It's interesting... in an earlier post of yours you talk about how it's perfectly legal for people to take photos in a public place where there's no expectation of privacy.
And now you post this. Do you realize that some of the people attacked (yes, attacked) by the authorities were NOT people planning protests, but rather people (and legal reps) planning merely to OBSERVE protests and videotape them to insure that people's rights are not violated? To make sure that the authorities don't commit crimes?
But no, you applaud this, because you're an authoritarian fuckwit hypocrite who is happy to see the law violated and rights trammeled upon, as long as the victims are people you don't like.
Actions like the police have done are eroding our civil rights - your civil rights. But you still have some. Stop now and think of those rights you still have. Now stop and realize, if you're capable of it, that the reason you HAVE those rights is because the people you detest - the liberals, the ACLU, the civil rights activists - fought for them. Fought for them in the streets and in the courts, against the attacks on them coming from people who think like you. People who are like you.
The people you detest fight for your rights against the attacks of people like you.
You have it wrong - you don't have any rights unless the rich and powerful grant them to you.
Let me tell you a story about the millions of pagans who were staked, burnt to a crisp, mutilated, murdered and so forth during the witch hunts - how many "christians" are ashamed of that? Was the Christian church ever legally hounded for these crimes? The church had the power, the minority suffered, it is the way human society has always operated.
I'm certainly not saying it's right, but I am saying it is in our nature, and it is why we are a despicable species. We will never change, in hundreds of years (providing we survive that long), things will still be the same, probably worse.
Some will say that I'm a pessimist, but in reality I'm a realist.
Yeah well, many people bashed the show without even giving it a chance.
Once more with feeling was an excellent show, and the soundtrack was really good - I own a copy on CD and I'm not ashamed to say so. The cast had surprisingly good voices (and no, SMG didn't get singing lessons, she has quite a good voice, but was very nervous and uncomfortable doing the episode by all accounts).
They have seriously got to be kidding. We are mucking around with nature, and it is the whole reason why we are in the current ecological mess that we are in. 7 billion people on this planet, far too many people as is. You brainless idiots want people to live even longer? Straining employment issues, health issues and all things economical? We are already an aging species, with most developed nations having very low birth rates, meaning that more and more of the population is getting older, with little ability for the working "youth" to financially support their elders. The cost of living is going through the roof, simply because there are too many humans combining for the same resources. And that's not even looking at the damage that we are doing to nearly EVERY other species on the planet.
And some of you really want to live longer? For fucks sake, you have to be kidding. You really do. Nature intended us to live for a certain time, we should be happy with that. We already interfere with nature by saving people who should *never* have lived, mainly due to scientific and medicinal advances in the 20th century. Things like cancer and so forth are natures way of controlling populations, and we are doing everything in our power to interfere with this. The balance of our whole ecological system for this planet is being screwed by people who just want everything there way.
We really need to stop, think, and stop interfering with nature. Accept things as they are, and leave well enough alone.
This is insightful? WTF? What stops Bush Jr (or other idiots) from illegally plotting a variety of things, and then covering their tracks up by destroying the medium?
The easy way around this is that every single hard drive MUST go to an independant senate inquiry before being allowed to destroyed. EVERY shred of data must be examined to see if any corruption took place.
Given Bush Jr's corruption record, I bet my bottom dollar that these hard drives were deliberately destroyed to hide evidence of corruption.
Anyone believing that the current US regime is innocent is either stupid, a fool, or both. Americans might be stupid enough to believe this drivel, but I can tell you the rest of the world isn't.
True, very true. I do honestly think that most of open source driver's ills are due to lack of technical information being provided to the developers. I bet my parents that if the open source driver developers had full access to all of the necessary technical information, they'd develop drivers that are leaner, faster, more reliable, more secure and with the full spectrum of features of their proprietary developed cousins.
I find the modern software industry amusing, in its stupidity. Development is based on back stabbing and non-co-operation, despite the fact showing that all modern scientific developments have resulted from co-operation amongst scientists. Open source software still works this way, but if proprietary software has its own way, it'll do its damn best to kill open source software, at least on the North American continent (which makes sense, since the VAST majority of proprietary software developers are US owned and based, to the detriment of the rest of the world imho).
Ah I understand - in that case Microsoft has done the right thing. I misunderstood the basis of the problem as being driver related, but by omitting Microsoft updates that might access the problematic driver, it could be resolved. Now I see that the mere presence of the driver will cause SP1 to have issues and crash the system.
