Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Discipline, License, Name-calling
Every day, in every way, I am becoming a better and better Lt. Junior Grade. alanjstr writes "The Baltimore Sun reports 'The Naval Academy has disciplined 85 students who used a military Internet connection to illegally swap copyrighted music and movies, but it stopped short of carrying out its threat to impose the maximum penalties of expulsion or court-martial, an academy document shows.' It goes on to say that the raid was spurred less by the RIAA and more by the threat of losing the internet connection due to the enormous amount of bandwidth consumed. The academy had given students several warnings before raiding the dorm rooms. Some of the hard drives seized last November were found to contain one or two copyrighted files, while others ran into the hundreds or thousands."
I bet they could make a better agreement with Xiph.org Magnetic Confinement writes "In an effort to make life more difficult for civic-minded Mac users, NPR has decided to drop Quicktime from its available streams. Nothing specific on their webpage addresses it, just some suspicious vacancies remain. Their helpdesk response is officially:
'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format.You can also contact Apple QuickTime directly at: quicktime@apple.com
Weston
NPR Online'"
A note that got lost in the bin for too long ... JulesVD writes "Microsoft has agreed to tweak its Windows XP operating system in response to recent feedback from the Justice Department over its antitrust settlement with the federal government. (See news on Yahoo!) Microsoft will give more prominent display to a button in Windows that allows computer users to remove the company's Internet Explorer browser, company spokesman Jim Desler said. The Justice Department is overseeing Microsoft's compliance with the settlement. Placement of the button in a hard-to-reach spot in Windows was one of several complaints Microsoft's rivals made to the department last year."
Proportionality isn't just for the personals. You may still be boggling (I am) at the recently announced RIAA suits alleging that colleges and college students are liable for billions of dollars in damages to the music industry for facilitating online file trading. Reader Derek Lomas writes in with another editorial indicating "growing support at Yale for legal alternatives".
Even biggerness. The Gathering is billed by some as the the world's largest computer party. MC68040, though, writes "I'd like to remind everyone to have a look at dreamhack, that 'also' is the largest LAN in Sweden twice a year ... Which had over 5000 participants in 2001 and even more in 2002.. *arhem* Biggest you say?"
If you want to fight about "LAN party" vs. "Computer party," leave me out of it!
How about calling it "900t"? An anonymous reader writes "As previously reported, mozilla.org's Phoenix browser has been renamed to Firebird. This hasn't pleased supporters of the Firebird relational database project. In an Australian LinuxWorld article, one of their administrators calls the name change "one of the dirtiest deeds I've seen in open source so far." In a MozillaZine article, the same person accused mozilla.org of "theft" and "corporate bullying". They don't explain how it was different when they picked a name that was already used by a BBS, financial software manufacturer, Fenix IDE and games company. Meanwhile, IBPhoenix, an organisation that supports the development of the Firebird database, has put up a protest page, encouraging people to spam the MozillaZine forums (even though MozillaZine had nothing to do with the decision) and send masses of email to many Mozilla developers (most of whom were not involved in selecting the new name). I find it rather hypocritical that the Firebird database people are accusing Mozilla of "the filthiest of dirty tricks" while at the same time advocating the harassment of many Mozilla developers."
Point of clarification. batkid writes "In response to the article 'Microsoft pirating their own software,' Seems like MS is taking it pretty seriously. I got the following response from Microsoft (I am a faculty member, but the response should be the same to students).
April 9, 2003RE: Visual Studio .NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional software distributed during the Microsoft Faculty Seminars
Dear Faculty Member, Thank you for attending the recent Microsoft Faculty Seminar. The purpose of this letter is to clarify questions concerning the legal use of the Visual Studio .NET Professional and Windows XP Professional software distributed to faculty who attended the Seminar. The software received is governed by the electronic license embedded in the product set up that appears prior to installation and no additional documentation is required.
Notwithstanding language on the CD label for the copies of Visual Studio .NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition that you received during your attendance at the Seminar, which appeared to indicate that a separate license document was required in order for you to legally use the software, this letter will confirm that use by you of the software received is governed by the electronic license embedded in the product setup that appears prior to installation.
You are required to agree to accept the terms and conditions of this license prior to proceeding with the products' installation. Acceptance by you of these "Click to Accept" licenses is the only license required for your use of the copies of Visual Studio.NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition received. We recommend that you keep a copy of this letter in your personal files for future reference."
Thanks for passing that along.
What if Masterlock security was assured this way? Monday, you read that security researchers Billy Hoffman and Virgil Griffith (known as Vergil and Acidus) were were prevented from speaking at a security conference by means of a Cease and Desist order from Blackboard, Inc.. The two planned to talk about security flaws found in Blackboard's Transaction System.
In a mail posted at Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list, David Yaskin of Blackboard responds to the criticism that the company's legal action has drawn. John R. Hall has posted a FAQ explaining some particulars of the Blackboard Transaction System which Virgil and Acidus aren't at liberty to discuss, as well as contradicting some claims that Yaskin makes in the posted email.
*highlights*
*Ctrl-C*
*Ctrl-V*
*Prints Letter*
*Launches Gnutella*
This space intentionally left blank.
In an effort to make life more difficult for civic-minded Mac users, NPR has decided to drop Quicktime from its available streams.
How do we know Apple wasn't being unreasonable in the terms they wanted?
BTW, those Phoenix database people sound really mature.
Don't worry. It opens in Open Office Impress just fine!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Remember that joke about the kid who prooves that he has no time to attend school, since he must spend x days sleeping and x days eating and x days are weekends.....
