In 1992, fvwm had the GoodStuff window, which is an application launcer. Is that what you're thinking of?
FVWM 2.x and FVWM95 have that extra window that looks like a taskbar and has a Start-like menu on it. That was done in emulation of Microsoft AFAIK. (I'm probably wrong on that last point, so don't flame me if I am. cavet lector!)
Hey, Slashdot Readers... how do YOU spell "Conflict of Interest" ?
Conflict of interest? No. It's pretty obvious why reciprocal.com commissioned this study. No one takes these things seriously, anyway. Corporations commission "studies" all the time and paint the results in such a light as to drum up business. It's called "marketing research" when its done to target customers, and spin when done like this.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
That is where the Congress's authority to make Copyright laws comes from. Notice that it says, "authors and inventors," not publishers and manufacturers. I think they're really stretching the "limited times" bit with the DMCA, don't you?
PATENTS were/are about fostering innovation COPYRIGHTS have always been about lining the copyright holders pockets. That's their entire point, to prevent unauthorized copying, to guarentee that the author has control over their works, etc....
No, no, no! Read The Constitution of the United States of America, please. In the U.S., both Copyright and Patents exist to guarantee innovation and advancement in the useful arts. The wording goes something like "Congress shall grant for a limited time". Pay attention, it says "limited time." But, don't take my word for it, read it for yourself.
All I'm saying is that theft of a physical object, because the individual object being stolen is unique, has a definite consequence that deprives the victim of the theft of the use of that object. Stealing software does not inflict the same harm. If there is any harm in stealing software, it comes from a potential lack of revenue from the sale of that software. You can argue all you want about author's rights and the moral right of ownership, but those harms are not quantifiable in the same way. Therefore, the harm done from "stealing" the ROM image of a game no longer in production or on sale is minimal at most.
As for violating the GPL, more power to you. The BSD license allows exactly what you've said. That, however, is not what I'm arguing. I'm not saying its all right to violate any license just because there's no economic harm done. Actually, what I was saying about being able to take a copy of software without impeding the proprietor's ability to use it, is part of the justification for the GPL!
What I am saying is that there is no reason for these companies not to make these old games available to those of us who spent lots of quarters and many hours after school and on weekends playing these games in our youth. I don't play games on my computer much any more, apart from the occasional Tetris or Asteroids, but I would play these games, and I'd be willing to pay. As it stands now, you can get them (pirated?) for free, if you know where to look.
Yeah, but if I *steal* (that is, COPY) the code to a game, I'm not depriving the game company of its property. Look at it this way, I take the shirt, the shirt is gone, there's only one shirt. I take a copy of the game, the game is still there. There can be infinitely many copies of a game.
Now, that said, I don't condone piracy. Once in a while, you'll see a disc of these old games for sale from a legitimate source. Somebody could make some money if they'd put together a web site and charge something like $5 or less to download the ROMs to old games. Give the emulators away for free, since most of the best ones are free anyway, but sell the ROMs. The game company that wises up to that clue will be making money for nothing. Yes, no support, other than install instructions on the web site, and a BBS for the users. Now, that's a business model that would work for older games.
If someone at Midway (or whatever they are now) is reading this, please do it!
While we're on the subject of grass(digital?)roots involvement in politics, I'd like to remind my U.S. compatriots that this is an election year. Many of you will have the opportunity to hear candidates for various political offices speak. Find out when they will be speaking, or contact their campaign headquarters and ask them what their position on the DMCA is, what their position is on the Internet as regards defending the rights of the individual versus corporate intrusion. Ask for a written statement, or ask for an interview, if you can't ask a question at a speech or political rally. Tell them you work for the online media outlet called Slashdot, and post a report of what they said here.
Keeping the Internet free (as in speech) is very important. The death of the Internet as an open medium will start with the banning of Napster because some folks use it to do illegal things. If the law is worded poorly, then any type of peer to peer data sharing could become illegal. What's next? Requiring a special license to have a web site? Soon the large corporations will wrangle it so that linking will become illegal.
Look, individuals can vote, corporations can't. It's time we make that very clear to the politicians who have forgotten.
