I don't mean this personally towards you, but your post sounds like Microsoft's most recent ad campaign. If people haven't tried it recently, sure, that might be a good idea. However, there are many of us who use it every day and have very legitimate issues. What is disappointing is that most of the details we are reading about Windows 7 do not appear to be addressing those very real and immediate issues.
I don't want to incite Apple zealots, and I am not one myself, but the recent Apple commercials albeit in a humorous light illustrate the problem very clearly. The focus from Microsoft thus far is to primarily deflect attention to "Windows 7" and not appear to spend real time or money in correcting the issues in the operating system people have already bought. On top of that, for those that did adopt Vista, is Microsoft going to provide Windows 7 as a free upgrade to those that purchased Vista retail upgrades or Vista with a new computer?
If they didn't take a step back and seriously consider what should be part of the operating system and what should be a free standing application - i.e. the bloat, then Windows 7 will suffer the same reception as Vista in my opinion. Microsoft has many different initiatives in many different areas, but still seems unable to resist using their operating system as the launching platform for those unrelated initiatives. At the end of the day, people want an operating system that works and works with them and for a reasonable price. Their idea for many different "tiers" to their operating system should have been the first clue to their management team that it is time to reign things in and refocus efforts.
1) Cash is good, but unless you have the office, they aren't going to give you the cash.
2) Transit providers have tons of customers, negative publicity regarding one customer who operates at best questionable services is generally not worth it. Not to mention the havoc it can cause for all those other paying customers while that one customer conducts their questionable activities.
3) A couple of Slashdotters not purchasing their products you're right won't make a dent directly. A couple of Slashdotters not purchasing their products and telling others not to purchase their products - that might make a dent. Even if it is 1% to use your number, depending on the "media" we are talking about, could be significant numbers. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth - they don't.
As long as you have a negative attitude you will most likely get negative results. Remember, you are the consumer, it's your money they're after, hence you have the ability to shape the industry. If they do stupid things that you don't like and you still give them your money, you have no one else to blame but yourself.
Retaliate is not the word I would choose, but things you can do...
1) Be nice and professional, but write your congressmen, senators and governors and tell them how you feel about the issue.
2) Write the transit providers that provide peering agreements with MediaDefenders service provider. Their service provider and the transit providers that peer with their service provider are supporting their actions indirectly. If their service provider refuses to continue service with Media Defender then they will be forced to move. If other transit providers refuse to peer with their / or a service provider that supports their actions, their service provider will be forced to change their business position or go out of business.
3) MediaDefender is primarily funded by copyright holders, the irony being that the copyrighted works have absolutely no value if there is no demand. If XYZ studio, producer or artist employs the services of MediaDefender, do not purchase their products. Simple.
Not directly related to the poster per se, sorry, but I am still always astonished what gets thrown around as fact when it is really only a scientific hypothesis. We have no idea with any great degree of certainty what will exactly happen if and when our sun gets old and possibly transitions in to a red giant.
Relating to the article itself, I think we should spend less time guessing about things in science that we have no hope of proving or disproving at the moment and concentrate on things that we can prove or disprove.
Probably because there are few actual laws against lying or even misrepresenting yourself. Don't confuse that with other related crimes like false advertisement that involve lying or misrepresentation.
As far as what Dateline did at the conference, I presume she registered and attended as a regular attendee. Do I think it's nice of Dateline to do that? No, but it's also not illegal. It sounds like the conference hosts took it in good stride and her fellow members of the press were more than willing to turn on one of their own so to speak (notice the camera guy following her out).
Isn't that punishing people for their thoughts? i.e. "thought crime"? No, you can have whatever fantasies you choose in your own mind. If you want to fantasize about having sex with a 12 year old girl, there is nothing illegal about that. When you attempt to solicite someone you believe to be 12 years of age for sex, that is when the law is broken. In most, if not all states, it is illegal to solicite a minor for sex - the fact that there is no actual child involved is irrelevant to that crime.
that's why entrapment's illegal in the first place. So is having a sexually explicit conversation by telephone or via the Internet if you believe the other party is a minor. When the police knocked on the door, the deed was already done. It then becomes a question for the district attorney's office (a little ironic) and the trial process in the courts to determine if the man was guilty of the crime he was accused of committing.