The kid in this joke arrives at the figure that he does because the way he does it counts a good portion of time twice. (IE: Sleep and weekends overlaps...)
The RIAA I think is counting things twice when it obtains these "Billion Dollar" figures. I think that it counts the number of P2P transactions and multiplies it by the cost of an album. This dispite people downloading songs that they would never buy. In fact, one could further inflate the figures by including incompleted transactions as a full one.
Billions of Dollars? Baloney.
They sent Confused Philosopher an email this morning.
Turns out the "go ahead" is digital.
This is so confusing.
Why slashdot? Why not?
Anyone know of a substitue for Blackboard? Open source or otherwise? I don't use it here at CSUN, but other Universities I deal with do use it. I was actually going to push it for the physics department here, but not now. Thanks.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
The fact is that most students at Yale are very familiar with breaking copyright law, because they are not willing to give up learning about music just because they can't afford the $15 cost of each CD.
Does anyone else find that laughable?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Of the people who registered in my city, and had "confirmed" registrations, did not appear on the guest list. They didn't get free software at the presentation, but were promised it would be mailed to them.
A month later and the software hasn't arrived. Not a high priority I guess.
But the software is already a year out of date.
--
I'm so confused. Make me your friend please, to clear my mind.
Why slashdot? Why not?
'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format.
That's strange, the quicktime streaming server is opensource and free. Were they using a proprietary, licensed format to deliver the audio? If so, why not just switch to low-bitrate MP3, which QTSS supports with no problem?
They should just rename it "TransAm", its the same thing anyways......
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
"Some kids were running miniature Napsters," said the academy official, referring to the now-defunct music-sharing site. "They had enormous drives - multigigabite drives - and they were on all the time. They became little Web sites."
Just goes to show how educated some naval personell are about computer technology. I mean MULTIgigabyte drives?!? Holy shit man, that's a lot of storage!!!
*note sarcasm above*
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
Ok, I have commented on this before. I am still curious as to if the RIAA has it's way and wins this lawsuit, will it prove anything?
I mean, unless the student is very rich family, along the lines of Bill Gates rich, the RIAA would never see the money. And, on a appeal, the settlement would be thrown out on the fact that the amount, millions and millions of dollars is too much for anyone to pay.
I am still curious if the RIAA is just doing this for headlines, or to scare people from sharing music.
eh, this sucks, I am going back to bed....
We use the Blackboard transaction system here at LSU, and a lot of our food/drink machines with the system are usually offline... now, if you swipe your card in the machine while its offline, it'll display what's supposively stored on the card - your social security #.
Just something I thought was kind of interesting.
Yeah, its pretty infuriating that there isn't going to be a viable alternative to the Real streams available on most of the NPR affiliate sites; its pretty infuriating.
Does anyone know what the terms are with this? Does Real just give the software to NPR for advertising purposes? To be fair, its the only reason I have Real installed on my box at all.
Props to the poster for the Barcelona reference, btw.
Scott
I don't believe that Microsoft intends to allow users to actually remove much software with any of these "new" features. Even if a user edits his/her sysoc.inf (you can find it in "%systemroot%\inf" if you so will) file and removes the word "hide" from applications which are not appearing under the "add/remove windows components" manager, most of the applications remain on the hard disk even after they are supposedly "uninstalled." I have found this to be true with Outlook Express and Media Player. Frankly who cares about Internet Explorer at this point. Most people I know use it on their windows machines anyway, regardless of how buggy and insecure it may. At this point, Microsoft being forced to alter XP so much that Internet Explorer is "uninstalled" is nothing more that a friendly pat on the ass compared to the original goals of the anti-trust case(s). The justice department should be absolutely ashamed.
Is it really that hard to pick an original name and then run a few searches to make sure there are no similar products with that name?
For example, why not pick something from another language that fits the product well? Something like 'gaiyuu' (Japanese: foreign travel) or 'michiyuki' (Japanese: going down the road)...
Seriously...it seems ridiculous the amount of trouble these people have coming up with original names...
IMHO.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Two forces at work here, you tell me which has more sway.
1) Rich people ($$$ Profit)
2) Rich people have the money to mount a legal defence (--- big losses)
It say that the Navy found some hard drives with 100s and 1000s of copyrighted files on them. It never says if the students had a right to have those files... I have 1000s of "copyrighted" files on my hdd in the form of mp3s, which I obtained by buying the CDs and then ripping them...
It's about time. Making internet explorer easy to remove will definately eliminate the problem with Microsoft's monopoly. The only reason Linux hasn't been adopted as a major desktop competitor is that it was widely felt that the internet explorer icon needed to be removed from Windows before you could install Linux, and this should clear that up. The justice department deserves a big pat on the back for this. Way to go DOJ!
My Blog
Sounds like they embiggened it a bit too much.
Heh...oops. ^^;;
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I guess most people have come to expect this from slashdot, but it should be pointed out all the same. It's too bad everyone (me included) puts up with it.
From the slashdot writeup:
From the linked article (slightly summarised):
Listing the eight technical project leaders at the end might have been a tad excessive, but I'd hardly call that "encouraging people to spam the mozillazine forums" or harrassing mozilla developers in the way that slashdot makes out to be. It looks like an ordinary informational page to tell people how they can contact the people who are able to make a decision.
Actually, IIRC, Masterlock did threaten lawsuit over the dissemination of info that would allow someone to find out a combination to a MasterLock combo lock in a few easy steps.
This is not new.
