Yes. It's called "give us a way to pay for individual songs, and download them in the format of our choice
What is sad is that this may have been true before but the chances of this happening now that people have gotten used to being able to download music quicly, easily and for free on Napster are rather slim. People will keep using Napser, there's no way this is going to change without the disappearance of Napster and its clones or at least a fundamental change in the way they behave. Reasons why it's too late
No website distribution model will be faster easier or cheaper than Napster. So why should people switch to downloading music from several websites or officially sanctioned MP3 servers when they can just use Napster to get all the music they need.
Napster allows access to all sorts of music for free. Do not underestimate the power of free stuff. Most of my friends have stopped buying CDs and while I still buy them (I have over 150) I do it more from a guilty conscience (and because I can afford to) than due to any real need. And even then, if I ever find an affordable car MP3 player I doubt that I'll ever buy a CD again. I have seen this same sentiment echoed by journalist for magazines as prestigous as Fortune and Forbes when describing the new threat to the music industry.
Microcharging for individual songs only means that the record companies and artists get even less money. Now instead of 1 person buying a $16.00 CD or $5.00 single and making it available on the Net for Free, the song would have cost $0.50 or $1.00 and would still be available on the Net for free.
Napster and its clones have rocked the foundations of the music industry. MP3s may have begun the funeral dirge but it is Napster that began the nailing of the coffin shut. The reason the RIAA is so up in arms about Napster is because they also have realized the above points and know there is no viable distribution model that would not seriously reduce their income (Frankly I wouldn't mind if the Backstreet Boys & Britney Spears weren't millionaires). The only way they can defend what they feel is their right to selling overpriced music will be to lobby for legislation. Everything else they do is at best a holding action, while they keep trying to get more of our rights stolen...(maybe a proposed ban on CD burners or a music tax on them for all the music that will get stolen is in the works).
I don't know about you but this seems like a virus writer's dream. Imagine how much faster Melissa would have proliferated if instead of being a download from an alt.sex.* newsgroup masquerading as porn (which it wasn't) it was available via a Napster or Wrapster type program as an.exe or part of an.exe that everybody wanted. Does anyone see how this scenario can be averted or is this going to open a virus plague the likes of which we haven't seen since MSFT inserted macros into their Office Suite?
Anyone notice how the examples for what kind of software can be traded with Wrapster are sure to make it seem controversial? The article actually states "Hey now we can go out and download Hollywood movies and Windows 2000". This seems to be an indirect attempt to get the software as much flack as possible so just in case the RIAA doesn't bite the MPAA and BSA should. I wonder what C|Net's ulterior motive is?
Hotjobs.com, one of the companies that spent a chunk of change on superbowl ads also is broke. What they decided to do about this is venture into the brick-and-mortar and have real live career fairs in major US cities for employeers who want to place facies to these online resumes. Hotjobs claims that these career fairs bring it in quick cash infusions of over $100,000 and help with the lost superbowl cash. It seems that lots of dot comms may have to rethink their internet only strategy or vary their business model if they do not plan to crash and burn.
Amazon could be making a profit today if they wanted to, but they're still spending enourmous amounts on promotion. Folks keep sayting that some sort of bubble is going to burst, but that's not quite accurate.
I'm not so sure about this any more. The print and online editions of Fortune magazine have an interesting article on the questionable ethics and accounting practices of dot com companies. Practices that would be clearly seen as illegal or unseemly in tradition companies are par for the course at dot companies. These practices include the giving of pre-IPO shares to customers to garner favor and run up the stock price via the favorable contracts that will in turn be awarded, the quick cashing out of stock by certain CEOs (Jeff Bezos is an exception to this rule but look no further than the founder of eBay who's sold $187 million in shares or its CEO who's sold $50 million in less than a year), stocking of the executive board with so many company insiders there aren't enough outsiders to form SEC mandated audit committees and weird accounting practices.
Anyway back to Amazon, Fortune claims that upon investigation of the financial reports of certain dotcomms such as Amazon, eBay and 1-800-Flowers it was noticed that these firms tacked on several costs that had nothing to do with promotions into their marketing expense including shipping costs. This means that when Amazon claims that it isn't profitable yet due to the amount of money being spent on marketing they are fudging the truth because their books place certain permanent parts of their total cost structure as marketing expenses including shipping costs. Read the Fortune article it's really scary reading for anyone who has shares in a dotcomm because it makes you re-evaluate your thinking about the viability of the dot comm market.
How is this preparing anyone for installing linux at their home or office?
From the FAQ: Q: Can I install my own software? A: Sure, if it is free software or if you have a licence for it and it doesn't require root privileges to install.
That has already totally turned me off. This website at best will prepare people for using linux in an environment that will have a systems administrator who will do all the difficult stuff, like setup PPPoE (so that one's DSL connection can be accessed) without any support from your ISP. The only people I can see being attracted to this site are Windows users who are about to be forced to use Linux as a desktop environment and need to quickly familiarize themselves with the linux desktop environment.
