Slashback: Ford, Buccaneers, Hardware

The updates tonight (below) are on the industrially appealing sliMP3 player (get in line, buddy), the U.S. government's continuing War on Copyright Violation, the pricy but cool-sounding Audigy sound card from Creative Labs, what you'll find at mysql.org, and more. Enjoy!

It seemed like a good idea at the time, though. GeekLife.com writes: "After 20 months, Ford has ended (technically "deferred") their "Model E" free computer and discounted Internet access for their employees (announced here and discussed here). Employees who already have computers will be able to keep them, and their Internet service will not be affected."

I sure hope that Ford (like many large companies) at the very least gives Ford employees dibs on any computers that are being replaced within the company to make up for each new round of Windows.

Sounds like a slimple decision, if you like the look. rockwood writes: "We've all been waiting for this for quite some time, but it appears that now for only $269.00 Slim Devices, Inc. is now shipping their sliMP3. Though they state quantity is limited, due to a component shortage. Last minute Christmas gift for the tech on your list!"

For that price, it better read aloud in a very sexy voice. The other day we linked to a review of the new all-singing, all-dancing Audigy sound card on 3D Spotlight; in case that wasn't enough to help you choose whether to spend or save your money, LinkDJ writes: "This card is great for those with older sound card in their systems, but if you have a Sound Blaster 5.1, there is no real need to upgrade. The cool things about this card are that it has integrated SB1394 Firewire, thus eliminating the need for a separate Firewire add-in card. Read the full review."

WhoseSQL? gwynnebaer writes "A friend of mine just pointed out to me that the contentious www.mysql.org now points to the main MySQL AB site. If you remember, there was much gnashing of lawsuits over trademark issues this past summer. So, looks like at least one part of the battle is over, but for the life of me, I can't find any articles or newsworthy information to explain what happened. Anyone know the scoop?"

Free software might be a good way to lessen your legal liability. MooRogue writes: "Looks like the Feds are raiding Universities and corporate offices for more pirated software. They're questioning people and seizing computers to gather digital evidence in 'Operation Buccaneer.' Here's the article on the NY Times (free reg, blah blah)"

Comments

I'm so glad the streets are safe from...

[Robber Baron]

...all the pimps, drug dealers, and other riff-raff, who must surely all be behind bars now and consequently our law-enforcement agencies have nothing to do but hassle college kids!

These are the pirates that they need to be going after, not college kids swapping mp3z or warez...

in reference to the warez raid

[Anonymous Coward]

an Australian LUG applauded the raid saying that stamping out pirated software will make open source alternatives more attractive

Re:in reference to the warez raid

[kesuki]

Linux users who celebrate the loss of freedom deserve the fate that will befall them should Microsoft manage to make linux as illegal as warez. The loss of freedom is not in reference to these warez busts, but rather the laws that were passed which enabled them. They were busted on December 11 for a reason. The FBI wants people to think of warez groups as they think of the taliban. The fact that these busts will enforce the rule of law that breaking encryption == a terrorist act. You may as well stop watching DVDs under linux, unless you use closed source apps like PowerDVD. The power the FBI now has allows them to go after the people who Make open source DVD players. And when the MPAA pushes them to do so, who will be there to defend you? If they can convince the average person that a warez group = terrorists, then they can damn well convince them that a linux user is a criminal.

Need I remind you that making an open source DVD player Is a violation of the DMCA? Which means they could now prosecute you as a terrorist, which means they Can Extradite you from your native country and put you on trial Here in the US. Assuming your country allows you to put on trial here.

Of course the DMCA can also be interperted to mean that it is illegal to provide copies of the US constitution. How convenient, since it's clearly in violation of the US constitution.

Is it really worth it??

[WaIter Bell]

Let me preface this by saying that I am an avid Linux user. I use Latex for word processing, Koffice to read office docs, and Netscape 4.77 to browse the web. I do not depend on non-free software for anything.

Now, my question: what were these "DrinkOrDie" people thinking? They are going to spend months, maybe years in jail just because they couldn't live without their precious warez. I find it hard to imagine what you can't do with free, legal open source software - so why did these kids forsake their entire future over some crappy commercial software products? It blows the mind, really. The latest Debian CD provides all the software anyone could ever conceive of needing.

One possibility is that they did this to "be cool" and to show that they could get away with it - just for the thrill of doing something illegal. Well, it didn't get them laid, and they're not getting away with it. So they can take comfort in the fact that they will be rotting away in their prison cells as vaginal virgins. I hope they are proud of themselves.

Why anyone would subject themselves to this sort of punishment for a little free closed-source software is beyond the realm of comprehension.

~waIly

Re:Is it really worth it??

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

The latest Debian CD provides all the software anyone could ever conceive of needing.

