Hell, we even get frontpage stories about the latest anime DVDs to come out.
Why should we boycott anime DVDs? Most of the publishers aren't members of the MPAA, and don't pay DVD CCA dues. (The exception being Manga, who generally carries only the really bad stuff anyway) Many anime DVDs don't even use macrovision or encryption, and the North American releases generally aren't region-coded.
I'd say these are the kinds of DVDs we should be buying, to show that we're willing to support companies that don't place ludicrous restrictions on their "intellectual property".
Actually, to be a big player in the console industry, you just have to have Japan. Most console games are developed in Japan, or if not, they're at least developed with a Japanese audience in mind. All of the really good console games for the past five years or so have come from there, with the exception of Rare's games. IIRC, the Sega Saturn managed to hang on there and made Sega quite a nice chunk of money even after it flopped in NA.
Remember that with the 2.3.x series, the release of 2.4.x was somewhat rushed. Why? Because not enough people were testing. Linus couldn't make any further improvements without a wider base of testers, but people just weren't willing to "risk" an "unstable" kernel. So we got 2.4.x before it was really ready, causing a lot of general complaints and confusion.
With Slashdot announcing most major (?) 2.5.x releases, I think they're probably hoping that more people will be curious enough to try them out. The more different systems and use conditions it gets tested under, the more solid the final release will be.
So now its "immature and childish" to write an e-mail message containing a line beginning with the word "begin"? I suppose its also "immature and childish" to insist that Microsoft fix this bug and follow standards? Or that Windows users not persist in sending me Word document after Word document for even the most routine communication, even after repeatedly being asked to use plain-text or HTML attachments?
Interesting definition of childish, there. I know when I was five years old, I spent my time doing nothing but sending e-mail consisting entirely of "begin" to random people. And complaining about Microsoft's wierd proprietary "standards".Yup, yup.
As for his mailing list, its his list. There are numerous lists and sites out there that are "Microsoft-only", which those of us who can't afford Microsoft software are blocked from accessing. Turnabout is, as they say, fair play.
Ah, that would be the problem. Yes, that's a common difficulty with New York residents. You don't seem to realize that your city is in on a different plane of existance. Probably a lower one.;)
This tendency you mention is a side-effect of the monopolies that exist in these areas. When large companies are buying software for servers (not desktops, see below), they're often given much more fair licensing terms. Why? Because there's competition. Microsoft, Sun, IBM, and maybe a half-dozen other players, depending on what exactly you're shopping for. Same goes for hardware.
In the consumer desktop arena? Much less choice. Microsoft gets to dictate the terms for the operating system and office suite. Or you can not buy it and not be able to work with the rest of the planet. Hardware "standards"? Same - if it doesn't work with Windows, most will consider it "broken". Which is why copy protection's going to be so hard to fight - if Windows doesn't work with unprotected hard disks, they're "broken" in the minds of those who don't care about the technical details.
The same applies to the "entertainment" industry. Music? RIAA. Movies? MPAA. (Or their arms in other countries) Gaming consoles? Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Not much competition there, especially since they're all in collusion on this point. And game publishers have no choice - they have to go through one of the above. (And many are now owned or otherwise controlled by one of the above anyway)
Though its not just the monopoly. The organizations above have been lying to consumers for years - "You don't have to worry about learning how the technology works!" "Trust the black box - it'll do everything for you!" "No, no, no. Its ok! Those licensing terms are normal for software. They're the only way we can hope to make money!" Sound familiar? By now, people are so brainwashed that they don't even consider that these might be lies. Or they ignore the EULAs anyway, and assume they won't be persecuted if they infringe.
Guess what? With the market going into a recession, however slight, these companies (which sell "frills" that are only in really high demand in times of prosperity) are going to start feeling a sqeeze. Which means their shareholders will start demanding more profit, which (in turn) will result in even more draconian licensing policies and lashing out at anyone who violates them in a mad grab for cash. Sounds unlikely? Its already happening, on a small scale, with visits from the secret software police to businesses suspected of infringement.