...remind me of how many good technologies and modifications to other's innovations MSFT has come up with. Sometimes I forget that the company does have some great developers and has come up with some interesting technologies sadly the senior management, marketing department and legal department cause most of the press.
I have friends that have been hired by MSFT and they've described the component based architecture and the reasoning behind COM, COM+ and DCOM, and it was rather interesting. I was also surprised at how long it was taking *nix developers to create significant component based applications especially since most of COM (at least originally) was copied from or inspired by CORBA.
I only hope more of us can put aside our religous differences and make comments like this
The birth of GNOME happened about two and a half years ago," explains de Icaza, "when Microsoft showed me a component-based application [Internet Explorer] which, instead of a huge bloated single-component application, was a huge application bloated with small components. Unix had no component system, the project [to develop one having fallen] down until Qt appeared. But Qt needed a proprietary toolkit, so the freedom was not really there."
which indicate that instead of assuming MSFT or Sun or whoever is this week's enemy of Open Source Software is the devil and keeping away from everything and anything they do we should learn from them and use their good ideas the same way they use ours. Software development should be a massive symbiotic relationship instead of the the them vs. us mentality most OSS developers take with it. Remember a couple of them are also OSS developers as well and hack Linux in their spare time. This post to the Darwin Development mailing list brings up that interesting fact by indicating that MSFT may own a lot of the kernel due to all those non-compete clauses signed by MSFT developers.
PS: Basically the message of this rambling post is that we should Open Our Minds as well as our source code.
He claims to be acting in a noble fashion. He claims to be patenting to be defensive and stop others from pulling a Unisys. But who IS the noble one in this case? B&N certainly *did* end up copying One Click.. So I suppose they have a right to sue over that.
It's interesting the way people post to Slashdot without reading up or doing research first.Nowhere in Jeff Bezos' open letter on patents does he claim nobility nor say a word about Unisys. He does not and has not talked about Amazon's motivation in obtaining the said patent...from all indications this was just another shot by Amazon in the ongoing war with B&N, which is a rather Microsoft-like (attempts at monopoly to crush competition) company by the way.
PS: How come nobody on Slashdot ever talks about the fact that Jeff Bezos said On a related issue, to further try to help with the prior art problem, I've also agreed to help fund a prior art database. This was Tim's idea, and I'm grateful for it. Tim is poking around to find the right people to run with that project.
*sigh* Do you even know what Open Source means? Here's a definition to help you on your way. Now to comment on your post first of all you just compared a mis-typed character in an HTML page to what is probably the biggest software engineering project ever embarked upon. What kind of comparison can you make with this that doesn't make you sound like an illogical, fanatical, anti-Microsoft, Open Source apologist? Secondly Cmdr Taco viewing the bad HTML page in his browser, opening a text editor and changing it in the time it took you to reload your page has NOTHING to do with Open Source. After all I've never such bad HTML on any corporate website, does this suddenly mean that corporate software development practices are somehow better than Open Source ones? Please think before you post next time, posts like this are why lots of people refuse to take Open Source and linux in particular seriously when people like you project yourselves as our advocates
Project Kylix is currently planned to be a Linux component based development environment for two-way visual development of graphical user interface (GUI), Internet, database, and server applications. Plans are for Project Kylix to be powered by a new high-speed native C/C++/Delphi compiler for Linux and will implement a Linux version of the Borland VCL (Visual Component Library) architecture. The Borland VCL for Linux will be designed to radically speed native Linux application development and simplify the porting of Delphi and C++Builder applications between Windows and Linux. The Project Kylix design was heavily influenced by the results from the Borland Linux Developer Survey, conducted in July 1999, which generated over 24,000 unique survey submissions. The results of the survey indicate that developers are seeking RAD, database enablement, and GUI design - all strong evidence that Linux is ready for mainstream professional application development. The Project Kylix development environment is planned to support major Linux distributions including Red Hat Linux and the forthcoming Corel LINUX.
Exactly, its not like Andover gave stock to all the people with high karma who stimulate discussion on Slashdot. Why didn't Effugas, Signal 11 or Enoch Root get any 'letter' Cmdr Taco?
What are you talking about? I posted and said that new linux IPOs will not be as hot as Redhat or VA Linux due to a lack of branding. This is a similar argument to what the Forbes article says...where the fsck does anyone talk about Caldera's contributions to the linux community. In my post I do mention that Caldera is well known within the linux community don't I?
I don't get it. Do you work for Caldera or something? Are you a marketing droid or some PR flunkie that failed reading comprehension in high school? PS: Read the fscking article.