Vidar
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
did you notice that they dont put all their employees address on that same page so you can share your opinion with them? if anyone feels like putting together a similar list of ibphoenix empoloyees contact information i think it would be only fair.
tasty electronic music vittles
We all know that statistics can be manipulated to show anything one wants. Here's how to fix the problem: * Dismantle the RIAA and scatter the fragments to the four corners * Let Artists decide how to advertise and distribute their creations
Warning: Since Internet Explorer is part of the operating system, your operating system will no longer function after you click the button. Please forward all concerns to the US Department of Justice. Have a nice day.
Sigs are bad for your health.
I suspect that whoever wrote the article about "removing IE" meant just that, removing the icon from prominent locations and changing the default browser to something else, rather than actually totally uninstalling IE. I've heard somewhere that extricating IE from XP would be roughtly akin to brain surgery with a spoon.
However, if someone can prove me wrong, I will be overjoyed! I haven't used IE in ages, thanks to excellent releases from all the alternative browser teams.
The "Legal" solution proposed by that Yalie simply won't work w/o stronger DRM, which currently isn't available, and which hopefully won't ever be widespread... ... no BG noise to worry about!)
He claims that streaming would not involve illegal copying, but I have to question if he really knows what he's talking about. Just because certain players will stream from certain sources does not stop anyone from redirecting those streams to disk and storing them there for as long as they want...
Failing that, there's always the good old high-quality speaker+Micropone setup (in Windows, at least, you can even "record" straight from line out
We definitely need a solution, but this is not it.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
This is only making people laugh. And feeleven less threatened to download.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I have a little program to remove Internet Explorer.
It came from here: http://www.win98lite.net
I did not write this program, but I am very satisfied with it's results.
yeah ... I was familiar with the firebird project and thought the Phoenix project had made a rather poor name choice. My sympathy (for all it matters) has been very quickly eroded by the reactions of the Firebird folk. Not what you'd call appropriate behaviour.
I'm working on a project called sinapse that is a PHP/db portal for students. It's in use by Oklahoma University, Oklahoma State University, and I'm currently working on the Baylor University implementation. However, I've been writing a module for it specifically for teachers to be able to cover the same functions as Blackboard. Sinapse is the only education focused software for this usage AFAIK.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
But not Emmett Plant I guess...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Placement of the button in a hard-to-reach spot in Windows was one of several complaints Microsoft's rivals made to the department last year.
This sounds to me like an argument that might be made by people trying modchip X-Boxes - "It's too hard to circumvent Microsoft's way of doing things!"
Is it just me, or does legal wrangling over the placement of a button just seem kind of silly?
Mike Pettit, a spokesman for Procomp, an anti-Microsoft computer industry trade group, said the latest modification was minor. He called it "a complete waste of time and effort and has nothing to do with restoring competition."
Apparently not.
this just goes to show how unreliable statistics can be when they are relied on too heavily as absolute information. RiAA needs to get a clue :\ i don't see how this is ever going to happen tho. At any rate, I don't see them starving to death from lost sales. If Mr. RiAA was really so dirt poor from all us MP3 "PiRATES", I'd gladly take him to Burger King and hook him up w/ a super-value-plus-that-makes-it-big meal or something
PEACE
Drugs have taught an entire generation of American children the metric system.
We carry BBC, Morning Edition, The Connection, Here & Now, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, On Point, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, et al... :)
And we originate most of those.
-T
It's the politics realted to MS giving/distributing their softwware without a proper license. Who actually wants this MS garbage anyways? PEACE
Drugs have taught an entire generation of American children the metric system.
[i]You are required to agree to accept the terms and conditions of this license prior to proceeding with the products' installation.[/i]
Since when? There's no shrinkwrap EULA that says I need to agree to your EULA.
The only time I agree to any licensing is when I click on the "OK" button. Now, seriously, how many people have reverse engineered the installer _BEFORE_ actually installing and set it up so that it installs even if you say you Disagree?
If I don't agree to the EULA, but still manage to install it (because I paid for it) seems pretty legal to me.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Richard Feynman covers this trick in one of his books.. since he is dead no one is there to blame..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
They both exist. Along with 'Camino', for OSX. At least using mythological creatures seemed moderately creative. Cars? Eh.
mail to the IBPhoenix People "I would like to make you "aware" that your claim is absurd. Your claim that an Internet browser will interfere with a relational database is absolutely absurd. Best, INSERT YOUR NAME HERE"
Adware? I have Quicktime, and I don't remember getting any adware with it... but maybe I missed something. But yeah, an open source alternative would be really nice... go Theora! (I'm assuming that someone will work out a way to stream it after it comes out, the way Icecast does for Ogg.)
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
Well, you know there are 3 kinds of lies:
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics," Disraeli
SCO to Hell
Highlights...
Left mouse click...
Middle mouse click...
lpr...
Launches Gnutella...
What the %^&#, this requires WINDOWS?!
Launches Gnutella again...
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
to celebrate tonight's full moon, i found some lovely anagrams of 'slashdot':
AD SLOTHS
you know, the page has been loading kind of slow
SHALT DOS
the eleventh commandment of slashdot?
OLD STASH
now where did i leave that stuff
SOLD HATS
cowboy neal's previous job? his future job?
and my personal favorite
HO ASS LTD.
slashdot's parent company?
until later,
letter
p.s. is it coincidence that cowboy neal = a web colony?
Maybe because Quicktime streaming server is freely downloadable.
Well, okay, you've got to have OS X Server to get that one, but if you don't want to even run OS X Server, guess what? Darwin streaming server is both open source and runs on Linux, Solaris, OS X(server or regular, 10.1.x or better), AND WINDOWS(both win2k and NT).
