Marvel's Ultimate titles are worth the cost and all of Image's are worth it from what I've seen so far. Same goes for much of what Viz publishes too. Here in the states I pay on average $2.25-$2.50 per comic, but they're worth it now more than ever. I remember when comics were mostly geared toward more simplistic audiences, had slightly rushed art and were only $1.25. That extra $1-$.25 has added an incredible amount of value to the comics I buy. The art is extremely good and the stories are quite good, especially ones like Spawn (check out Spawn, Spawn: The Undead, HellSpawn and The Dark Ages!!), Witchblade and the Darkness all by Image.
I don't know how your tax code works, but one of the ways that I am able to avoid extra costs is by subscribing. A single Marvel subscription saves 3USD and the more you do the more you save like 2 subs is 8USD and 3 is 15USD off the annual cost which wouldn't be much anyway. Just a thought
Comparing the US to any particular major first world nation except for perhaps Japan is stupid because we have over 280,000,000 people living in our borders. That means we have more people living here than in all of Western Europe and Canada combined and the territory of the contiguous states is almost equal to that of Canada. We are too big for you to compare us to smaller nations. Socialism can work in some countries in a purely economic standpoint, but not in the **personal** standpoint because it encourages conformity. I've found even the religious right to be more flexible in allowing individualism than most of the hardline lefties I've met. They are extremely intolerant of anyone that disagress with them, at least that is my experience. Even the religious right will often just consider you a lost soul and an idiot rather than vehemently despise you for your beliefs.
We may have a stupid government, but when was the last time that our federal government's bureacracy officially told a state government to "reconsider" an election the way the European Union told Ireland to reconsider its most recent?! Guns are banned in Great Britain, interestingly enough our State Department quietly adds London to a list of cities where American tourists shouldn't visit because of the crime rate.
The difference between the US and Europe is that we aren't ass backwards when it comes to punishing criminals most of the time. Ever heard the story about how an old guy got sent to prison in Britain for killing in self-defense a young, tall and very buff looking man who was approaching him after he broke into the old man's house? Yes, let's be "progressive" like Europe. Let's outlaw the death penalty because it's a "human rights violation" and send our elderly to rot in prison for shooting potentially homocidal burglars in self-defense.
I have a copy of R5 on my shelf that I have successfully installed on my PC before. It is standard x86 box. Or is your idea of standardized something like an old Packard Bell?
If I send email spontaneously to my computer science professor asking him something that I forgot to ask in class, I could now be in violation of a federal statute?!?! It is legislation like this that makes me believe more than ever in Cicero's old saying "More laws, less justice."
Go to Congress.org and email your congresscritters now, especially your senators. Threaten them that you will not vote for them, will campaign for other candidates, will donate to other causes and campaigns.... tell them their getting your vote and money is riding on this bill and that you are watching their every action regarding this bill like Big Brother!
I request that you put pressure on FBI and other Department of Justice authorities to free Dmitry Sklyarov from prison. He has been in prison for over two weeks now, has not been formally charged and to the best of my knowledge hasn't even had his first day in court. He is a Russian national that was arrested for doing the following:
1. The company he works for in Russia Elcomsoft made him create a program that disables the protection on the Adobe eBook file format so that it can be read or printed by legitimate users on their home computers without special Adobe software. Adobe complained to the FBI saying that he violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by creating this software, however that is irrelevant as this act took place in Russia where the creation of such software is perfectly legal under the legal code of the Russian Federation.
2. He gave a scholarly dissertation to an audience at a security conference in the United States about the claims that Adobe makes about their eBook product and the actual capabilities of it that he discovered in the creation of his software.
I highly disapprove of the government's involvement in this case and its actions so far. Dmitry Sklyarov has a young wife and two small children that he must provide for back in Russia. He is being treated in a way that the government should never treat a legal visitor, resident alien or citizen of the United States of America. As an American citizen and voter I do not appreciate my government taking such actions which tarnish our country's record on civil liberties and blatantly violate both the text and the spirit of the United States Constitution.
"Do you still wonder why people protest at the G-8 and other such summits?"
Yes I do as a matter of fact. I wonder why a bunch of spoiled rich american/eurotrash kids are affected by a political version of Munchausen by Proxy so early in their lives. The key to prosperity for the third world is trade. The economic system is irrelevant, only a handful of nations can even come close to self-sufficiency in this day and age. Even socialist nations must trade with their neighbors to get what they need for survival and economic growth. That point is 110% lost on the protestors in Genoa and Seattle and the whole anti-globalization movement itself.