Linux IPOs are destined to slow down for a variety of reasons. The most important of which is branding. Since the source is available and everyone can make a distro the only thing that counts (to the market) is brand recognition. That's why RedHat and VA Linux made all those deals and attached themselves to many websites so as to get brand recognition. After all to random investor X, who is Debian? But such people know Redhat and a lot of people actually believe that they own Linux or at least that Linus works for them or owns the company. Even supposed techies on ZDNet's talkbacks make comments like that just make my jaw drop in awe. Anyway back to Caldera, it has no branding outside of the linux crowd except for being the company that sued MSFT and then settled for chump change. As Forbes eloquently put it Although its tie-in to the free Linux operating system will secure a strong opening, Caldera's lack of fresh perspective and obscure branding leave little to inspire any ongoing enthusiasm. In addition to striving after a dubious market, Caldera has failed to differentiate itself from the competition. The company has dabbled in both Linux software and hardware but has failed to make itself a market leader in any one area, says Dan Kusnetzky of IDC. which is completely true and finally This, says Yates, is the company's only chance if it hopes to define itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace. But Caldera will need to act fast, given that stock prices of Linux companies tend to come spiraling back to earth a few months after the IPO. Both VA Linux and Cobalt, for example, have lost more than half their value since their stellar debuts.
The way I see it besides SuSE and maybe Penguin Computing I can't see any Linux company IPO being as hot as VA Linux or Redhat's due to the lack of branding and distinguishment from the competition. Then again the Dow rose 499 points yesterday against all expectations when everyone and their mother said we were beginning to experience a long overdue correction, so who knows?
I'm not going to claim that 17.3 inches is the ideal size for a family to huddle around in the living room," added Maunu, "but it does have an appropriate aspect ratio for content creation and business productivity, and if you're watching DVDs on your computer now, all the better if it's in a wide aspect ratio."
I have to agree with this, my girlfriend and I tried to sit in bed and watch the Matrix on her computer last week and it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Thinking about it now a wider aspect ratio would have made a lot of diference (and of course better speakers which I'll have to get for her now ). I hope this actually does begin a trend with PC monitors so that the price actually drops enough for a couple of college kids like us to buy it.
Does anyone else think that the merging of AOL and Time Warner is going to cause more and more conflicts and rivalries like what has just occured?
Ater all, Time Warner music is a major player in the music industry and is vociferously (sp?) against Napster and here's another part of the company creating software that not only competes with Napster but seems to be better designed and more usable. The irony is so delicious. I can't wait to see how this develops.
Secondly, I would suggest that every US voter sends the above URL to every politician that he votes for
Good intention but bad execution. Forwarding a link to a rep is probably the fastest way to get the email deleted especially since most reps don't even read their email (that's what aides are for). A better idea is to print out the article accompanied with a typed and signed letter. Or even better just summarize the article in a letter (of course reference it) and send it to the rep. Both of these would get a better response than simply forwarding a link or sending a very long email (cut N paste job). Emails just make it look like you can't take the effort to type, print and post a letter which probably means you probably can't take the time to vote either.
Anyone know how they plan to handle cheating on online universities? A major part of the reputation most ivy league school is their strong honor code policies as well as massive anti-cheating stance. How can an online university promise to be as hard on cheating as M.I.T. or Harvard when it conceivably is so easy to cheat?
This is not a troll but a genuine question...I really am interested about how they plan to guarantee this, after all I've seen a certain degree of cheating in current college environments and the idea of taking all of one's test online seems to give such tests less legitimacy than does taken in class with exam supervisors watching over students like hawks.
Well it's based on this book the book "Supertoys last all summer long" by Brian W. Aldiss which is a story about a young woman who adopts a young robot as a child. A lot more info can be obtained atCorona Productions.
One thing that worries me is the ability of big business to take domain names that have been out there for a while. If i come up with "slashdot" clothing, and it gets popular
This does not matter because the ICANN policy requires trademark infringement as one of three rules that must all be in existence before any arbitration can take place. Not only must there be trademark infringement but the domain in dispute must also be used in bad faith (defined below) and the owner must have no legitimate interests in respect of the domain.
4a) Applicable Disputes. You are required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding in the event that a third party (a "complainant") asserts to the applicable Provider, in compliance with the Rules of Procedure, that (i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and (ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and (iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. In the administrative proceeding, the complainant must prove that each of these three elements are present.
4b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith: (i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or (ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or (iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or (iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.
The article says she goes to Paul D. Schreiber Senior High School in Port Washington, N.Y which from information on the New York State Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Continuing Education (EMSC) website is a public school. It is in the Port Washington Union Free School District which is listed Port Washington UFSD in the link provided.
> Someones work may be respectable, awesome, and even legendary. But if he acts like an asshole, he is an asshole.
How is he acting like an asshole? Can you please explain this to me. His open letter says
Bezos's letter reaffirms Amazon's continuing intention to engage in unrestricted patent warfare, saying that the decision of when and where to attack will be decided by "business reasons". I would gladly join Bezos in supporting a bill to limit software patents to 3 or 5 years, but I believe we must continue to criticize and boycott Amazon until such a bill is actually adopted--or until Amazon makes some other suitable change in its own conduct to justify a change in ours.