At first glance, you're right. But think about it for a minute. Rob Malda is quite possibly the most Open Source concious person I know of, and he is (by his own admission in several posted stories) almost addicted to the closed source computer game FFX. He discussed his obsession earlier in this story. If Rob can't get by with Tux racer, how can we expect people with only average willpower to resist the lure of proprietary software?

Face it, no matter how much we like Open Source software, there's always going to be something Closed Source that you like, even if you're Rob Malda. And what better what to stick it to the man and teach them to go Open Source than to just copy the software?

I think the mistake these DrinkOrDie guys made was that they copied too much. I only copy one or two games a month and nobody has ever busted me.

Re:Is it really worth it??

[mz001b]

The latest Debian CD provides all the software anyone could ever conceive of needing.

Doesn't provide a Fortran 90 compiler. Projects exist but they are a long way off yet. Most Linux distributions come with the major apps you need, but there are plenty of other, more specialized ones, that are needed.

Re:Is it really worth it??

[Phexro]

"The latest Debian CD provides all the software anyone could ever conceive of needing."

uh, the latest Debian cd doesn't even provide linux 2.4.x or xfree86 4.0.

and show me one audio processing tool that's comparable to soundforge, or SAW or protools, or any other professional audio editing studio. i'm a debian developer and i don't know of one.

opensource and all that legal stuff

[snake_dad]

Actually this is for me a big reason to use free software. Especially so because I earn my money in closed source software. Illegal use of software wasn't that big an issue for me when I was a teen, but now i'm a bit more concerned with the moral aspects of stealing someones work.

I try to point friends to freely available software as much as I can, thereby slowly trying to win them over to the Open Source community. It ain't much, but i'd like to think that every little bit helps..

Re:Audigy

[moronic1]

ahh nevermind.. looked at the older article and

----
The review doesn't mention how the Audigy works under any open source operating systems, though.

If you're interested in helping Creative develop open source drivers for the Audigy, go to their Open Source Page [creative.com]. Get the emu10k1 source [creative.com] and thumb through the mailing list archive [creative.com] to find out how to get the Audigy branch of the tree
------

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25000&cid=27 14 515

I can't believe your arrogance

[.sig]

"I only copy one or two games a month and nobody has ever busted me."

The fact that you haven't been caught doesn't make it right. How dare you suggest that stealing "only one or two" is justified?

I know this isn't a perfect world and not every criminal can be caught, but that doesn't mean you should flaunt the fact that you haven't been caught stealing yet. (And not even posting anonymously... there are ways to track you down, especially if /. really does log personal info from users.)

The mistake these guys made was in stealing their first piece of software. They got away with it, but commit a crime enough times and you will and should eventually get caught.

Re:I can't believe your arrogance

[.sig]

It's not my assumption that stealing is wrong. It's a law, one held by pretty much every set of moral beliefs out there. If stealing is ok for you, then you're more than welcome to try and legalize it in whatever country you live in, but I kinda like that law.

You must win a lot of debates if nothing that you don't believe in is not a valid argument. You don't think pirating is stealing, so it's not? First off, it's not a victimless crime. You are stealing revenue from whoever owns the rights to that software. You are taking something that belongs to someone else. It doesn't matter that the original is not destroyed, you're still depriving someone of the revenue that they worked to earn. If you worked for a company for awhile, and then got fired without compensation, I'm sure you'd complain. They aren't stealing anything physical from you, but they did steal your time and effort. Is there no victim there?

While it's true that not everyone feels that stealing is wrong, that's not enough to convince me. Maybe if I knew why you thought stealing should be legal and it was a convincing enough argument I might change my mind.

Do you really think that stealing is illegal for political reasons, or was that just a smoke cloud to make your argument look more reasonable. I know plenty of laws are passed for political reasons, but that doesn't make this one of them. Who lobbied to make stealing against the law? Look it up, it was probably done for a good reason though, not just politics.

And yes, I've already asked whether stealing should be illegal. In my mind, I am 100% for this. I wouldn't want someone stealing the product of my work and then bragging about not getting caught for it. Maybe I'm the only one, but I just can't see any reason not to.

Re:I can't believe your arrogance

[zhensel]

I once heard a philosophy professor say a great thing about idiotic moral relativism like this:

So this relativist (sorry, forgot which) goes up to Socrates and claims, "Whatever I think right is so." Socrates spits back, "But what if I don't think so?" The relativist modifies his statement - "Whatever I think right is so for me." Socrates thinks for a moment and retorts, "I think you're wrong."

Re:I can't believe your arrogance

[shyster]

So this relativist (sorry, forgot which) goes up to Socrates and claims, "Whatever I think right is so." Socrates spits back, "But what if I don't think so?" The relativist modifies his statement - "Whatever I think right is so for me." Socrates thinks for a moment and retorts, "I think you're wrong."