You brought up psychology, so I'll ask you this, why do you believe the man committed suicide when the police knocked on the door? I'll be the first one to point out just because he committed suicide does not infer his guilt, but it does make you wonder. The other question you need to ask yourself is why did he believe they were knocking on his door. If I got a knock on my door and looked out and saw the police department and cameras outside my door, my first thought is not to kill myself, it would be to wonder what the hell is going on.
Seriously? It's that kind of flawed mentality that keeps Microsoft in business as the dominant desktop. The same thing happens in the Linux world, an example is the svn internal format upgrade. Using a dual install on a laptop of the same distribution, but different versions I ran a simple "svn update" using the newer version which automatically upgraded to the newer internal format. The next time I tried the "svn update" from the older version, which was the primary at the time, it of course refused to do so. There was no prompt, no question, it just automatically upgraded the internal structures.
I don't know that I have a particularly informed opinion of how long a copyright status should be granted, although I do believe it probably does vary by the type of work. What I do find particularly interesting about copyright discussions in forums like Slashdot or other similar sites is that the issue of copyright is almost always discussed as a right. It's not a right, it is a privilege granted in many countries, by the government, by the people - presumably for the good of the people. Maybe I just look at this the wrong way...
You're right, the toothpaste analogy is not appropriate for this thread, a better analogy would a drug or caffeine addiction. People can continue to complain about Microsoft and Microsoft products, but as long as they continue to buy Microsoft products what is the point of complaining? As far interoperability, you are correct, it is a concern but there is more than one way to accomplish the goal, see parent post. Switching from Windows to Linux is a gigantic step, why attempt to tackle that one first? Can you live without your Outlook?;)
Business is constantly changing and adapting to new situations, if it doesn't, it goes out of business. You're the one that is locking yourself in with Microsoft by writing it off as "prohibitively expensive".
I am definitely no longer fond of Microsoft, for many different reasons that really don't matter at the moment. However, I think people are starting to treat Microsoft like a utility company that they can't avoid or exercise their own personal choice in using. Early anti-trust and similar litigation revolved around Microsoft's practices of limiting OEM vendors from choosing what operating system products to offer their customers - that's been stopped many years ago. Many vendors offer different options at various levels, the most notable one at the moment is the Dell/Ubuntu deal on the consumer hardware.
I just don't get it, if I don't like Colgate toothpaste, I don't buy it. If you don't like Microsoft products, then don't buy them. I don't know why we insist upon making it more complex than that - it's supposed to be a free economy, in the US at least. If you stop buying their products and convince others to stop buying their products, the problem will go away either by Microsoft changing their practices or the company ceasing to exist in the prominence that it now does. Microsoft exists by continuing sales, drop significant numbers in the sales area, then investors get nervous and the company further devalues itself.
Microsoft wants to keep their protocols like SMB proprietary, okay, let them. If proprietary protocols do not work for you as an individual, corporation, country or union of countries, use another one. One doesn't exist? Write one, it's a hell of a lot easier than mimicking a closed proprietary protocol. Want to be mischievous? Take a play out of the Microsoft handbook, write a driver for their Windows operating system so that protocol gets even more widely adopted.
As for why Microsoft has the market penetration that it has now, for most of us, you just need to go look in the mirror. I think the EU has good intentions, but it is also setting very bad precedents.
An access point above every row? Maybe there is a technical reason that someone can point out, but that sounds just whacked to me... So now there are going to be jacks at every seat, people will need to carry a LAN cable and since we're crunching all the seats together to maximize profit thats one more coffee spilling device to invade the small world of the plane traveler's seat... Sigh...
I understand and agree that is how some (no quantification intended) people view the situation, but what I am pointing out is that is not necessarily a correct interpretation of the situation, especially in the legal sense. If as you say this was invariably true, then this whole debate would not have taken place today.
You are correct, no, I don't believe that a driver written to a specification implies an automatic "assimilation" of the driver by the GPL or any other license. If that were true, the implications would be dramatic and reach far beyond the relatively small in comparison focus of GPL software or even the IT industry as a whole.
The kernel right now is one big monolithic, undocumented blob of ever changing ugly interfaces that requires breaking the license if you want to add a closed source driver. There is no clear interface for any third-party work that doesn't involve the inclusion of core kernel code into closed-source modules. I don't think I would state that as a fact, it is an opinion of some - in the case of the people that are developing the kernel it may and should in my opinion become a matter of respect, but that does not make it a legal opinion or judgment.