I read his open letter thrice and the above paragraph is the only one I saw that could be considered even mildly asshole-like. But what does it say
Amazon is abusing the patent system by primarily using patents as a weapon against competitors as opposed to a way to actually safegaurd their innovations.
He agrees with Jeff Bezo's that the length of software patents should be shortened and will support him in proposing reform.
Just because Amazon says they have changed doesn't mean we should just drop everything. We should wait first to see if their actions are as loud as their words.
< sarcasm > Yep, he sounds like a real asshole . </sarcasm >
Are you insane? RMS is responsible for your so called open source movement. Without GNUs free tools (approximately 11% of your average linux distro including the free compiler gcc ) and the GPL there would be no Linux (because Linus wouldn't have had a free powerful compiler and no GPL to make sure code was distributed free (as in speech not as in beer).
Johnny-come-latelys to the open source scene (like you) disgust me by disrespecting the people who created and enrich the movement you claim to be a part off. Without RMS with his belief in completely free software inspiring us directly and indirectly (including yourself I'm sure) there would not be an open source movement there would be open source software (that has existed for decades) but it would not be the movement it is today.
That said I believe that even though Amazon fired the first shot they did so probably because they have been embroiled in conflict and various acts of litigation with B&N for a while now and they saw this as firing yet another salvo at B&N without realizing the broader ramifications of their actions. Jeff Bezos' recen t comments seem to confirm this. We probably should give them the benefit of the doubt (i.e. don't assume they are evil yet) until their future actions prove otherwise.
I've received several hundred e-mail messages on the subject of our 1-Click ordering patent. Ninety-nine percent of them were polite and helpful. To the other one percent -- thanks for the passion and color!... I also read the first four hundred or so responses to Tim's summary of our conversation -- these too were helpful. First of all thanks to all the people who either emailed Amazon or posted on Tim's website our voice was heard. Who says mass protests don't work (as long as they are constructive).
Unlike with trademark law, where you must continuously enforce your trademark or risk losing it, patent law allows you to enforce a patent on a case-by-case basis, only when there are important business reasons for doing so. I stated before in earlier posts here and here the competition between Barnes & Noble and Amazon has lead both companies to do unsavory things (B&N moreso) but this was the first time a fight between both companies threatened an entire industry (actually B&N may have become a book industry monopoly if not for Amazon so maybe that isn't completely true) . I strongly beleive that when Jeff Bezos was acquiring this patent he saw it merely as a way to get back at B&N for all the things they had done (such as copying every Amazon innovation as quickly as possible).
But I do think we can help. As a company with some high-profile software patents, we're in a credible position to call for meaningful (perhaps even radical) patent reform. In fact, we may be uniquely positioned to do this. This is where he starts sounding like one of us. I wholeheartedly agree with this observation and cannot thank Tim 'O reilly and all those who sent emails and posted on Tim's page enough for clearly elucidating why the patent was so wrong and convincing Jeff Bezos' of this.
Much (much, much, much) remains to be worked out, but here's an outline of what I have in mind: 1. That the patent laws should recognize that business method and software patents are fundamentally different than other kinds of patents. Even though this seems like a no-brainer it's going to be difficult to push this through. Lots of companies exist solely because of business model patents and would fight tooth and nail (i.e. lobby and throw money around) to make sure this doesn't come to pass. I'm sure the priceline CEO will be pretty nervous and pissed off after reading this.
2. That business method and software patents should have a much shorter lifespan than the current 17 years -- I would propose 3 to 5 years. Yep, the priceline.com CEO would be really agitated reading this.
This isn't like drug companies, which need long patent windows because of clinical testing, or like complicated physical processes, where you might have to tool up and build factories. Comments like this are why I believe every CEO and industry leader should read slashdot, if they did the world (at least the software industry) would trult be a better place. I'm glad Jeff Bezos finally realized what we have been saying on Slashdot about how ridiculous the current length of software patents is...imagine there are still valid patents on Atari & Intellivision games and innovations.
3. That when the law changes, this new lifespan should take effect retroactively so that we don't have to wait 17 years for the current patents to enter the public domain. I hadn't even thought of this but it's a great idea. No more priceline.com monopoly, no more Dell patents on building to order lasting forever, and no more patents on electronic programming guides (a square grid with the names of programs in it) lasting longer than the job expectancy of the board of directors and CEO of the company.
4. That for business method and software patents there be a short (maybe 1 month?) public comment period before the patent number is issued. Waaay to short, it'd never fly. this is where Jeff starts sounding like an AC on slashdot and proposing extreme measures.:-) A month is no time at all in business terms for a bigger company to steal your idea and take it to the market while you're still involved in the patent process. This is a great idea for software patents though.