The American people are to blame for the DMCA as much as anyone. The average American doesn't care what their Congresscritter does so long as they support one or two things the average voter likes. Those of us that actually care what our congresscritters do, must find ways to defeat them even if they have they have popular support. We can do that by giving donations to organizations such as the EFF, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the Individual Rights Foundation. These are the organizations that fight the cases we dislike, but are powerless to stop since our congresscritters pass the laws we dislike anyway.
I wouldn't buy from a company that makes their site inaccessible to anyone with a fairly well-made, mostly standards compliant browser such as Mozilla, IE or Opera. I think many would feel the same way. Imagine people going on the road and finding out that they cannot buy something because all of the computers are running an oler version of Windows like 95 or 98 and can't use the.Net extensions. They would be pretty pissed probably.
How can anyone expect dot coms to cut a profit when the few that actually sell something sell it so close to the break even point?! I would much rather buy my stuff online at the same price I could get it locally than have to deal with jerk off drivers and mallrats.
The Internet structurally doesn't need to change, it needs to change the mindset behind its commercial enterprises. The Amazon.coms will not be able to cut a profit until they set realistic prices and spend more time trying to get a reputation for excellent service than pissing off people with patents. If Bezos is so concerned about protecting his company and getting a good name for it, why didn't he sign the patent over to a not-for-profit group like the FSF or EFF?
What is being made quite apparent is that those behind the major ecommerce companies usually have no clue how to run a business. The smaller ecommerce companies have to be doing something right, because they have little venture capital and 99% of them would be out of business in the blink of an eye if they lacked business savvy. The biggest mistake the ecommerce giants made was getting their customers used to VERY low prices, prices so low that profitability would be unthinkable unless pricing policies changed.
The underlying issue here is why should the government be protecting copyrighted material from not-for-profit pirating in the first place. Copyright is only for for-profit piracy protection, so what does that make our current laws, Copywrong?
The problem is that IP corporations will almost always be hostile toward the public domain and public liberty. They cannot even EXIST without government might being behind them. I am not opposed to copyright law at all, but this is one area where I have to say that the principles, while not the law itself, of copyright law laid down by our founders in the first copyright law for the US hold true more than ever. The original law gave only limited protection and a maximum of 28 years (14 first then you could apply for an extension).
Neither major party will ever properly address this issue. Taco et al. can deride the Republicans all they want, but the DMCA was a joint effort to screw us all over orchestrated equally by both parties and signed by a liberal democratic president. The naderite approach is equally insane: abolish the corporations. The corporations aren't at fault here, the government is. With sane copyright laws there would be no United States vs. Dmitry Sklyarov. Adobe only has so much power as the government gives it; take away that power and Adobe is no more powerful than you or I. Big government is at fault here. That is why we libertarians oppose big government. With a minimalistic government Adobe wouldn't have any recourse against Sklyarov.
If each OEM would bundle the latest stable JRE with their Windows-based PCs then this would be non-issue. It has been how long since Sun updated JDK 1.3.1? And just how different is it from JDK 1.3.0? All sun needs to do to make its JRE consumer friendly is make it transparent to the end user (ie no dos box popping up, it just quietly loads the Java app) and to make an updater utility that automatically updates to the newest JRE/JDK.
Every few months a new innovation in storage technology comes out and it seems to me that copyright infringment is getting easier every 6 months. Within a year or two, recordable dvd technology will probably be standardized (probably around DVD-R) and that will raise major issues for the copyright cartels and their congresscritters.
I remember seeing something to the effect that the global music industry is worth around $15B USD, but the American software industry alone is worth around $170B USD. Then you get into the American computer hardware industry's value to our economy and that will force those such as my congressman, Bob Goodlatte, into choosing to either deep 6 the American advantage over most of the world in the computer industry or to tell the copyright cartels to take a hike. Say what you will about the copy protection systems that the software industry uses, but at least it uses technology to solve its problem a hell of a lot more often than it uses government compared to the other copyright industries.