Of course, Microsoft can't remove the problematic driver, and it can't force the customer to update it, so it's a lose-lose situation for both Microsoft and the customer, and a "we don't give a stuff" attitude from the driver vendor.
This again proves why open source development methods are better - you're not locked into one vendor providing a driver and saying "stuff you".
What I think (and rightfully so imho) is that people are not happy that the service pack is not installed at all, if one of the problematic drivers are found. Surely, Microsoft could make their service pack update more modular, and install everything else other than the problematic driver related software?
Microsoft has made vista so god damn complicated, that it makes things worse than it should be. Try setting up a dialup connection on Vista - what a nightmare! On XP it's relatively easy and straight forward, on Vista, you have to click on a bunch of tiny links that are not exactly well worded or have used a bit of common sense in the UI design...
It always amazes me that people bash KDE for supposedly bad UI, but my God, Vista's UI is just dreadful...
And the US is innocent? I think NOT. I put money on it that every install of Microsoft Windows has a nasty backdoor for the US government...and I think that I'm more highly likely to be right than you are.
Whilst I'm no lover of Microsoft at the best of times, I really think your post is rather misleading.
1) CPU manufacturers? 15 years ago it was probably Intel only, unless you count Sparc/Alpha/m68k, all of which were high end business orientated. Then AMD came on board and has been slow growing a user base. Transmeta was NEVER a big player in terms of numbers or market percentage, to count it as a serious player is idiotic.
2) Probably the same as 15 years ago, probably more actually, since Intel was even more dominant back then than it is now.
3) Sure, there are less GPU makers now, but let's again look at point 1) above - 99% of the market was probably taken by 2 manufacturers, with the others fighting over scraps. Big deal. I might point out that this is perfectly normal in a capitalistic market - where those that don't perform die (i.e. go out of business).
4) The main ones now are AWARD and amibios and phoenix. It was the same years ago...if anything, the playing ground is more level these days. Years ago, most bioses were AWARD, at least from what I saw.
5) Same as points 2) and 1) - although Intel is a relative newcomer to this, due to onboard sound. And most of their onboard stuff isn't intel anyways, but other manufacturers chipsets (crystal anyone?).
6) huh? agp...pci...pci-x...pci-express just to name a few...true, agp was rather nastily killed by motherboard/chipset manufacturers, much to my personal angst...memory is in a far worse dilemma than expansion interfaces imho...
things like VLB, MCA died because they weren't competitive, or had little support from the industry. FireWire is better than USB, yet most peripherals are USB. BTW, Intel designed USB, so you should blame them for market monopoly, and NOT Microsoft...
I see you blaming Microsoft for a lot of things, and in reality, without any undue bias, they weren't to blame. Sure, Microsoft Windows isn't necessarily stable, secure or reliable. But it isn't as bad as you make it out, and it isn't certainly the cause of all the ills that you perceive.
Microsoft is both directly, and indirectly responsible for a variety of things:
1. Mass computer takeup by ordinary users 2. Huge increase in hardware variety 3. Huge uptake in usage of the Internet 4. Better gaming experience on the PC 5. The phenomenal increase in the power of the average PC 6. The phenomenal decrease in the cost of aforementioned hardware...
only on/. could such an ill posting achieve +4 interesting...sometimes I really wonder what/. users actually use their mod points on...it certainly isn't used on quality posting from my experience...it's an ugly pro Linux crowd, that enjoys bashing anything else other than Linux, and that's rather sad.
Amen. Sadly, the average person is so fucking lazy, this would never happen. People don't care about their rights anymore, all they care about is going to work, coming home for dinner, going to sleep, and repeat. Modern humans are nothing more than non-thinking, idiotic, automated robots for the rich/powerful/greedy. I see no benefit in modern society, at least not to the average person, and the sooner that current social structures degrade and break down, the better imho.
Maybe because the DMCA is an ACTUAL abuse of power, granted by a corrupt government, to keep the rich and the powerful happy? Let's return to the way things were:
1. Remove the DMCA 2. Remove software patents 3. Reduce copyright terms to a maximum of 50 years, no more.
Modern business and the modern US government have overstepped the boundaries put in place by the copyright act as deemed by the founding fathers of the US. Public domain no longer exists, and this was NOT the intention.