If you want a reaction from your elected representative, do the things above, and write a letter, with a pen on paper, longhand. Trust me, that will have more of an impact that something typed or printed off of a computer, because you took the time to sit down and write something original. If it was laser printed, how does your representative know that it isn't some form letter. (I also recommend unlined paper.)
Time for some political activism, folks!
If you want a true internet candidate, I'll be eligible to run for U.S. President in 2008. So, get up off your ass and vote!
Yes, and to paraphrase Voltaire: "The people usually get the kind of government that they deserve."
Not only contact your elected representatives, but remind them that you vote, and that corporations and other special interests, while they may be able to donate large sums of cash to the campaign warchest do not vote. Reming them that they were elected to serve your interest, not the special interests!
Can I claim that cars should be banned because they kill people, polute the air?
Actually, you can. You can claim anything you like. Doesn't mean that anyone is going to listen.
No. This is plainly demagogic.
Well, no it isn't. There is a lot of evidence to support that claim. You could always argue that we'd be better off with fewer cars and more public transport: fewer accidental deaths and less pollustion if done correctly. Whether or not the argument is demagogic depends upon how you phrase it, and what sort of plan you have to solve the perceived problems.
As a good Christian, I will turn the other cheek, and not call for the punishment of those responsible. But to the heinous criminals and negligents responsible for this, I must ask, how do you feel about destroying a small girl's sense of innocence and wonder about the world? About crushing her childish dreams and idealism? About shattering her faith in God and his benevolence? About possibly having crushed her soul and emotion forever, leaving her to live the rest of her days in spiritual agony as a broken, scarred husk of a person?
Well, idiot, it's your own damned fault for telling her that God == Slashdot! When Slashdot crashed, as it was going to eventually, she equated that with God. Now, she believes that God crashes, too. The infants that DDoS'd/. aren't responsible for scarring your little girl, you are, you hypocrite!!!!
As a satanist, you wouldn't have the problem of reconciling an all-powerful and benevolent deity with a world full of evil. The deity you worship would be evil as would the "good" deity that is your divinity's enemy, capisce? Therefore, all would be right with the world, since all is evil. Maybe you should change religions to save your daughter's sanity?
Besides Hell uses OpenBSD! Satan knows what he's doing!!
Due to an overwhelming demand on our servers, no doubt related to WWDC, we have removed the database portion of our news page. Readers are encouraged to use our News forum in place of comments to discuss any news items. Our coverage of WWDC will not be affected by this in any way.
was posted on the site fifteen minutes after the story went up at Slashdot. I guess they've never heard of the Slashdot Effect!!!! Ha!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled banter.
Re:Emulators on PC not the same
on
Quickies Rock!
·
· Score: 2
Yeah, those emulators are pretty cool. I've used one to play Defender on the Mac before.
However, the experience just isn't the same as having the proper arcade controls in the arcade box. Perhaps, I'll have to get a cheap 486 PC and mount it in a custom enclosure with a VGA monitor and custom controls wired up like a keyboard. Build my own Ultracade....
That Ultracade looks pretty cool, but did anyone else notice that the only games for it are from Capcom?
It's missing some of the coolest games from twenty years ago: Defender, Joust, Robotron.... If it had Defender, I'd buy it in a second. Man, I remember the time I got to half a million on Defender. When I went to bed that night, I had burn in on my retinas. I closed my eyes and all I could see were Landers and Baiters zipping by.--Trippy!--The music and sound effects were ringing in my ears. It's amazing that I didn't get carpal tunnel from all the games of Defender that I played as a kid.
Re:He has a lot of good points, but also misses mu
on
Motif's Not Dead
·
· Score: 2
Lack of support for the Xt component model is key, and is probably the strongest statement of the interview. His emphasis on "point [your] favorite GUI builder at them and they load just like that" is a little misguided, but the point remains: using widgets from another toolkit is impossible. Admit it -- it would be cool to embed a GTK widget in a Qt application. It would also ensure the freedom of choice that Linux users so strongly argue for.