I think the overall intellectual property rights debate shows the difference between those that want an essentially truly free market and those that want a relatively free market, but always protect minor industries. I want much less protection for IP, not because I believe that bootlegging is right, but because IP law impedes progress when it is very strong and throws a monkey wrench into the free market. For example, ow many innovators have either been driven out of business by patent law, or just threw up their hands and quit because of the laws? We'll never know, just as we'll never know just how many kids we could have saved from drugs by dealing with drugs the way we deal with alcohol and tobacco products.
It is only innevitable that someone will make a dvd player for the average joe's home entertainment system that can play fully encrypted DVDs from a DVD-R. Some company like APEX will realize that the market for such a product could be astronomical if built up correctly. That is when we as Americans will have to decide between market capitalism and market socialism. If our courts protect APEX and either strike down the DMCA or limit it then that is a strong vote for capitalism. If not... then well it is time to stop bullshitting ourselves about being the "land of the free."
Wouldn't it be possible for the kernel developers to add Linux support for FreeBSD binaries if it hasn't been already and then just install the.NET tools under Linux?
If I took the time to read all of the articles that I comment on on sites like kuro5hin.org, freerepublic.com, slashdot, etc. I wouldn't have anything even resembling a life. I just skim read usually the first few paragraphs, or the whole thing if it is a little interesting but not enough so that I actually want to read the whole thing.
Most of the time I've found that discussions quickly branch off from the article itself and take on a life of their own, discussing issues raised by issues raised by the article. For example on freerepublic.com it often goes from posts where conservatives trash the left and then we libertarians begin jumping down the conservative's throats saying that they aren't much better or different for that matter. The discussions usually then go from being a bash this or that the left loves to being a fight over whose ideology, conservatism or libertarianism, is best able to address the problems of a post-industrial society. So I really don't see the issue here, discussions online aren't static and strictly on topic, they are dynamic and have lives of their own.
I hope you are referring just to banks, which is not true there are very successful local banks where I live in Virginia. Small business is thriving, if you don't believe me go take a look downtown in most medium sized towns (say.... 30+ thousand residents). Most of the shops where I live are locally owned and we have a low poverty rate.
If mom-n-pop shops cannot compete price-wise with WalMart then so be it! If WalMart has better prices, better return policies, better service and the like then it deserves to win. WalMart and other big business despite the socialist myths to the contrary can't just waltz into town and take over. They have to convince people to buy from them and not mom-n-pop shops. People don't just say, "hey there's a big business, I'm gonna buy from them just because they're big!" they buy from them because they are cheaper, have better service, better return policies and things like that. In other words they get a better deal than they would from the mom-n-pop shop. You may not like that, but that's the way it works. Let those that do a better job enjoy their rewards in peace.
I respect the Debian project and wish it the best, but I won't give Debian another shot for another few years because of my experiences with 2.2. I installed it successfully and was ready to connect to the internet to do my first apt-get update, and lo and behold DNS wouldn't work. A friend of mine that has been using Debian for I'd say 2-3 years tried to help, but no matter what, DNS wouldn't work.
That is when I started using Mandrake and I didn't have any problems like that with Mandrake. I've recently moved over to Red Hat 7.1 and am now going to stay in the Red Hat camp unless they give me reason to leave. Red Hat 7.1 IS whole in my opinion, and unlike Debian in my experience (though limited as I've only played around successfully with Libranet 1.9.0) is not broken in some way like having DNS mysteriously not work.
One of Microsoft's major complaints about government-funded software being released under the GPL is that it would not be availible to businesses to make a profit off of. Now I'm certainly not an objectivist, but I am a capitalist (more so than the average joe) so here's a little bit of summarized Rand for Gates and Co.
There is no such thing as "public property." That which we call public property is the private property of the government. Being the private property of the government, the government gets to decide how it will be used or given away. That means that the government gets to decide what license its source code is released under because it is the property of the government.
Now for my two cents. Microsoft needs to do two things if it wants to continue its position of dominance, and it will do neither of these. These things are: reduce prices on all of its products to make them more competitive with open source offerings and give basic rights to software owners. That means none of the usual: if you don't do what we say, you cannot use it! routine. Microsoft needs to say that essentially if it doesn't violate copyright law, it is kosher with them.