If not, then how were Sony allowed to get away with this argument?
Because when Sony says "jump", every government I can think of asks "Where to, how high, and do you want my clothes off first?". Remember when they got the Japanese government to ban PS2 export because "it could be used as a weapons guidance device"? (Duh. So could a 386.)
Re:This is what happens....
on
Loki Games Closing?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What universe are you living in? I've never once seen a Loki game in stores. If I had, I would've snapped it up immidiately. Unfortunately, I don't order games online much, if at all. I buy games that look interesting in the store, when I have some free money and free time. Since I can't predict either ahead of time, having to wait weeks for a game to arrive just doesn't work.
That said, that wasn't Loki's fault. Most gaming stores believe that all gamers run Windows (or, even worse recently, that all gamers use consoles), and thus don't want to stock Linux games because there's no market for them. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No desktop success because no games -> no market for games -> no games stocked -> back to square one.
The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology.
No, the reason I do not use MS Office is not ideology, though I will admit I don't exactly like the various crimes Microsoft has committed. (And they have broken the law, the justice department's just decided to look the other way) The primary reason, though, is financial. A new copy of O2K is, what? $500? I'm sorry, but I just can't afford that. And I can't afford computers that bundle it, which is why I build my own.
And since its illegal for me to buy a copy of older versions of office, I'm rather effectively screwed, aren't I? (As selling a copy of Office you own is illegal, right?)
Also the determination of "primary usage" appears to be up to the plaintiff.
Well, that's stupid. I hereby declare that the primary usege of all computing equipment is to perpetrate crimes against me, and therefore, it must all now be turned over to my control. More legislation from those who bought us the laws/regulations that say that the litigator in a domain name dispute gets to choose where the case is tried.
In the case of the DMCA, this is especially dangerous. Why? Because it says that making, distributing, or describing a device whose primary usage is to circumvent copy control technologies is illegal. So the plaintiff gets to say what is and is not primarily used as a circumvention device. And can thus make any technology illegal.
Also note that, as I said above, Norway has no DMCA-like law. Since JLJ is a Norwegian citizen, applying an American law to him (which is what the MPAA tried to do when they ordered him arrested two years ago) is Just Plain Stupid.
"While it shouldn't be inherently illegal to slice and dice vegitables for legitimate purposes, that's not how kitchen knives are being used, the majority of the time. It sucks, but it's true. To many people, it has EVERYTHING to do with killing. Thus, kitchen knives should be banned and those who make them locked away."
Now, does that argument make any sense for banning kitchen knives? No. The creator of something should not be held legally accountable for what people twist their creation to do. If a terrorist uses a VISA credit card to slit someone's throat, should VISA be punished for the murder? No. Are manufacturers of CD-ROM drives punished for the copyright infringement committed by people who read CDs with their drives?
JLJ did not create DeCSS for the purposes of copyright infringement. While some people may have twisted it to that purpose, JLJ should not be punished for their actions.
Never mind that the entire argument being used for this case is void. When you buy a DVD, you buy the DVD - the disk, the packaging, and a copy of the work. In Norway, at least, where they do not yet have an equivalen to the DMCA, you are still allowed to do anything you want with your property. (Except distribute copies)
Well, that's curious. Konqueror renders twice the pages correctly in half the time that Mozilla does. And loads faster. And has a more appealing default interface. And browses the web, as opposed to reading mail and news, providing an IRC client, and making my morning coffee.
Ah. So despite claiming that, under the GUI, OSX is a traditional, powerful Unix system, Apple has really disabled all the truely powerful Unix tools? He doesn't want it to work his way, he wants it to work the standard POSIX way. Which, according to Apple's marketing, it should. Its not the setup procedure he's used to, its one that every single Unix machine uses to mount NFS volumes.
Looks like OSX is just a lot of hype, just like WinXP. Guess the consumer software industry will never change.
