That's still vague. What's the hiccup? It looks like RMS has no ideological problem with this license.
The terms, "non-copyleft" say it all and that is an ideological problem. When you release your work under a non-copy left license, you allow other to take your work without giving anything back to you or anyone else. They might not even have to give you credit when asked. At the same time, they do not have to share the work with those who use their closed source binaries. In the worst of all cases, they make money by screwing your potential users and then use that money to screw you with bogus patents, FUD, and other anti-competitive nonsense. It is free software but it is not the best thing for you to do to your neighbors or yourself.
Who are you helping with a non copyleft license and why do you want to do that? Who do you hurt with a copyright license?
Andi's statement, "Most of PHP's user base are people that are using PHP to make a living and they wouldn't care less." is more a self furfilling prophecy than anything else. I was unaware of the issue before this, but thought that php was really cool. Now I have to think a little more about it.
The press release you link to states quite clearly that McDonalds does not allow the use of "downer" cows.
I used the McDonalds site for creditility. It is an admission on their part to a practice that every dairy farmer was aware of. Would you have believed me or some vegan site about it? It's also only fair of me to have been current and to give the devil his due, they no longer use "downer cows" It was news to me, but I'm not impressed nor does it make much difference about what I said.
Now their dairy cows have to be "ambulatory". The decision was made recently in response to media attention to mad cow disease. I doubt seriously this made a real quality difference as it still allows them to use ill dairy cows as long as they can walk into the knacker's wagon. The result tastes about the same to me. Processed fat and gristle, are you loving it yet?
In any case, I stand behind the analogy and the assertion that a pure "service" economy based on IP ownership is nonsense. The use of McDonalds was rhetorical, and designed to equate the skills required to "administrate" someone else's software to bugger flipping. There's more to it than that, of course, but it's not like you can use such skills to challenge Oracle, M$ or other software companies. The McDonald's worker, in this regard, is better equipped and more free than the administrator. I know people someone who has done very well creating food franchises. You may have heard of Rally's, Chart House and a few other of his creations. As far as I know, no one has yet patented business methods involved with food like they have with software. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it's illegal to compete with McDonalds.
If my company in New Zealand, or Canada, or wherever, made a billion dollars in the states, and decided it was time to open up a US office,would be out sourcing?
If your company made 600 jobs in another country, then fired everyone but a handful of lawyers and marketing people in your country, you could conclude that your company had moved your job overseas.
If your company also had a bunch of bogus patents and other "IP", your unemployment might be indefinite. Try a year or two of it and tell me I'm greedy.
Don't worry too much about it, though, New Zealand companies won't have the chance to screw you. The outsourcing game is based on IP ownership, ultimately backed by military might. If you can work as cheaply as Communist slave labor, your US IP masters will be happy to consume your life. What, you did not understand that "stronger" "IP protection" laws passed by the world's only superpower are not ultimately for the benefit of people in New Zealand? Think about it while you watch US movies, listen to US music and I get none from you, and when your PC BIOS will only run software owned in the US but written in India, China or New Zealand.
Dell's a good example of how excellent US industry can be if you shrug off yesterday's models and try to be genuinely different and quality-focussed, instead of regressive and protectionist.
Dell operates on the same model as McDonald's. They do a little QC on the cheapest crap they can get their hands on and advertise. Most people, it seems, have been happy eating "downer cows". That and an economy built on pure service might be good enough for you, but I want the freedom to do more.
If you complain about outsourcing you're merely buying into politician's agendas... Make great stuff and you don't need protectionism. And if you really value a free market, restrictions should be the last thing on your minds anyway.
No, I don't buy it and yes I demand free markets.
The real protectionism is in "IP" laws. Restrictive licensing prevents people from actually rating Oracle's databases so comparison is impossible. Worse, I can't compete against Oracle if they get a bunch of bogus software patents. It is only that kind of government protection that makes the logistic headaches of outsourcing possible. In a free economy, most of the current big dumb companies would have been toppled by smaller smarter competition long ago.
As it is, the big dumb companies survive and feed off each other. The average American worker continues to suffer M$ desktops, mergers and layoffs while their overpaid executives pad their salaries with bonuses from all the money they have "saved" by eliminating their competition, auction proceeds and offshoring. The whole thing is a crock and represents the end of a long corporate looting spree.