I still say that total civil disobedience by every individual is the way to go. Repeated civil disobedience at that. The courts will get sick of it, and either we'll end up with the vast majority of the populace in jail (and a broken economic system), or we'll end up with very poor people, who'll end up rioting to overthrow the rich dictators (as it should be imho).
Probably not, but with minimum wages @ $2/hour...that don't add up to a lot of money. In the past 20 years, the poverty line in the US has been on the rise, whilst the wealth distributed to the wealthy has went up...
The US welfare system is broken, the US health system is broken, the US political system is broken. Not sure about the educational system, but if the religious nutcakes win their legal battle to force schools to teach the bible's version of evolution, then I'll definitely say the educational system is broken.
Yup. Sad isn't it? Linux is a corporate beast now, driven by corporate needs. Has been for probably the past 4 or 5 years. Look, I know Linus and Co. have to make money to feed their families, I understand that. But whatever happened to having a backbone? The 2.6 kernel (imho) has been nothing but advantageous to the corporate world. Sure, some of those changes have benefited the desktop (read: average user), but that's just co-incidental. When these things were developed, they weren't developed with the aim in mind of benefiting the average user. It's just a happy co-incidence.
Corporations don't like the GPL v3, because it removes the capability of them circumventing, a la Tivio the good will of the GPL v2. Tivio's alterations were never in the spirit of the the GPL v2, and if Linus can't see that, he's damn well blind. We will see an increasing abuse of GPL v2'd software. Given that smaller developers cannot afford to legally defend themselves, a lot of projects will be in big trouble I suspect.
Whilst a lot of Linux guys like Novell, I personally think that they've been vastly damaging to Linux and open source in general. We now have linspire and a host of other traitors, yes, traitors, doing deals with Microsoft that are let's just say: shady. I think Eminem was referring to Bill Gates when he wrote the Slim Shady character for some of his songs;-) Call me paranoid, but I see behind the scenes deals between Novell and Microsoft, with the intent aim of controlling/destroying Linux if it doesn't conform to their needs/wants.
I applaud the Samba team for having a backbone, a backbone that the Linux kernel developers lack.
I would encourage Linux kernel developers to release their code under GPL v3. I personally have lost all respect for Linus over the past 3 years.
Bruce - it'll never happen. Linus and Co. are the bitches for corporate interests now, and they drive what happens with the Linux kernel imho. Better to drop the Linux kernel and start moving to the GNU hurd imho.
They're using GPL software because it's "cheap" and they didn't have to get off their asses and code it themselves. When are people going to realise that corporations/business are nothing but parasites on society?
The article is absolutely right. And it won't get any better for Linux unless massive changes are made. I've been saying this for years now, and outlining what I firmly believe are critical for Linux becoming mainstream:
1. One Desktop environment 2. One main distribution 3. One main package management system 4. Reduce the duplication of Linux based applications. If all developers get behind one application, it means it will be better produced. Splintered development gives great choice, at the cost of quality code imho. 5. Better UI - Linux is still far to geeky to use, even though the likes of Ubuntu has made great strides (and many other distributions as well). 6. Popular software MUST run on Linux. Photoshop, Office, autocad, quicken, Dreamweaver are the big ones. 7. More hardware manufacturers MUST write quality drivers for Linux natively 8. More games developers MUST port their games to run natively on Linux, without performance drops. 9. The kernel development team MUST start to improve the Linux kernel for the desktop users, and not corporate business. The 2.6 kernel has seen the Linux kernel developers playing slaves to the corporate interest, at the cost of desktop users imho. 10. A stable API, one that is NOT constantly changing from distribution to distribution, or over the years. I can pretty much install a 98 based application on XP, MOST Linux applications circa that period would NOT install on a modern Linux system. 11. Whilst Linux installers are VERY good these days, when you're talking partitioning, you're asking for much trouble with the average user, which leads me to my next, and final point... 12. Linux MUST get a far larger share of OEM manufacturers...
Things that will NOT change, and that will always hamper Linux...
1. Unreasonable copyright terms (by terms I mean length of copyright ownership) 2. Software patents, which are ALL blatantly illegal. 3. Microsoft corporate sponsorship of US government officials
You may disagree with me, but I think in the long run, history will prove me 100% correct in each and every point. The sad thing is that the vast majority of Linux geeks are so far up themselves, and so far in denial, that they'll never admit the above points. And that is another MAJOR weakness imho.