If -that- isn't good enough for you, there's no shortage of MP3 streaming servers. If THAT isn't good enough, there's ogg-vorbis.
Something smells, folks. MS -bought- their way into this one, probably via strong-arming or simply bribing with free hardware+licenses. By the way, PBS dropped Quicktime recently too.
Please help metamoderate.
this is so simple to fix...
current implementation:
reader to NP: this guy says he wants a coke
NP to reader: give him a coke
how it is hacked:
intercept the NP to reader command and resend "give him a coke" to the reader. free coke.
fixed implementation:
reader to NP: this guy says he wants a coke
NP to reader: give him a coke, lets call it UNIQUE_KEY
reader to NP: can i give this guy a coke and call it UNIQUE_KEY?
NP to reader: if this challenge already occured respond "no, you already did", otherwise, respond "yes, give him a coke" and log the UNIQUE_KEY
problem is the current hardware can not be upgraded to do handshaking or challenges like that. if you have programmed for paypal's IPN, it works as correctly described above and seems like the obvious solution... i can't figure out what these guys were thinking **for 19 years**!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
If your smart enough to deal with not having I.E. then finding the button to remove it shouldn't be that hard. Imagine being on the phone doing tech support for some bozo who's deleted I.E. because Microsoft is Evil, and dealing with the complications thereof.
Oh, and is it just me, or is this pathetic? Microsoft used illegle tactics to destroy several companies, and dominated the industry with those tactics to the point where the only way an even potential competitor could make it was by circumventing the market entirely (Linux). And the most done to them is making them put a button to remove I.E. from the start menu?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The MS-DOS nasty was "recover", not "restore". Norton even had a tool to "recover from dos's recover".
Or, how about what the automotive world refers to the Firebird as(screaming/flaming chicken car), with a Mozilla twist?
I can see it now: "Screaming Dinosaur 7.0! Now featuring the Mullet theme, complete with AC/DC background music. Cinderblocks available as add-on module(please note, Cinderblock module disables browser completely, installs junk on your desktop)"
Please help metamoderate.
The RIAA is actually going about this in a winnable fashion and they don't even have to win to win. First they are taking on a person who does not have the deep pockets to defend himself against the 2,000Lb. gorilla that the RIAA is. If the student does not defend himself, the RIAA wins by default. The RIAA would then have a judgement placed against the student which would not be avoidable by bankruptcy and probably even have rights to his estate after his death. His credit is ruined and he would never have any hope of keeping any assets (cash or property), any earnings he is able to earn would probably be garinsheed also. The RIAA will also probably continue to keep the student in court until he dies of old age, demanding that he prove that he has no assets at each summons which would require several appearances. If the student fights the court case, the RIAA will keep him in court for years, one day at a time until he is broke and has to quit. At this point the RIAA wins be default again. This whole game is in the RIAA's favor since they have the bucks, resources, and the time (corporations can live a lot longer than people). Basically the poor guy's life is ruined unless some White Knight steps up and can give the RIAA a run for the money. In order to beat the RIAA at this game the student must somehow out spend the RIAA, tough to do. If the RIAA wins or settles out of court, they win. I f the student is able to win the case and the appeals that surely will follows, the RIAA has only lost one of an indefinite number of battles. Bottom line is this poor sucker is going to be made an example of to frighten the masses into submission. This war is a matter of life and death for the RIAA and they are going to pursue winning it as such.
There are a heck of a lot of variants on the flaming bird theme, as any Phoenyx.net staffer could tell you. (Of course, some are harder to spell than others, which is why our most recent machine name is merely "roc".)
Still, I won't complain that they changed the name... you have no idea how hard it is to *properly* spell "Phoenix" after eighteen years of "Phoenyx."
We've considered renaming The Phoenyx, since (1) the name was come up with back in the day when you had to remember a number, not a domain name, so we didn't consider that (2) people have enough trouble getting the O and E in the right order (there's a reason those letters are red in our logo) much less remembering the Y.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
"I find it rather hypocritical that the Firebird database people are accusing Mozilla of "the filthiest of dirty tricks" while at the same time advocating the harassment of many Mozilla developers."
Last time I looked it seemed every second article on Slashdot was advocating the 'harassment' of various people over issues like privacy, the DCMA, spam, etc, etc... I call hypocrite right back.
Mozilla even has a sourceforge page...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozilla
what are they going to do about
http://sourceforge.net/projects/firebird ?
Looks to me like a lot of people might go to
http://firebird.sourceforge.net/
and wonder where the browser component is linked.
Wake up and smell the coffee, it's going to be as bad for Mozilla as it is for Firebird. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Maybe it's time I bouht a yacht and start living in international water so that stupid US laws don't apply to me. After all, what does the US government actually do for me?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Seeing you here, on a news site dedicated to free software and Linux, I wonder if you have grown up a little since saying, "This is the list of all that is lame ... 2. This whole philosophy of "open source"... does communism ring a bell?" while boasting about t-shirts earned through being such a great M$ bug reporter. Clasic! I got a reasonable laugh out of that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You are required to agree to accept the terms and conditions of this license prior to proceeding with the products' installation. Acceptance by you of these "Click to Accept" licenses is the only license required for your use of the copies of Visual Studio.NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition received. We recommend that you keep a copy of this letter in your personal files for future reference."
So that's it? I've got the letter, all I have to do is burn a coppy of the CD and I'm OK? Qool, doodz, I can't wait to get my hands on that! It's like free software, except it's from M$ so we know it won't work well and it will have all sorts of restrictions on its use and ...