The "service" economy was a lie. The US will quickly become a backwater if it fails to make things other people want. Some people were dumb enough to think that we could simply provide the world with "brains". The definition of "brains" is swiftly being reduced to ownership of ideas that citizens of other countries are increasingly having.
The ownership strategy is ultimately bankrupt. It amounts to enslavement of the rest of the world, a very unAmerican idea to begin with. It's also impractical. Our ability to level ownership taxes will die as other countries inherit and improve our former technical excellence.
The hogs running US mega corp and the US government could care less. They are getting theirs while the rest of us are getting the shaft.
Looks crazy to me, buggy and complicated too. I thought that TWAIN was supposed to do that to begin with. So typical of Microsoft. How nice it would be if they knew how to separate a protocol from a driver.
The only people worrying about K's everywhere are in Redmond. Everyone else just wants their camera to work.
In an open source world everyone can customize the software to suite their needs so you sacrifice Consistency and Usability for Flexibility. Advanced users are happy but novices loose out.
This seems to be the theme of much of this discusion, but it's bogus. KDE's interface is far more consistent than M$'s and anyone can use it's elements. The result is going to get better not worse.
I just don't get the issue. The author pulls his hair out because of one menue item in Konqueror that I've never seen? It's like saying you can't live in a mansion because there's a dead rat in the yard. Sure, the problem should be fixed, but the it's trivial and has nothing to do with the whole user experience.
Free software already has a better user interface than M$ does. Here's a list of the kind of consistency that KDE gives me that other software does not:
digikam - no matter what kind of camera or scanner I have, digikam gets and organizes my pictures the same way. The same thing applies to all devices under KDE, especially hand held computers. In the commercial world, every device comes with some dinky do-it-all software that does nothing well, won't work with anything else and obsoletes the device itself.
menus - Menus are far more consistent under KDE than they are elswhere. I'm looking at Kontact and Konqueror and I see most of the same items and they do mostly the same thing. There has not been that much change since KDE 2 at least. Getting the same thing done with M$'s illogical and control freak interface is an ever shifting pain in the ass.
clipboards - I can cut and paste and drag and drop just about anything under KDE. It works across ssh X forwarding. Try that with Windoze.
Konqueror itself. It kicks IE's ass hands down and is much easier to use.
Sure, developers should strive for "usability", but saying that they don't is an unwarranted slap in the face. Users of all sorts have been losing out on M$'s junk for years now.
[graphic designers] who work at coffee shops don't have enough time/money to spend on OpenSource stuff.
Like they have enough money to keep up with Adobe and Apple? The designers I know are bummed out that they can't afford the software they were trained on in school. Introducing your favorite graphic designer to free software would be the biggest favor you could do for them.
Oh yeah, doing a little free design work is one way for an up and coming designer to get exposure. They don't need to write howtos for anyone.
assumptions are bad for you, but so is opposition.
on
1984 Comes To Boston
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· Score: 1
People do NOT have a right of privacy in public. This is nothing new. This is NOT 1984! 1984 is government cameras in your home.
You assume that these cameras will not point where people live. Why? There are well know instances of cameras being installed that looked directly into people's houses.
Assides from that, this is obviously something new. Cameras are much cheaper and more effective at abusive practices than policemen are. Cameras can be used to keep tabs on political opposition and can be concealed in ways that no undercover agent can. The spirit of 1984 is that Big Brother is watching you. In downtown Boston, that is true.
As your tax dollars were spent on this, you might ask why and how effective it will be at it's stated purpose. In the UK, the stated purpose was anti-terrorism and then crime prevention. Neither of those has been effectively demonstrated.
This touches on another Big Brother aspect of camera deployment, oligarchy. There's never been a ground swell of people requesting such services. I can't imagine a place where cameras would actually be voted in by a majority of the population, I've never heard a politician mention them before an election nor are they part of anyone's campaign. Decisions are being made without asking the public. If you disagree, you might find your movements in public watched.
USB and Bluetooth just to talk to your car radio? Give me a break.
My $15 "Road Gear" radio from Walmart does better. On the front, it has a simple headphone style in jack, so that the amp can be used by anything that has a headphone output. When you consider that it would be best to have a wire going to your device to keep it charged, why would you want a wireless interface or go through all the trouble of USB. All you want the dash unit to do is drive your speakers.
M$ and "standard" don't belong in the same sentence. This scheme has all the complications of Winmodems, the security of Winblows and benefits of DRM. I'll pass, thanks, and it's one more reason I won't even look at a FIAT when I want to buy a car.