You can do it. I've done it. Just playing around, I wrote a wrapper object that inherited from Qt's QOBJECT AND was implemented internally using a GTK+ widget. It can be done. A library could be written to bridge GTK+ widgets into a Qt application. Integrating KDE and Gnome on the same system is a bit trickier if you want to use all the features of each at the same time, but from what I hear people are working on that very thing.
As it stands now, you can run KDE and Gnome applications without running either desktop environment. I've run apps written for KDE and Gnome on plain vanilla FVWM 1.2 on one of my machines at home. I don't know why everyone goes on about there being no compatibility between the two. They just don't know what they're talking about.
Re:And they're not even doing anything useful
on
The Eroded Self
·
· Score: 2
You can not lie to all people all the time.
Yes, you can, but it doesn't mean that they believe you! Even if they don't believe you, that doesn't mean that they're going to do anything about it.
Look, you said you obeyed the law. I took that unqualified statement to mean that you obeyed all of the laws. You also said that you pay taxes. Well, apart from obeying the law, what does that have to do with anything?
You mention about attitudes changing. Yes, that's very true. You say that what was once acceptable becomes unacceptable. Well, the flip side is also true: what was once unacceptable can become acceptable, particularly over time. People can become accustomed to pain and they learn to ignore it. So, yeah, you start by sticking cameras on ATMs for public protection. Then, cameras on stop lights, stop signs and at street corners. Next, on street lights in all neighborhoods. Next, on people's lawns to monitor their front doors, and finally in their homes. Each gradual step conditions one to expect less and less at each turn.
The Internet and technology have not changed the landscape of privacy and the erosion of privacy. They have merely accelerated the rate of that change.
Now, you can ask yourself what kind of world you want to live in. You can ask yourself what's truly important. I don't personally see the erosion of privacy as that great a problem in and of itself. There are larger forces at work, and the erosion of personal privacy is just part of a larger conflict that is going on in the world today. There is a struggle going on for control, not just of our personal space and privacy, but of the flow of information, ideas and all communication. Just take a deep look at what is happening on the Internet, with the Napster and DeCSS lawsuits, the protests in Seattle last December and the protests of the IMF in Washington. Think of those events and many others in light of the megamergers of mega media giants. Follow the money, see who's behind all these corps. Look at how they make political contributions and follow the bills through Congress to the President's signature, all the way to enforcement and incarceration.
There is one side of capitalism that sees nothing but the profit motive and people are just another resource to exploit, for their labor, for the information that you can get about them and sell, and for the money that they have to spend as consumers. Marx was right about one thing: when taken to the extreme, capitalism is a dehumanizing and alienating system. (NOTE: I said he was right about one thing, not everyhting.)
Re:And they're not even doing anything useful
on
The Eroded Self
·
· Score: 2
I choose to live and die free as free as a man that has to pay taxes and abide laws can be.
That's the trouble. You abide by laws and pay your taxes. Following their silly laws and paying your taxes only encourages them to think that you're going along with the program. When they make it a law to say you have to have the surveillance gizmo installed in your body, will you go along with that law, too? All the data, and by your own admission, suggest that you will.
You see where this is going don't you? You said you'd oppose this, but you also said that you obey the laws. So, which is it?
So here I am, advocating lawlessness again, and with Uncle Sam watching, too. I should be more careful in the future....:-)
Re:Monica Lewinsky's complaints unjustified
on
The Eroded Self
·
· Score: 2
Trouble is, most people think that if they put it in the Trash (on the Mac) or the Recycle Bin (on 'doze) and then empty the Trash or the Recycle Bin, that the data is gone. It isn't. The bits are still hanging around on your machine in many cases, with the space they occupy simply marked as free. To eliminate the data permanently from your disk you need to use something to write gibberish over the file before you delete it. When someone recovers the file from your drive later, all they get is gibberish.
*NIX systems have this problem, too, but not as bad. There's often so much going on on a *NIX system that free space gets reused rather quickly. I'd still be paranoid and use a file shredding utility if I thought that I was facing prosecution or a lawsuit.