It is very important for us to buy the cds that we like, not copy them for free. Why? If your favorite artist is selling virtually no records because everyone copies their albums, then they will be dumped most likely as soon as the label can afford to do so. You aren't hurting the corporation so much as you are hurting the artist. I love the Offspring and Oleander, that is why I have no bootlegs of their cds. I buy them all, at full price if necessary because I like what they put out and I get my money's worth every new album. Remember folks, you are only hurting the corporation indirectly and it has the means to survive, but you are directly hurting the artists. Some may be able to survive, but most will not. I hate the DMCA as much as the next guy, that is why when I get out of college (I'm gonna be a CS major hopefully) I plan to get a law degree so I can fight such laws, but we have to use some intelligence here!!
I am not a developer (slowly learning C++ and will be in pre-CS @ James Madison U) nor am I a sysadmin, but I'm wondering.... what are the stability issues here? It would seem to me that unless Tux 2.0 is really a quality work then it could really give Microsoft grounds to make Linux look like a trashy webserver because if Tux crashes, wouldn't that often take down the kernel too?
/. crew's pro-democrat/left wing bias
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Carnivore To Die?
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I would seem to me that the/. crew would finally get a clue that the Republican party isn't a party of illiterate inbred morons that they seem to think it is. The Democrats made Carnivore, the DMCA (bipartisn in Congress, but signed eagerly by left-leaning Democratic President) and other major civil rights violations possible.
I remember how most of the/. crew wanted desparately to see Gore win over "that idiot" Bush and how most/.ers in general were attacking Ashcroft when he was nominated for his position. Yet Reno gleefully made this system possible, was on watch during Waco, Ruby Ridge, refused to investigate top Democratic fundraisers for illegalities, sent federal agents to Miami gestapo style to get Elian Gonzalez among other things. At least we have an Attorney General now who because of his mostly hard-line conservative view (and don't give me that bullshit about him wanting to monitor "wackos" and non-christians) would probably heavily restrict its use anyway if not outright ban it while he's in charge.
I for one am sick of the bullshit on/. about "Your Rights Online" posts talking about how evil corporate "rights violations" are when the government is doing worse. The corporations can't bloody well wiretap you legally unless (well the telecoms might, but they have nothing to gain by screwing your privacy since their monopoly status in their regions is contingent on playing nice guy) their people want to be sent to prison. The CEO that does that better have a fast private jet ready to leave the country if he gets caught because a small army of state and federal law enforcement personnel will be after him for such an audacious act. And wouldn't that be something, Board has to explain to stockholders why its CEO had to suddenly leave the country and now the company's PR image has been ruined for blatantly illegal behavior. As I've said in previous posts, you can walk up to a corporate executive officer and tell him to kiss your buttocks, and he can't force you to do what he wants. You do that to a cop you will find yourself in jail. That is the world of difference. Corporations have no more legal right to use force against you under our system than you do against them. The government though can simply pass a law saying it can kill you without a trial and until someone challenges it and the Supreme Court nullifies it, it is in effect. The Congress with people like Diane Feinstein in it could pass a law saying that "as of now kiddywinks, the first and second amendments are nullified!" and you have to live with that until the Supreme Court slaps them down. Get rid of the power to do that, and I might be mildly willing to discuss corporate "rights violations"
Turnout is low because in America a single election doesn't determine who will control 90% of all government in our country. We elect SOOOOO many people to so many positions whereas in Europe and most nations it is all one parliamentary election.
Trying someone in an international court brings up many issues. Will the court's judges be fair and non-predjudiced? American soldiers would probably be SOL because of the biggotry they would face in an international court in Europe. Would there be a bill of rights guaranteeing at least the same things as ours? Would the bill of rights actually carry any legal weight? Who would get to decide what is a "crime against humanity?" Many more, but my wrist is hurting.
The Hague isn't a friend to human rights
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Especially for soldiers from the US. The European view of human rights is very warped because it considers a soldier guilty for using "excessive" force against civilians in police actions and war, yet will not execute the leaders that order it. If pvt Bob kills a civilian in Kosovo that attacks the Serbian minority, he could be charged with crimes against humanity under plans similar to the one that Stallman opposes. Yet Bill Clinton wouldn't be executed for ordering the USAF to bomb the civilian infrastructure of Serbia into rubble even if the USAF vehemently opposes it behind the scenes.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that actually pays attention to treaties involving the Hague that the players involved are seeking new, innovative ways to destroy freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
Marvel's Ultimate titles are worth the cost and all of Image's are worth it from what I've seen so far. Same goes for much of what Viz publishes too. Here in the states I pay on average $2.25-$2.50 per comic, but they're worth it now more than ever. I remember when comics were mostly geared toward more simplistic audiences, had slightly rushed art and were only $1.25. That extra $1-$.25 has added an incredible amount of value to the comics I buy. The art is extremely good and the stories are quite good, especially ones like Spawn (check out Spawn, Spawn: The Undead, HellSpawn and The Dark Ages!!), Witchblade and the Darkness all by Image.