Freedom above everything else is the university motto.
That's a good university, I'm sorry that they decided to move to compulsory computer administration. Scanning software for email is a big deal. Do I really want your half baked program deciding what mail I get? No. Turning on and off software on other people's machines is bad. Do I want you using my machine to block ports? No. Of course, I don't need that kind of thing, nor would your nasty little tools work, because I don't run Winblows.
There's a big difference between making a tool available and giving people a choice to use it and what you advocated above. I'd consider my email and computer owned by you if you did those things to me.
Moreover, I know that the steps you mention don't really do anything for security. All of those bandaids are nothing more than an inconvenience to the end user. The cracker, as has been so amply demonstrated in the last few months, goes on as before. Faculty at your University might understand better than you think that they will get little in return for your efforts and theirs.
You will be punished for asking. There's no way any University would ever grant you permission to do what these students did. They will deny permission, tell you it can't be done and then treat you like you had done it anyway.
It's better, if they are to be punished, for them to have made their point.
Let me turn it to the real world. Suppose I break in your house (something I'm sure I could easily do, 99.999% of houses have shitty physical security) look at your things to see what I could get at, then tell you about it later. Is that ok? I mean I didn't hurt anything, and I gave you a report, so it;s ok right? Wrong, it's not ok, I broke the law.
Ahh, but most people know that their houses are not secure and take further steps. Valuables and sensitive information is hidden or placed in a safe or safe deposit box. Most people do not know how insecure their M$ crap is.
This isn't a matter up for debate, it's the law
Laws should follow morals, not the other way around. Most computer laws are poorly crafted and are mostly protection for crappy software makers. It would be better for laws to do what they say and protect who they should.
... most of the shit is just because people are not security conscious.
Obviously, now. Before hand, how could they have shown it?
White-hat my ass, they didn't ask for permission to crack the system first; they did it, THEN told them they did it, how easy it was and oh yea, it was for altruistic purposes.
I hate to disturb your dream here, but asking permission might have made life difficult. The point of the exercise was that anyone could do it, not anyone being watched closely. It's impossible for Oxford to closely watch everyone.
Sure, it was done altruistically. People with different motivation have been and continue to do the same things. They reported the problems they noticed so that other students would know what not to trust on campus.
I'm sure that you have thought of this yourself, but you might try charging local libraries a fee for the right to republish your content. You could demand that they serve current advertisements that you charge for. The more subtle benefit to your newspaper is that you recoup your newspaper's trust by distributed and checkable storage. I imagine you might find 1000 libraries willing to store and host your content for $100/year.
The only problem you might have is with AP content. Then again, $100,000 might pays for enough reporters to get some national material of your own if you don't already have it.
How would you like to have a newspaper that's more trusted and with it than the New York Times?
The New York Times deserves it's poor ranking for being stupid as do most newspapers. They greedily seek to own their content in a way they could not before but such ownership destroys their own authority. They and other large publishers, ironically, got themselves into the mess with 100 year copyright laws they though would be to their advantage. They need to voluntarily abandon that "protection" if they wish to remain relevant. They will be replaced by those who have the common sense to realize that you can only trust things that you can legally share.
The nature of electronic publication has blurred the line between storage and publication. Newpapers fear that they won't be able to generate subscription income if anyone could get the same content in their home from the local library. They rightly consider traditional library storage to be a republication when it's done electronically. It can be just the same or even better than the newspaper can provide itself.
The paid archive solution is a greedy, stupid and misguided answer. I don't trust it, no matter how "good" a newspaper you are talking about. Traditional newspapers were authoritative because of their distributed storage. They might be wrong when they report the news, but that is worlds better than a single entity having big brother like ability to change what they say. Without this independent storage, the trust is lost. They seek to use new copyright law powers to get more than ever out of subscriptions, a traditionally small portion of their revenues, without realizing that this destroys their credibility. There are plenty of solutions that are not so stupid and greedy.
Some measure of trust can be recouped by allowing libraries to store the information and then "republish" it on the internet after a reasonable amount of time. 17 years, the original copyright period, might is short enough to assure social relevancy. People would like to stored NYT articles on Watergate, Ronald Reagan and other more recent events. If a newspaper wants it's relevancy back, it can trade some of it's copyright power and subscription revenue for it.
