Patent laws gave birth to the corporate research lab. Let's have some perspective here, shall we?
Seems reasonable enough to me. All things in moderation and all that. Just because the idea of patents happens to be a pretty good one, doesn't mean that the system hasn't been perverted and abused to the detriment of scientific progress.
Another validation of my policy of not pre-ordering games. I can wait til they hit the store. I've almost never had a problem picking up a copy of even the most popular game the day it's released (managed to grab Starcraft pretty easy, and that one was a lot more eagerly anticipated than WC3). Copies of NWN will be plentiful and easily had. No reason to lock myself into buying it before I'm sure I really want it. I know for sure that with the current EULA, I won't be doing any new maps for it though. Their IP rights grab stinks.
More like an open and shut case. The first license that was agreed to would take precedence. You can't distribute it under a license that contradicts the one you already agreed to.
What "Rights" exactly. You buy the game if you agree with their conditions. If you disagree, you don't buy it. Simple.
Or, in this case, if you don't agree with the terms, you let Bioware know that you don't, and why. That's what happened when the original story ran here on/. Everyone was pissed at the fact that Bioware claimed that they could distribute mods that you create and also prohibit you from distributing them, essentially stealing your mods. They tried to claim that the EULAs for most popular games do this, but every single example they gave got shot down because they were just plain wrong. This new EULA is only a slight improvement in that area. It still seems to allow them to revoke your right to distribute your mods, and then they can proceed to distribute the mod themselves. That's really not an improvement as far as I'm concerned, and I intend to write another email to the guy from Bioware to let him know this. Hopefully they will revise it again to correct the problem.
It's kind like saying that because you used MS office to write your term paper, that MS owns the copyright to it. Which of course makes no sense.
That's pretty much the issue here. MS doesn't declare in their EULA that they own the copyright to anything you create in Word. Bioware actually does have something similar to that in their EULA. The question is whether the terms of the EULA are really enforceable.
If even a few people start complaining to the banks and the banks realize that AOL users can't view their site, then I think it will cause them to fix it. I don't know why the banks would do something stupid like creating an IE-only site in the first place, but they should realize its a mistake as soon as the first AOL users start to complain. They should realize it a lot sooner than that, but it sounds like some banks don't have very intelligent web developers.
As long as enough users adopt Mozilla, sites will be forced to write standards-compliant pages. That is all that really matters. AOL alone could bring in enough Mozilla users to cause such a change.
There are only so many hit singles at any given time in any given genre. 20 minutes might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not a very big one. Literally, the big new hits get played about once an hour. As for any song you might want to hear, then no, you wouldn't want to try to record it off the radio.
If revenues fall to the point where it's ecomically infeasible for a particular record company to keep scouting for new artists, or it's too risky to sign them, then it will be much harder for artists to get discovered and eventually the supply will decrease.
There's another alternative here. What if, instead of the monolithic recording industry that we had a much leaner, more efficient recording industry? If they can't continue to do things the way they do today (which is very much to the detriment of both artists and consumers by most accounts), then maybe they will just have to adapt and do things differently. If they don't do it, then someone else most likely will.
I've already seen a couple people decide that they aren't interested in the game based on their experiences with the warezed beta, despite the possibility that the issues that bothered them have been resolved.
Such people are commonly known as "morons," and they would just as likely make the same decision based on someone ranting about the game on/.
Regardless of Blizzard's reasons, bnetd should win this case. They reverse-engineered Battle.Net and built software that allows them to play the games that they bought without being subject to the problems with Blizzard's service. This is legitimate. If others are using the program to play pirated games, then they are the ones who should be prosecuted. But such people still make up a tiny fraction of Blizzard's market. This move was just plain dumb. It's not going to accomplish anything, and those that want to pirate the game will still do so. They'll just use other methods (or possibly even the same method, since bnetd is open source, someone will probably modify it to work with the release version of W3C and distribute it via P2P instead of a website).