Never mind, I don't have an M$ O$ to run the junk, you can keep it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That makes sense. But, you forgot that most judges in the united states are liberals and would never let a settlement of billions dollars on one person to stand. In the end, the judge and set a dollar amount for the settlement. If the student just admits his was in the wrong, then the judge will set a limit of more or less in the area of a couple thousand dollars.
But, I think we are also forgetting that the RIAA said a few years ago that they would not sue any person directly like this. But that is so typical of a business. Say one thing one day, and go against the next.
eh, this sucks, I am going back to bed....
Let's even carry it one step further: If clicking "I Agree" gives me a license to use the software, why wouldn't that apply to what would otherwise be illegal copies? It sounds pretty bizarre, but it also seems pretty consistent with what that letter said. And whatever happened to that whole "is it authentic" campaign?
They have many, many possible height levels. They are completely analog devices.
Analog devices have noise. Therefore, analog devices are built with tolerances, and on a given brand of lock, these tolerances may allow for only about ten distinct height levels per pin.
Will I retire or break 10K?
however, Visual Studio .Net 2003 is rather impressive and if you can get free training then it is even better. I would like to see the equivelent for Linux. The key in IDE is to me the "I" for Integration. Many focus on the GUI but the integration (including just a common interface, regardless of whether it is graphical) is rather good. Of course everything is stock MS with VS but that is why I want the good without the bad for Linux (besides the GCC is a better optimizing compiler for many tasks)
Actually I am thinking that a good variant for Phoenix would have been, "LikeThatFlamingBirdArisingFromItsAshesWeShallConq uerAll"
It sounds to me like somebody in Redmond wanted to hand out XP freebies, but didn't have the budget to buy retail or volume license. (Yes, it's just Microsoft buying from itself. But license costs still come out of the department budget.) So they found an internal MSDN subscription with some extra activation keys, and used those. Probably internal MSDN license aren't as expensive as other licenses.
Distro disks with that "bound by attached license" warnings are familiar to anybody with an MSDN subscription. This is Microsoft's warning that you don't have permission to resell these disks. Of course, plenty of subscribers ignore this warning, judging from the underprice copies of XP I see on EBay.
You can reinstall IE afterwards to repair the breaks in windows update and microsoft's help files.
(Napster didn't work right after I uninstalled IE.)
Best of all, when you reinstall, it runs as a separate program and doesn't load as a part of the OS.
Man that Press Release from them was something else. "Our product is secure but only if someone doesn't plug a card reader into a sniffer but that's Vandalism and is illegal!!!"
Even though Apple's site says QuickTime Streaming Server requires OS X Server, it really doesn't. You can install it on a regular OS X system.
There was a version of installshield that didnt disable the _next_ until you click _agree_. I had much fun installing programs using it.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
http://www.blackboard.com/docs/Statement_on_System _Security.pdf
The DB isn't very big, maybe they could just roll the latest version into one download? Then you'd be sure to get the one you want! DB firebird could even port the DB management tools to browser firebird, I'm sure no one would mind!
unless you use a really feeble definition of "adware." QuickTime Player *is* nagware, what with the "upgrade to QuickTime Pro" message which regularly appears when you launch it. The only ads are those which appear when you launch Player by itself instead of how it usually gets launched, by clicking on a QuickTime link or file. Apple calls these "HotPicks" and the Preferences include a checkbox to turn them off. It's silly to complain about something so innocuous which can even be turned off!
At the moment the HotPick is "click to hear Fleetwood Mac's new album 'Say You Will'."
I think ad-supported applications can be a good thing as long as they're not too in your face. Eudora's ad-supported option, for instance, is reasonable.
Just to nitpick, QuickTime is not a codec but it's very good that people are working on totally free alternatives to patented-encumberd codecs.
Uhh.. Bruce Schneider's company? www.counterpane.com
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
If they just want Acidus and Virgil nailed, they can let the two speak and then file criminal complaints. If the vulnerability is not a big deal, that is. Their system is shown to be robust, and they get their dose of spite by seeing Acidus &Co in cuffs. But if it is a big deal, then they have some explaining to do on why they didn't tell the colleges. Anyway, you're right that the devices are boxed in well, But it doesn't take much effort to trace the conduits and find a place top patch in.
How about calling it "900t"? An anonymous reader writes "As previously reported, mozilla.org's Phoenix browser has been renamed to Firebird. This hasn't pleased supporters of the Firebird relational database project. In an Australian LinuxWorld article, one of their administrators calls the name change "one of the dirtiest deeds I've seen in open source so far." In a MozillaZine article, the same person accused mozilla.org of "theft" and "corporate bullying". They don't explain how it was different when they picked a name that was already used by a BBS, financial software manufacturer, Fenix IDE and games company. Meanwhile, IBPhoenix, an organisation that supports the development of the Firebird
I'd like to suggest that all Open Source disputes over program names be settled through trial by combat in the old English tradition.
If this works, perhaps this method can be used to settle all trade name disputes.
Alternately, a version of this adapted to the programmer community can be tried.
Set up a server on a static IP. One side tries to keep it running, the other side tries to h4ck it down, who defends and who attacks settled by coin flip.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Do you work for Nurv then? Huh? Huh? Do ya? Do they really kill programmers then steal their source? Huh? Huh!?
Join Tor today!
