Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Norwegian, Nader, Handheld
Putting it all online. "As earlier reported on Slashdot, poor Ottar Grepstad has difficulties getting into his database. Now they're available for download! This is one geeky challenge you don't want to miss. :-) You'll find the story here (click on 'the password mystery'). 'use Xbase;', anyone? :-)"
The loyal opposition. Helmholtz Coil writes "Yahoo! is carrying a rebuttal to the letter James Love and Ralph Nader wrote to the OMB, from the fine folks at ZDNet. Some interesting points, very interesting tone to the whole piece. The question is, though-when can we expect a rebuttal to the rebuttal?"
They need a Free OS focus group :) Gecko writes "Remember the PCs without a pre-installed operating system, selling at Wal-Mart's? OSNews got their hands on one of these and they test Windows, Linux and BeOS. Apparently, the company behind these products had immediately replaced the on-board winmodem with a hardware PCI one, in order to be compatible with Linux, but their new AthlonXP/Duron PC models now come with a newer S3 Savage4 DDR integrated graphics card that is not supported by XFree86. One keeps wondering why they sell these PCs without Windows, if they are not able to test their hardware with other OSes before sending them to Wal-Mart for sale."
A new meaning for Pocket Rocket. Hot on the heels of XScale introductions and announcements from Toshiba and Fujitsu, Brian writes "Acer, Inc. today announces the Acer n20 series, eight months after announcing support for the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 platform, the announcement also made Acer one of the few manufacturers to support both the Palm and Pocket PC platform. PDA LIVE.com again has the scoop and the photos :)"
I hope the pace picks up on the introduction of machines based on Intel's XScale processor.
Dog Star. DHR writes "An update to an earlier story shows that Sirius the satellite radio provider has finally come to their senses and withdrawn their petition to restrict the 2.4GHz band."
Intermission. bubblegoose writes "Yahoo has a story about Film88 being taken down by the MPA. They say it's because the servers were in the Netherlands, I think it more likely due to a good /.'ing."
And Linux on the drive would certainly help address the issue of support for the shipped hardware!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It seems that the Savage4 is supported. Is the Savage4 DDR not or something?
How long would it take XFree86 to add it?
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Basically, they agree that the OMB could, and should, weild their budget power to ensure security is maximized and to lower prices, increase interoperability, etc. But where they differ from Nader, and the only real disagreement is whether there should be any mandate on forcing Microsoft to release source, sell source, etc. They're arguing that the OMB should absolutely try to sway Microsoft's behavior, but that it should do so only through well-reasoned business cases, not through pseudo-enforcement of anti-trust violations.
btw, I am making this post using iCab 2.8 on a Macintosh Quadra 660av, with an Accura 14.4 modem. Made a new start page that will look good in these 68k mac browsers: MSIE 4.01, Netscape 4.05 and iCab 2.8:
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
If they installed a Linux on the drive they'd get a boatload of people calling their tech support lines asking how to use it. I don't care how big and obvious the sticker that says "we don't support the OS, just the hardware" is, people will still call, and those calls cost money. If they ship it blank, they sidestep the whole issue.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
And you and I have no idea that they're breaking the law, either. Unless someone has evidence that you agreed to the EULA, then the EULA is irrelevant. You bought the software, you installed it, and no laws were broken.
Files successfully extracted and emailed, using my old copy of MS-DOS 6.2 Backup, with the compliments of Slashdot :)
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
which is Reidar Djupedal (the guy who owned the collection)'s last name spelled backward.
Not quite "password" but not a particularly secure pw...
There's a court case pending in Hungary for a guy who's Mercedes sedan has been stolen and found disassembled, repackaged to be resold as spare parts. The guy is fighting his insurance company as they did not cover his reassembly costs, arguing that the car has eventually been found, it just had to be reassembled. Which, at Mercedes-Benz hourly rates, would be comparable to buying one of the cheaper Mercedes models.
techupdates@cnet.com
dfarber@cnet.com
I write in response to your recent article 'Why Nader's Microsoft plan is flawed'. I think its unfortunate that the twist of the article is that Nader's plan is flawed, when Mr. Farber makes many points which agree almost exactly with what Nader and James Love are saying.