Dungeon Seige sucked ass. Sure, it was pretty to look at, but the gameplay was utterly vapid. Worse than Diablo2. I give Blizzard some credit for at least making an attempt to rectify some of the problems with the RTS genre, but since I haven't played the game, and don't intend to buy it, I guess I will just have to see what others think. I'm waiting eagerly for UT2K3 and NWN right now. Those are going to consume my game time.
bnetd offered to work with them to implement a key check. Blizzard didn't want to do it though. People used a modified version of bnetd to play the WC3 beta, not really because of a lack of key checking, but because that was they only way they could play the game since it wasn't even for sale yet.
Just go out and buy Neverwinter Nights (in a week or two when it hits stores) and forget all about WC3. If Blizzard's tactics don't appeal to you, support the competition instead! You get a great game, and that should make it a lot easier to let go of your pain and get on with your life.
Well, let's see. I listen to internet radio stations fairly constantly (at the highest quality levels available) when I'm working, which means there is a constant flow of data for hours at a time. Then I sometimes download Linux ISO images (although that's something that happens only about every 2-3 months, it consumes about 2 gigs of bandwidth usage). I also read usenet groups sometimes. Looking at the directory now, the indexes alone are consuming almost a gig of space (I should really stick more to moderated groups I think:), and all of that had to be downloaded. I do download MP3s sometimes as well. Generally they are from bands that I've heard on an internet radio station and I want to check them out. Often it's crap and gets deleted. Other times they are cool, in which case I end up at CDNow. Either way, I've used the bandwidth. (yeah yeah... I'm a pirate...:) but at least I'm a fair-minded pirate, which is more than I can say for the record industry). I also download quite a few game demos and game movies. I'm a gamer and I like to keep up with the new stuff. I download lots of mods and skins and such as well. Then there's my work stuff. I transfer large files (a few megs or so each) to and from my office pretty much every day.
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. There's probably more. I'm sure I must have forgotten something, but you get the idea.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
on
What Is Public Domain?
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· Score: 2
Therefore, any alteration destroys the original intent.
Nope. Any alteration would create a derivative work, that is only based on the original. It doesn't do anything at all to the original.
Ouch! I d/l over a gig in a single day sometimes. That would definitely put a crimp in my net usage. I guess that's the point though. If my cable provider does this, I'll probably have to switch to DSL. They haven't capped that yet here.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
on
What Is Public Domain?
·
· Score: 2
I couldn't care less if you want to make a copy of the Picassos and chop them up, but I'd be pretty pissed if you tried to do it to the originals./p.
Don't other jedi's do this as well? Obi-wan and Qui-gon both used the force to allow themselves to jump really high. Seems like pretty much the same effect to me.
The online game should force players to adhere to the rules as well, and this can be monitored by the DM(s) (there can be multiple DMs in NWN). Actual fun with actual people, via computer. Creative solutions to problems. I don't see why that can't be accomplished online. If the DMs do some preparation before running the game, then they should be prepared and able to react to changes and unlikely or unexpected events. The tools make a lot of this pretty easy. Nobody is saying that it will replace P&P, but it provides a nice alternative to P&P and SP RPGs.
I happen to work for a government contractor, so I've seen the kinds of requirements they have. Sure, a single programmer probably wouldn't want to bother. But when you've got a team of programmers, testers, documenters, etc, like Linux and other major open soure projects have, you certainly can meet the government's requirements. Probably even exceed them in many cases. If the government was smart, they would require a lot more openness in their software. Open file formats and protocols should be considered a bare minimum. Many of the people working on these projects are getting paid for it because the projects have value to many companies that wish to make use of them. Many more get paid to extend or support the software for private companies. Some do it for fun. Others do it for pay. A few do it for both. Who cares why they do it? It's obviously being done.
If I write GPL code, and because I write GPL code I'm going to use a GPL library, or maybe someone else give me a bug fix that is GPLed, I can't sell the exclusive rights to this code
Some project require that contributors turn over the copyright of any code they submit to the project owner. This usually works well. Most people will still contribute to the project and it simplifies the copyright issues. Usually the contributors are interested in the final product and don't have a problem with contributing bits to that project in order to help it along. It's generally a very amiable environment.
The other option is to simply write your own bug fixes and libraries, etc. You aren't obligated to accept code from anyone else. If nobody is willing to fix some problem or provide some functionality, then do it yourself, or pay someone for the code to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Patent laws gave birth to the corporate research lab. Let's have some perspective here, shall we?