The GPL on the other hand does demand that you release source code for derivative works, which in the case of Linux includes drivers written for Linux. You are stating that as fact, it is not, if it were this article and related discussion would not exist.
I tend to agree with your interpretation, but all of this revolves around the ever evolving definition of "derivative work" in the license and depending on your interpretation how much of it is actually legal in different parts of the world. As far as I know, the "viral" concept in the GPL license has not been truly tested in any court of law. Even though it sounds like I'm suggesting conflict, I think the best thing that could happen is for the "viral" clause to be tested in a few courts of law around the world. That way users and third parties would better understand what the license impacts really are and the developers releasing code under that license would truly know what it means as well.
Actually, the act of copyright a "work" is applied in full - the GPL or another license is granting you permission to use or distribute. I know that sounds like I'm playing with words, but it is an important distinction.
Actually, that is -exactly- the way that it should be. You get accused of a crime, you stand trail, if you're found guilty a sentence is issued and once complete then it's time to move forward - everyone, move forward. If "society" feels they are still at risk from an individual, duh, maybe they should make a more appropriate sentence. It's not up to society to continue to rejudge an individual's past actions, that's what the trial was for in the first place.
IMO, it means industry analysts just like most users don't really have a good concept of what the future will be for computers and communications in general. Personally, I would describe the article as possible FUD with taking things out of context and presenting it in a hype fashion so that it generates ad revenue.
The IT industry has been changing quite a bit this decade, some of it deals with the Internet but a lot more of it deals with the incorporation of the technology in to practical uses.
I don't mean this as a positive or negative comment about GPLv3 itself, but there is one thing that should be noted about licensing in general... Even though the license as you point out is getting quite a bit of publicity and as a result you are probably right in that it has already received a great deal of review, that is only one aspect. Until the license is actually tested in the courts, the effectiveness and legality questions of the license in different parts of the world is not a given.
Most of the other respondents have totally dismissed this idea, but when it comes to equalizing the civil court system - it may have some merit. The problem right now is you can sue anybody for just about anything - other than your legal fees and maybe some court fees, there really is no penalty. This effectively puts in control the group/person with the most assets - research, legal services and money. If the court system was changed to decide two factors (generally speaking) in each case - merit of claim and disposition of claim, then a penalty system could be implemented based on claims without merit. The penalty system would obviously need to be structured so that it scales itself depending on the group or individual in question - this is necessary to prevent the common person verses billion dollar corporation dilemma. I'm sure there are tons of other details too, but I don't think I would so easily dismiss the idea...
For example, if the RIAA/MPAA had to face a penalty for merit-less cases, do you think they would continue to bring those types of cases to court? For the RIAA/MPAA, their legal costs for the most part are fixed and probably considered by the company as a cost of doing business. With a changed model, if a court finds that the case is considered merit-less then they could be imposed a fine.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't mean this personally towards you, but your post sounds like Microsoft's most recent ad campaign. If people haven't tried it recently, sure, that might be a good idea. However, there are many of us who use it every day and have very legitimate issues. What is disappointing is that most of the details we are reading about Windows 7 do not appear to be addressing those very real and immediate issues. I don't want to incite Apple zealots, and I am not one myself, but the recent Apple commercials albeit in a humorous light illustrate the problem very clearly. The focus from Microsoft thus far is to primarily deflect attention to "Windows 7" and not appear to spend real time or money in correcting the issues in the operating system people have already bought. On top of that, for those that did adopt Vista, is Microsoft going to provide Windows 7 as a free upgrade to those that purchased Vista retail upgrades or Vista with a new computer?
If they didn't take a step back and seriously consider what should be part of the operating system and what should be a free standing application - i.e. the bloat, then Windows 7 will suffer the same reception as Vista in my opinion. Microsoft has many different initiatives in many different areas, but still seems unable to resist using their operating system as the launching platform for those unrelated initiatives. At the end of the day, people want an operating system that works and works with them and for a reasonable price. Their idea for many different "tiers" to their operating system should have been the first clue to their management team that it is time to reign things in and refocus efforts.
So what would you suggest?
To answer your points directly...
1) Cash is good, but unless you have the office, they aren't going to give you the cash.
2) Transit providers have tons of customers, negative publicity regarding one customer who operates at best questionable services is generally not worth it. Not to mention the havoc it can cause for all those other paying customers while that one customer conducts their questionable activities.
