This ruling is very unfortunate. By a vote of 7-2, The United States Supreme Court has sanctioned the largest (in Mr. Justice Stevens's words) "... gratuitous transfer... " of "intellectual property" to corporate interests in the history of the United States.
I do not believe that sufficient voter interest on this issue CAN be stirred up to coerce the Congress into correcting this abuse of its power. The current trend in "intellectual property" law makes it relatively clear that Congress has been bought by the content-creation industry and, being good, honest politicians, they will probably stay bought. On the question of copyright law, Congress no longer represents the people who elected them.
I DO, however, see a possible attack on this law and all of the past retroactive copyright extension legislation. That attack would be for members of the PUBLIC, as the owners of the public domain, to sue seeking to invalidate ALL the retroactive copyright extensions as "takings without due process of law" under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. This would NOT invalidate the, IMHO, unconscionably long terms of copyrights obtained since the CTEA was passed, nor would it shorten the terms of copyrights obtained under the other statutes on a PROspective basis. What it WOULD do is establish a principal that the copyright term an author receives at the time of publication is ALL he, she or it (in the case of a corporation) will ever receive. This will harmonize copyright law with patent law and is well-supported by precedent in the area of patent law.
Unfortunately, few members of the general public have sufficient resources to fund such a course of action. Maybe the EFF, ACLU or FSF would be able to undertake it, but I certainly know that *I* couldn't fund it on my own.
Also, if this can be appealed or reversed, how is it done and who do we talk to?
It cannot be appealed, except to the court of public opinion. The Supreme Court of the United States *IS* the Court of Final Appeal in this country.
Reversal is another matter. All you have to do is outbid the content conglomerates by enough to make a majority of Congress biddable to your desires and afraid of your displeasure, then direct them to pass legislation that corrects the situation. In the alternative, you can organize a public-education program to polarize the voters on this issue and get them to elect a Congress that will pass such legislation. Either way it's a daunting task.
Just to play Devil's Advocate, but that would except his slaves and the children of his slaves and so on...of course to be inherited by his family.
Please don't get me wrong in this. I do not condone slavery and do not reagrd those who do as being civilized. To explain the situation regarding Jefferson, he did not believe in ownership of innovations in perpetuity. Your reference to slavery is a straw man because they were regarded as chattel property much like a wagon or, better yet, a horse. Believing in the English Common Law, Jefferson DID believe in the perpetual ownership and inheritability of PHYSICAL property.
A little bit of legal history will answer your question:
Traditionally (meaning before the Statute of Anne), there was NO SUCH THING as "Intellectual Property" anywhere in the world. If you wrote a book and published it, anyone anywhere was free to copy it and distribute it as they pleased.
The Statute of Anne gave the English Crown the right to grant monopolies to persons it saw fit to reward, which led to one of the most corrupt periods in English History.
The concept of copyright was created by the fact that the Crown granted a monopoly on book publishing to the Stationer's Guild, and made it ILLEGAL (infringement of a Crown monopoly was a crime, NOT a civil wrong) for anyone but guild members to publish books. Anyone who curried royal favor sufficiently could be granted a monopoly on anything, whether it was an innovation or not, and the monopoly was ABSOLUTE anywhere in the British Empire.
This practice of granting monopolies in exchange for bribes caused many of the abuses which led to the American Revolution, which is why, following the revolution, only the English Common Law was adopted in the United States. This is also the reason why the "Copyright Clause" is included in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution wanted to make it clear that innovation was to be encouraged in this country, that those who would create new works were to be rewarded, but that, in the long run everything belongs to the public domain.
Copyright is NOT a matter of ownership of something an author creates. Copyright is a matter of "Social Contract." The reasoning that applies is the follows:
We, as a society, benefit from the effort of innovators whether they be authors or inventors
Over the long term, we as a society, own all rights to all innovations/ideas/etc.
In order to encourage people to create new books and inventions for our benefit, we will, as a society AND over the short term ONLY, grant the creator an exclusive right to benefit from his or her creation
In EXCHANGE for this exclusive right to benefit from their creation, all rights in an innovation will revert their rightful owners (Society at Large) at the end of the period of exclusivity.