A complementary solution is to charge a reasonable subscription fee to the library itself and rely more on advertising revenue. The agreement could specify that the local library must serve current advertisements with old copy. That's an approach that no print can take and it increases their readership in a way that increases the value of the advertising.
This small newspaper could do very well this way. Their largest subscription came from their sports archives at $90/year and 1,000 subscribers. I'm sure that they could coax an equal or greater amount of fees from an equal number of libraries around the country. Everyone would win.
As things stand, everyone looses. I don't trust the newspapers as a source. I've got more trust in Slashdot as an archive because they let Google and others archive their content for independent confirmation. Every single library should have an internet archive. Without it, we are all forced back on books published by interested parties who have inside information but have no way to check them. Other people might save articles, recordings of speeches and newscasts and then publish a book, but it's worthless to me because I can't independently check their sources because they can't share them.
The BBC's Washington correspondent has a story about a "web of terrorism" today. It's a clear call for internet censorship, which will clearly benefit incumbent service providers at the expense of the web and freedom of speech.
People in Washington and elsewhere have noticed that terrorists use the internet in much the same way they do. They point to web sites and even combat games used as "online training camps".
More stupid laws can't be far behind a propaganda ramp up like that. The only way to implement the censorship that would be to continue to centralize telecommunications further. The only way to kill free speech is to kill free enterprise.
The pattern is clear. The government is augmenting it's own power by proping up favorites in industry. It's so unAmerican that I want to throw up.
Do you think that this article would have had a snowball's chance in hell of being posted if it wasn't tied into the Free Software Religion in some way? Blame the editors who won't take it upon themselves to edit.
Religion? Yeah, whatever. You seem to forget that Slashdot is primarily concerned with free, open software and user rights. No, I'll bet you just want to tweak people.
Editors who won't edit? You'd be angry if they put in their two cents, right?
In any case, this is a good article. It's the kind of thing everyone who writes software or deals with customers who use software or even simply uses software should read. It's about bad practices and comes from a genuinely frustrated, typical but articulate user. While Microsoft won't and can't fix the problem, free software can and has. Prbably because free software developers have the sense to admit such problems and to try to fix them and the numbers needed to do it right.
I'll agree that most users would be better off buying a Mac than a brand name PC. It's always been the case that the brand name PC costs as much or more once you add all the goodies you get with the Mac. Mac, since Jobs came back, has earned it's price especially with their laptops. Those who don't mind having a software master are well ruled by Apple.
Those, like Mr. Stowell, who simply want their old computer to work and do all the things it used to might give free software a spin. Most people are pleasantly surprised to see their old computer come alive again with Knoppix. Windoze PCs that won't boot anymore are great for such demonstrations. Mepis is the easiest of the Debian based free beer distribution I know of to install. Sarge is not much more difficult and is cleaner as well as more free as liberty. People on a budget will be happy that their old PC once again plays games they love with sound they can turn off.
Microsoft is not mentioned because the author has no experience outside of it and imagines that 90% of his readers will agree with him. The summary is right on target.
The connection with free software is that free software can and is doing better. Commercial software is stuck with the results of their feature wars, licensing issues and Microsoft's own tendency to break competitor's software. They can't escape and their resources are dwindling. Free software is free of all of the above and has a far larger developer base making better software. The difference is starting to show in most areas that count.
why would Microsoft not satisfying their customer base suddenly make free software easy to use?
It does not, but that's not what he said. What he said was that Microsoft had not satisfied Thomas Sowell, who's typical of Microsoft's customers. I'll be the one to tell you that free software does exactly what Sowell wants in most cases.
Mr. Sowell is typical. I've been doing computer retail repair and sales on and off since 1989 and his plight is common. Microsoft interfaces have become more complex and periodic shifting of the elements has been more confusing than simplifying. Additional complication comes from Microsoft's attempts to quash competitors and proprietary practices in general. Each device, such as cameras, comes with it's own complete and unique interface. AOL has to pack everything it's users might want onto a whole CD and use the lowest level calls possible to avoid breakage. The user is left with no choice but to use a horribly fragmented interface that changes completely every two years. Believe me, half of Stowell's grief is that his old applications don't work anymore.
It does not matter how well educated or patient the user is, feature creep has made Microsoft difficult to use. Just recently, Slashdot ran this a developer article on M$ Money. No matter how much you know about computers or accounting, M$ Money is more difficult than it needs to be. I've seen Engineers pull their hair out over issues like this. Most people have simply given up and come to expect less of their computers or thrown them away.