" In a MozillaZine article, the same person accused mozilla.org of "theft" and "corporate bullying". They don't explain how it was different when they picked a name that was already used by a BBS, financial software manufacturer, Fenix IDE and games company." Firebird....Firebird...somehow that name sounds familiar...scratching head........Am I nuts..or was there also a CAR named Firebird??? shameless trolling, but someone had to do it
Two things come to mind. First, the guys at the Academy should feel d*** lucky they didn't get expelled or court-marshalled. I mean, this is the military for cryin' out loud. You check a lot of your rights at the door, nevermind getting away with illegal stuff. Yes, it's one of the great ironies that our freedom is protected by people who are willing to give up many of their freedoms, including the first enumerated freedom in "life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness" so that the rest of us (and themselves at some later date) can enjoy freedom. You enter the military, they control all kinds of stuff about you. How many people reading this have "regulation haircuts"? For that matter, how many people reading this have had a haircut in the last year? Hmmmm... /. poll?
The 2nd thing that comes to mind is that the coverage of the military in Iraq provided us with a great object lesson regarding security. One of Sadam's tunnels was opend by a soldier using his M-16 as a universal skeleton key. A lot of doors were opened by ramming or kicking. In one scene, it looked like the marines were struggling to cut a gate open with some bolt-cutters, and were relieved from this chore by the people inside giving up quietly. I would be surprised if any of the locks were "picked" in the classic sense. The point is, it wasn't "legal" to open any of this stuff. It certainly wasn't legal for looters to do it. Master's locks are, ultimately, backed up by guys with guns; and if the guys with guns aren't there you don't need fancy tools. The same is true for some of these IP protection schemes. They won't stop looters (kids in college dorms) or armies (foreign governments) with laws. Only guns. A far better solution for Sadam and the IP companies would have been to comport themselves in a manner such that nobody but a few petty criminals actually wanted to break down their doors. Sadam had his chance. The IP companies still have theirs, but they seem to be playing the same game as Sadam.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Christ, if a multigigabyte website is 'little', I'd hate to see what happend when a site that these guys consider 'big' gets slashdotted.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Though people have said that "it's not the same thing" because Firebird is a common word and Mozilla is not, as long as I don't make a browser called "Mozilla", I should be fine, right?
Somebody ought to make an sql database called Mozilla. That will ignite the situation. Or better, the Firebird SQL Database project should rename to Mozilla. *sarcasm*
Wtf?
Under any version of Windows up to and including 2000, re-associating html files with any browser I so choose has been exactly as easy/hard as any other file type. In fact, I don't even go that far anymore - Opera does it for me when it installs. Come to think of it, it must have easily registered itself as 'default browser' somewhere, because in the 2 years I've been using it, not once has IE popped up when I click on a link in any other application, open an html file, anything.
Is this something new in XP? I know completely removing IE isn't terribly viable, as parts of it are embedded into the OS code itself, but I've long since removed any links to IE, and wouldn't even know it was on my system save for a couple of megs of wasted disk space.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Well, last time that I checked, there was no difference whatsoever between OSX and OSX Server other than the license. All of the tools are the same, they're just a little hidden under OSX.
Phoenix browser has been renamed to Firebird. This hasn't pleased supporters of the Firebird relational database project.
If they change it again, I figure in a couple of months they will settle on a new name, and that will promply be contested, and then in another couple of months it will happen all over again, and so on. How many variations of "Phoenix" and the names of other mythological creatures are NOT already used by some one for a product? Of course, they probably won't bother changing it this time. At least Phoenix was actually already a browser.
If I join one of those clubs, I could get the quantity of the discs you say, but they don't carry the bands I like, nor do they carry cd's that are by bands no longer around, and never made a big hit. This is something that everyone on both sides of this copyright shit need to realize. Especially the RIAA and other corporate entities. I don't want Brittney Spears, or Metallica , or whatever bullshit is lining the shelves of Walmart. If they really want to stop piracy, then I should be able to walk into anyplace that sells cds, and pick up a copy of Haunted Garage, or LawnmowerDeath, or anything else I decide. No, special orders do not cut it. The biggest music store here never even heard of these bands, and they don't find them on their little order sheets, so I must search all over to find my kind of music. Gee, the internet has sure made it easy to find my music. I buy from band pages when I find bands worth buying from, but when the band is dead and gone, and the RIAA decides to discontinue the cds, well, what then? P2P fills this bill. If they would think ahead just a bit, they could setup the motherlode of all napsters, and charge a reasonable fee for access, and then they would, at the very least, quadruple their income and reduce costs. This will never happen though, because Corporate thinking corrupts all that it touches, and the RIAA is certainly corrupt. But hey, what do I know? I work for a living.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
Some entity harrassing people in that manner around my neck o' the woods is liable to get the death part alright. Long live the 2nd amendment!!
I love the way as you browse the MozillaZine forums you get to see this message at the bottom of each page:
"Please keep your comments friendly!"
Do you use QuickTime...are you giving $$ to PBS?
/audio, in favor of an apparent Microsoft-only solution.
<BR>
<BR>
This email is to discuss a recent decision by NPR, which I note on it's website says "In partnership with PBS".
NPR.org has announced* it will stop using QuickTime for online
As a past supporter to PBS in my hometown, Sacramento, I find it less than 'public' for an otherwise public resource such as NPR to adopt what I feel is a restrictive posture towards their online community.
I also notice that the PBS website still supports QuickTime as a available format for viewing video online. I would like to believe that if PBS can continue to support more than one choice of online video, NPR would be able to follow suit.
If PBS/NPR is going to request financial support from the community at large, it should perhaps consider those funds come from people with various choices that not only apply to politics, etc, but to information access methods as well. If I felt that PBS/NPR was only going to support a Microsoft environment in the future, I would be less apt to provide financial support....and I'm sure others will be thinking along similar lines.