3) A couple of Slashdotters not purchasing their products you're right won't make a dent directly. A couple of Slashdotters not purchasing their products and telling others not to purchase their products - that might make a dent. Even if it is 1% to use your number, depending on the "media" we are talking about, could be significant numbers. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth - they don't.
As long as you have a negative attitude you will most likely get negative results. Remember, you are the consumer, it's your money they're after, hence you have the ability to shape the industry. If they do stupid things that you don't like and you still give them your money, you have no one else to blame but yourself.
How can we retaliate?
Retaliate is not the word I would choose, but things you can do...
1) Be nice and professional, but write your congressmen, senators and governors and tell them how you feel about the issue.
2) Write the transit providers that provide peering agreements with MediaDefenders service provider. Their service provider and the transit providers that peer with their service provider are supporting their actions indirectly. If their service provider refuses to continue service with Media Defender then they will be forced to move. If other transit providers refuse to peer with their / or a service provider that supports their actions, their service provider will be forced to change their business position or go out of business.
3) MediaDefender is primarily funded by copyright holders, the irony being that the copyrighted works have absolutely no value if there is no demand. If XYZ studio, producer or artist employs the services of MediaDefender, do not purchase their products. Simple.
Not directly related to the poster per se, sorry, but I am still always astonished what gets thrown around as fact when it is really only a scientific hypothesis. We have no idea with any great degree of certainty what will exactly happen if and when our sun gets old and possibly transitions in to a red giant. Relating to the article itself, I think we should spend less time guessing about things in science that we have no hope of proving or disproving at the moment and concentrate on things that we can prove or disprove.
Probably because there are few actual laws against lying or even misrepresenting yourself. Don't confuse that with other related crimes like false advertisement that involve lying or misrepresentation. As far as what Dateline did at the conference, I presume she registered and attended as a regular attendee. Do I think it's nice of Dateline to do that? No, but it's also not illegal. It sounds like the conference hosts took it in good stride and her fellow members of the press were more than willing to turn on one of their own so to speak (notice the camera guy following her out).
You brought up psychology, so I'll ask you this, why do you believe the man committed suicide when the police knocked on the door? I'll be the first one to point out just because he committed suicide does not infer his guilt, but it does make you wonder. The other question you need to ask yourself is why did he believe they were knocking on his door. If I got a knock on my door and looked out and saw the police department and cameras outside my door, my first thought is not to kill myself, it would be to wonder what the hell is going on.
Seriously? It's that kind of flawed mentality that keeps Microsoft in business as the dominant desktop. The same thing happens in the Linux world, an example is the svn internal format upgrade. Using a dual install on a laptop of the same distribution, but different versions I ran a simple "svn update" using the newer version which automatically upgraded to the newer internal format. The next time I tried the "svn update" from the older version, which was the primary at the time, it of course refused to do so. There was no prompt, no question, it just automatically upgraded the internal structures.
I don't know that I have a particularly informed opinion of how long a copyright status should be granted, although I do believe it probably does vary by the type of work. What I do find particularly interesting about copyright discussions in forums like Slashdot or other similar sites is that the issue of copyright is almost always discussed as a right. It's not a right, it is a privilege granted in many countries, by the government, by the people - presumably for the good of the people. Maybe I just look at this the wrong way...
You're right, the toothpaste analogy is not appropriate for this thread, a better analogy would a drug or caffeine addiction. People can continue to complain about Microsoft and Microsoft products, but as long as they continue to buy Microsoft products what is the point of complaining? As far interoperability, you are correct, it is a concern but there is more than one way to accomplish the goal, see parent post. Switching from Windows to Linux is a gigantic step, why attempt to tackle that one first? Can you live without your Outlook? ;)
Business is constantly changing and adapting to new situations, if it doesn't, it goes out of business. You're the one that is locking yourself in with Microsoft by writing it off as "prohibitively expensive".
I am definitely no longer fond of Microsoft, for many different reasons that really don't matter at the moment. However, I think people are starting to treat Microsoft like a utility company that they can't avoid or exercise their own personal choice in using. Early anti-trust and similar litigation revolved around Microsoft's practices of limiting OEM vendors from choosing what operating system products to offer their customers - that's been stopped many years ago. Many vendors offer different options at various levels, the most notable one at the moment is the Dell/Ubuntu deal on the consumer hardware.