Now, that does not make free software easier to use, but free software developers never had the same problems their commercial peers have and there are great success stories. Complex software can be difficult to use, like Blender. It can also be easy and powerful, like GNU Cash is. GNU cash, though it has currency conversion, mortgage accounts, stock accounts and just about every thing you can think of, has a simple checking account that works. The other stuff does not get in the way, though the user is tempted to try it out. KDE is another success story and studdies have shown it's as easy to use as XP. That's fantastic because the KDE interface comes with many more possible customizations and features. Camera usage under KDE through digikam, puts commercial software to shame. Sound recording and play, despite terrific resistance from hardware makers, is now as easy as loading up Knoppix and following the menus and double clicking. No further CDs or installs are required. I expect the difference between free software and commercial cruft will be more and more like the current success stories.
The person who said that "free software can't make an easy to use interface" was just as wrong as the person who said the same thing about kernels, operating systems and user programs and "business" software.
If this were a step foward, I'd be behind them all the way, but it's nothing but engineering masturbation-- Neato to accomplish but utterly fucking useless.
My wife's 40 MPG Honda does better because engine tweaking leaned through "engineering masturbation". Hybrid vehicles do even better. Now, wash your mouth out with GoJo.
IE works, it does some things well... IE has links directly into the OS which make the vulnerabilities.
Dillo works about as well as IE and better in some ways. Those ways being that it won't root your system, unless you port it to M$ and open yourself to the same kinds of bugs that get other programs like M$ Word. Oh wait, does this mean that Word "links directly into the OS"? Nah, it means the OS is a piece of poop, just like the browser. IE does nothing that other browsers don't do and it does what it does poorly. Windoze also does less than other OS and does what it does poorly.
You would have to have your head screwed on backward to not see the differences.
At the end of it's corporate life, the machine is wiped clean despite the sticker, and sold with no OS. They are counting on the buyer to go out and buy a retail version of Winblows. This would be the third sale and count unless the user has enough sense to install Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
The terms, "non-copyleft" say it all and that is an ideological problem. When you release your work under a non-copy left license, you allow other to take your work without giving anything back to you or anyone else. They might not even have to give you credit when asked. At the same time, they do not have to share the work with those who use their closed source binaries. In the worst of all cases, they make money by screwing your potential users and then use that money to screw you with bogus patents, FUD, and other anti-competitive nonsense. It is free software but it is not the best thing for you to do to your neighbors or yourself.
Who are you helping with a non copyleft license and why do you want to do that? Who do you hurt with a copyright license?
Andi's statement, "Most of PHP's user base are people that are using PHP to make a living and they wouldn't care less." is more a self furfilling prophecy than anything else. I was unaware of the issue before this, but thought that php was really cool. Now I have to think a little more about it.
The press release you link to states quite clearly that McDonalds does not allow the use of "downer" cows.
I used the McDonalds site for creditility. It is an admission on their part to a practice that every dairy farmer was aware of. Would you have believed me or some vegan site about it? It's also only fair of me to have been current and to give the devil his due, they no longer use "downer cows" It was news to me, but I'm not impressed nor does it make much difference about what I said.
Now their dairy cows have to be "ambulatory". The decision was made recently in response to media attention to mad cow disease. I doubt seriously this made a real quality difference as it still allows them to use ill dairy cows as long as they can walk into the knacker's wagon. The result tastes about the same to me. Processed fat and gristle, are you loving it yet?
In any case, I stand behind the analogy and the assertion that a pure "service" economy based on IP ownership is nonsense. The use of McDonalds was rhetorical, and designed to equate the skills required to "administrate" someone else's software to bugger flipping. There's more to it than that, of course, but it's not like you can use such skills to challenge Oracle, M$ or other software companies. The McDonald's worker, in this regard, is better equipped and more free than the administrator. I know people someone who has done very well creating food franchises. You may have heard of Rally's, Chart House and a few other of his creations. As far as I know, no one has yet patented business methods involved with food like they have with software. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it's illegal to compete with McDonalds.
If your company made 600 jobs in another country, then fired everyone but a handful of lawyers and marketing people in your country, you could conclude that your company had moved your job overseas.
If your company also had a bunch of bogus patents and other "IP", your unemployment might be indefinite. Try a year or two of it and tell me I'm greedy.