I have written a gibberish generator, called Slashdot.org. For every email you send to a person in Great Britain you should also send five or six extra messages generated by the gibberish generator. Encrypt all messages with a different key, agreeing on a secret key with your party in GB in advance. The gibberish message should give the lads and lasses of MI5 plenty of fun, since they're machine won't be able to tell if its had a successful decode, 'cause the plaintext is gibberish.
Or, you could use my other gibberish generator that can produce reams of this:
Even under current law you can use GPL software, even where the GPL is considered invalid. I don't think anyone is going to sue if you follow the GPL on GPL'd software.
Since the GPL grants you additional rights, it should be valid anywhere. Also, I have not heard that UCITA makes licenses which disclaim liability invalid. In fact, I've heard just the opposite, which is one of the reasons it has been touted as so bad for consumers. Individual states may have added such language before passing UCITA, however. I can't imagine the industry coming up with a wet dream legislation like UCITA and not having disclaimer clauses be totally and legally binding.
Anyway, my point still stands, if you want to avoid commercial licenses that restrict over much what you can do with a piece of software, then use only software that the license allows you access to the source code and allows you to use any modifications that you make to the software. If it's not source code, it's not software!
Yes. Only use Free Software. That is the ultimate in civil disobedience, refusing to go along with the game of market economics as applied to software, where such economics do not strictly apply.
Re:Let me take that one farther...
on
Fighting UCITA
·
· Score: 3
Not true.
You can disclaim all liability under current law. The only trouble is will a "shrink wrap" license hold up in court. I'm betting that GPL will hold up where as licenses that restrict your rights beyond what you're granted under copyright and fair use will not. GPL grants you additional rights that you are not normally allowed under current laws if you are willing to abide by a few conditions placed on the exercise of those additional rights.
I've also argued here before that UCITA is good for Free Software, since it makes the GPL equally as enforceable as any other license. I'm not arguing against UCITA. I'm arguing against the use of software that comes with restrictive and exclusionary licensing, in other words, software that is not free.
The simple way to avoid falling victim to UCITA is don't buy software! Use Free Software that is covered by the GPL or some similar license (by similar license, I mean BSDish or Larry Wall's Artistic License).
Slashdot Mirror
In 1992, fvwm had the GoodStuff window, which is an application launcer. Is that what you're thinking of?
FVWM 2.x and FVWM95 have that extra window that looks like a taskbar and has a Start-like menu on it. That was done in emulation of Microsoft AFAIK. (I'm probably wrong on that last point, so don't flame me if I am. cavet lector!)
Hey, Slashdot Readers... how do YOU spell "Conflict of Interest" ?
Conflict of interest? No. It's pretty obvious why reciprocal.com commissioned this study. No one takes these things seriously, anyway. Corporations commission "studies" all the time and paint the results in such a light as to drum up business. It's called "marketing research" when its done to target customers, and spin when done like this.
Clause 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
That is where the Congress's authority to make Copyright laws comes from. Notice that it says, "authors and inventors," not publishers and manufacturers. I think they're really stretching the "limited times" bit with the DMCA, don't you?
PATENTS were/are about fostering innovation
COPYRIGHTS have always been about lining the copyright holders pockets. That's their entire point, to prevent unauthorized copying, to guarentee that the author has control over their works, etc....
No, no, no! Read The Constitution of the United States of America, please. In the U.S., both Copyright and Patents exist to guarantee innovation and advancement in the useful arts. The wording goes something like "Congress shall grant for a limited time". Pay attention, it says "limited time." But, don't take my word for it, read it for yourself.
All I'm saying is that theft of a physical object, because the individual object being stolen is unique, has a definite consequence that deprives the victim of the theft of the use of that object. Stealing software does not inflict the same harm. If there is any harm in stealing software, it comes from a potential lack of revenue from the sale of that software. You can argue all you want about author's rights and the moral right of ownership, but those harms are not quantifiable in the same way. Therefore, the harm done from "stealing" the ROM image of a game no longer in production or on sale is minimal at most.
As for violating the GPL, more power to you. The BSD license allows exactly what you've said. That, however, is not what I'm arguing. I'm not saying its all right to violate any license just because there's no economic harm done. Actually, what I was saying about being able to take a copy of software without impeding the proprietor's ability to use it, is part of the justification for the GPL!