So, in answer to your question about Tolkien's family, no... there is no ethical or moral reason they should benefit from his creation. They created nothing (except for a few follow-on books Christopher wrote after his father's death on which HE, rightfully, owns the copyright).
The initial copyright law passed by Congress in 1791 set the period for copyright at 14 years, with ONE extension available PROVIDED the author was still living. In other words, the copyright was intended to benefit those who CREATE something of value. It was not intended to create a new class of property.
Lord of the Rings is a great work that required a LOT of creativity to spin the tale. However, it was not totally the creation of J.R.R.Tolkien. Elves, halflings, wandering magicians and evil sorcerers existed in literature LONG before Tokien wrote his book. In short, Lord of the Rings is a derivative work that "stands on the shoulders" of those who went before. Those of us who believe in limited lifetimes for "Intellectual Property" believe that those who take from the public domain should have to give back so that others can stand on their shoulders in turn.
Given the existence of The LinuxBIOS Project and the fact that the Linux kernel does not require a ROM-BIOS once the kernel is up and running, what will be AMI's position on refunds if a significant fraction of the Linux userbase starts installing LinuxBIOS and returning the BIOS chips. Will AMI make the refund, or will they give us the runaround that Microsoft and the hardware OEMs did on the question of Windows refunds?
The license for Linux (GPL) prohibits you from distributing Linux if the recipient can't redistribute it.
This is, in fact, the death knell of any lawsuit Caldera/SCO might try to bring. OpenLinux is, in fact, itself a derivative work that is based upon that MOST political of all Linux distributions, Debian. It is going to be interesting to see how Caldera/SCO is going to enforce any legitimate IP rights it might have while simultaneously defending a countersuit brought by the Debian Project and the FSF for violating the GPL.
This MAY turn into the legal situation that finally proves whether the GPL has any teeth or not.
>
As long as a judge has decided there is probable cause to issue a warrant, then what's the big deal.
First of all, the document in question is NOT a search warrant, it is a subpoena, which lacks MANY of the protections built into a searchwarrant. In fact, in many jurisdictions, the issuance of a subpoena does not require ANY judicial action or even a sworn statement that supports a finding of probable cause that the material sought is even relevant evidence of the crime under investigation.
In short, this IS a fishing expedition and cryptome SHOULD obtain Massachussetts counsel to put in a "special appearance" to contest the jurisdiction of the Grand Jury over itself and to prosecute a motion to quash the subpoena for lack of 1) personal jurisdiction, and 2) relevance of the logs to the investigation.
Yes, freedoms are granted by the government. Your own argument confirms it - the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are there specifically to give them to the citizenry. The Constitution describes the structure of the government and the abilities of each branch. The Bill of Rights grants citizens rights under the law.
Well, approximately 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence and the 10th Amendment disagree with your position, so I guess it's *you* who need to go back to your high school civics class.
The Bill of Rights grants nothing to the People that they did not already have under "natural law" which was the leading theory in legal philosophy at the time. Does the phrase "government of the people, by the people and for the people" mean anything to you? How about "government by the consent of the governed"?
When it was written the framers of the The Bill of Rights couched it ENTIRELY in "reservation of rights" language with the intention of making it crystal clear that these rights were fundamental and that the federal government is prohibited from infringing them. This position is made even more clear by the 10th Amendment which explicitly reserves all rights and powers not expressly granted to the federal government to the States and to the People.
The intention of the framers of the US Constitution was to create a limited government that had only those powers necessary to fulfill its unique functions as a national government and "granting rights" to the people is NOT one of those functions.
If you read the history of the framing of the Bill of Rights, you will discover that there was MAJOR disagreement whether it was even necessary given the fact that the Constitution granted such limited powers to the federal government. However, after a number of the larger states, including Virginia and Massachussetts, made it clear that they would NOT ratify any Constitution that LACKED a Bill of Rights, the delegates to the convention agreed that something akin to the English Declaration of the Rights of Man would not hurt anything (more on this to follow, below).