Even scarier - what if the credit card brokerage is prevented from telling anyone about the security breach because it would mean that knowledge of the existance of a hole was made public?
There are many reasons for a few select people to not like you, least of which is incompetance.
In fact, from what I've seen, the opposite is true. The incompetant manage to gather huge crowds of people who like them and are willing to support them. And those who are competant, especially those who are very competant, tend to be universally hated.
Wow. Someone's a little bit biased. Look at your memory usage figures, sometime. I find that KDE programs running with the DE loaded take up far fewer resources than equivalent GNOME programs doing the same thing. Compare Konqueror to Nautillus/Mozilla. Or Kmail to Evolution.
Debian Testing gives you an option for that when you're setting up the X server, IIRC. I think Potato did too, but I'm not sure. Its been a long time since I installed Potato. Load time with the 2.2.2 Debian KDE packages has also dropped way down, even from 2.2.1. I think they may be using nonstandard compile options, but it runs very nicely. Even on "only" a P3/600 with 256 megs RAM. The fonts look nice, even without anti-aliasing.
I find it far nicer than WM ever was. I can configure key bindings for just about everything. The config tool actually lets me configure everything about the environment, not a just few things (and for everything else, go to the config file).
One thing that's always puzzled me about "Unix" style windowmanagers. If they're written for programmers, then why do they require you to remove your hands from the keyboard to do just about everything? Windows lets you use keyboard shortcuts for almost anything, and so does KDE. So why does everyone else require you to use the mouse?
Especially since you've got a nice GUI interface that provides most of the major features - LyX. Works amazingly well - I've been using it for assignments all year, and its far less of a bother than Word.
a lot of professors demand closed file formats for assignments to be electronically filed.
I've never had a professor do that. Most demand either plain-text or (shudder) hard-copy. If a professor did demand that I submit an assignment in a Microsoft-only format, I'd be taking it to the Dean. After all, not every student there can afford $500+ for all the various bits of Microsoft software and the hardware upgrades you'll need to use them. And since we can't access that same software remotely due to Microsoft's EULAs...
Of course, this is all assuming we want to do things legally. But if I went to the Dean on this topic and he started advocating software piracy, you can bet that my next call would be to Microsoft's goon squads. Nothing focuses the mind quite like a large group of heavily armed lawyers knocking at your door and threatening you with dire legal penalties if you don't co-operate.
One people realize the strange behaviors are a harbinger of talent, those types of people will eventually gain acceptance.
You seem awfully optimistic. I'd say that once people realize this, you can expect people with strange behaviors to be discriminated against more, not less. People are already uncomfortable with talented individuals, if you haven't noticed. And while geeks may be 'cool' in movies and fiction, in real life, most people still consider geeks to be a class of person to be shunned.
You make an interesting point... Now that Russia's done this, how long do you think its going to take for the US, UK, etc. to start adding ships like this to their fleets?
Now, the real question is, what happens when all warships are like this? After all, if radar and sonar are the only real way to spot ships at sea, and you are visible to them and your opponent isn't, you're kind of screwed. Especially if the ships in question can still move at a decent speed and mount missiles like this one has? If all, or even most, warships were virtually invisible to radar, what would that do to naval warfare doctrine?
(SSSCA could have applied to everything with a data input and a microprocessor)
The SSSCA would've applied to ANYTHING with a digital logic gate. I don't recall seeing anything about processors or state machines in there. It was just anything "digital".
Yes, exactly. The big difference is that, if I'm paying $500+ for a word processor (Microsoft Office), I expect it to be a fscking word processor. If it does not operate as advertised, I want to sue the person who said it did. Thus, said statement is a very bad thing.
OTOH, its reasonable for a GPLed or BSD licensed piece of software. If you're getting it for free, what do you have to complain about?
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, we even get frontpage stories about the latest anime DVDs to come out.