Seems reasonable enough to me. All things in moderation and all that. Just because the idea of patents happens to be a pretty good one, doesn't mean that the system hasn't been perverted and abused to the detriment of scientific progress.
Another validation of my policy of not pre-ordering games. I can wait til they hit the store. I've almost never had a problem picking up a copy of even the most popular game the day it's released (managed to grab Starcraft pretty easy, and that one was a lot more eagerly anticipated than WC3). Copies of NWN will be plentiful and easily had. No reason to lock myself into buying it before I'm sure I really want it. I know for sure that with the current EULA, I won't be doing any new maps for it though. Their IP rights grab stinks.
More like an open and shut case. The first license that was agreed to would take precedence. You can't distribute it under a license that contradicts the one you already agreed to.
What "Rights" exactly. You buy the game if you agree with their conditions. If you disagree, you don't buy it. Simple.
/. Everyone was pissed at the fact that Bioware claimed that they could distribute mods that you create and also prohibit you from distributing them, essentially stealing your mods. They tried to claim that the EULAs for most popular games do this, but every single example they gave got shot down because they were just plain wrong. This new EULA is only a slight improvement in that area. It still seems to allow them to revoke your right to distribute your mods, and then they can proceed to distribute the mod themselves. That's really not an improvement as far as I'm concerned, and I intend to write another email to the guy from Bioware to let him know this. Hopefully they will revise it again to correct the problem.
Or, in this case, if you don't agree with the terms, you let Bioware know that you don't, and why. That's what happened when the original story ran here on
It's kind like saying that because you used MS office to write your term paper, that MS owns the copyright to it. Which of course makes no sense.
That's pretty much the issue here. MS doesn't declare in their EULA that they own the copyright to anything you create in Word. Bioware actually does have something similar to that in their EULA. The question is whether the terms of the EULA are really enforceable.
Yes, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory for them if we still get to beat them up.
If even a few people start complaining to the banks and the banks realize that AOL users can't view their site, then I think it will cause them to fix it. I don't know why the banks would do something stupid like creating an IE-only site in the first place, but they should realize its a mistake as soon as the first AOL users start to complain. They should realize it a lot sooner than that, but it sounds like some banks don't have very intelligent web developers.
As long as enough users adopt Mozilla, sites will be forced to write standards-compliant pages. That is all that really matters. AOL alone could bring in enough Mozilla users to cause such a change.
So it was basically a bad B-movie scenario?
There are only so many hit singles at any given time in any given genre. 20 minutes might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not a very big one. Literally, the big new hits get played about once an hour. As for any song you might want to hear, then no, you wouldn't want to try to record it off the radio.
How is listening to a radio station all day, waiting for that "new hit single" to be played
Here on earth, you never have to wait more than about 20 minutes for that new hit single to be played.
If revenues fall to the point where it's ecomically infeasible for a particular record company to keep scouting for new artists, or it's too risky to sign them, then it will be much harder for artists to get discovered and eventually the supply will decrease.
There's another alternative here. What if, instead of the monolithic recording industry that we had a much leaner, more efficient recording industry? If they can't continue to do things the way they do today (which is very much to the detriment of both artists and consumers by most accounts), then maybe they will just have to adapt and do things differently. If they don't do it, then someone else most likely will.
I've already seen a couple people decide that they aren't interested in the game based on their experiences with the warezed beta, despite the possibility that the issues that bothered them have been resolved.
/.
Such people are commonly known as "morons," and they would just as likely make the same decision based on someone ranting about the game on
Regardless of Blizzard's reasons, bnetd should win this case. They reverse-engineered Battle.Net and built software that allows them to play the games that they bought without being subject to the problems with Blizzard's service. This is legitimate. If others are using the program to play pirated games, then they are the ones who should be prosecuted. But such people still make up a tiny fraction of Blizzard's market. This move was just plain dumb. It's not going to accomplish anything, and those that want to pirate the game will still do so. They'll just use other methods (or possibly even the same method, since bnetd is open source, someone will probably modify it to work with the release version of W3C and distribute it via P2P instead of a website).