That's dumb. I'd get a new philosphy professor if he can't come up with a logical argument against that. Though amusing, there's no value in that anecdote. Socrates has simply admitted to the fact that right and wrong are in your perception and judgment. Socrates thinks the relativist is wrong, and the relativist thinks Socrates is wrong. How we're any closer to a definitive answer escapes me....But then, I can get a real job, and don't have to teach Philosophy.

Re:Audigy

[bbqdeath]

When the next version of Windows comes out, I suspect a lot of people will be saying "all I want to know is when the Windows-?? drivers will be available for the audigy."

I've had enough pain and suffering from creative labs' prior driver support issues that I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether the price for this card is worth it, because I can't realistically expect the card to work past whatever version of Windows it supports now.

Eugene

My sentiments exactly

[freebsd guy]

Typically, when I am helping my clients or friends make a choice between using Free software or "stretching licenses" for commercial software, I use the comparison:

"Why rob a bank when the credit union next door is handing out $100 bills?"

And that analogy is perfect for this situation.

freebsd guy

Re:My sentiments exactly

[MisterBlister]

"Why rob a bank when the credit union next door is handing out $100 bills?"

Unfortunately, the credit union is usually handing out $100 bills that don't interact well with the money currently in wide circulation, and upon seeing these odd $100 bills, most cashiers will get a blank look on their face, not knowing what to do with them.

I'm not saying this is the _fault_ of Open Source, but it IS a barrier to its adoption.

According to these figures i just made up...

[Mike Schiraldi]

From the article:

Law-enforcement officials said more raids were imminent as they tried to shut down a multi-billion- dollar international piracy ring

Multi-billion dollar? How do they come up with these figures? "Oh, it cost our studio ten million dollars to make this movie, and you have a copy on your hard drive, so you stole ten million dollars from us."

If we had a police state like this 80 years ago, Prohibition would never have been repealed.

Windows Licensing

[statusbar]

• I sure hope that Ford (like many large companies) at the very least gives Ford employees dibs on any computers that are being replaced within the company to make up for each new round of Windows.

But that is illegal unless they wipe the windows off the hard disks and install Linux/NetBSD/etc on it instead. Or, they can pay microsoft their extortion/protection fee.

The windows licenses that the corporation bought are not transferrable. In the future you will not be able to buy older versions of windows at all. Yet, the newer versions of windows (XP) won't work nicely on these computers - otherwise why would they be getting replaced?

So in a roundabout way, microsoft makes linux the only option for people with older computers - especially if the computers are hand-me-downs.

--jeff

Audigy

[afidel]

Actually for anyone writing music there is a very, very good reason to upgrade to an audigy. It has 4x more power, so more effects can be done in hardware. It also has ASIO drivers. With a SB Live I get ~70ms latency in Propellerheads Reason, with the Audigy and the newer drivers you get ~8ms. This makes a huge diffence when trying to sync live/semilive effects to the midi streams.

MySQL Dispute

[retrosteve]

For those interested in whose SQL it is anyway, it appears to me that MySQL AB won the dispute. They got the offending site taken down and redirected, and in return appear to have removed their story from their own web site. You can get Mysql AB's side of the story from Google's cache here.

sliMP3 has slimming effect on wallet?

[JohnPM]

Very cool device, but $269 is pretty excessive considering you can get cheaper fully contained players for less. For example the 10G Neo Jukebox for $220. Hmm paradoxically you can buy the Neo Jukebox without the hard drive for an extra $10 at MTE.

I'm not saying don't buy one. The point is that you just know devices like this sliMP3 could be sold profitably for less than $50 if the volume was high enough. They are essentially the same as the Neo jukebox but with all the expensive components removed (battery, hard drive) and with an ethernet chip added. The Neo has a dinky remote control as well.

If you check out Slim Device's photos page, you can see just how 'garage' the company has been. It's pretty cool how they take you through the whole production process - almost makes me want to buy one just for that.

Re:sliMP3 has slimming effect on wallet?

[seanadams.com]

The point is that you just know devices like this sliMP3 could be sold profitably for less than $50 if the volume was high enough.

Any gadget can be sold for under $50 with enough volume - do you want your SliMP3 now, or five years from now?

Anyway, if you can tell me where to buy just the displays for less than $50, I am all ears!
It's simple. SliMP3 is the same price as it's competitors, but you get a better display, better remote, better software, and a smaller device.

SliMP3 is *almost* right.

[Phrogz]

For over 1.5 years I've been wanting (and attempting to convince friends and others to make) a device almost like this. Here's my instant money-making idea for anyone who wants it, IF ONLY THEY'LL MAKE THE DEVICES AND SELL THEM TO ME!