What I am saying is that there is no reason for these companies not to make these old games available to those of us who spent lots of quarters and many hours after school and on weekends playing these games in our youth. I don't play games on my computer much any more, apart from the occasional Tetris or Asteroids, but I would play these games, and I'd be willing to pay. As it stands now, you can get them (pirated?) for free, if you know where to look.
Yeah, but if I *steal* (that is, COPY) the code to a game, I'm not depriving the game company of its property. Look at it this way, I take the shirt, the shirt is gone, there's only one shirt. I take a copy of the game, the game is still there. There can be infinitely many copies of a game.
Now, that said, I don't condone piracy. Once in a while, you'll see a disc of these old games for sale from a legitimate source. Somebody could make some money if they'd put together a web site and charge something like $5 or less to download the ROMs to old games. Give the emulators away for free, since most of the best ones are free anyway, but sell the ROMs. The game company that wises up to that clue will be making money for nothing. Yes, no support, other than install instructions on the web site, and a BBS for the users. Now, that's a business model that would work for older games.
If someone at Midway (or whatever they are now) is reading this, please do it!
While we're on the subject of grass(digital?)roots involvement in politics, I'd like to remind my U.S. compatriots that this is an election year. Many of you will have the opportunity to hear candidates for various political offices speak. Find out when they will be speaking, or contact their campaign headquarters and ask them what their position on the DMCA is, what their position is on the Internet as regards defending the rights of the individual versus corporate intrusion. Ask for a written statement, or ask for an interview, if you can't ask a question at a speech or political rally. Tell them you work for the online media outlet called Slashdot, and post a report of what they said here.
Keeping the Internet free (as in speech) is very important. The death of the Internet as an open medium will start with the banning of Napster because some folks use it to do illegal things. If the law is worded poorly, then any type of peer to peer data sharing could become illegal. What's next? Requiring a special license to have a web site? Soon the large corporations will wrangle it so that linking will become illegal.
Look, individuals can vote, corporations can't. It's time we make that very clear to the politicians who have forgotten.
If you want a reaction from your elected representative, do the things above, and write a letter, with a pen on paper, longhand. Trust me, that will have more of an impact that something typed or printed off of a computer, because you took the time to sit down and write something original. If it was laser printed, how does your representative know that it isn't some form letter. (I also recommend unlined paper.)
Time for some political activism, folks!
If you want a true internet candidate, I'll be eligible to run for U.S. President in 2008. So, get up off your ass and vote!
Yes, and to paraphrase Voltaire: "The people usually get the kind of government that they deserve."
Not only contact your elected representatives, but remind them that you vote, and that corporations and other special interests, while they may be able to donate large sums of cash to the campaign warchest do not vote. Reming them that they were elected to serve your interest, not the special interests!
Man, you guys are easy!!!!
Can I claim that cars should be banned because they kill people, polute the air?
Actually, you can. You can claim anything you like. Doesn't mean that anyone is going to listen.
No. This is plainly demagogic.
Well, no it isn't. There is a lot of evidence to support that claim. You could always argue that we'd be better off with fewer cars and more public transport: fewer accidental deaths and less pollustion if done correctly. Whether or not the argument is demagogic depends upon how you phrase it, and what sort of plan you have to solve the perceived problems.
Geeze, it is /IMPOSSIBLE/ to physically hurt anyone over the Internet - the only thing you can possibly do is spread information...
Umm, no, but if I told you how, then I'd have to kill you.
I know, I know, but I can't help it! I'm a junky!
As a good Christian, I will turn the other cheek, and not call for the punishment of those responsible. But to the heinous criminals and negligents responsible for this, I must ask, how do you feel about destroying a small girl's sense of innocence and wonder about the world? About crushing her childish dreams and idealism? About shattering her faith in God and his benevolence? About possibly having crushed her soul and emotion forever, leaving her to live the rest of her days in spiritual agony as a broken, scarred husk of a person?