I'm being bluntly honest here, because I'd LOVE to see Linux become mainstream, and have these applications running on it etc. I'd love to see the Microsoft monopoly broken. I'd love to see Free Software become widely accepted, and the ideals of the FSF appreciated and understood by the majority of the populace.
But, as the parent article says, it'll never happen. Apple, even for the many areas that I dislike it, has a very good idea of what its customers want, and how to deliver that to them. It has the support of 3rd party applications, games developers (not as strong as it should be I admit) and hardware device driver developers. It's sexy, easy to install and maintain and most importantly, easy to use. Apple hardware is now as powerful as Intel based hardware, and the cost of Apple hardware has plummeted. True, it is still more expensive than PC based hardware, but not by a huge margin that many Windows geeks would like to imply.
This is worthless to me - the offer is ONLY valid for US residents. Talk about discrimination! Why does the American government and corporations treat the rest of the world with such disdain, as if we don't exist?
COULD YOU PLEASE AMEND THE DAMN WELL STORY TO SAY THAT IT'S ONLY FOR US RESIDENTS.
I know...Joss has copped a bad hiding from the TV studios - he's consistently produced brilliant shows, all for nought. Lucas can provide a shitty script for any of the new Star Wars shows and they sell like hotcakes, Joss produces very well written scripts, thoughtful direction, excellent acting from his cast, on a shoestring budget and gets screwed over.
In my eyes, Joss is the best talent in Hollywood, he just is so imaginative and doesn't conform to what Hollywood wants that this gets in the way of him becoming 'successful'.
Let's think a bit sideways here - Apple sells songs for 99c. Now, Apple makes a nice markup, and so does everyone else involved, the wholesale price is probably closer to 30c, if that. Now, I don't know about you, but if we can reach an average figure of say, 50c per song, the Jury's damage recommendations mean that the song was downloaded 18,000 times! Please!!!
This is just more proof that the RIAA owns the US government (as does big business in the US), and the RIAA can use its political connections to make the laws as they see fit. This is all to do with money, power and greed, and nothing to do with justice.
Just cos a song is up on P2P does NOT mean that someone downloaded it. And if no one downloaded it, or copied it, it has NOT been infringed. Can the RIAA prove that each song was downloaded, and by whom, and how many times, without a doubt? What happened to not convicting a person on a crime if there was 'reasonable doubt'?
The US is heading down the drain, especially with Bush Jr. and cronies (TM) in tow. I feel very sorry for Americans. My advice - renounce your citizenship and move north to Canada - a much better country!
And tell me, where is Bush Jr. on this? Do I see him invading the USSR and overthrowing a dictator? Do I seem him speaking out aloud about the growing lack of democracy and freedom of speech in the USSR? Do I see him condemning human rights issues there? Do I see him and his regime, oops, I mean government trying to honour their countries promises of nuclear arm disarmament?
In a real world, the UN would look at economic sanctions against the USSR, but the VETO vote kills it. The US government would know all about immoral applications of UN Veto votes.
Lucky for the USSR it doesn't have huge reserves of easily accessible oil, and that it has a much larger military group than weak nations like Iraq and Iran, which proves to me that the US is nothing more than an international bullshit artist and bully.
I know that many/. readers are Americans, and many of them blind patriotic idiots, but open your eyes and you might begin to see why the US is so distrusted by the rest of the world, and more importantly, dislike is growing. If the US wants to be a world police man, then apply the laws equally - take full economic sanctions against the USSR, lead by example and encourage other nations to do the same.
Well, the latest Radiohead album (free, it's not obligatory to pay for it) has made over six million dollars for them due to people appreciating the method of 'selling' it, and the content. That's a LOT more than what they would have made if they'd been attached a radio label. If only more established artists would either decide not to renew their contracts with the music business and do the same thing as Radiohead has done, or not sign any contracts with the RIAA and its thugs at all (new artists). I hope it's only a matter of time when enough established artists say no to the RIAA demands and market directly. Of course, if that happens, the RIAA puppets, oops, I mean US politicians will probably outlaw music, unless it's sold via the RIAA and its extortionists.
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It's interesting... in an earlier post of yours you talk about how it's perfectly legal for people to take photos in a public place where there's no expectation of privacy.
And now you post this. Do you realize that some of the people attacked (yes, attacked) by the authorities were NOT people planning protests, but rather people (and legal reps) planning merely to OBSERVE protests and videotape them to insure that people's rights are not violated? To make sure that the authorities don't commit crimes?