Don't worry too much about it, though, New Zealand companies won't have the chance to screw you. The outsourcing game is based on IP ownership, ultimately backed by military might. If you can work as cheaply as Communist slave labor, your US IP masters will be happy to consume your life. What, you did not understand that "stronger" "IP protection" laws passed by the world's only superpower are not ultimately for the benefit of people in New Zealand? Think about it while you watch US movies, listen to US music and I get none from you, and when your PC BIOS will only run software owned in the US but written in India, China or New Zealand.
Dell operates on the same model as McDonald's. They do a little QC on the cheapest crap they can get their hands on and advertise. Most people, it seems, have been happy eating "downer cows". That and an economy built on pure service might be good enough for you, but I want the freedom to do more.
If you complain about outsourcing you're merely buying into politician's agendas ... Make great stuff and you don't need protectionism. And if you really value a free market, restrictions should be the last thing on your minds anyway.
No, I don't buy it and yes I demand free markets.
The real protectionism is in "IP" laws. Restrictive licensing prevents people from actually rating Oracle's databases so comparison is impossible. Worse, I can't compete against Oracle if they get a bunch of bogus software patents. It is only that kind of government protection that makes the logistic headaches of outsourcing possible. In a free economy, most of the current big dumb companies would have been toppled by smaller smarter competition long ago.
As it is, the big dumb companies survive and feed off each other. The average American worker continues to suffer M$ desktops, mergers and layoffs while their overpaid executives pad their salaries with bonuses from all the money they have "saved" by eliminating their competition, auction proceeds and offshoring. The whole thing is a crock and represents the end of a long corporate looting spree.
The "service" economy was a lie. The US will quickly become a backwater if it fails to make things other people want. Some people were dumb enough to think that we could simply provide the world with "brains". The definition of "brains" is swiftly being reduced to ownership of ideas that citizens of other countries are increasingly having.
The ownership strategy is ultimately bankrupt. It amounts to enslavement of the rest of the world, a very unAmerican idea to begin with. It's also impractical. Our ability to level ownership taxes will die as other countries inherit and improve our former technical excellence.
The hogs running US mega corp and the US government could care less. They are getting theirs while the rest of us are getting the shaft.
The only people worrying about K's everywhere are in Redmond. Everyone else just wants their camera to work.
This seems to be the theme of much of this discusion, but it's bogus. KDE's interface is far more consistent than M$'s and anyone can use it's elements. The result is going to get better not worse.
I just don't get the issue. The author pulls his hair out because of one menue item in Konqueror that I've never seen? It's like saying you can't live in a mansion because there's a dead rat in the yard. Sure, the problem should be fixed, but the it's trivial and has nothing to do with the whole user experience.
Free software already has a better user interface than M$ does. Here's a list of the kind of consistency that KDE gives me that other software does not:
Sure, developers should strive for "usability", but saying that they don't is an unwarranted slap in the face. Users of all sorts have been losing out on M$'s junk for years now.
Like they have enough money to keep up with Adobe and Apple? The designers I know are bummed out that they can't afford the software they were trained on in school. Introducing your favorite graphic designer to free software would be the biggest favor you could do for them.
Oh yeah, doing a little free design work is one way for an up and coming designer to get exposure. They don't need to write howtos for anyone.
You assume that these cameras will not point where people live. Why? There are well know instances of cameras being installed that looked directly into people's houses.
Assides from that, this is obviously something new. Cameras are much cheaper and more effective at abusive practices than policemen are. Cameras can be used to keep tabs on political opposition and can be concealed in ways that no undercover agent can. The spirit of 1984 is that Big Brother is watching you. In downtown Boston, that is true.
As your tax dollars were spent on this, you might ask why and how effective it will be at it's stated purpose. In the UK, the stated purpose was anti-terrorism and then crime prevention. Neither of those has been effectively demonstrated.
This touches on another Big Brother aspect of camera deployment, oligarchy. There's never been a ground swell of people requesting such services. I can't imagine a place where cameras would actually be voted in by a majority of the population, I've never heard a politician mention them before an election nor are they part of anyone's campaign. Decisions are being made without asking the public. If you disagree, you might find your movements in public watched.
My $15 "Road Gear" radio from Walmart does better. On the front, it has a simple headphone style in jack, so that the amp can be used by anything that has a headphone output. When you consider that it would be best to have a wire going to your device to keep it charged, why would you want a wireless interface or go through all the trouble of USB. All you want the dash unit to do is drive your speakers.
