware product. The cost is $25 per machine. I'm of the opinion that people will either pay shareware fees, or they won't. You may use BrickHouse without registering it until you feel that it is worth $25 to you. If you like BrickHouse, you should pay the shareware fee to help ensure future development of the product.
Not only did we speculate on the death of Mandrake. We also followed it to its next illogical conclusion, being that Linux on the desktop may be dead!
Ouch!!! We really need to calm down in the future (myself included) and actually wait a few seconds, minutes, or days before we start making dire predictions about the future of anything. Here we did not even have correct information.
It's good to see our Governor standing up against, letting the United States government as a whole let parents off the hook from thier roles as parents in the first place.
John Rowland ( A Man I've Met Before, And I Shook His Hand ) is taking the proper steps in doing the right thing, by pointing out the parents need to get up and take thier roles as parental guidance units for thier kids, also by doing this, its a huge message that says "hey get up and do your job, because I'm not going to do it for you"
Start taking notes Mr. Bush.. learn something here.
"He Who Laughs Last, Is Just A Hand In The Bush" - Ozzy Osbourne
With Jacques Le Marois (CEO & Co-Founder of Mandrakesoft) on: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/05/22/1 754212&mode=thread
With Gaël Duval (Creator of Linux-Mandrake & Co-Founder of Mandrakesoft) on: http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
Worth a read.
It would be nice if they had links to security software such as Brickhouse, and community security sites such as SecureMac. But they page is not as useless as you make it out to be.
From The Misanthropic Bitch's Mailing List...
INDIANA - A compulsive gambler is suing Casino Aztar for allegedly failing to enforce a ban barring him from the floating casino. A lawsuit filed on behalf of David Williams of Evansville charges that casino officials mailed him a letter barring him from the boat, but did nothing to enforce the ban. The suit alleges that Aztar officials instead continued to "ply" Williams by mailing him promotional materials, and allowed him to board and to gamble on the boat's slot machines. Williams alleges that he has lost a total of about $175,000 dollars gambling on the Evansville riverboat. His suit alleges in part that, by using the mailings both to ban Williams and to continue to entice him to gamble, Aztar committed mail fraud, which amounts to racketeering under federal law. Aztar attorney Patrick Shoulders compares Williams' lawsuit to "an alcoholic suing a liquor store." Source: Associated Press
Quaint, isn't it?
The One,
The Only,
--The Kid
the liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perception
www.quantumheresy.com
1. Search slashdot for pro-Linux comments. Mod them up without regard to the merit of the story.
2. Search slashdot for anti-Linux comments. Mod them down without regard to the merit of the story.
3. Add nightly security patches to Linux and recompile kernel for the umpteen-millionth time.
4. Go back to 1.
http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/cdsa/inde x.html
The kids obviously won't be able to get any! She said it herself!
"We are assisting parents the same way we make it illegal to buy cigarettes, to buy guns," said Harp.
Obviously the laws that make it illegal to buy cigarettes and guns are working famously, so a law to ban them from playing games will work great, too!
This senator sounds like a mother who has raised her children while keeping her head planted firmly in the sand. No law, passed at any level of government, will ever be able to prevent kids going postal, any more than a law can prevent them from smoking or drinking while driving.
Ugh. Gotta love the reactions like this one:
... Columbine, because then he can take some responsibility," she said.
"I would hope if he vetoes it, we don't have a tragedy like
Now that alone is pretty well... sad. That's like vetoing a bill that outlaws gambling and saying "I'm poor! I gambled all my money because I have a problem! You didn't prevent me from gambling so this is all your fault!"
Oh, and let's not forget this:
"I hope he reconsiders," said Harp, a mother of three children. "I don't think he understands the bill. It is not just a violence bill. These are games that train people to kill."
I see. And by that token Flight SImulators make me a pilot, SimCity makes me a qualified mayor, and Transport Tycoon has made me a millionaire. Oh, and Black and White makes me GOD.
You heard her. I am GOD. Now bow before me before my sheep poos on you and I fling you across the state!
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Read what a MSCE had to say about Why Microsoft uses Solaris instead of NT and how most large corporations are fazing out NT in favor of BSD or Linux. While you're at it, try a search on "blue screen of the death" on Google, for a proof that NT is worthless garbage and that Windows 1901 is even worst.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber