Slashback: Safety, Transmissions, Breakage

Slashback has updates tonight on nuclear-safe hosting facilities, the temporary return of Metricom's Ricochet service, and a possible problem with Apple's newest upgrade for anyone using Xfree86 under Mac OS X.

A soft spot on the Apple?MacXGuy writes: "I recently obtained by free 10.1 upgrade from the Apple Store in the Mall of America. After installing it on my Titanium PB-G4 XFree4.1 (http://www.mrcla.com/XonX/) no longer works. (I'm definitely not installing it on my Dual 800 G4 until a workaround is found.)"

Since most of the stuff I've heard about the 10.1 upgrade has been positive to the point of suspicion, I wonder if anyone else has experienced similar upgrade quibbles with it.

Another good reason for a complex infrastructure. PhantomHarlock writes "New York City officials requested and got what's left of Metricom to re-activate the wireless network in the area surrounding the World Trade Center. Rescue and cleanup crews are using the network to coordinate and access death certificates filed online. Only one rooftop transmitter had been destroyed, the other four are still intact."

Even when you're right, you're wrong -- as the fine print clearly shows. An anonymous reader points to column in InfoWorld about interpreting the overlapping, contradictory and sometimes funny EULAs that accompany Microsoft products. Microsoft certainly isn't alone in that regard either -- ever read a EULA you thought was totally fair, unambiguous, and satisfying? Mr. Anonymous writes: "This was amply illustrated last week after I mentioned here that the EULA (end-user license agreement) for FrontPage 2002 contains a term prohibiting use of the software in connection with a site that disparages Microsoft or its online services. I love it."

The only place to hunker is a well-connected bunker. severn2j writes: "It seems that AL Digital's nuclear bunker (posted on /. a few weeks ago), has paid off for them in light of the attacks on the U.S. So much so that they've got another one."

And for all your fair-use needs ... An Anonymous Coward writes "Maybe lyrics.ch is going down now, but most of its content and even more is available from LyricsDot which is not going to close."

Good to hear. Amateur song transcription really isn't such a bad thing, except when you consider most of the songs.

Comments

10.1 breaks things

[cmoney]

No conspiracy theory here, 10.1 does in fact break things. There were hacked up drivers for the Lucent WaveLan wireless ethernet card that worked with 10.0.4 but broke under 10.1. Various other programs like BBEdit had smaller problems also. Alot of programs have been re-released within the past few days to address 10.1 issues that have cropped up. If you haven't seen them publicized, it's because you're not looking on Mac boards, but they're there.

bunker

[geekoid]

I'm going into the bunker selling business, just like the 50s.

I can use terrorism fear, point to the governments overreaction for validation, I'll make a fortune! If they don't buy from me I'll report them annonymously as terrorist via the web!

if only Mcarthy had the web

Complex infrastructures aren't always that good

[gburgyan]

That's one of the inefficiencies of a complex, competitive environment. If everyone wants to set up their own wireless network, for instance, there's going to be a lot of overlap in the low-level stuff. This is not anti-capitalistic, it's just that some bit of standardization is a good thing - take a look at the IBM PC ISA and TCP/IP. While certain amounts are good (a Windows worm hasn't yet also struck Linux for instance) but too much really is a waste.

The same could have been done with the wireless freenets that was mentioned a few articles ago.

Redudancy is good. Too much redundancy is bad.

XFree 4.1 needs to be post 1.0a2

[descubes]

I had a similar problem. After upgrading to 1.0a3, the latest build, it worked fine. The web page at http://www.mrcla.com/XonX indicates that 1.0a2 is the first build that starts on 10.1.

I still have trouble if I lose a connection to a remote X machine, or if I kill XDarwin. In that case, I seem to have trouble starting a new X session, it complains that it cannot connect to a socket and that another XDarwin might be running.

EULA Issues

[os2fan]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer

If MS is inserting into its licenses, conditions of approved content, then they may well be stepping on the jurisdiction of the judge.

There is a certian right to protect the IP rights of a work, which is limited to the use of the work and derived copies. This means that MS can restrict the production and distribution of copies of their work.

There is also the certian right of association of "good name". This means, that if I write on some subject, then I can have you disassociate your work against mine. This was done, for example with Karl Marx and the "survival of the fittest". In the present context, it means the use of MS logos on sites that disparage MS.

But one can not prevent one from using a companies works, legally acquired, to fight against a company, as long as the product is not identified.

The licence as provided is not aimed at the protection of abuse of the intellectual property it covers, but to cover other IP not implied in the license. That is, the licence implies that you should protect IP that you are not being given special access to. It might be interesting to test this role of restraint in court, especially since the annual license thing has been deemed rental in Germany, with the implied restriction of owner (ie MS) fixes.

The other thing is that judges might not take kindly to other people dishing out punishment for crimes that they decide punishment for. For example, if I were to create a hate site, and such a site were legal, than MS could still punish me. If the judge decides it were illegal, than the judge punishes me, and this is all I should pay, not an additional punishment from MS.

What the EULA also grants, by undefined terms "hate, porn", is that they can control content. And for this control of content, they might also be leaving themselves open to the legal content of sites [... by acting as an editor, you become responsible for content ...]

XF86 10.1 problem is easy...

[ehintz]

Make sure /usr/X11R6/bin and /usr/local/X11/bin are in your path.

An EULA that I thought was fair.

[AdrianG]

In the mid 80's, I remeber using Turbo-C/Borland-C, and the licence agreement (called a "No Nonsense Licence Agreement") said something about using the software "like a book". You could make all the copies you wanted, loan it to friends, install it on as many different systems as you wanted, as long as you made sure that only one copy was in use at a time.

Does any one else remember that?? I don't have a copy of it any more.

Adrian

Re:An EULA that I thought was fair.

[dwlemon]

"This software is protected by copyright law and international copyright treaty. Therefore, you must treat this software just like a book, except that you may copy it onto a computer to be used and you may make archive copies of teh software for the sole purpose of backing up our software and protecting your investment from loss.

By saying "just like a book," Borland means, for example, that this software may be used by any number of people, and may be freely moved from one computer or location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used by more than one person at a time. Just as a book can't be read by two different people in two different places at the same time, neither can the software be available for use by two different people in two different places at the same time without Borland's permission (unless, of course, Borland's copyright has been violated)."

emphasis in original text, typos added by me