Regards,
.....
But, you forgot that most judges in the united states are liberals...
The Republicans have held the Presidency for 14 of the past 22 years. I'd be skeptical if they appointed many liberals to the federal bench in that time. They've also controlled a lot of state governorships and legislatures so the same likely holds true at the state level. You must be way out there on the far right to think that most judges are liberals these days.
FreeSpeech.org
You can download audio of many articles directly from the site. Unfortunately, Apple's web browser of choice (Safari) thinks that the audio links are served up as *.smi files--perhaps "self mounting image files".
Safari will, instead of opening these files with RealPlayer, Quicktime or downloading them to a desiganted directory, will open them up directly with Disk Copy-- an operation that wil surely fail.
And because NPR uses javascript to decide what kind of stream to serve up, it's rather difficult to cut and paste a link directly into one of the audio streaming clients. I suppose you could uncheck the "open safe files automatically,", and control click the downloaded file, select "Open With RealOne Player" and enjoy the results, but that solution is rather complicated.
NPR blames Apple for this. I'm sure that in the confusion, angry Safari users have jammed already strained technical support queues. So NPR does the only sensible thing-- it seeks petty revenge by dropping Quicktime.
I've since found out a bit more about the issue, courtesy of a bit of extra reading on both sides - and I can definitely see your position.
/they/ thought, and (c) why firebird - what's so special about the name?
There seems to be a very interesting attitude held by the moz folks. Not friendly at all - and some of the stuff that's been going on has been rather underhanded, especially the news reporting.
One question I have, for one, is - how did this name change get through in the first place? I, for one, was surprised to hear of it, as I'd heard of the Firebird DB before.
I seem to remember someone mentioning "newtzilla" - hell, at least that'd be a safe choice.
The things that puzzle me are (a) were NS's corporate lawyers the main decision makers here, as it sounds, (b) why didn't they get in touch with the firebird db folks and find out what
I would call it Omote Gyaku, or perhaps Ura Gyaku.
Then I'd kick it in the balls and run like hell.
1. Enroll as student at university hosting next MS-sponsored event and grab a CD.
2. Ignore sticker that says separate license required, as MS says to.
3. Wait for cat to walk on keyboard during installation and agree to on-screen license agreement.
4. ???
5. Profit!
Especially when syllables like -IX aren't allowed any more.
To be precise: Apple supports QTSS on Mac OS X server. You can run it anywhere you like, but on other OS's, it's up to you to support yourself.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Open date and time and set the year to something like 2024. Then save this time. Launch Quicktime and click on later to register sometime in the future.
Now reset the year.
Re-launch quicktime...no nag to upgrade to Quicktime Pro.
This has worked for years, and is pretty widely known...I saw it on a Mac forum and have forgotten who the poster was so I cannot give credit to the original poster.
Listen to stuff that's less gay.
Thx.
Personally I am glad, and I hope more people ditch quicktime and instead use more portable formats (same goes for Realplayer).
Personally I dont want to be nagged to buy a 'pro' edition, I dont want to fork out $30 just for a full screen button and I dont like to have yet-another-video-player. If Apple did the decent thing and released Quicktime as a codec for wmp (vp3 used to work, not anymore) I doubt this would have happened.
Not to mention the terrible behaviour on installation of yet another program that feels it needs a quicklaunch item _and_ a system tray entry!
So then we can infer that there is some sort of "re-imbursement" incentive to send in Windows Media Format or RealPlayer? Windows Media format is too locked into the Windows-only cult and looks to be getting even more that way. The client for RealAudio has been getting more unstable and has too many spyware characteristics.
I'd prefer to see the NPR use QuickTime or Ogg, especially Ogg. The BBC seemed to have a successful trial with Ogg.
The name "FreeBrowse" just brings to mind a 13 year old with a pirated copy of VC++ 5.0
"20/01/00 : i have got teh sockest code started but ti is raelly hard.
4/3/00 : teh browser can draw stuff like bold tags!!!!!11!
5/6/00 : imagse are working but only teh bmp'S
My letter to asa@mozilla.org - Reasonable Reasons
.NET driver. At the very least when you search for firebird and linux on google the search will be half as useful as it could be!
submitted by mattr
Thursday April 17th, 2003 06:27:26 AM
Reply to this message
I am posting a letter I sent to Asa Dotzler who I am worried may not be able to read or answer my letter due to the volume of mail and her lawyer's specious advice, in the hopes that this will help the Mozilla team to suck in some gut and make a brave choice to change to some other name not involving a flaming bird. May I also say right now congratulations and many thanks to BOTH teams. Little do they know it, but both teams might even benefit from using the other's code..
Subject: Reasonable Reasons for Mozilla not to use "Firebird" name
Hello,
Sorry to bug you, everyone else is too I'm sure. I would like to provide a few clear reasons why Mozilla really should *not* be called Firebird.
1. It will be very confusing to users and even developers who want to for example automatically update packages in popular distros.
2. Mozilla would be hurting Firebird DB badly since they are not yet in RedHat for example, even though some people think Firebird is far more advanced than say PostgreSql or MySql. What happens when someone tries "apt-get firebird"? Obviously they will most likely get Mozilla, which means that despite your arguments, you are effectively locking them out. Sure it is possible for one team or another to gracefully rename their project to perhaps something slightly different. But they were there first!