This To this end, I've already contacted the offices of several Members of Congress from the committees with primary responsibility for patents to ask if they would be willing to meet with me on this issue ... I've also invited Tim O'Reilly to attend any such meetings with me. Thanks Tim you've done us a great service. Nothing like getting Time's man of the year on our side to get congress to sit up and notice that something is wrong with the USPTO.
Slashdot Mirror
What is sad is that this may have been true before but the chances of this happening now that people have gotten used to being able to download music quicly, easily and for free on Napster are rather slim. People will keep using Napser, there's no way this is going to change without the disappearance of Napster and its clones or at least a fundamental change in the way they behave. Reasons why it's too late
No website distribution model will be faster easier or cheaper than Napster. So why should people switch to downloading music from several websites or officially sanctioned MP3 servers when they can just use Napster to get all the music they need.
Napster allows access to all sorts of music for free. Do not underestimate the power of free stuff. Most of my friends have stopped buying CDs and while I still buy them (I have over 150) I do it more from a guilty conscience (and because I can afford to) than due to any real need. And even then, if I ever find an affordable car MP3 player I doubt that I'll ever buy a CD again. I have seen this same sentiment echoed by journalist for magazines as prestigous as Fortune and Forbes when describing the new threat to the music industry.
Microcharging for individual songs only means that the record companies and artists get even less money. Now instead of 1 person buying a $16.00 CD or $5.00 single and making it available on the Net for Free, the song would have cost $0.50 or $1.00 and would still be available on the Net for free.
Napster and its clones have rocked the foundations of the music industry. MP3s may have begun the funeral dirge but it is Napster that began the nailing of the coffin shut. The reason the RIAA is so up in arms about Napster is because they also have realized the above points and know there is no viable distribution model that would not seriously reduce their income (Frankly I wouldn't mind if the Backstreet Boys & Britney Spears weren't millionaires). The only way they can defend what they feel is their right to selling overpriced music will be to lobby for legislation. Everything else they do is at best a holding action, while they keep trying to get more of our rights stolen...(maybe a proposed ban on CD burners or a music tax on them for all the music that will get stolen is in the works).
I don't know about you but this seems like a virus writer's dream. Imagine how much faster Melissa would have proliferated if instead of being a download from an alt.sex.* newsgroup masquerading as porn (which it wasn't) it was available via a Napster or Wrapster type program as an .exe or part of an .exe that everybody wanted. Does anyone see how this scenario can be averted or is this going to open a virus plague the likes of which we haven't seen since MSFT inserted macros into their Office Suite?
Anyone notice how the examples for what kind of software can be traded with Wrapster are sure to make it seem controversial?
The article actually states "Hey now we can go out and download Hollywood movies and Windows 2000". This seems to be an indirect attempt to get the software as much flack as possible so just in case the RIAA doesn't bite the MPAA and BSA should. I wonder what C|Net's ulterior motive is?
Hotjobs.com, one of the companies that spent a chunk of change on superbowl ads also is broke. What they decided to do about this is venture into the brick-and-mortar and have real live career fairs in major US cities for employeers who want to place facies to these online resumes. Hotjobs claims that these career fairs bring it in quick cash infusions of over $100,000 and help with the lost superbowl cash. It seems that lots of dot comms may have to rethink their internet only strategy or vary their business model if they do not plan to crash and burn.
Amazon could be making a profit today if they wanted to, but they're still spending enourmous amounts on promotion. Folks keep sayting that some sort of bubble is going to burst, but that's not quite accurate.
I'm not so sure about this any more. The print and online editions of Fortune magazine have an interesting article on the questionable ethics and accounting practices of dot com companies. Practices that would be clearly seen as illegal or unseemly in tradition companies are par for the course at dot companies. These practices include the giving of pre-IPO shares to customers to garner favor and run up the stock price via the favorable contracts that will in turn be awarded, the quick cashing out of stock by certain CEOs (Jeff Bezos is an exception to this rule but look no further than the founder of eBay who's sold $187 million in shares or its CEO who's sold $50 million in less than a year), stocking of the executive board with so many company insiders there aren't enough outsiders to form SEC mandated audit committees and weird accounting practices.
Anyway back to Amazon, Fortune claims that upon investigation of the financial reports of certain dotcomms such as Amazon, eBay and 1-800-Flowers it was noticed that these firms tacked on several costs that had nothing to do with promotions into their marketing expense including shipping costs. This means that when Amazon claims that it isn't profitable yet due to the amount of money being spent on marketing they are fudging the truth because their books place certain permanent parts of their total cost structure as marketing expenses including shipping costs. Read the Fortune article it's really scary reading for anyone who has shares in a dotcomm because it makes you re-evaluate your thinking about the viability of the dot comm market.
How is this preparing anyone for installing linux at their home or office?
From the FAQ:
Q: Can I install my own software?
A: Sure, if it is free software or if you have a licence for it and it doesn't require root privileges to install.