The difference between the Bill of Rights (which RESERVES rights safe from government interference) and the English Declaration (which does, indeed, grant rights) is that in the US all political power arises from the People, while in England (at least in theory) all power flows from the Crown. This fact lead to the arrogant conduct of George III which led, in turn, to the revolution, and the colonists, having recently wrested liberty from the Crown by force of arms, were not kindly disposed to giving it back to another central government founded on the same principles, ergo a written Constitution was necessary to delineate the limits of government power.
+1 interesting: here's another one, apparently somebody prominent in the editorial circle, coming out against the likes of the DMCA.
From your website (link intentionally NOT included so your ISP's server won't feel the wrath of the Slashdot effect) I gather you live in the US. That being said, I find your lack of political awareness both
appalling, and
sadly typical of the geek population
Phyllis Schlafly is, simultaneously, one of the most rabid right-wing fundamentalist "family values"/anti-abortionist/anti-feminist commentators on the American political landscape AND one of the most powerful intellects that exists on the far right. If you proceed from her (IMHO extremely flawed) first principles to her conclusions you will be amazed at just how clearly thought out and logical her positions are. My only disputes with Mrs. Schlafly are in the matter of her starting points.
That being said, I seriously doubt that she is merely parroting something she has read on the web, especially on Slashdot, when she recites the "litany of evils" committed in the name of "defense of Intellectual Property Rights." Whether her position is based on her ongoing feud with Disney, whom she considers one of the WORST enemies of "family values" or not, I cannot say. Based on my knowledge of her past writings I can feel confident saying that the position she has taken in her column is based upon her independent research into the issue, it is logically consistent with her political, moral and ethical principles, and it is sincere.
Given the way that the Bush White House has seemed all too ready to roll over for the big corporations that are the major movers and shakers behind the "Brave New Intellectual Property World" as it is embodied in the CTEA, DMCA, CBDTPA and SSSCA, having Phyllis Schlafly in our camp is almost like having our agent pre-infiltrated into the "enemy camp." I welcome her support because, as an earlier poster said, it makes it rather obvious that our opposition to expanded IPR isn't just a left-wing nut case issue.
Any system -- physical, financial or otherwise -- has limited energy. I really don't know that our financial system has the energy to sustain an individual trillionnaire. I could be wrong, maybe the number is bigger, but ultimately, there is a finite limit to how much mass a body can accumulate before collapsing in on itself.
Oh yeah, that's that "Club of Rome" thing I remember from economics back in the 80's... IIRC, the world economy was going to collapse some time around 2000 because all the resources would have been consumed.
Don't get me wrong... I don't disagree with MOST of what you say. In fact, a couple of months ago, I shocked my broker by telling her that I considered (and I still do) Microsoft to be a high-risk investment. There will come a time when Microsoft stock will at least, if not collapse, fall dramatically. Despite (or maybe because of) all their cash, Microsoft is pretty much a financial house of cards, and their continued attempt to pump up the stock price by any means necessary will eventually come home to roost. I cannot predict how much damage will be done when it happens, but I, for one, am keeping my IRAs and other investment funds the hell OUT of MSFT.
IIRC, devices capable of "dynamically changing their ornamental or decorative appearance" have been around since the seventies... I think they were called "mood rings"...;-)
Well, the tail end of the job listing says "This position is in Hyderabad, India."... now unless the city fathers of Redmond and the Washington state Legislature have decided to do some fast and dirty name-changing, I seriously doubt that the job is in Redmond.
Do you really think that 93% of all end-users are masochists?
Quoth Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: masochism Pronunciation: 'ma-s&-"ki-z&m, 'ma-z&- also 'mA- Function: noun Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary, from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch died 1895 German novelist Date: circa 1893 1 : a sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation especially by a love object -- compare SADISM 2 : pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering - masochist/-kist/ noun
Masochist? No... more like indifferent to pain and suffering caused by being abused or dominated, while being hypersensitive to pain and suffering caused by having to think for themselves. Why do you think PC sales into the home market didn't REALLY explode until Windows (specifically Windows 95 OSR2 (which was Microsoft's first really internet-capable OS)) was released?