I don't know how your tax code works, but one of the ways that I am able to avoid extra costs is by subscribing. A single Marvel subscription saves 3USD and the more you do the more you save like 2 subs is 8USD and 3 is 15USD off the annual cost which wouldn't be much anyway. Just a thought
Comparing the US to any particular major first world nation except for perhaps Japan is stupid because we have over 280,000,000 people living in our borders. That means we have more people living here than in all of Western Europe and Canada combined and the territory of the contiguous states is almost equal to that of Canada. We are too big for you to compare us to smaller nations. Socialism can work in some countries in a purely economic standpoint, but not in the **personal** standpoint because it encourages conformity. I've found even the religious right to be more flexible in allowing individualism than most of the hardline lefties I've met. They are extremely intolerant of anyone that disagress with them, at least that is my experience. Even the religious right will often just consider you a lost soul and an idiot rather than vehemently despise you for your beliefs.
We may have a stupid government, but when was the last time that our federal government's bureacracy officially told a state government to "reconsider" an election the way the European Union told Ireland to reconsider its most recent?! Guns are banned in Great Britain, interestingly enough our State Department quietly adds London to a list of cities where American tourists shouldn't visit because of the crime rate.
The difference between the US and Europe is that we aren't ass backwards when it comes to punishing criminals most of the time. Ever heard the story about how an old guy got sent to prison in Britain for killing in self-defense a young, tall and very buff looking man who was approaching him after he broke into the old man's house? Yes, let's be "progressive" like Europe. Let's outlaw the death penalty because it's a "human rights violation" and send our elderly to rot in prison for shooting potentially homocidal burglars in self-defense.
I have a copy of R5 on my shelf that I have successfully installed on my PC before. It is standard x86 box. Or is your idea of standardized something like an old Packard Bell?
If I send email spontaneously to my computer science professor asking him something that I forgot to ask in class, I could now be in violation of a federal statute?!?! It is legislation like this that makes me believe more than ever in Cicero's old saying "More laws, less justice."
Go to Congress.org and email your congresscritters now, especially your senators. Threaten them that you will not vote for them, will campaign for other candidates, will donate to other causes and campaigns.... tell them their getting your vote and money is riding on this bill and that you are watching their every action regarding this bill like Big Brother!
Everytime Morpheus would startup and I moved my cursor over the system tray icon it would have a little text box that would say "Kazaa"
I request that you put pressure on FBI and other Department of Justice authorities to free Dmitry Sklyarov from prison. He has been in prison for over two weeks now, has not been formally charged and to the best of my knowledge hasn't even had his first day in court. He is a Russian national that was arrested for doing the following:
1. The company he works for in Russia Elcomsoft made him create a program that disables the protection on the Adobe eBook file format so that it can be read or printed by legitimate users on their home computers without special Adobe software. Adobe complained to the FBI saying that he violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by creating this software, however that is irrelevant as this act took place in Russia where the creation of such software is perfectly legal under the legal code of the Russian Federation.
2. He gave a scholarly dissertation to an audience at a security conference in the United States about the claims that Adobe makes about their eBook product and the actual capabilities of it that he discovered in the creation of his software.
I highly disapprove of the government's involvement in this case and its actions so far. Dmitry Sklyarov has a young wife and two small children that he must provide for back in Russia. He is being treated in a way that the government should never treat a legal visitor, resident alien or citizen of the United States of America. As an American citizen and voter I do not appreciate my government taking such actions which tarnish our country's record on civil liberties and blatantly violate both the text and the spirit of the United States Constitution.
Thank you for your time.
Why not have the FBI and state police investigate the BSA for full compliance. Seems fair to me.
"Do you still wonder why people protest at the G-8 and other such summits?"