But no, you applaud this, because you're an authoritarian fuckwit hypocrite who is happy to see the law violated and rights trammeled upon, as long as the victims are people you don't like.
Actions like the police have done are eroding our civil rights - your civil rights. But you still have some. Stop now and think of those rights you still have. Now stop and realize, if you're capable of it, that the reason you HAVE those rights is because the people you detest - the liberals, the ACLU, the civil rights activists - fought for them. Fought for them in the streets and in the courts, against the attacks on them coming from people who think like you. People who are like you.
The people you detest fight for your rights against the attacks of people like you.
You have it wrong - you don't have any rights unless the rich and powerful grant them to you.
Let me tell you a story about the millions of pagans who were staked, burnt to a crisp, mutilated, murdered and so forth during the witch hunts - how many "christians" are ashamed of that? Was the Christian church ever legally hounded for these crimes? The church had the power, the minority suffered, it is the way human society has always operated.
I'm certainly not saying it's right, but I am saying it is in our nature, and it is why we are a despicable species. We will never change, in hundreds of years (providing we survive that long), things will still be the same, probably worse.
Some will say that I'm a pessimist, but in reality I'm a realist.
Dave
Yeah well, many people bashed the show without even giving it a chance.
Once more with feeling was an excellent show, and the soundtrack was really good - I own a copy on CD and I'm not ashamed to say so. The cast had surprisingly good voices (and no, SMG didn't get singing lessons, she has quite a good voice, but was very nervous and uncomfortable doing the episode by all accounts).
Dave
They have seriously got to be kidding. We are mucking around with nature, and it is the whole reason why we are in the current ecological mess that we are in. 7 billion people on this planet, far too many people as is. You brainless idiots want people to live even longer? Straining employment issues, health issues and all things economical? We are already an aging species, with most developed nations having very low birth rates, meaning that more and more of the population is getting older, with little ability for the working "youth" to financially support their elders. The cost of living is going through the roof, simply because there are too many humans combining for the same resources. And that's not even looking at the damage that we are doing to nearly EVERY other species on the planet.
And some of you really want to live longer? For fucks sake, you have to be kidding. You really do. Nature intended us to live for a certain time, we should be happy with that. We already interfere with nature by saving people who should *never* have lived, mainly due to scientific and medicinal advances in the 20th century. Things like cancer and so forth are natures way of controlling populations, and we are doing everything in our power to interfere with this. The balance of our whole ecological system for this planet is being screwed by people who just want everything there way.
We really need to stop, think, and stop interfering with nature. Accept things as they are, and leave well enough alone.
Crikey...
Dave
This is insightful? WTF? What stops Bush Jr (or other idiots) from illegally plotting a variety of things, and then covering their tracks up by destroying the medium?
The easy way around this is that every single hard drive MUST go to an independant senate inquiry before being allowed to destroyed. EVERY shred of data must be examined to see if any corruption took place.
Given Bush Jr's corruption record, I bet my bottom dollar that these hard drives were deliberately destroyed to hide evidence of corruption.
Anyone believing that the current US regime is innocent is either stupid, a fool, or both. Americans might be stupid enough to believe this drivel, but I can tell you the rest of the world isn't.
Dave
True, very true. I do honestly think that most of open source driver's ills are due to lack of technical information being provided to the developers. I bet my parents that if the open source driver developers had full access to all of the necessary technical information, they'd develop drivers that are leaner, faster, more reliable, more secure and with the full spectrum of features of their proprietary developed cousins.
I find the modern software industry amusing, in its stupidity. Development is based on back stabbing and non-co-operation, despite the fact showing that all modern scientific developments have resulted from co-operation amongst scientists. Open source software still works this way, but if proprietary software has its own way, it'll do its damn best to kill open source software, at least on the North American continent (which makes sense, since the VAST majority of proprietary software developers are US owned and based, to the detriment of the rest of the world imho).
Dave
Ah I understand - in that case Microsoft has done the right thing. I misunderstood the basis of the problem as being driver related, but by omitting Microsoft updates that might access the problematic driver, it could be resolved. Now I see that the mere presence of the driver will cause SP1 to have issues and crash the system.
Of course, Microsoft can't remove the problematic driver, and it can't force the customer to update it, so it's a lose-lose situation for both Microsoft and the customer, and a "we don't give a stuff" attitude from the driver vendor.