Actually, Microsoft "doesn't have legions and legions of pissed off customers" because Microsoft tells Joe and Velma Six-Pack "You want this" and they accept it.
You would not believe the number of people out there who honestly think that Windows is the greatest thing since sliced bread (or, in Joe & Velma's case, canned beer)... and who think that "THEY oughta just leave Microsoft alone and let them make Windows better and neater." Of course they'll also tell you that "The only thing wrong with Windows is... ooooh, shiny!"
Nicrosoft inked their contract before they even owned DOS. They got a non-exclusive deal from the original developer, signed an exclusive contract with IBM, then went back to the developer and said "We changed our minds... here's $50,000, we want to BUY it, not distribute it."
I defy Microsoft to be able to prove that a developer with "... Windows NT or Windows 2000 system programming experience,... as well as with scripting and shell languages like PERL, Python and Bash." and "2-5 years experience in high technology, preferably delivering products for both Windows and non-Windows operating systems." to be able to PROVE that any similarity to bash arose in a "cleanroom reverse engineering environment."
Imagine Stahlman winning a copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and Windows getting "infected" by the GPL... it's be Microsoft's worst dream come true... <VERY Evil Grin(TM)>
Actually, it's NOT slashdotted... there's something about the site that causes it to eat up your system resources. I watched my wmSMPmon DockApp while Mozilla loaded the page and it flat-topped one of my processors the whole time the page was open. I popped open a terminal and ran top... sure enough,mozilla-bin was consuming approximately 99.5% of that processor's time.
Getting curious, I opened it again and the page has some of the squirreliest Javascript I've ever seen and it seems to have the objective of loading and running a Shockwave object (in Mozilla!).
Evaluation of the webmaster's IQ is left as an exercise for the reader.
The disadvantages of watercooling are obvious; H20 and electrical components don't mix! Should a watercooling setup spring a leak while your system is on, you had better plan on purchasing some new hardware.
Can we get a resume on this Shawn "playafly187" Knight before we accept his comments about any hardware subsystem? It seems to me that anyone who doesn't know that you don't use water in a liquid cooling system shouldn't be writing about "watercoolers". I though that the consensus opinion among those "in the know" was that you use ethylene glycol (undiluted antifreeze) if you're using it in conjunction with a Peltier device, or low molecular weight mineral oil if you're not.
"playafly187" is correct... water and electronics don't mix and that's why only non-conductive liquids should be used. Of course, since non-conductive liquids tend to be VERY messy, and CAN be toxic to humans and pets in a catastrophic leak situation, anyone running liquid-cooled would be well-advised to set their machine in a catch pan with enough capacity to hold the entire contents of their cooling system.
"Water cooling is the wave of the future"... hmmmm... I doubt it... the leak and toxicity hazards will probably prevent it from becoming mainstream. I personally think the wave of the future is higher efficiency processors (read Crusoe or something similar) that provide adequate performance.
The name of the site tells it all. "OverClock Intelligence Agency" N3wz f0r 31337 g4m3rz and other clueless teenagers whose opinions don't matter...
Sure, learning PostgreSQL (or whatever) takes some time...
Having written a couple of GUI-based postgres clients in C++, let me assure you that it would take an experienced Oracle developer a significant amount of time... say about 1.5 hours... to be capable of developing for postgres. The API for opening the database, manipulating the tables and retrieving the results of your query is extremely simple... the hardest part for me (never having coded for an server-based SQL database manager before) was learning the syntax for the SQL statements that the client sends to the server.
Slashdot Mirror
This ruling is very unfortunate. By a vote of 7-2, The United States Supreme Court has sanctioned the largest (in Mr. Justice Stevens's words) " ... gratuitous transfer ... " of "intellectual property" to corporate interests in the history of the United States.