M$ and "standard" don't belong in the same sentence. This scheme has all the complications of Winmodems, the security of Winblows and benefits of DRM. I'll pass, thanks, and it's one more reason I won't even look at a FIAT when I want to buy a car.
That's a good university, I'm sorry that they decided to move to compulsory computer administration. Scanning software for email is a big deal. Do I really want your half baked program deciding what mail I get? No. Turning on and off software on other people's machines is bad. Do I want you using my machine to block ports? No. Of course, I don't need that kind of thing, nor would your nasty little tools work, because I don't run Winblows.
There's a big difference between making a tool available and giving people a choice to use it and what you advocated above. I'd consider my email and computer owned by you if you did those things to me.
Moreover, I know that the steps you mention don't really do anything for security. All of those bandaids are nothing more than an inconvenience to the end user. The cracker, as has been so amply demonstrated in the last few months, goes on as before. Faculty at your University might understand better than you think that they will get little in return for your efforts and theirs.
It's better, if they are to be punished, for them to have made their point.
Ahh, but most people know that their houses are not secure and take further steps. Valuables and sensitive information is hidden or placed in a safe or safe deposit box. Most people do not know how insecure their M$ crap is.
This isn't a matter up for debate, it's the law
Laws should follow morals, not the other way around. Most computer laws are poorly crafted and are mostly protection for crappy software makers. It would be better for laws to do what they say and protect who they should.
Obviously, now. Before hand, how could they have shown it?
White-hat my ass, they didn't ask for permission to crack the system first; they did it, THEN told them they did it, how easy it was and oh yea, it was for altruistic purposes.
I hate to disturb your dream here, but asking permission might have made life difficult. The point of the exercise was that anyone could do it, not anyone being watched closely. It's impossible for Oxford to closely watch everyone.
Sure, it was done altruistically. People with different motivation have been and continue to do the same things. They reported the problems they noticed so that other students would know what not to trust on campus.
We shall see what happens to them.
The only problem you might have is with AP content. Then again, $100,000 might pays for enough reporters to get some national material of your own if you don't already have it.
How would you like to have a newspaper that's more trusted and with it than the New York Times?
The nature of electronic publication has blurred the line between storage and publication. Newpapers fear that they won't be able to generate subscription income if anyone could get the same content in their home from the local library. They rightly consider traditional library storage to be a republication when it's done electronically. It can be just the same or even better than the newspaper can provide itself.
The paid archive solution is a greedy, stupid and misguided answer. I don't trust it, no matter how "good" a newspaper you are talking about. Traditional newspapers were authoritative because of their distributed storage. They might be wrong when they report the news, but that is worlds better than a single entity having big brother like ability to change what they say. Without this independent storage, the trust is lost. They seek to use new copyright law powers to get more than ever out of subscriptions, a traditionally small portion of their revenues, without realizing that this destroys their credibility. There are plenty of solutions that are not so stupid and greedy.
Some measure of trust can be recouped by allowing libraries to store the information and then "republish" it on the internet after a reasonable amount of time. 17 years, the original copyright period, might is short enough to assure social relevancy. People would like to stored NYT articles on Watergate, Ronald Reagan and other more recent events. If a newspaper wants it's relevancy back, it can trade some of it's copyright power and subscription revenue for it.
A complementary solution is to charge a reasonable subscription fee to the library itself and rely more on advertising revenue. The agreement could specify that the local library must serve current advertisements with old copy. That's an approach that no print can take and it increases their readership in a way that increases the value of the advertising.
This small newspaper could do very well this way. Their largest subscription came from their sports archives at $90/year and 1,000 subscribers. I'm sure that they could coax an equal or greater amount of fees from an equal number of libraries around the country. Everyone would win.
As things stand, everyone looses. I don't trust the newspapers as a source. I've got more trust in Slashdot as an archive because they let Google and others archive their content for independent confirmation. Every single library should have an internet archive. Without it, we are all forced back on books published by interested parties who have inside information but have no way to check them. Other people might save articles, recordings of speeches and newscasts and then publish a book, but it's worthless to me because I can't independently check their sources because they can't share them.
People in Washington and elsewhere have noticed that terrorists use the internet in much the same way they do. They point to web sites and even combat games used as "online training camps".
Words like that are usually followed by bombs and at least one person has been to jail over it already and speech has not been free everywhere forever. The EFF has a nice list of sites already shut down.