Why should we boycott anime DVDs? Most of the publishers aren't members of the MPAA, and don't pay DVD CCA dues. (The exception being Manga, who generally carries only the really bad stuff anyway) Many anime DVDs don't even use macrovision or encryption, and the North American releases generally aren't region-coded.
I'd say these are the kinds of DVDs we should be buying, to show that we're willing to support companies that don't place ludicrous restrictions on their "intellectual property".
Actually, to be a big player in the console industry, you just have to have Japan. Most console games are developed in Japan, or if not, they're at least developed with a Japanese audience in mind. All of the really good console games for the past five years or so have come from there, with the exception of Rare's games. IIRC, the Sega Saturn managed to hang on there and made Sega quite a nice chunk of money even after it flopped in NA.
Remember that with the 2.3.x series, the release of 2.4.x was somewhat rushed. Why? Because not enough people were testing. Linus couldn't make any further improvements without a wider base of testers, but people just weren't willing to "risk" an "unstable" kernel. So we got 2.4.x before it was really ready, causing a lot of general complaints and confusion.
With Slashdot announcing most major (?) 2.5.x releases, I think they're probably hoping that more people will be curious enough to try them out. The more different systems and use conditions it gets tested under, the more solid the final release will be.
So now its "immature and childish" to write an e-mail message containing a line beginning with the word "begin"? I suppose its also "immature and childish" to insist that Microsoft fix this bug and follow standards? Or that Windows users not persist in sending me Word document after Word document for even the most routine communication, even after repeatedly being asked to use plain-text or HTML attachments?
Interesting definition of childish, there. I know when I was five years old, I spent my time doing nothing but sending e-mail consisting entirely of "begin" to random people. And complaining about Microsoft's wierd proprietary "standards".Yup, yup.
As for his mailing list, its his list. There are numerous lists and sites out there that are "Microsoft-only", which those of us who can't afford Microsoft software are blocked from accessing. Turnabout is, as they say, fair play.
Ah, that would be the problem. Yes, that's a common difficulty with New York residents. You don't seem to realize that your city is in on a different plane of existance. Probably a lower one. ;)
This tendency you mention is a side-effect of the monopolies that exist in these areas. When large companies are buying software for servers (not desktops, see below), they're often given much more fair licensing terms. Why? Because there's competition. Microsoft, Sun, IBM, and maybe a half-dozen other players, depending on what exactly you're shopping for. Same goes for hardware.
In the consumer desktop arena? Much less choice. Microsoft gets to dictate the terms for the operating system and office suite. Or you can not buy it and not be able to work with the rest of the planet. Hardware "standards"? Same - if it doesn't work with Windows, most will consider it "broken". Which is why copy protection's going to be so hard to fight - if Windows doesn't work with unprotected hard disks, they're "broken" in the minds of those who don't care about the technical details.
The same applies to the "entertainment" industry. Music? RIAA. Movies? MPAA. (Or their arms in other countries) Gaming consoles? Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Not much competition there, especially since they're all in collusion on this point. And game publishers have no choice - they have to go through one of the above. (And many are now owned or otherwise controlled by one of the above anyway)
Though its not just the monopoly. The organizations above have been lying to consumers for years - "You don't have to worry about learning how the technology works!" "Trust the black box - it'll do everything for you!" "No, no, no. Its ok! Those licensing terms are normal for software. They're the only way we can hope to make money!" Sound familiar? By now, people are so brainwashed that they don't even consider that these might be lies. Or they ignore the EULAs anyway, and assume they won't be persecuted if they infringe.
Guess what? With the market going into a recession, however slight, these companies (which sell "frills" that are only in really high demand in times of prosperity) are going to start feeling a sqeeze. Which means their shareholders will start demanding more profit, which (in turn) will result in even more draconian licensing policies and lashing out at anyone who violates them in a mad grab for cash. Sounds unlikely? Its already happening, on a small scale, with visits from the secret software police to businesses suspected of infringement.
If not, then how were Sony allowed to get away with this argument?