I just don't get it, if I don't like Colgate toothpaste, I don't buy it. If you don't like Microsoft products, then don't buy them. I don't know why we insist upon making it more complex than that - it's supposed to be a free economy, in the US at least. If you stop buying their products and convince others to stop buying their products, the problem will go away either by Microsoft changing their practices or the company ceasing to exist in the prominence that it now does. Microsoft exists by continuing sales, drop significant numbers in the sales area, then investors get nervous and the company further devalues itself.
Microsoft wants to keep their protocols like SMB proprietary, okay, let them. If proprietary protocols do not work for you as an individual, corporation, country or union of countries, use another one. One doesn't exist? Write one, it's a hell of a lot easier than mimicking a closed proprietary protocol. Want to be mischievous? Take a play out of the Microsoft handbook, write a driver for their Windows operating system so that protocol gets even more widely adopted.
As for why Microsoft has the market penetration that it has now, for most of us, you just need to go look in the mirror. I think the EU has good intentions, but it is also setting very bad precedents.
Amen... I'd mod your post up higher, but it's already at the highest...
An access point above every row? Maybe there is a technical reason that someone can point out, but that sounds just whacked to me... So now there are going to be jacks at every seat, people will need to carry a LAN cable and since we're crunching all the seats together to maximize profit thats one more coffee spilling device to invade the small world of the plane traveler's seat... Sigh...
I understand and agree that is how some (no quantification intended) people view the situation, but what I am pointing out is that is not necessarily a correct interpretation of the situation, especially in the legal sense. If as you say this was invariably true, then this whole debate would not have taken place today. You are correct, no, I don't believe that a driver written to a specification implies an automatic "assimilation" of the driver by the GPL or any other license. If that were true, the implications would be dramatic and reach far beyond the relatively small in comparison focus of GPL software or even the IT industry as a whole.
I tend to agree with your interpretation, but all of this revolves around the ever evolving definition of "derivative work" in the license and depending on your interpretation how much of it is actually legal in different parts of the world. As far as I know, the "viral" concept in the GPL license has not been truly tested in any court of law. Even though it sounds like I'm suggesting conflict, I think the best thing that could happen is for the "viral" clause to be tested in a few courts of law around the world. That way users and third parties would better understand what the license impacts really are and the developers releasing code under that license would truly know what it means as well.
Actually, the act of copyright a "work" is applied in full - the GPL or another license is granting you permission to use or distribute. I know that sounds like I'm playing with words, but it is an important distinction.
Actually, that is -exactly- the way that it should be. You get accused of a crime, you stand trail, if you're found guilty a sentence is issued and once complete then it's time to move forward - everyone, move forward. If "society" feels they are still at risk from an individual, duh, maybe they should make a more appropriate sentence. It's not up to society to continue to rejudge an individual's past actions, that's what the trial was for in the first place.
IMO, it means industry analysts just like most users don't really have a good concept of what the future will be for computers and communications in general. Personally, I would describe the article as possible FUD with taking things out of context and presenting it in a hype fashion so that it generates ad revenue. The IT industry has been changing quite a bit this decade, some of it deals with the Internet but a lot more of it deals with the incorporation of the technology in to practical uses.
I don't mean this as a positive or negative comment about GPLv3 itself, but there is one thing that should be noted about licensing in general... Even though the license as you point out is getting quite a bit of publicity and as a result you are probably right in that it has already received a great deal of review, that is only one aspect. Until the license is actually tested in the courts, the effectiveness and legality questions of the license in different parts of the world is not a given.
Most of the other respondents have totally dismissed this idea, but when it comes to equalizing the civil court system - it may have some merit. The problem right now is you can sue anybody for just about anything - other than your legal fees and maybe some court fees, there really is no penalty. This effectively puts in control the group/person with the most assets - research, legal services and money. If the court system was changed to decide two factors (generally speaking) in each case - merit of claim and disposition of claim, then a penalty system could be implemented based on claims without merit. The penalty system would obviously need to be structured so that it scales itself depending on the group or individual in question - this is necessary to prevent the common person verses billion dollar corporation dilemma. I'm sure there are tons of other details too, but I don't think I would so easily dismiss the idea... For example, if the RIAA/MPAA had to face a penalty for merit-less cases, do you think they would continue to bring those types of cases to court? For the RIAA/MPAA, their legal costs for the most part are fixed and probably considered by the company as a cost of doing business. With a changed model, if a court finds that the case is considered merit-less then they could be imposed a fine.