Well, idiot, it's your own damned fault for telling her that God == Slashdot! When Slashdot crashed, as it was going to eventually, she equated that with God. Now, she believes that God crashes, too. The infants that DDoS'd /. aren't responsible for scarring your little girl, you are, you hypocrite!!!!
As a satanist, you wouldn't have the problem of reconciling an all-powerful and benevolent deity with a world full of evil. The deity you worship would be evil as would the "good" deity that is your divinity's enemy, capisce? Therefore, all would be right with the world, since all is evil. Maybe you should change religions to save your daughter's sanity?
Besides Hell uses OpenBSD! Satan knows what he's doing!!
:-) - for the parody impaired.
This:
was posted on the site fifteen minutes after the story went up at Slashdot. I guess they've never heard of the Slashdot Effect!!!! Ha!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled banter.
Yeah, those emulators are pretty cool. I've used one to play Defender on the Mac before.
However, the experience just isn't the same as having the proper arcade controls in the arcade box. Perhaps, I'll have to get a cheap 486 PC and mount it in a custom enclosure with a VGA monitor and custom controls wired up like a keyboard. Build my own Ultracade....
That Ultracade looks pretty cool, but did anyone else notice that the only games for it are from Capcom?
It's missing some of the coolest games from twenty years ago: Defender, Joust, Robotron.... If it had Defender, I'd buy it in a second. Man, I remember the time I got to half a million on Defender. When I went to bed that night, I had burn in on my retinas. I closed my eyes and all I could see were Landers and Baiters zipping by.--Trippy!--The music and sound effects were ringing in my ears. It's amazing that I didn't get carpal tunnel from all the games of Defender that I played as a kid.
Lack of support for the Xt component model is key, and is probably the strongest statement of the interview. His emphasis on "point [your] favorite GUI builder at them and they load just like that" is a little misguided, but the point remains: using widgets from another toolkit is impossible. Admit it -- it would be cool to embed a GTK widget in a Qt application. It would also ensure the freedom of choice that Linux users so strongly argue for.
You can do it. I've done it. Just playing around, I wrote a wrapper object that inherited from Qt's QOBJECT AND was implemented internally using a GTK+ widget. It can be done. A library could be written to bridge GTK+ widgets into a Qt application. Integrating KDE and Gnome on the same system is a bit trickier if you want to use all the features of each at the same time, but from what I hear people are working on that very thing.
As it stands now, you can run KDE and Gnome applications without running either desktop environment. I've run apps written for KDE and Gnome on plain vanilla FVWM 1.2 on one of my machines at home. I don't know why everyone goes on about there being no compatibility between the two. They just don't know what they're talking about.
You can not lie to all people all the time.
Yes, you can, but it doesn't mean that they believe you! Even if they don't believe you, that doesn't mean that they're going to do anything about it.
Look, you said you obeyed the law. I took that unqualified statement to mean that you obeyed all of the laws. You also said that you pay taxes. Well, apart from obeying the law, what does that have to do with anything?
You mention about attitudes changing. Yes, that's very true. You say that what was once acceptable becomes unacceptable. Well, the flip side is also true: what was once unacceptable can become acceptable, particularly over time. People can become accustomed to pain and they learn to ignore it. So, yeah, you start by sticking cameras on ATMs for public protection. Then, cameras on stop lights, stop signs and at street corners. Next, on street lights in all neighborhoods. Next, on people's lawns to monitor their front doors, and finally in their homes. Each gradual step conditions one to expect less and less at each turn.
The Internet and technology have not changed the landscape of privacy and the erosion of privacy. They have merely accelerated the rate of that change.
Now, you can ask yourself what kind of world you want to live in. You can ask yourself what's truly important. I don't personally see the erosion of privacy as that great a problem in and of itself. There are larger forces at work, and the erosion of personal privacy is just part of a larger conflict that is going on in the world today. There is a struggle going on for control, not just of our personal space and privacy, but of the flow of information, ideas and all communication. Just take a deep look at what is happening on the Internet, with the Napster and DeCSS lawsuits, the protests in Seattle last December and the protests of the IMF in Washington. Think of those events and many others in light of the megamergers of mega media giants. Follow the money, see who's behind all these corps. Look at how they make political contributions and follow the bills through Congress to the President's signature, all the way to enforcement and incarceration.