I do not believe that sufficient voter interest on this issue CAN be stirred up to coerce the Congress into correcting this abuse of its power. The current trend in "intellectual property" law makes it relatively clear that Congress has been bought by the content-creation industry and, being good, honest politicians, they will probably stay bought. On the question of copyright law, Congress no longer represents the people who elected them.
I DO, however, see a possible attack on this law and all of the past retroactive copyright extension legislation. That attack would be for members of the PUBLIC, as the owners of the public domain, to sue seeking to invalidate ALL the retroactive copyright extensions as "takings without due process of law" under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. This would NOT invalidate the, IMHO, unconscionably long terms of copyrights obtained since the CTEA was passed, nor would it shorten the terms of copyrights obtained under the other statutes on a PROspective basis. What it WOULD do is establish a principal that the copyright term an author receives at the time of publication is ALL he, she or it (in the case of a corporation) will ever receive. This will harmonize copyright law with patent law and is well-supported by precedent in the area of patent law.
Unfortunately, few members of the general public have sufficient resources to fund such a course of action. Maybe the EFF, ACLU or FSF would be able to undertake it, but I certainly know that *I* couldn't fund it on my own.
It cannot be appealed, except to the court of public opinion. The Supreme Court of the United States *IS* the Court of Final Appeal in this country.
Reversal is another matter. All you have to do is outbid the content conglomerates by enough to make a majority of Congress biddable to your desires and afraid of your displeasure, then direct them to pass legislation that corrects the situation. In the alternative, you can organize a public-education program to polarize the voters on this issue and get them to elect a Congress that will pass such legislation. Either way it's a daunting task.
Please don't get me wrong in this. I do not condone slavery and do not reagrd those who do as being civilized. To explain the situation regarding Jefferson, he did not believe in ownership of innovations in perpetuity. Your reference to slavery is a straw man because they were regarded as chattel property much like a wagon or, better yet, a horse. Believing in the English Common Law, Jefferson DID believe in the perpetual ownership and inheritability of PHYSICAL property.
Traditionally (meaning before the Statute of Anne), there was NO SUCH THING as "Intellectual Property" anywhere in the world. If you wrote a book and published it, anyone anywhere was free to copy it and distribute it as they pleased.
The Statute of Anne gave the English Crown the right to grant monopolies to persons it saw fit to reward, which led to one of the most corrupt periods in English History.
The concept of copyright was created by the fact that the Crown granted a monopoly on book publishing to the Stationer's Guild, and made it ILLEGAL (infringement of a Crown monopoly was a crime, NOT a civil wrong) for anyone but guild members to publish books. Anyone who curried royal favor sufficiently could be granted a monopoly on anything, whether it was an innovation or not, and the monopoly was ABSOLUTE anywhere in the British Empire.
This practice of granting monopolies in exchange for bribes caused many of the abuses which led to the American Revolution, which is why, following the revolution, only the English Common Law was adopted in the United States. This is also the reason why the "Copyright Clause" is included in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution wanted to make it clear that innovation was to be encouraged in this country, that those who would create new works were to be rewarded, but that, in the long run everything belongs to the public domain.
Copyright is NOT a matter of ownership of something an author creates. Copyright is a matter of "Social Contract." The reasoning that applies is the follows:
So, in answer to your question about Tolkien's family, no
The initial copyright law passed by Congress in 1791 set the period for copyright at 14 years, with ONE extension available PROVIDED the author was still living. In other words, the copyright was intended to benefit those who CREATE something of value. It was not intended to create a new class of property.
Lord of the Rings is a great work that required a LOT of creativity to spin the tale. However, it was not totally the creation of J.R.R.Tolkien. Elves, halflings, wandering magicians and evil sorcerers existed in literature LONG before Tokien wrote his book. In short, Lord of the Rings is a derivative work that "stands on the shoulders" of those who went before. Those of us who believe in limited lifetimes for "Intellectual Property" believe that those who take from the public domain should have to give back so that others can stand on their shoulders in turn.
Quoth the parent poster:
And MY post got modded down as flamebait???