Because when Sony says "jump", every government I can think of asks "Where to, how high, and do you want my clothes off first?". Remember when they got the Japanese government to ban PS2 export because "it could be used as a weapons guidance device"? (Duh. So could a 386.)
What universe are you living in? I've never once seen a Loki game in stores. If I had, I would've snapped it up immidiately. Unfortunately, I don't order games online much, if at all. I buy games that look interesting in the store, when I have some free money and free time. Since I can't predict either ahead of time, having to wait weeks for a game to arrive just doesn't work.
That said, that wasn't Loki's fault. Most gaming stores believe that all gamers run Windows (or, even worse recently, that all gamers use consoles), and thus don't want to stock Linux games because there's no market for them. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No desktop success because no games -> no market for games -> no games stocked -> back to square one.
Its Carnage4Life. If you've ever seen anything he's posted on K5, you know that he's either a professional Troll, or still in the pay of Microsoft.
The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology.
No, the reason I do not use MS Office is not ideology, though I will admit I don't exactly like the various crimes Microsoft has committed. (And they have broken the law, the justice department's just decided to look the other way) The primary reason, though, is financial. A new copy of O2K is, what? $500? I'm sorry, but I just can't afford that. And I can't afford computers that bundle it, which is why I build my own.
And since its illegal for me to buy a copy of older versions of office, I'm rather effectively screwed, aren't I? (As selling a copy of Office you own is illegal, right?)
Also the determination of "primary usage" appears to be up to the plaintiff.
Well, that's stupid. I hereby declare that the primary usege of all computing equipment is to perpetrate crimes against me, and therefore, it must all now be turned over to my control. More legislation from those who bought us the laws/regulations that say that the litigator in a domain name dispute gets to choose where the case is tried.
In the case of the DMCA, this is especially dangerous. Why? Because it says that making, distributing, or describing a device whose primary usage is to circumvent copy control technologies is illegal. So the plaintiff gets to say what is and is not primarily used as a circumvention device. And can thus make any technology illegal.
Also note that, as I said above, Norway has no DMCA-like law. Since JLJ is a Norwegian citizen, applying an American law to him (which is what the MPAA tried to do when they ordered him arrested two years ago) is Just Plain Stupid.
"While it shouldn't be inherently illegal to slice and dice vegitables for legitimate purposes, that's not how kitchen knives are being used, the majority of the time. It sucks, but it's true. To many people, it has EVERYTHING to do with killing. Thus, kitchen knives should be banned and those who make them locked away."
Now, does that argument make any sense for banning kitchen knives? No. The creator of something should not be held legally accountable for what people twist their creation to do. If a terrorist uses a VISA credit card to slit someone's throat, should VISA be punished for the murder? No. Are manufacturers of CD-ROM drives punished for the copyright infringement committed by people who read CDs with their drives?
JLJ did not create DeCSS for the purposes of copyright infringement. While some people may have twisted it to that purpose, JLJ should not be punished for their actions.
Never mind that the entire argument being used for this case is void. When you buy a DVD, you buy the DVD - the disk, the packaging, and a copy of the work. In Norway, at least, where they do not yet have an equivalen to the DMCA, you are still allowed to do anything you want with your property. (Except distribute copies)
Well, that's curious. Konqueror renders twice the pages correctly in half the time that Mozilla does. And loads faster. And has a more appealing default interface. And browses the web, as opposed to reading mail and news, providing an IRC client, and making my morning coffee.
Ah. So despite claiming that, under the GUI, OSX is a traditional, powerful Unix system, Apple has really disabled all the truely powerful Unix tools? He doesn't want it to work his way, he wants it to work the standard POSIX way. Which, according to Apple's marketing, it should. Its not the setup procedure he's used to, its one that every single Unix machine uses to mount NFS volumes.
Looks like OSX is just a lot of hype, just like WinXP. Guess the consumer software industry will never change.
Even scarier - what if the credit card brokerage is prevented from telling anyone about the security breach because it would mean that knowledge of the existance of a hole was made public?