That has already totally turned me off. This website at best will prepare people for using linux in an environment that will have a systems administrator who will do all the difficult stuff, like setup PPPoE (so that one's DSL connection can be accessed) without any support from your ISP. The only people I can see being attracted to this site are Windows users who are about to be forced to use Linux as a desktop environment and need to quickly familiarize themselves with the linux desktop environment.
I have friends that have been hired by MSFT and they've described the component based architecture and the reasoning behind COM, COM+ and DCOM, and it was rather interesting. I was also surprised at how long it was taking *nix developers to create significant component based applications especially since most of COM (at least originally) was copied from or inspired by CORBA.
I only hope more of us can put aside our religous differences and make comments like this
- The birth of GNOME happened about two and a half years ago," explains de Icaza, "when Microsoft showed me a component-based application [Internet Explorer] which, instead of a huge bloated single-component application, was a huge application bloated with small components. Unix had no component system, the project [to develop one having fallen] down until Qt appeared. But Qt needed a proprietary toolkit, so the freedom was not really there."
which indicate that instead of assuming MSFT or Sun or whoever is this week's enemy of Open Source Software is the devil and keeping away from everything and anything they do we should learn from them and use their good ideas the same way they use ours. Software development should be a massive symbiotic relationship instead of the the them vs. us mentality most OSS developers take with it. Remember a couple of them are also OSS developers as well and hack Linux in their spare time. This post to the Darwin Development mailing list brings up that interesting fact by indicating that MSFT may own a lot of the kernel due to all those non-compete clauses signed by MSFT developers.PS: Basically the message of this rambling post is that we should Open Our Minds as well as our source code.
He claims to be acting in a noble fashion. He claims to be patenting to be defensive and stop others from pulling a Unisys. But who IS the noble one in this case? B&N certainly *did* end up copying One Click.. So I suppose they have a right to sue over that.
It's interesting the way people post to Slashdot without reading up or doing research first.Nowhere in Jeff Bezos' open letter on patents does he claim nobility nor say a word about Unisys. He does not and has not talked about Amazon's motivation in obtaining the said patent...from all indications this was just another shot by Amazon in the ongoing war with B&N, which is a rather Microsoft-like (attempts at monopoly to crush competition) company by the way.
PS: How come nobody on Slashdot ever talks about the fact that Jeff Bezos said On a related issue, to further try to help with the prior art problem, I've also agreed to help fund a prior art database. This was Tim's idea, and I'm grateful for it. Tim is poking around to find the right people to run with that project.
*sigh*
Do you even know what Open Source means?
Here's a definition to help you on your way.
Now to comment on your post first of all you just compared a mis-typed character in an HTML page to what is probably the biggest software engineering project ever embarked upon. What kind of comparison can you make with this that doesn't make you sound like an illogical, fanatical, anti-Microsoft, Open Source apologist?
Secondly Cmdr Taco viewing the bad HTML page in his browser, opening a text editor and changing it in the time it took you to reload your page has NOTHING to do with Open Source. After all I've never such bad HTML on any corporate website, does this suddenly mean that corporate software development practices are somehow better than Open Source ones?
Please think before you post next time, posts like this are why lots of people refuse to take Open Source and linux in particular seriously when people like you project yourselves as our advocates
From this page cached on Google:
Project Kylix is currently planned to be a Linux component based development environment for two-way visual development of graphical user interface (GUI), Internet, database, and server applications. Plans are for Project Kylix to be powered by a new high-speed native C/C++/Delphi compiler for Linux and will implement a Linux version of the Borland VCL (Visual Component Library) architecture. The Borland VCL for Linux will be designed to radically speed native Linux application development and simplify the porting of Delphi and C++Builder applications between Windows and Linux.
The Project Kylix design was heavily influenced by the results from the Borland Linux Developer Survey, conducted in July 1999, which generated over 24,000 unique survey submissions. The results of the survey indicate that developers are seeking RAD, database enablement, and GUI design - all strong evidence that Linux is ready for mainstream professional application development. The Project Kylix development environment is planned to support major Linux distributions including Red Hat Linux and the forthcoming Corel LINUX.
Exactly, its not like Andover gave stock to all the people with high karma who stimulate discussion on Slashdot. Why didn't Effugas, Signal 11 or Enoch Root get any 'letter' Cmdr Taco?
;-)
What are you talking about?
I posted and said that new linux IPOs will not be as hot as Redhat or VA Linux due to a lack of branding. This is a similar argument to what the Forbes article says...where the fsck does anyone talk about Caldera's contributions to the linux community. In my post I do mention that Caldera is well known within the linux community don't I?
I don't get it. Do you work for Caldera or something? Are you a marketing droid or some PR flunkie that failed reading comprehension in high school?
PS: Read the fscking article.
Linux IPOs are destined to slow down for a variety of reasons. The most important of which is branding. Since the source is available and everyone can make a distro the only thing that counts (to the market) is brand recognition. That's why RedHat and VA Linux made all those deals and attached themselves to many websites so as to get brand recognition. After all to random investor X, who is Debian? But such people know Redhat and a lot of people actually believe that they own Linux or at least that Linus works for them or owns the company. Even supposed techies on ZDNet's talkbacks make comments like that just make my jaw drop in awe.
