Slashdot Mirror
Sklyarov Indicted
Nutcase was the first to write with news from the AP that "Dmitry Sklyarov, 27 and ElComSoft Co. Ltd. of Moscow were charged with five counts of copyright violations for writing a program that lets users of Adobe Systems' eBook Reader get around copyright protections imposed by electronic-book publishers." Here's a link to the AP story at the Washington Post. Here is the story at Salon as well. Update: 08/29 01:57 AM GMT by T : Here's the EFF's release on the indictment, too -- including information about where to go if you'd like to demonstrate your reaction publicly.
ahh the holy grail of /.
Firzt P0st
:P
Lameness filter blow goats....
3mt43
Lameness filter failz again
FPFPFPFP
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I was indited on six counts of first degree felony aggrevated sex abuse of a child. Why don't I get my own slashdot story??
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feces goatse.cx, for crimes against humanity
He will put his political agenda ahead of your best interests.
Here's my one word:
Karma whore.
Okay, it's two. But I can't believe you used your +1 posting bonus to post something that redundant, off-topic, trollish, and stupid. I hope the moderators exact their vengeance against you and moderate your post down into the fiery depths of hell where it -- and you -- belong for all eternity.
Die, scum!
An anal rape circumvention device. Open wide, Dmitry...
How the hell is this offtopic? Perhaps a Troll or Flamebait, but def. not Offtopic.
Moderators are smoking big doobies.
yeah too bad they never put away that gey ben franklin
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Take for instance msoftware still has a long way to go. It is gaining popularity, but most shops still buy their software, and for consultants who go in and build new pieces on existing systems, that often means using the pre-existing software infrastructure, especially if the work left behind needs to be understood by maintenance staff who are not conversant with anything but the vendor-specific tools.
On the other hand, I have seen a couple of projects where the client was small and had no software infrastructure to speak of (i.e. 'green field' development.) In those cases, the allure of "free" software made economic sense to the client. If enough of these small companies actually succeed and become big companies, that will increase the penetration of open-source / free software into the corporate world.
p.s. One thing that I dislike about commercial software is the hype companies sometimes try to generate surrounding a deployment of a large system. The buying companies sometimes make news releases that say they have "partnered" or have a "strategic alliance", when really what they should be saying is "we paid through the nose for X" (where X is your favourite system that costs in excess of six or seven figures.)
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Why stick with windows (Score:3)
by MrBlack on 08-22-01 06:25 PM (#2205971)
(User #104657 Info)
After making the change to Microsoft development tools why did you stick with Win32? Persumably new PCs that you buy can be installed with your favourite distro, and no doubt you will want to keep a few Windows boxen around for your legacy VB code etc. My other question is why did the developers make this decision? This seems to be more of a business decision to me, not a decision that developers should make. Developers should make technical decisions and business people should make business decisions. If can achieve you goals using VB or open source tools, then the question of which tool-set to use becomes a business one rather than a technical one. Which tools are most productive (so costs are lower)? Which tools are cheaper to purchase? (once again - so costs are lower - but this is less of an issue than tool productivity, since productive tools will usually pay for themselves quite easily). Which tools are more widely supported (to mitigate risk)? Where do our existing strengths lie? Don't get me wrong, I think open source tools can hold their own from a business perspective as well as a technical perspective, I just don't think business decisions should be made by technical people (unless they are also the business people). Developers always get pissed off when sales/marketting says "we can deliver X in 3 months". The business people are making a technical decision. Technical people making business decisions is no different. BTW if you're a VB shop moving to Open Source try Python and wxwindows (if you need a gui) and straight python (if you don't need a gui). You'll find the change very pleasant.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
y legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
No, not anything.
No, not anything. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 08-27-01 07:10 PM (#2223547)
Take for instance my legitimate on topic post.
Lamness Filter encountered.
I'm glad to see that you're not having any issues though.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Post Comment
Lameness filter encountered.
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Actually, I agreed with you. I don't know who modded down your post. I'll repost what you said here, because frankly, it didn't deserve being modded down:
Here's my one word:
Karma whore.
Okay, it's two. But I can't believe you used your +1 posting bonus to post something that redundant, off-topic, trollish, and stupid. I hope the moderators exact their vengeance against you and moderate your post down into the fiery depths of hell where it -- and you -- belong for all eternity.
My post was pretty lame. But on the other hand, it's what I was thinking at the time, and I reckon a lot of folks pretty much thought the same thing when they read the news.
I don't think anyone expected Sklyarov to not be indicted, but there's always that little glimmer of hope we hold onto...
Has anyone noticed how much slashdot sucks lately? I mean the search has been consistently screwed whilst they "rebuild the database" whatever the hell that means. What are they rewriting MySQL from scratch or something? Also you cannot go back to an article from a couple of days ago supposedly for the same reason.
"Sorry search is down"
Can you imagine if Google took down there site for a week while the "rebuilt the database" sheesh!
Mod parent up for threads sake.
Inappropriate use of +1 posting bonus. Moderate down, please.
Top Nine Reasons to Quit Slashdot.org
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who study operating systems in a reseach context, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by a another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste. If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all.
--
i'll show you my gun. my uzi weighs a ton because i'm public enemy number one.
Will the moderators please get off the $3 crack they are smoking. This is the single most ON TOPIC post I've seen on Slashdot in ages! This web site is just a big puffy turd in the toilet bowl of the Internet.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.