Given the existence of The LinuxBIOS Project and the fact that the Linux kernel does not require a ROM-BIOS once the kernel is up and running, what will be AMI's position on refunds if a significant fraction of the Linux userbase starts installing LinuxBIOS and returning the BIOS chips. Will AMI make the refund, or will they give us the runaround that Microsoft and the hardware OEMs did on the question of Windows refunds?
This is, in fact, the death knell of any lawsuit Caldera/SCO might try to bring. OpenLinux is, in fact, itself a derivative work that is based upon that MOST political of all Linux distributions, Debian. It is going to be interesting to see how Caldera/SCO is going to enforce any legitimate IP rights it might have while simultaneously defending a countersuit brought by the Debian Project and the FSF for violating the GPL.
This MAY turn into the legal situation that finally proves whether the GPL has any teeth or not.
Adm. Grace Hopper
First of all, the document in question is NOT a search warrant, it is a subpoena, which lacks MANY of the protections built into a searchwarrant. In fact, in many jurisdictions, the issuance of a subpoena does not require ANY judicial action or even a sworn statement that supports a finding of probable cause that the material sought is even relevant evidence of the crime under investigation.
In short, this IS a fishing expedition and cryptome SHOULD obtain Massachussetts counsel to put in a "special appearance" to contest the jurisdiction of the Grand Jury over itself and to prosecute a motion to quash the subpoena for lack of 1) personal jurisdiction, and 2) relevance of the logs to the investigation.
Well, approximately 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence and the 10th Amendment disagree with your position, so I guess it's *you* who need to go back to your high school civics class.
The Bill of Rights grants nothing to the People that they did not already have under "natural law" which was the leading theory in legal philosophy at the time. Does the phrase "government of the people, by the people and for the people" mean anything to you? How about "government by the consent of the governed"?
When it was written the framers of the The Bill of Rights couched it ENTIRELY in "reservation of rights" language with the intention of making it crystal clear that these rights were fundamental and that the federal government is prohibited from infringing them. This position is made even more clear by the 10th Amendment which explicitly reserves all rights and powers not expressly granted to the federal government to the States and to the People.
The intention of the framers of the US Constitution was to create a limited government that had only those powers necessary to fulfill its unique functions as a national government and "granting rights" to the people is NOT one of those functions.
If you read the history of the framing of the Bill of Rights, you will discover that there was MAJOR disagreement whether it was even necessary given the fact that the Constitution granted such limited powers to the federal government. However, after a number of the larger states, including Virginia and Massachussetts, made it clear that they would NOT ratify any Constitution that LACKED a Bill of Rights, the delegates to the convention agreed that something akin to the English Declaration of the Rights of Man would not hurt anything (more on this to follow, below).
The difference between the Bill of Rights (which RESERVES rights safe from government interference) and the English Declaration (which does, indeed, grant rights) is that in the US all political power arises from the People, while in England (at least in theory) all power flows from the Crown. This fact lead to the arrogant conduct of George III which led, in turn, to the revolution, and the colonists, having recently wrested liberty from the Crown by force of arms, were not kindly disposed to giving it back to another central government founded on the same principles, ergo a written Constitution was necessary to delineate the limits of government power.
From your website (link intentionally NOT included so your ISP's server won't feel the wrath of the Slashdot effect) I gather you live in the US. That being said, I find your lack of political awareness both
Phyllis Schlafly is, simultaneously, one of the most rabid right-wing fundamentalist "family values"/anti-abortionist/anti-feminist commentators on the American political landscape AND one of the most powerful intellects that exists on the far right. If you proceed from her (IMHO extremely flawed) first principles to her conclusions you will be amazed at just how clearly thought out and logical her positions are. My only disputes with Mrs. Schlafly are in the matter of her starting points.
That being said, I seriously doubt that she is merely parroting something she has read on the web, especially on Slashdot, when she recites the "litany of evils" committed in the name of "defense of Intellectual Property Rights." Whether her position is based on her ongoing feud with Disney, whom she considers one of the WORST enemies of "family values" or not, I cannot say. Based on my knowledge of her past writings I can feel confident saying that the position she has taken in her column is based upon her independent research into the issue, it is logically consistent with her political, moral and ethical principles, and it is sincere.