More stupid laws can't be far behind a propaganda ramp up like that. The only way to implement the censorship that would be to continue to centralize telecommunications further. The only way to kill free speech is to kill free enterprise.
The pattern is clear. The government is augmenting it's own power by proping up favorites in industry. It's so unAmerican that I want to throw up.
Religion? Yeah, whatever. You seem to forget that Slashdot is primarily concerned with free, open software and user rights. No, I'll bet you just want to tweak people.
Editors who won't edit? You'd be angry if they put in their two cents, right?
In any case, this is a good article. It's the kind of thing everyone who writes software or deals with customers who use software or even simply uses software should read. It's about bad practices and comes from a genuinely frustrated, typical but articulate user. While Microsoft won't and can't fix the problem, free software can and has. Prbably because free software developers have the sense to admit such problems and to try to fix them and the numbers needed to do it right.
Those, like Mr. Stowell, who simply want their old computer to work and do all the things it used to might give free software a spin. Most people are pleasantly surprised to see their old computer come alive again with Knoppix. Windoze PCs that won't boot anymore are great for such demonstrations. Mepis is the easiest of the Debian based free beer distribution I know of to install. Sarge is not much more difficult and is cleaner as well as more free as liberty. People on a budget will be happy that their old PC once again plays games they love with sound they can turn off.
The connection with free software is that free software can and is doing better. Commercial software is stuck with the results of their feature wars, licensing issues and Microsoft's own tendency to break competitor's software. They can't escape and their resources are dwindling. Free software is free of all of the above and has a far larger developer base making better software. The difference is starting to show in most areas that count.
It does not, but that's not what he said. What he said was that Microsoft had not satisfied Thomas Sowell, who's typical of Microsoft's customers. I'll be the one to tell you that free software does exactly what Sowell wants in most cases.
Mr. Sowell is typical. I've been doing computer retail repair and sales on and off since 1989 and his plight is common. Microsoft interfaces have become more complex and periodic shifting of the elements has been more confusing than simplifying. Additional complication comes from Microsoft's attempts to quash competitors and proprietary practices in general. Each device, such as cameras, comes with it's own complete and unique interface. AOL has to pack everything it's users might want onto a whole CD and use the lowest level calls possible to avoid breakage. The user is left with no choice but to use a horribly fragmented interface that changes completely every two years. Believe me, half of Stowell's grief is that his old applications don't work anymore.
It does not matter how well educated or patient the user is, feature creep has made Microsoft difficult to use. Just recently, Slashdot ran this a developer article on M$ Money. No matter how much you know about computers or accounting, M$ Money is more difficult than it needs to be. I've seen Engineers pull their hair out over issues like this. Most people have simply given up and come to expect less of their computers or thrown them away.
Now, that does not make free software easier to use, but free software developers never had the same problems their commercial peers have and there are great success stories. Complex software can be difficult to use, like Blender. It can also be easy and powerful, like GNU Cash is. GNU cash, though it has currency conversion, mortgage accounts, stock accounts and just about every thing you can think of, has a simple checking account that works. The other stuff does not get in the way, though the user is tempted to try it out. KDE is another success story and studdies have shown it's as easy to use as XP. That's fantastic because the KDE interface comes with many more possible customizations and features. Camera usage under KDE through digikam, puts commercial software to shame. Sound recording and play, despite terrific resistance from hardware makers, is now as easy as loading up Knoppix and following the menus and double clicking. No further CDs or installs are required. I expect the difference between free software and commercial cruft will be more and more like the current success stories.
The person who said that "free software can't make an easy to use interface" was just as wrong as the person who said the same thing about kernels, operating systems and user programs and "business" software.
My wife's 40 MPG Honda does better because engine tweaking leaned through "engineering masturbation". Hybrid vehicles do even better. Now, wash your mouth out with GoJo.
Why do all of the M$ apologist say this?
IE works, it does some things well ... IE has links directly into the OS which make the vulnerabilities.
Dillo works about as well as IE and better in some ways. Those ways being that it won't root your system, unless you port it to M$ and open yourself to the same kinds of bugs that get other programs like M$ Word. Oh wait, does this mean that Word "links directly into the OS"? Nah, it means the OS is a piece of poop, just like the browser. IE does nothing that other browsers don't do and it does what it does poorly. Windoze also does less than other OS and does what it does poorly.
You would have to have your head screwed on backward to not see the differences.
I don't feel sorry for people who work at Microsoft. They are well compensated for the suffering they inflict.