This again proves why open source development methods are better - you're not locked into one vendor providing a driver and saying "stuff you".
Dave
What I think (and rightfully so imho) is that people are not happy that the service pack is not installed at all, if one of the problematic drivers are found. Surely, Microsoft could make their service pack update more modular, and install everything else other than the problematic driver related software?
Microsoft has made vista so god damn complicated, that it makes things worse than it should be. Try setting up a dialup connection on Vista - what a nightmare! On XP it's relatively easy and straight forward, on Vista, you have to click on a bunch of tiny links that are not exactly well worded or have used a bit of common sense in the UI design...
It always amazes me that people bash KDE for supposedly bad UI, but my God, Vista's UI is just dreadful...
Dave
Tell that to the NAZI party...
Dave
And the US is innocent? I think NOT. I put money on it that every install of Microsoft Windows has a nasty backdoor for the US government...and I think that I'm more highly likely to be right than you are.
Dave
Whilst I'm no lover of Microsoft at the best of times, I really think your post is rather misleading.
/. could such an ill posting achieve +4 interesting...sometimes I really wonder what /. users actually use their mod points on...it certainly isn't used on quality posting from my experience...it's an ugly pro Linux crowd, that enjoys bashing anything else other than Linux, and that's rather sad.
1) CPU manufacturers? 15 years ago it was probably Intel only, unless you count Sparc/Alpha/m68k, all of which were high end business orientated. Then AMD came on board and has been slow growing a user base. Transmeta was NEVER a big player in terms of numbers or market percentage, to count it as a serious player is idiotic.
2) Probably the same as 15 years ago, probably more actually, since Intel was even more dominant back then than it is now.
3) Sure, there are less GPU makers now, but let's again look at point 1) above - 99% of the market was probably taken by 2 manufacturers, with the others fighting over scraps. Big deal. I might point out that this is perfectly normal in a capitalistic market - where those that don't perform die (i.e. go out of business).
4) The main ones now are AWARD and amibios and phoenix. It was the same years ago...if anything, the playing ground is more level these days. Years ago, most bioses were AWARD, at least from what I saw.
5) Same as points 2) and 1) - although Intel is a relative newcomer to this, due to onboard sound. And most of their onboard stuff isn't intel anyways, but other manufacturers chipsets (crystal anyone?).
6) huh? agp...pci...pci-x...pci-express just to name a few...true, agp was rather nastily killed by motherboard/chipset manufacturers, much to my personal angst...memory is in a far worse dilemma than expansion interfaces imho...
things like VLB, MCA died because they weren't competitive, or had little support from the industry. FireWire is better than USB, yet most peripherals are USB. BTW, Intel designed USB, so you should blame them for market monopoly, and NOT Microsoft...
I see you blaming Microsoft for a lot of things, and in reality, without any undue bias, they weren't to blame. Sure, Microsoft Windows isn't necessarily stable, secure or reliable. But it isn't as bad as you make it out, and it isn't certainly the cause of all the ills that you perceive.
Microsoft is both directly, and indirectly responsible for a variety of things:
1. Mass computer takeup by ordinary users
2. Huge increase in hardware variety
3. Huge uptake in usage of the Internet
4. Better gaming experience on the PC
5. The phenomenal increase in the power of the average PC
6. The phenomenal decrease in the cost of aforementioned hardware...
only on
Dave
Amen. Sadly, the average person is so fucking lazy, this would never happen. People don't care about their rights anymore, all they care about is going to work, coming home for dinner, going to sleep, and repeat. Modern humans are nothing more than non-thinking, idiotic, automated robots for the rich/powerful/greedy. I see no benefit in modern society, at least not to the average person, and the sooner that current social structures degrade and break down, the better imho.
Dave
Maybe because the DMCA is an ACTUAL abuse of power, granted by a corrupt government, to keep the rich and the powerful happy? Let's return to the way things were:
1. Remove the DMCA
2. Remove software patents
3. Reduce copyright terms to a maximum of 50 years, no more.
Modern business and the modern US government have overstepped the boundaries put in place by the copyright act as deemed by the founding fathers of the US. Public domain no longer exists, and this was NOT the intention.
I still say that total civil disobedience by every individual is the way to go. Repeated civil disobedience at that. The courts will get sick of it, and either we'll end up with the vast majority of the populace in jail (and a broken economic system), or we'll end up with very poor people, who'll end up rioting to overthrow the rich dictators (as it should be imho).