There is one side of capitalism that sees nothing but the profit motive and people are just another resource to exploit, for their labor, for the information that you can get about them and sell, and for the money that they have to spend as consumers. Marx was right about one thing: when taken to the extreme, capitalism is a dehumanizing and alienating system. (NOTE: I said he was right about one thing, not everyhting.)
I choose to live and die free as free as a man that has to pay taxes and abide laws can be.
That's the trouble. You abide by laws and pay your taxes. Following their silly laws and paying your taxes only encourages them to think that you're going along with the program. When they make it a law to say you have to have the surveillance gizmo installed in your body, will you go along with that law, too? All the data, and by your own admission, suggest that you will.
You see where this is going don't you? You said you'd oppose this, but you also said that you obey the laws. So, which is it?
So here I am, advocating lawlessness again, and with Uncle Sam watching, too. I should be more careful in the future.... :-)
Trouble is, most people think that if they put it in the Trash (on the Mac) or the Recycle Bin (on 'doze) and then empty the Trash or the Recycle Bin, that the data is gone. It isn't. The bits are still hanging around on your machine in many cases, with the space they occupy simply marked as free. To eliminate the data permanently from your disk you need to use something to write gibberish over the file before you delete it. When someone recovers the file from your drive later, all they get is gibberish.
*NIX systems have this problem, too, but not as bad. There's often so much going on on a *NIX system that free space gets reused rather quickly. I'd still be paranoid and use a file shredding utility if I thought that I was facing prosecution or a lawsuit.
I have written a gibberish generator, called Slashdot.org. For every email you send to a person in Great Britain you should also send five or six extra messages generated by the gibberish generator. Encrypt all messages with a different key, agreeing on a secret key with your party in GB in advance. The gibberish message should give the lads and lasses of MI5 plenty of fun, since they're machine won't be able to tell if its had a successful decode, 'cause the plaintext is gibberish.
X v5@'C>CN,VBDji8leD;q5FO{c&bI^Z
Or, you could use my other gibberish generator that can produce reams of this:
[mT0UYP8T(5KUb0Rn0Ng0-};+l3r73Gr"{$WUUp*]&U3hfe
Send that as plaintext, they'll think its encrypted and waste many hours trying to decode it.
Welcome to the real world of software development!
Oh, come on...
Even under current law you can use GPL software, even where the GPL is considered invalid. I don't think anyone is going to sue if you follow the GPL on GPL'd software.
Since the GPL grants you additional rights, it should be valid anywhere. Also, I have not heard that UCITA makes licenses which disclaim liability invalid. In fact, I've heard just the opposite, which is one of the reasons it has been touted as so bad for consumers. Individual states may have added such language before passing UCITA, however. I can't imagine the industry coming up with a wet dream legislation like UCITA and not having disclaimer clauses be totally and legally binding.
Anyway, my point still stands, if you want to avoid commercial licenses that restrict over much what you can do with a piece of software, then use only software that the license allows you access to the source code and allows you to use any modifications that you make to the software. If it's not source code, it's not software!
Any better ideas?
Yes. Only use Free Software. That is the ultimate in civil disobedience, refusing to go along with the game of market economics as applied to software, where such economics do not strictly apply.
Not true.
You can disclaim all liability under current law. The only trouble is will a "shrink wrap" license hold up in court. I'm betting that GPL will hold up where as licenses that restrict your rights beyond what you're granted under copyright and fair use will not. GPL grants you additional rights that you are not normally allowed under current laws if you are willing to abide by a few conditions placed on the exercise of those additional rights.
I've also argued here before that UCITA is good for Free Software, since it makes the GPL equally as enforceable as any other license. I'm not arguing against UCITA. I'm arguing against the use of software that comes with restrictive and exclusionary licensing, in other words, software that is not free.
The simple way to avoid falling victim to UCITA is don't buy software! Use Free Software that is covered by the GPL or some similar license (by similar license, I mean BSDish or Larry Wall's Artistic License).