Given the way that the Bush White House has seemed all too ready to roll over for the big corporations that are the major movers and shakers behind the "Brave New Intellectual Property World" as it is embodied in the CTEA, DMCA, CBDTPA and SSSCA, having Phyllis Schlafly in our camp is almost like having our agent pre-infiltrated into the "enemy camp." I welcome her support because, as an earlier poster said, it makes it rather obvious that our opposition to expanded IPR isn't just a left-wing nut case issue.
Oh yeah, that's that "Club of Rome" thing I remember from economics back in the 80's
Don't get me wrong
IIRC, devices capable of "dynamically changing their ornamental or decorative appearance" have been around since the seventies ... I think they were called "mood rings" ... ;-)
Great
or some such thing.
Why do I think this is NOT a Good Thing(TM) given Microsoft's history on the subject of security?
Well, the tail end of the job listing says "This position is in Hyderabad, India." ... now unless the city fathers of Redmond and the Washington state Legislature have decided to do some fast and dirty name-changing, I seriously doubt that the job is in Redmond.
Quoth Merriam-Webster:
Masochist? No
Just my US$0.02
Actually, Microsoft "doesn't have legions and legions of pissed off customers" because Microsoft tells Joe and Velma Six-Pack "You want this" and they accept it.
... and who think that "THEY oughta just leave Microsoft alone and let them make Windows better and neater." Of course they'll also tell you that "The only thing wrong with Windows is ... ooooh, shiny!"
You would not believe the number of people out there who honestly think that Windows is the greatest thing since sliced bread (or, in Joe & Velma's case, canned beer)
... and I might add ...
... here's $50,000, we want to BUY it, not distribute it."
Nicrosoft inked their contract before they even owned DOS. They got a non-exclusive deal from the original developer, signed an exclusive contract with IBM, then went back to the developer and said "We changed our minds
Soory, that name's taken ... by Tcl/Tk.
I defy Microsoft to be able to prove that a developer with " ... Windows NT or Windows 2000 system programming experience, ... as well as with scripting and shell languages like PERL, Python and Bash." and "2-5 years experience in high technology, preferably delivering products for both Windows and non-Windows operating systems." to be able to PROVE that any similarity to bash arose in a "cleanroom reverse engineering environment."
... it's be Microsoft's worst dream come true ... <VERY Evil Grin(TM)>
Imagine Stahlman winning a copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and Windows getting "infected" by the GPL
***
Police Chief: Mr. Mayor, you're under arrest.
N.B.: I just HAD to add that one line
Actually, it's NOT slashdotted ... there's something about the site that causes it to eat up your system resources. I watched my wmSMPmon DockApp while Mozilla loaded the page and it flat-topped one of my processors the whole time the page was open. I popped open a terminal and ran top ... sure enough,mozilla-bin was consuming approximately 99.5% of that processor's time.
Getting curious, I opened it again and the page has some of the squirreliest Javascript I've ever seen and it seems to have the objective of loading and running a Shockwave object (in Mozilla!).
Evaluation of the webmaster's IQ is left as an exercise for the reader.
Can we get a resume on this Shawn "playafly187" Knight before we accept his comments about any hardware subsystem? It seems to me that anyone who doesn't know that you don't use water in a liquid cooling system shouldn't be writing about "watercoolers". I though that the consensus opinion among those "in the know" was that you use ethylene glycol (undiluted antifreeze) if you're using it in conjunction with a Peltier device, or low molecular weight mineral oil if you're not.
"playafly187" is correct
"Water cooling is the wave of the future"
The name of the site tells it all. "OverClock Intelligence Agency" N3wz f0r 31337 g4m3rz and other clueless teenagers whose opinions don't matter
Having written a couple of GUI-based postgres clients in C++, let me assure you that it would take an experienced Oracle developer a significant amount of time
Talk about karma whoring ... slashdot the Register? Come ON now ...