3. Firebird (DB) people will have to invest a lot of energy into keeping people from being confused.
4. Regarding the suggestion that "nobody will be confused", his is disingenuous. Obviously you can have a database browser (to browse contents of the DB). And Mozilla's XUL could even be used to build it. Needless to say it is not unlikely that Mozilla might have some more visible data component in it than it already has, along the lines of Open Office's embedded HTML browser and Database browser. What if OO wanted to use Mozilla for its browser, and Firebird DB for its main DB? Just for an example. And many people use MySql for their own email, for example. If they used Firebird instead, how could you explain easily to people that your system is using the high power Firebird Database for email, and not the Mozilla new email client named Firebird (which presumably has some kind of data storage mechanism far inferior to the Firebird DB)?
5. Firebird DB people have already fought plenty of battles (with Borland). I have met Ann Harisson on her trip to Japan recently and was very impressed with her and her team's experience and vision. They don't deserve this bullshit. The Firebird project name is also a brand the recognition of which is a necessary tool to get users to differentiate between the (older, less improved, and buggier) Interbase codebase. The Firebird/Phoenix logo in one way symbolizes their resurrection of the code and careers of the developers. Mozilla does not have the same history. *Not incidentally*, the Mozilla team's idea of using a SYNONYM for another company's browser name (i.e. choosing "Firebird" instead of "Phoenix") is utterly hateful. Not only that, the main company behind the Firebird database is in fact called IBPhoenix!!! Do you intend to build your browser empire on the *ashes* of other companies???
6. While there are lots of companies which use the Firebird/Phoenix/Thunderbird name, Mozilla and Firebird are the two highest profile, most important open source projects, and there is a great danger of conflicts in all sorts of areas, for example they have the sourceforge site, and they also have a
7. The Mozilla team threatens all open source projects with unspecified costs (in energy, time, money, and psychological well-being) in having to try and protect themselves and possibly incurring costs of hiring trademark lawyers. If
Pretty much, at least between OS X and the unlimited client OS X Server. I don't know what they do to limit you to 10 clients for that version. I saw in the latest update that Server comes with Apache 2.0 (in addition to 1.3.x I think) but for the most part Server is just a set of GUI tools for controlling what's on any OS X. But they're good tools.
then lezilla is mozilla ?
what about lessilla ?
So if you check out bmg's catalogue and they have a lot of cds you really want, then it might be a good deal for you. But be careful or you can easily wind up spending +/- $9 per cd, enduring a barage of spam, and not getting exactly what you want.
I really do not think this is accurate. In the cases and statements by the RIAA, a lot of details to how these "emporiums of music piracy" systems are working are completely untrue. I honestly believe that most Judges seeing this, and then hearing/reading a well-written paper by a student involved in the case, will decide on the student's behalf...... but of course, the way the legal system is today, it might not happen.
I have never heard an Apple advertisement on NPR, but I hear them from Microsoft all the time. ....")
(OK, so they don't have ads, but those quick blurbs like "this is being brought to you by
I really hope that NPR wouldn't let MS do that though.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This kind of sell-out by a taxpayer-funded organization is obvious and disturbing. The licensing terms NPR is objecting to is Apple not underwriting their programming.
Well that's all nice and dandy, but how do I get my weekly Windows Updates? I know the auto-scheduler can download the critical and security patches, but not driver updates or "recommended" changes.
What they really need to do is make that site non-IE compatible.
Is your concern greater for package-naming or project-naming? I imagine there's always gonna be naming scheme clashes (I mean, the entire open-source world doesn't register with sourceforge), plus 'firebird' seems a pretty common name anyway. I could see cause for alarm if someone wanted to make a database with the same name, but not a completely different project.
If it is just about package-naming, couldn't firebird just be listed as firebird-db.rpm or something?
Just a thot.
Reality check for Blackboard: people who want to steal financial data from your users are criminals, and probably won't have any compunctions about breaking into your swipers.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Weird. None of the relevant URLs are linked any more, but Mighty Google knows that NPR is still streaming in QuickTime.
you keep trying to invalidate the chinese Firebird software that PREDATES YOUR OWN USAGE OF THE NAME by 1 full year, by your own admitance... on what grounds? because its chinese? you racist scumbags.
Whoever chose this name screwed up big time. Trying to blame the Firebird db team for spamming doesn't elmiminate the basic problem here: one of the most important open source projects was forced to change a name of its products by a commercial company, and they resort to picking a name of an established, but less reputed, open source product. This is lame. I am surprised this isn't given a bigger voice on slashdot.
Watch out, here come the posts speculating as to whether Disney put a hit out on her for Hollings' failure to get a 500-year copyright extention introduced or something like that.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that the GUI tools are hidden somewhere on the normal OSX CD. I forget where.
Excellent post. I hope they listen to you.
Nope. Server has tools for setting up shares, user accounts, web server configuration, etc. which do not come with OS X. Then there's stuff that *isn't* included with OS X at all like Worgroup Manager. I'm not sure about NetBoot, I'm sure any AppleShare volume can be used as the boot source for NetBooting but I don't know what other features go into running a NetBoot server.
it was a TOPS system where the attacker could hook into the page fault handler.
I don't think the attacker even needed to hook into that, when a timing attack would probably suffice. A page fault takes longer than no page fault. This opens up all sorts of covert channels.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hello,
Sorry to be responding so late. Yes, rpm naming for the core packages could be easily handled. I am more worried about the naming of subprojects, potential chaos on the user's hard disk, confusion with security updates, and clashes in the real world with merchandise, print media, and people trying to make a living at open source.
I just posted the continuation of my correspondence with Mr. Asa Dotzler who seems to be the major figurehead for the Mozilla Firebird naming decision in today's new slashdot thread. (4/23/2003).
Thanks,
Matt