Anyway back to Caldera, it has no branding outside of the linux crowd except for being the company that sued MSFT and then settled for chump change. As Forbes eloquently put it
Although its tie-in to the free Linux operating system will secure a strong opening, Caldera's lack of fresh perspective and obscure branding leave little to inspire any ongoing enthusiasm.
In addition to striving after a dubious market, Caldera has failed to differentiate itself from the competition. The company has dabbled in both Linux software and hardware but has failed to make itself a market leader in any one area, says Dan Kusnetzky of IDC.
which is completely true and finally
This, says Yates, is the company's only chance if it hopes to define itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace. But Caldera will need to act fast, given that stock prices of Linux companies tend to come spiraling back to earth a few months after the IPO. Both VA Linux and Cobalt, for example, have lost more than half their value since their stellar debuts.
The way I see it besides SuSE and maybe Penguin Computing I can't see any Linux company IPO being as hot as VA Linux or Redhat's due to the lack of branding and distinguishment from the competition. Then again the Dow rose 499 points yesterday against all expectations when everyone and their mother said we were beginning to experience a long overdue correction, so who knows?
I'm not going to claim that 17.3 inches is the ideal size for a family to huddle around in the living room," added Maunu, "but it does have an appropriate aspect ratio for content creation and business productivity, and if you're watching DVDs on your computer now, all the better if it's in a wide aspect ratio."
I have to agree with this, my girlfriend and I tried to sit in bed and watch the Matrix on her computer last week and it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Thinking about it now a wider aspect ratio would have made a lot of diference (and of course better speakers which I'll have to get for her now ). I hope this actually does begin a trend with PC monitors so that the price actually drops enough for a couple of college kids like us to buy it.
Does anyone else think that the merging of AOL and Time Warner is going to cause more and more conflicts and rivalries like what has just occured?
Ater all, Time Warner music is a major player in the music industry and is vociferously (sp?) against Napster and here's another part of the company creating software that not only competes with Napster but seems to be better designed and more usable. The irony is so delicious. I can't wait to see how this develops.
This story has been on ZDNet for at least two days. Here it goes.
Secondly, I would suggest that every US voter sends the above URL to every politician that he votes for
Good intention but bad execution. Forwarding a link to a rep is probably the fastest way to get the email deleted especially since most reps don't even read their email (that's what aides are for). A better idea is to print out the article accompanied with a typed and signed letter. Or even better just summarize the article in a letter (of course reference it) and send it to the rep. Both of these would get a better response than simply forwarding a link or sending a very long email (cut N paste job). Emails just make it look like you can't take the effort to type, print and post a letter which probably means you probably can't take the time to vote either.
Thanks a lot for pointing that out. The oversight has been corrected.
Anyone know how they plan to handle cheating on online universities?
A major part of the reputation most ivy league school is their strong honor code policies as well as massive anti-cheating stance. How can an online university promise to be as hard on cheating as M.I.T. or Harvard when it conceivably is so easy to cheat?
This is not a troll but a genuine question...I really am interested about how they plan to guarantee this, after all I've seen a certain degree of cheating in current college environments and the idea of taking all of one's test online seems to give such tests less legitimacy than does taken in class with exam supervisors watching over students like hawks.
Well it's based on this book the book "Supertoys last all summer long" by Brian W. Aldiss which is a story about a young woman who adopts a young robot as a child. A lot more info can be obtained atCorona Productions.
This does not matter because the ICANN policy requires trademark infringement as one of three rules that must all be in existence before any arbitration can take place. Not only must there be trademark infringement but the domain in dispute must also be used in bad faith (defined below) and the owner must have no legitimate interests in respect of the domain.
From the ICANN domain name resolution policy:
(i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
In the administrative proceeding, the complainant must prove that each of these three elements are present.
4b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:
(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or
(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or
(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or
(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.
The article says she goes to Paul D. Schreiber Senior High School in Port Washington, N.Y which from information on the New York State Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Continuing Education (EMSC) website is a public school. It is in the Port Washington Union Free School District which is listed Port Washington UFSD in the link provided.
How is he acting like an asshole? Can you please explain this to me. His open letter says
Bezos's letter reaffirms Amazon's continuing intention to engage in unrestricted patent warfare, saying that the decision of when and where to attack will be decided by "business reasons". I would gladly join Bezos in supporting a bill to limit software patents to 3 or 5 years, but I believe we must continue to criticize and boycott Amazon until such a bill is actually adopted--or until Amazon makes some other suitable change in its own conduct to justify a change in ours.
I read his open letter thrice and the above paragraph is the only one I saw that could be considered even mildly asshole-like. But what does it say
Amazon is abusing the patent system by primarily using patents as a weapon against competitors as opposed to a way to actually safegaurd their innovations.