Dave
Probably not, but with minimum wages @ $2/hour...that don't add up to a lot of money. In the past 20 years, the poverty line in the US has been on the rise, whilst the wealth distributed to the wealthy has went up...
The US welfare system is broken, the US health system is broken, the US political system is broken. Not sure about the educational system, but if the religious nutcakes win their legal battle to force schools to teach the bible's version of evolution, then I'll definitely say the educational system is broken.
Dave
Well, that's a bright prosecutions department - *everyone* knows that pirates cannot read!
Dave
I bet the alcohol bottle took one look at him and said "what an asshole".
Dave
Yup. Sad isn't it? Linux is a corporate beast now, driven by corporate needs. Has been for probably the past 4 or 5 years. Look, I know Linus and Co. have to make money to feed their families, I understand that. But whatever happened to having a backbone? The 2.6 kernel (imho) has been nothing but advantageous to the corporate world. Sure, some of those changes have benefited the desktop (read: average user), but that's just co-incidental. When these things were developed, they weren't developed with the aim in mind of benefiting the average user. It's just a happy co-incidence.
;-) Call me paranoid, but I see behind the scenes deals between Novell and Microsoft, with the intent aim of controlling/destroying Linux if it doesn't conform to their needs/wants.
Corporations don't like the GPL v3, because it removes the capability of them circumventing, a la Tivio the good will of the GPL v2. Tivio's alterations were never in the spirit of the the GPL v2, and if Linus can't see that, he's damn well blind. We will see an increasing abuse of GPL v2'd software. Given that smaller developers cannot afford to legally defend themselves, a lot of projects will be in big trouble I suspect.
Whilst a lot of Linux guys like Novell, I personally think that they've been vastly damaging to Linux and open source in general. We now have linspire and a host of other traitors, yes, traitors, doing deals with Microsoft that are let's just say: shady. I think Eminem was referring to Bill Gates when he wrote the Slim Shady character for some of his songs
I applaud the Samba team for having a backbone, a backbone that the Linux kernel developers lack.
I would encourage Linux kernel developers to release their code under GPL v3. I personally have lost all respect for Linus over the past 3 years.
Dave
Bruce - it'll never happen. Linus and Co. are the bitches for corporate interests now, and they drive what happens with the Linux kernel imho. Better to drop the Linux kernel and start moving to the GNU hurd imho.
Dave
They're using GPL software because it's "cheap" and they didn't have to get off their asses and code it themselves. When are people going to realise that corporations/business are nothing but parasites on society?
Dave
The article is absolutely right. And it won't get any better for Linux unless massive changes are made. I've been saying this for years now, and outlining what I firmly believe are critical for Linux becoming mainstream:
1. One Desktop environment
2. One main distribution
3. One main package management system
4. Reduce the duplication of Linux based applications. If all developers get behind one application, it means it will be better produced. Splintered development gives great choice, at the cost of quality code imho.
5. Better UI - Linux is still far to geeky to use, even though the likes of Ubuntu has made great strides (and many other distributions as well).
6. Popular software MUST run on Linux. Photoshop, Office, autocad, quicken, Dreamweaver are the big ones.
7. More hardware manufacturers MUST write quality drivers for Linux natively
8. More games developers MUST port their games to run natively on Linux, without performance drops.
9. The kernel development team MUST start to improve the Linux kernel for the desktop users, and not corporate business. The 2.6 kernel has seen the Linux kernel developers playing slaves to the corporate interest, at the cost of desktop users imho.
10. A stable API, one that is NOT constantly changing from distribution to distribution, or over the years. I can pretty much install a 98 based application on XP, MOST Linux applications circa that period would NOT install on a modern Linux system.
11. Whilst Linux installers are VERY good these days, when you're talking partitioning, you're asking for much trouble with the average user, which leads me to my next, and final point...
12. Linux MUST get a far larger share of OEM manufacturers...
Things that will NOT change, and that will always hamper Linux...
1. Unreasonable copyright terms (by terms I mean length of copyright ownership)
2. Software patents, which are ALL blatantly illegal.
3. Microsoft corporate sponsorship of US government officials
You may disagree with me, but I think in the long run, history will prove me 100% correct in each and every point. The sad thing is that the vast majority of Linux geeks are so far up themselves, and so far in denial, that they'll never admit the above points. And that is another MAJOR weakness imho.