Dungeon Seige sucked ass. Sure, it was pretty to look at, but the gameplay was utterly vapid. Worse than Diablo2. I give Blizzard some credit for at least making an attempt to rectify some of the problems with the RTS genre, but since I haven't played the game, and don't intend to buy it, I guess I will just have to see what others think. I'm waiting eagerly for UT2K3 and NWN right now. Those are going to consume my game time.
bnetd offered to work with them to implement a key check. Blizzard didn't want to do it though. People used a modified version of bnetd to play the WC3 beta, not really because of a lack of key checking, but because that was they only way they could play the game since it wasn't even for sale yet.
Just go out and buy Neverwinter Nights (in a week or two when it hits stores) and forget all about WC3. If Blizzard's tactics don't appeal to you, support the competition instead! You get a great game, and that should make it a lot easier to let go of your pain and get on with your life.
Well, let's see. I listen to internet radio stations fairly constantly (at the highest quality levels available) when I'm working, which means there is a constant flow of data for hours at a time. Then I sometimes download Linux ISO images (although that's something that happens only about every 2-3 months, it consumes about 2 gigs of bandwidth usage). I also read usenet groups sometimes. Looking at the directory now, the indexes alone are consuming almost a gig of space (I should really stick more to moderated groups I think :), and all of that had to be downloaded. I do download MP3s sometimes as well. Generally they are from bands that I've heard on an internet radio station and I want to check them out. Often it's crap and gets deleted. Other times they are cool, in which case I end up at CDNow. Either way, I've used the bandwidth. (yeah yeah... I'm a pirate... :) but at least I'm a fair-minded pirate, which is more than I can say for the record industry). I also download quite a few game demos and game movies. I'm a gamer and I like to keep up with the new stuff. I download lots of mods and skins and such as well. Then there's my work stuff. I transfer large files (a few megs or so each) to and from my office pretty much every day.
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. There's probably more. I'm sure I must have forgotten something, but you get the idea.
Therefore, any alteration destroys the original intent.
Nope. Any alteration would create a derivative work, that is only based on the original. It doesn't do anything at all to the original.
Ouch! I d/l over a gig in a single day sometimes. That would definitely put a crimp in my net usage. I guess that's the point though. If my cable provider does this, I'll probably have to switch to DSL. They haven't capped that yet here.
I couldn't care less if you want to make a copy of the Picassos and chop them up, but I'd be pretty pissed if you tried to do it to the originals./p.
Don't other jedi's do this as well? Obi-wan and Qui-gon both used the force to allow themselves to jump really high. Seems like pretty much the same effect to me.
The online game should force players to adhere to the rules as well, and this can be monitored by the DM(s) (there can be multiple DMs in NWN). Actual fun with actual people, via computer. Creative solutions to problems. I don't see why that can't be accomplished online. If the DMs do some preparation before running the game, then they should be prepared and able to react to changes and unlikely or unexpected events. The tools make a lot of this pretty easy. Nobody is saying that it will replace P&P, but it provides a nice alternative to P&P and SP RPGs.
and are we talking African or European?
I happen to work for a government contractor, so I've seen the kinds of requirements they have. Sure, a single programmer probably wouldn't want to bother. But when you've got a team of programmers, testers, documenters, etc, like Linux and other major open soure projects have, you certainly can meet the government's requirements. Probably even exceed them in many cases. If the government was smart, they would require a lot more openness in their software. Open file formats and protocols should be considered a bare minimum. Many of the people working on these projects are getting paid for it because the projects have value to many companies that wish to make use of them. Many more get paid to extend or support the software for private companies. Some do it for fun. Others do it for pay. A few do it for both. Who cares why they do it? It's obviously being done.
If I write GPL code, and because I write GPL code I'm going to use a GPL library, or maybe someone else give me a bug fix that is GPLed, I can't sell the exclusive rights to this code
Some project require that contributors turn over the copyright of any code they submit to the project owner. This usually works well. Most people will still contribute to the project and it simplifies the copyright issues. Usually the contributors are interested in the final product and don't have a problem with contributing bits to that project in order to help it along. It's generally a very amiable environment.
The other option is to simply write your own bug fixes and libraries, etc. You aren't obligated to accept code from anyone else. If nobody is willing to fix some problem or provide some functionality, then do it yourself, or pay someone for the code to do it.