Yes I do as a matter of fact. I wonder why a bunch of spoiled rich american/eurotrash kids are affected by a political version of Munchausen by Proxy so early in their lives. The key to prosperity for the third world is trade. The economic system is irrelevant, only a handful of nations can even come close to self-sufficiency in this day and age. Even socialist nations must trade with their neighbors to get what they need for survival and economic growth. That point is 110% lost on the protestors in Genoa and Seattle and the whole anti-globalization movement itself.
The American people are to blame for the DMCA as much as anyone. The average American doesn't care what their Congresscritter does so long as they support one or two things the average voter likes. Those of us that actually care what our congresscritters do, must find ways to defeat them even if they have they have popular support. We can do that by giving donations to organizations such as the EFF, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the Individual Rights Foundation. These are the organizations that fight the cases we dislike, but are powerless to stop since our congresscritters pass the laws we dislike anyway.
I wouldn't buy from a company that makes their site inaccessible to anyone with a fairly well-made, mostly standards compliant browser such as Mozilla, IE or Opera. I think many would feel the same way. Imagine people going on the road and finding out that they cannot buy something because all of the computers are running an oler version of Windows like 95 or 98 and can't use the .Net extensions. They would be pretty pissed probably.
How can anyone expect dot coms to cut a profit when the few that actually sell something sell it so close to the break even point?! I would much rather buy my stuff online at the same price I could get it locally than have to deal with jerk off drivers and mallrats.
The Internet structurally doesn't need to change, it needs to change the mindset behind its commercial enterprises. The Amazon.coms will not be able to cut a profit until they set realistic prices and spend more time trying to get a reputation for excellent service than pissing off people with patents. If Bezos is so concerned about protecting his company and getting a good name for it, why didn't he sign the patent over to a not-for-profit group like the FSF or EFF?
What is being made quite apparent is that those behind the major ecommerce companies usually have no clue how to run a business. The smaller ecommerce companies have to be doing something right, because they have little venture capital and 99% of them would be out of business in the blink of an eye if they lacked business savvy. The biggest mistake the ecommerce giants made was getting their customers used to VERY low prices, prices so low that profitability would be unthinkable unless pricing policies changed.
The underlying issue here is why should the government be protecting copyrighted material from not-for-profit pirating in the first place. Copyright is only for for-profit piracy protection, so what does that make our current laws, Copywrong?
The problem is that IP corporations will almost always be hostile toward the public domain and public liberty. They cannot even EXIST without government might being behind them. I am not opposed to copyright law at all, but this is one area where I have to say that the principles, while not the law itself, of copyright law laid down by our founders in the first copyright law for the US hold true more than ever. The original law gave only limited protection and a maximum of 28 years (14 first then you could apply for an extension).
Neither major party will ever properly address this issue. Taco et al. can deride the Republicans all they want, but the DMCA was a joint effort to screw us all over orchestrated equally by both parties and signed by a liberal democratic president. The naderite approach is equally insane: abolish the corporations. The corporations aren't at fault here, the government is. With sane copyright laws there would be no United States vs. Dmitry Sklyarov. Adobe only has so much power as the government gives it; take away that power and Adobe is no more powerful than you or I. Big government is at fault here. That is why we libertarians oppose big government. With a minimalistic government Adobe wouldn't have any recourse against Sklyarov.
If each OEM would bundle the latest stable JRE with their Windows-based PCs then this would be non-issue. It has been how long since Sun updated JDK 1.3.1? And just how different is it from JDK 1.3.0? All sun needs to do to make its JRE consumer friendly is make it transparent to the end user (ie no dos box popping up, it just quietly loads the Java app) and to make an updater utility that automatically updates to the newest JRE/JDK.
Every few months a new innovation in storage technology comes out and it seems to me that copyright infringment is getting easier every 6 months. Within a year or two, recordable dvd technology will probably be standardized (probably around DVD-R) and that will raise major issues for the copyright cartels and their congresscritters.
I remember seeing something to the effect that the global music industry is worth around $15B USD, but the American software industry alone is worth around $170B USD. Then you get into the American computer hardware industry's value to our economy and that will force those such as my congressman, Bob Goodlatte, into choosing to either deep 6 the American advantage over most of the world in the computer industry or to tell the copyright cartels to take a hike. Say what you will about the copy protection systems that the software industry uses, but at least it uses technology to solve its problem a hell of a lot more often than it uses government compared to the other copyright industries.