He agrees with Jeff Bezo's that the length of software patents should be shortened and will support him in proposing reform.
Just because Amazon says they have changed doesn't mean we should just drop everything. We should wait first to see if their actions are as loud as their words.
/sarcasm >
< sarcasm > Yep, he sounds like a real asshole . <
Are you insane? RMS is responsible for your so called open source movement. Without GNUs free tools (approximately 11% of your average linux distro including the free compiler gcc ) and the GPL there would be no Linux (because Linus wouldn't have had a free powerful compiler and no GPL to make sure code was distributed free (as in speech not as in beer).
Johnny-come-latelys to the open source scene (like you) disgust me by disrespecting the people who created and enrich the movement you claim to be a part off. Without RMS with his belief in completely free software inspiring us directly and indirectly (including yourself I'm sure) there would not be an open source movement there would be open source software (that has existed for decades) but it would not be the movement it is today.
That said I believe that even though Amazon fired the first shot they did so probably because they have been embroiled in conflict and various acts of litigation with B&N for a while now and they saw this as firing yet another salvo at B&N without realizing the broader ramifications of their actions. Jeff Bezos' recen t comments seem to confirm this.
We probably should give them the benefit of the doubt (i.e. don't assume they are evil yet) until their future actions prove otherwise.
I've received several hundred e-mail messages on the subject of our 1-Click ordering patent. Ninety-nine percent of them were polite and helpful. To the other one percent -- thanks for the passion and color! ...
:-) A month is no time at all in business terms for a bigger company to steal your idea and take it to the market while you're still involved in the patent process. This is a great idea for software patents though.
I also read the first four hundred or so responses to Tim's summary of our conversation -- these too were helpful.
First of all thanks to all the people who either emailed Amazon or posted on Tim's website our voice was heard. Who says mass protests don't work (as long as they are constructive).
Unlike with trademark law, where you must continuously enforce your trademark or risk losing it, patent law allows you to enforce a patent on a case-by-case basis, only when there are important business reasons for doing so.
I stated before in earlier posts here and here the competition between Barnes & Noble and Amazon has lead both companies to do unsavory things (B&N moreso) but this was the first time a fight between both companies threatened an entire industry (actually B&N may have become a book industry monopoly if not for Amazon so maybe that isn't completely true) . I strongly beleive that when Jeff Bezos was acquiring this patent he saw it merely as a way to get back at B&N for all the things they had done (such as copying every Amazon innovation as quickly as possible).
But I do think we can help. As a company with some high-profile software patents, we're in a credible position to call for meaningful (perhaps even radical) patent reform. In fact, we may be uniquely positioned to do this.
This is where he starts sounding like one of us. I wholeheartedly agree with this observation and cannot thank Tim 'O reilly and all those who sent emails and posted on Tim's page enough for clearly elucidating why the patent was so wrong and convincing Jeff Bezos' of this.
Much (much, much, much) remains to be worked out, but here's an outline of what I have in mind: 1. That the patent laws should recognize that business method and software patents are fundamentally different than other kinds of patents.
Even though this seems like a no-brainer it's going to be difficult to push this through. Lots of companies exist solely because of business model patents and would fight tooth and nail (i.e. lobby and throw money around) to make sure this doesn't come to pass. I'm sure the priceline CEO will be pretty nervous and pissed off after reading this.
2. That business method and software patents should have a much shorter lifespan than the current 17 years -- I would propose 3 to 5 years.
Yep, the priceline.com CEO would be really agitated reading this.
This isn't like drug companies, which need long patent windows because of clinical testing, or like complicated physical processes, where you might have to tool up and build factories.
Comments like this are why I believe every CEO and industry leader should read slashdot, if they did the world (at least the software industry) would trult be a better place. I'm glad Jeff Bezos finally realized what we have been saying on Slashdot about how ridiculous the current length of software patents is...imagine there are still valid patents on Atari & Intellivision games and innovations.
3. That when the law changes, this new lifespan should take effect retroactively so that we don't have to wait 17 years for the current patents to enter the public domain.
I hadn't even thought of this but it's a great idea. No more priceline.com monopoly, no more Dell patents on building to order lasting forever, and no more patents on electronic programming guides (a square grid with the names of programs in it) lasting longer than the job expectancy of the board of directors and CEO of the company.
4. That for business method and software patents there be a short (maybe 1 month?) public comment period before the patent number is issued.
Waaay to short, it'd never fly. this is where Jeff starts sounding like an AC on slashdot and proposing extreme measures.
This To this end, I've already contacted the offices of several Members of Congress from the committees with primary responsibility for patents to ask if they would be willing to meet with me on this issue
...
I've also invited Tim O'Reilly to attend any such meetings with me. Thanks Tim you've done us a great service. Nothing like getting Time's man of the year on our side to get congress to sit up and notice that something is wrong with the USPTO.