Your conclusion is right on: "If the courts don't provide sufficient protection for consumers, then start voting with your checkbook." Thats precisely what Mr. Nader is asking the OMB, as a representative of the American people's government, to do. While I agree that punishing Microsoft through changes in purchasing is a flawed argument, the main points of Nader/Love's letter are to examine the current status of technology spending and make sure other viable and possibly cheaper alternatives are not being overlooked.
In addition to this, they ask that some of the specs of proprietary "file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs" be released in order to allow for competing products to not be ruled out by incompatibility. They do not ask, as you suggest, for Microsoft to "give up or sell its intellectual property" or place any limits on purchasing or spending. Nader and Love understand the extreme importance that file (specifically word processing file) format interopability has on the potential for competition in the software and desktop market. When they do mention purchasing source code, they do not specifically say Microsoft Office's source code, they suggest purchasing the code to a "high quality office productivity package".
Again, while I understand the difference between the charges of the OMB and the DOJ, you can't help but agree that some coordination between the two is at least a creative idea. With the antitrust case against Microsoft going on several years now, (and the possibility of retribution for the known, and countless unknown companies who were forced out of the marketplace by anti-competitive behavior being zero) it may not be entirely unrealistic for some creative and forward thinking regarding a strategy or solution to resolve the true reason to break up a monopoly; to make sure innovation and healthy economic growth continue.
Aside from these main points, I find your editorial or article or whatever you think it is, as particularly schizophrenic. You say government regulations shouldn't "dictate how to build and distribute technology products". But, you also say that various branches and departments could "use their clout as a huge Microsoft customer to exert some leverage" by using Openoffice or StarOffice instead of Microsoft Office. How does this differ from Nader and Love's suggestions? You also go on to cite recent news items about other countries saving millions of dollars in licensing fees. Again, this is one of the main points of the letter to the OMB. I won't even try to decipher your Krispy Kreme analogy...
As you say, "Nader has the right idea. Consumers of technology should have choice." So, then why do you try to discredit him? He is one of the few that actively and successfully petitions the government for the rights of consumers and the potentials of technology.
-Chris Tar
Well said systemaster. Except, anything that isn't the keyboard, mouse, or monitor is the "hard drive."
I see the situation as pretty analogous to some leases I've signed over the years. They have clauses saying that if I don't pay the rent, the landlord can take posession of the property and all my belongings, and so on. Well, it may say that in the lease but the landlord-tenant laws will override the parts of our agreement that are illegal.
The thing is, we're sailing into uncharted waters with all this IP legislation stuff. We've already seen the corporate power grab embodied in the Sony Bono Copyrights Forever Act, which if I'm not mistaken will be before some high court any day now. We have laughable patents on ridiculous "business processes" and there's patent pending on the pop-under ad, which according to the story here on slashdot is all of two lines of javascript.
Hey, look, a soapbox called History... People, we are living through a revolution akin to Gutenberg's invention of movable type, and Martin Luther's reformation of the Catholic Church. What am I talking about? Prior to Gutenberg, it was prohibitively expensive to create printed matter; teams of monks dedicated their *lives* to copying important texts. Concomitant with the scarcity of literature was a vast illiterate population, who had to be told what the bible meant by their local clergy.
Gutenberg stood the status quo on its ear. Now, anyone with some molten lead and a few hard workers could turn out in days the same "content" that used to take YEARS to produce. People could now be taught to read the bible for themselves, and didn't have to rely on the interpretation spoon-fed to them by the Church. In short, people gained an incredible freedom, the freedom to THINK FOR THEMSELVES, and the all-powerful Catholic Church (you know, the guys who changed the calendar in October 1582) (look at your unix calendar, it's there) was dealt a blow from which it has never recovered.
How exactly does all this relate to IP law and the RIAA/MPAA DMCA Gabba Gabba Hey? I'm not quite sure, but you bet your pinhead they're related. The Church didn't need IP lawyers and patents, they would simply Darn You To Heck! if you got uppity. They had a copyright, if you will, on the freakin' alphabet! To us that sounds ridiculous, but a copyright and a horde of rapacious IP lawyers provides the same "Game Over" result today that Excommunication did five hundred years ago.
Revolutions of this sort play out over decades, and we are riding the first waves of this one. Meanwhile, I'm stepping down off the soapbox before JonKatz starts pelting me with AOL Platinum 7.0 CDs.