I think the overall intellectual property rights debate shows the difference between those that want an essentially truly free market and those that want a relatively free market, but always protect minor industries. I want much less protection for IP, not because I believe that bootlegging is right, but because IP law impedes progress when it is very strong and throws a monkey wrench into the free market. For example, ow many innovators have either been driven out of business by patent law, or just threw up their hands and quit because of the laws? We'll never know, just as we'll never know just how many kids we could have saved from drugs by dealing with drugs the way we deal with alcohol and tobacco products.
It is only innevitable that someone will make a dvd player for the average joe's home entertainment system that can play fully encrypted DVDs from a DVD-R. Some company like APEX will realize that the market for such a product could be astronomical if built up correctly. That is when we as Americans will have to decide between market capitalism and market socialism. If our courts protect APEX and either strike down the DMCA or limit it then that is a strong vote for capitalism. If not... then well it is time to stop bullshitting ourselves about being the "land of the free."
Wouldn't it be possible for the kernel developers to add Linux support for FreeBSD binaries if it hasn't been already and then just install the .NET tools under Linux?
If I took the time to read all of the articles that I comment on on sites like kuro5hin.org, freerepublic.com, slashdot, etc. I wouldn't have anything even resembling a life. I just skim read usually the first few paragraphs, or the whole thing if it is a little interesting but not enough so that I actually want to read the whole thing.
Most of the time I've found that discussions quickly branch off from the article itself and take on a life of their own, discussing issues raised by issues raised by the article. For example on freerepublic.com it often goes from posts where conservatives trash the left and then we libertarians begin jumping down the conservative's throats saying that they aren't much better or different for that matter. The discussions usually then go from being a bash this or that the left loves to being a fight over whose ideology, conservatism or libertarianism, is best able to address the problems of a post-industrial society. So I really don't see the issue here, discussions online aren't static and strictly on topic, they are dynamic and have lives of their own.
"Mom-n-pops no longer exist"
I hope you are referring just to banks, which is not true there are very successful local banks where I live in Virginia. Small business is thriving, if you don't believe me go take a look downtown in most medium sized towns (say.... 30+ thousand residents). Most of the shops where I live are locally owned and we have a low poverty rate.
If mom-n-pop shops cannot compete price-wise with WalMart then so be it! If WalMart has better prices, better return policies, better service and the like then it deserves to win. WalMart and other big business despite the socialist myths to the contrary can't just waltz into town and take over. They have to convince people to buy from them and not mom-n-pop shops. People don't just say, "hey there's a big business, I'm gonna buy from them just because they're big!" they buy from them because they are cheaper, have better service, better return policies and things like that. In other words they get a better deal than they would from the mom-n-pop shop. You may not like that, but that's the way it works. Let those that do a better job enjoy their rewards in peace.
I respect the Debian project and wish it the best, but I won't give Debian another shot for another few years because of my experiences with 2.2. I installed it successfully and was ready to connect to the internet to do my first apt-get update, and lo and behold DNS wouldn't work. A friend of mine that has been using Debian for I'd say 2-3 years tried to help, but no matter what, DNS wouldn't work.
That is when I started using Mandrake and I didn't have any problems like that with Mandrake. I've recently moved over to Red Hat 7.1 and am now going to stay in the Red Hat camp unless they give me reason to leave. Red Hat 7.1 IS whole in my opinion, and unlike Debian in my experience (though limited as I've only played around successfully with Libranet 1.9.0) is not broken in some way like having DNS mysteriously not work.
One of Microsoft's major complaints about government-funded software being released under the GPL is that it would not be availible to businesses to make a profit off of. Now I'm certainly not an objectivist, but I am a capitalist (more so than the average joe) so here's a little bit of summarized Rand for Gates and Co.
There is no such thing as "public property." That which we call public property is the private property of the government. Being the private property of the government, the government gets to decide how it will be used or given away. That means that the government gets to decide what license its source code is released under because it is the property of the government.
Now for my two cents. Microsoft needs to do two things if it wants to continue its position of dominance, and it will do neither of these. These things are: reduce prices on all of its products to make them more competitive with open source offerings and give basic rights to software owners. That means none of the usual: if you don't do what we say, you cannot use it! routine. Microsoft needs to say that essentially if it doesn't violate copyright law, it is kosher with them.