Really, I'm rather desperate. Here are the specs:

Source/Receiver

4 RCA (stereo in/out)

1 RJ-45

1 ID selector (set unit's ID to 1-8) on back

1 Source selector on front (choose to listen from any unit

Uses 10BT chip and 2 $2 TI A/D chip to convert sound to/from PCM on the network

Cost: $US150
Receiver Unit

2 RCA (stereo in)

1 RJ-45

1 Source selector on front choose to listen from any unit

Cost: $US100
Computer Software

Encodes/decodes broadcast signal from the LAN, to let your computer be a source or receiver unit.

Cost: $US50

What I want is many-to-many sound setup in the house. Let the computer be playing MP3s and tune into it on the stereo. Let the A/V system be attached as a source so I can have any/all of the computers tuned in, re-broadcasting the sound around the house for parties. Cheap(~) receiving units can be placed in various locations (outside) with cat5 run to them.

Later improvements would include using software to set a friendly name for each source, a small cheap display to show the source names on the screen, and real-time MP3 encoding/decoding.

But at a minimum I just want a small hardware device which I can feed an RCA signal and have it use my existing ethernet infrastructure to broadcast that signal around the house! Anyone? Anyone?

Re:Audigy vs. Santa Cruz on an i810 chipset machin

[TheAwfulTruth]

Get the $199 Xtacy Everything (ti-200+TV in/out/pvr) and free up that TV wonder slot! :) But then what do you do about USB2 :(

Re:Audigy vs. Santa Cruz on an i810 chipset machin

[Bitmanhome]

For some reason, I wanna come up with a suitably smart-ass answer to cut you down to size, but I can't -- it look like you got a really sweet system for doing some heavy video processing on a budget. My suggestions are below, but they can't match an OEM Audigy, which pricewatch says is $55.

c: If you have an ISA slot, put in an Awe 64 and a PCI firewire card.
d: Get a Radeon 8500DV, which replaces the Xpert, the TV Wonder, AND firewire.
e: Get a real motherboard, with 6 PCI and on-board ether.

And Win2k kicks boot, no flames are warranted.

-B

Cool Audigy option

[John Whitley]

The Audigy has a useful optional package (sitting right here on my desk at work): the Platinum EX. It's similar to the various Live! Drive modules, except this one is external (hence the EX), and extends all of the normal Live!Drive jacks plus firewire to your desktop. Oh, and it's black, not asthetic-nightmre beige. 8-)

Ford's PCs

[dherman]

Ford leases all PCs from Dell (3 yr Leases)
So, when the lease is up, the PC goes back.

The same applies with Unix Workstations (HP, SGI, SUN) (3 Yr Lease)

Mainframes, Supercomputers (Crays, etc...) (Variable Leases)

So, there are no presents to the employees.

But....

We do get great deals on Cars, Trucks, Cell Phones, Microsoft Products, etc...

Picking fights that are never won

[argoff]

It seems like law enforcemnet has a bad habit of picking fights that they can never win. The war on drugs is a great example, prohibition was another.

However, like most federal overeach, there is also beneficial side effects (to them). For example, the war on drugs helps the govt collect trillions in taxes that it would not have otherwise. Not from drug lords, but from legit busisnessmen who are fear mongered into not using the same tax protections associated with drug lords.

There is likely a similar agenda with copyright enforcement. It likely has little to do with copyrights, but the fact that the same methods used for copyright enforcement can also sacre legit businessmen from peer to peer technologies.

Simple solution to the Warez problem:

[MsGeek]

...lower the price of software to something other than stratospheric levels. Notice that the biggest guns in the BSA are the same software companies that charge extortionate prices for their software...Microsoft? Adobe? Macromedia? Start charging fair prices for software and piracy will dry up. Big time.

Yet again with NYT...

[thesolo]

Go to either of these sites to bypass the reg screen:

http://college.nytimes.com/2001/12/19/technology/1 9PIRA.html

http://archives.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http:// www.nytimes.com/2001/12/19/technology/19PIRA.html

government "representation"

[Bob_Robertson]

First, no one I've ever voted for has won their election. That means I am taxed without representation.

My so-called "representitives" at the Federal level consist of Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinswine, and some party hack I can't even remember the name of. Oh, and "I never saw a power I didn't like" Bush, of course.

If you can tell me how any one of those will be swayed in the slightest by yet another heart felt, sincere letter opposing practically everything they have ever done, I would love to know how.

What I receive back are form letters that have nothing to do with the issues I addressed.

Please, refute me. Tell me how you convinced your "elected representitives" to change their actions. I'm really, really interested.

Bob-