There are many reasons for a few select people to not like you, least of which is incompetance.
In fact, from what I've seen, the opposite is true. The incompetant manage to gather huge crowds of people who like them and are willing to support them. And those who are competant, especially those who are very competant, tend to be universally hated.
And whatever you do, DON't run KDE apps!
Wow. Someone's a little bit biased. Look at your memory usage figures, sometime. I find that KDE programs running with the DE loaded take up far fewer resources than equivalent GNOME programs doing the same thing. Compare Konqueror to Nautillus/Mozilla. Or Kmail to Evolution.
Debian Testing gives you an option for that when you're setting up the X server, IIRC. I think Potato did too, but I'm not sure. Its been a long time since I installed Potato. Load time with the 2.2.2 Debian KDE packages has also dropped way down, even from 2.2.1. I think they may be using nonstandard compile options, but it runs very nicely. Even on "only" a P3/600 with 256 megs RAM. The fonts look nice, even without anti-aliasing.
I find it far nicer than WM ever was. I can configure key bindings for just about everything. The config tool actually lets me configure everything about the environment, not a just few things (and for everything else, go to the config file).
One thing that's always puzzled me about "Unix" style windowmanagers. If they're written for programmers, then why do they require you to remove your hands from the keyboard to do just about everything? Windows lets you use keyboard shortcuts for almost anything, and so does KDE. So why does everyone else require you to use the mouse?
(why would you want to do it at the CLI when you they bundle such excellent DevTools?)
I don't know. Easy scripting? Familiarity? Simplicity? Not wanting to have to take one's hands off the keyboard to use the mouse all the time?
Its a matter of personal preference, and (AFAIK), OSX provides both options.
Especially since you've got a nice GUI interface that provides most of the major features - LyX. Works amazingly well - I've been using it for assignments all year, and its far less of a bother than Word.
a lot of professors demand closed file formats for assignments to be electronically filed.
I've never had a professor do that. Most demand either plain-text or (shudder) hard-copy. If a professor did demand that I submit an assignment in a Microsoft-only format, I'd be taking it to the Dean. After all, not every student there can afford $500+ for all the various bits of Microsoft software and the hardware upgrades you'll need to use them. And since we can't access that same software remotely due to Microsoft's EULAs...
Of course, this is all assuming we want to do things legally. But if I went to the Dean on this topic and he started advocating software piracy, you can bet that my next call would be to Microsoft's goon squads. Nothing focuses the mind quite like a large group of heavily armed lawyers knocking at your door and threatening you with dire legal penalties if you don't co-operate.
One people realize the strange behaviors are a harbinger of talent, those types of people will eventually gain acceptance.
You seem awfully optimistic. I'd say that once people realize this, you can expect people with strange behaviors to be discriminated against more, not less. People are already uncomfortable with talented individuals, if you haven't noticed. And while geeks may be 'cool' in movies and fiction, in real life, most people still consider geeks to be a class of person to be shunned.
You make an interesting point... Now that Russia's done this, how long do you think its going to take for the US, UK, etc. to start adding ships like this to their fleets?
Now, the real question is, what happens when all warships are like this? After all, if radar and sonar are the only real way to spot ships at sea, and you are visible to them and your opponent isn't, you're kind of screwed. Especially if the ships in question can still move at a decent speed and mount missiles like this one has? If all, or even most, warships were virtually invisible to radar, what would that do to naval warfare doctrine?
(SSSCA could have applied to everything with a data input and a microprocessor)
The SSSCA would've applied to ANYTHING with a digital logic gate. I don't recall seeing anything about processors or state machines in there. It was just anything "digital".
Yes, exactly. The big difference is that, if I'm paying $500+ for a word processor (Microsoft Office), I expect it to be a fscking word processor. If it does not operate as advertised, I want to sue the person who said it did. Thus, said statement is a very bad thing.
OTOH, its reasonable for a GPLed or BSD licensed piece of software. If you're getting it for free, what do you have to complain about?