It is very important for us to buy the cds that we like, not copy them for free. Why? If your favorite artist is selling virtually no records because everyone copies their albums, then they will be dumped most likely as soon as the label can afford to do so. You aren't hurting the corporation so much as you are hurting the artist. I love the Offspring and Oleander, that is why I have no bootlegs of their cds. I buy them all, at full price if necessary because I like what they put out and I get my money's worth every new album. Remember folks, you are only hurting the corporation indirectly and it has the means to survive, but you are directly hurting the artists. Some may be able to survive, but most will not. I hate the DMCA as much as the next guy, that is why when I get out of college (I'm gonna be a CS major hopefully) I plan to get a law degree so I can fight such laws, but we have to use some intelligence here!!
I am not a developer (slowly learning C++ and will be in pre-CS @ James Madison U) nor am I a sysadmin, but I'm wondering.... what are the stability issues here? It would seem to me that unless Tux 2.0 is really a quality work then it could really give Microsoft grounds to make Linux look like a trashy webserver because if Tux crashes, wouldn't that often take down the kernel too?
I would seem to me that the /. crew would finally get a clue that the Republican party isn't a party of illiterate inbred morons that they seem to think it is. The Democrats made Carnivore, the DMCA (bipartisn in Congress, but signed eagerly by left-leaning Democratic President) and other major civil rights violations possible.
I remember how most of the /. crew wanted desparately to see Gore win over "that idiot" Bush and how most /.ers in general were attacking Ashcroft when he was nominated for his position. Yet Reno gleefully made this system possible, was on watch during Waco, Ruby Ridge, refused to investigate top Democratic fundraisers for illegalities, sent federal agents to Miami gestapo style to get Elian Gonzalez among other things. At least we have an Attorney General now who because of his mostly hard-line conservative view (and don't give me that bullshit about him wanting to monitor "wackos" and non-christians) would probably heavily restrict its use anyway if not outright ban it while he's in charge.
I for one am sick of the bullshit on /. about "Your Rights Online" posts talking about how evil corporate "rights violations" are when the government is doing worse. The corporations can't bloody well wiretap you legally unless (well the telecoms might, but they have nothing to gain by screwing your privacy since their monopoly status in their regions is contingent on playing nice guy) their people want to be sent to prison. The CEO that does that better have a fast private jet ready to leave the country if he gets caught because a small army of state and federal law enforcement personnel will be after him for such an audacious act. And wouldn't that be something, Board has to explain to stockholders why its CEO had to suddenly leave the country and now the company's PR image has been ruined for blatantly illegal behavior. As I've said in previous posts, you can walk up to a corporate executive officer and tell him to kiss your buttocks, and he can't force you to do what he wants. You do that to a cop you will find yourself in jail. That is the world of difference. Corporations have no more legal right to use force against you under our system than you do against them. The government though can simply pass a law saying it can kill you without a trial and until someone challenges it and the Supreme Court nullifies it, it is in effect. The Congress with people like Diane Feinstein in it could pass a law saying that "as of now kiddywinks, the first and second amendments are nullified!" and you have to live with that until the Supreme Court slaps them down. Get rid of the power to do that, and I might be mildly willing to discuss corporate "rights violations"
Turnout is low because in America a single election doesn't determine who will control 90% of all government in our country. We elect SOOOOO many people to so many positions whereas in Europe and most nations it is all one parliamentary election.
Trying someone in an international court brings up many issues. Will the court's judges be fair and non-predjudiced? American soldiers would probably be SOL because of the biggotry they would face in an international court in Europe. Would there be a bill of rights guaranteeing at least the same things as ours? Would the bill of rights actually carry any legal weight? Who would get to decide what is a "crime against humanity?" Many more, but my wrist is hurting.
Especially for soldiers from the US. The European view of human rights is very warped because it considers a soldier guilty for using "excessive" force against civilians in police actions and war, yet will not execute the leaders that order it. If pvt Bob kills a civilian in Kosovo that attacks the Serbian minority, he could be charged with crimes against humanity under plans similar to the one that Stallman opposes. Yet Bill Clinton wouldn't be executed for ordering the USAF to bomb the civilian infrastructure of Serbia into rubble even if the USAF vehemently opposes it behind the scenes.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that actually pays attention to treaties involving the Hague that the players involved are seeking new, innovative ways to destroy freedom.