I'm being bluntly honest here, because I'd LOVE to see Linux become mainstream, and have these applications running on it etc. I'd love to see the Microsoft monopoly broken. I'd love to see Free Software become widely accepted, and the ideals of the FSF appreciated and understood by the majority of the populace.
But, as the parent article says, it'll never happen. Apple, even for the many areas that I dislike it, has a very good idea of what its customers want, and how to deliver that to them. It has the support of 3rd party applications, games developers (not as strong as it should be I admit) and hardware device driver developers. It's sexy, easy to install and maintain and most importantly, easy to use. Apple hardware is now as powerful as Intel based hardware, and the cost of Apple hardware has plummeted. True, it is still more expensive than PC based hardware, but not by a huge margin that many Windows geeks would like to imply.
That's my 2.2c worth, inc. GST.
Dave
Amen! You took the words right out of my mouth.
Dave
This is worthless to me - the offer is ONLY valid for US residents. Talk about discrimination! Why does the American government and corporations treat the rest of the world with such disdain, as if we don't exist?
COULD YOU PLEASE AMEND THE DAMN WELL STORY TO SAY THAT IT'S ONLY FOR US RESIDENTS.
Dave
I know...Joss has copped a bad hiding from the TV studios - he's consistently produced brilliant shows, all for nought. Lucas can provide a shitty script for any of the new Star Wars shows and they sell like hotcakes, Joss produces very well written scripts, thoughtful direction, excellent acting from his cast, on a shoestring budget and gets screwed over.
In my eyes, Joss is the best talent in Hollywood, he just is so imaginative and doesn't conform to what Hollywood wants that this gets in the way of him becoming 'successful'.
Dave
Yup - the subject says it all!
Let's think a bit sideways here - Apple sells songs for 99c. Now, Apple makes a nice markup, and so does everyone else involved, the wholesale price is probably closer to 30c, if that. Now, I don't know about you, but if we can reach an average figure of say, 50c per song, the Jury's damage recommendations mean that the song was downloaded 18,000 times! Please!!!
This is just more proof that the RIAA owns the US government (as does big business in the US), and the RIAA can use its political connections to make the laws as they see fit. This is all to do with money, power and greed, and nothing to do with justice.
Just cos a song is up on P2P does NOT mean that someone downloaded it. And if no one downloaded it, or copied it, it has NOT been infringed. Can the RIAA prove that each song was downloaded, and by whom, and how many times, without a doubt? What happened to not convicting a person on a crime if there was 'reasonable doubt'?
The US is heading down the drain, especially with Bush Jr. and cronies (TM) in tow. I feel very sorry for Americans. My advice - renounce your citizenship and move north to Canada - a much better country!
Dave
And tell me, where is Bush Jr. on this? Do I see him invading the USSR and overthrowing a dictator? Do I seem him speaking out aloud about the growing lack of democracy and freedom of speech in the USSR? Do I see him condemning human rights issues there? Do I see him and his regime, oops, I mean government trying to honour their countries promises of nuclear arm disarmament?
/. readers are Americans, and many of them blind patriotic idiots, but open your eyes and you might begin to see why the US is so distrusted by the rest of the world, and more importantly, dislike is growing. If the US wants to be a world police man, then apply the laws equally - take full economic sanctions against the USSR, lead by example and encourage other nations to do the same.
In a real world, the UN would look at economic sanctions against the USSR, but the VETO vote kills it. The US government would know all about immoral applications of UN Veto votes.
Lucky for the USSR it doesn't have huge reserves of easily accessible oil, and that it has a much larger military group than weak nations like Iraq and Iran, which proves to me that the US is nothing more than an international bullshit artist and bully.
I know that many
Dave
Well, the latest Radiohead album (free, it's not obligatory to pay for it) has made over six million dollars for them due to people appreciating the method of 'selling' it, and the content. That's a LOT more than what they would have made if they'd been attached a radio label. If only more established artists would either decide not to renew their contracts with the music business and do the same thing as Radiohead has done, or not sign any contracts with the RIAA and its thugs at all (new artists). I hope it's only a matter of time when enough established artists say no to the RIAA demands and market directly. Of course, if that happens, the RIAA puppets, oops, I mean US politicians will probably outlaw music, unless it's sold via the RIAA and its extortionists.
Dave