Also, buying a company for the sake of being able to earn legal awards should be illegal, strictly as a matter of financial sanitation. But everyone on slashdot knows that if you walk into court with more money than your opponent, you greatly increase your chances of winning, as the RIAA has taught us. The same is true of businesses. Let's say that SCO were to go after Ubuntu. Would you want someone to be able to invest in Ubuntu for the purposes of the court case? What if someone took some code that Ubuntu owned that was under the GPL and sold it for millions and millions of dollars. Could someone invest in Ubuntu in hopes of them recovering that money?
You're right that this is an abuse of the system, but that doesn't mean that the system needs to be fixed. The reason we have judges is so that they can look at what's going on and make their rulings based on all the facts, and that includes whether SCO's being frivolous and abusive.
It's not. Right now they can find out if the central server they're connecting to is, in fact, Microsofts using certificates and other security measures that work very well for one, centralized source. What they're planning on doing is relaxing the security of the update process to speed up the update process and take a load off of the central MS server and your company's internet server. Since when has Microsoft reduced security and the consumer come out ahead?
Great idea. Then the smart ass 12 year old Polish kid's going to use a TV remote to blow it up. Aside from the added weight and technical complexity that this would add to the satellite, if those codes get hacked it's millions if not billions of dollars down the toilet. Maybe more, if they detonated the satellites at a strategically advantageous time.
That's a short sighted view, although I can't deny that the record labels would take it. However, with the current laws, the record label actually owns the copyright, so if the copyright expired when the artist died, that would be quite bad for the label that they're signed with, but good for the others. Also, if an artist starts having positive cash flow, it'd be in the best interests of the label to see if that person could become something more than a one hit wonder. Imagine how much profit would have been lost if the labels only had Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" album.
the only thing that can make a difference is a mountain of mail, and it'll still be a mountain without my letter in it That's dumb. Very, very, very dumb, because it won't be a mountain without people sending letters in, including you. If everyone on slashdot that cared about this issue sent a letter in it would be a mountain of mail, and it would be huge. So send the letter in and trust that others will do their job, or else nothing will ever happen.
To quote my wife (who's not involved in the programming or political scene):
He definitely doesn't look like someone who should be influential in any sane community As embarrassed as she is by the fact that she actually said "community", the fact remains that he doesn't have a clean, respectable appearance. He's a smart man with a lot of good ideas (many I don't agree with, but good nonetheless). In a perfect world he'd be judged by these things, but instead he's being judged by the fact that he looks like he's going to ask you for spare change. Add to this the fact that he says that all software should be free, and it becomes a very tough sell.
I find it more ironic that he feared the failure of FSF if it lost its greatest liability. As much as I can see RMS's points, and as much as I know that he's a decent programmer, he's gone out of his way to look like he's a crackpot. If RMS had been my first introduction to free software, I would have run the other way.
None of the politicians will go after casual games. The same number will go after the hard core games until those games also receive mainstream status, which is going to be another decade or so at the current rate.
On the one hand, you have the descendants of a man who wrote a great series of novels, probably the most important novels in the fantasy genre. They're using a system to live off of that work when they probably shouldn't.
On the other hand, you have a corporation which doesn't actually create anything, just facilitate others creating it. They then use those same set of laws to abuse the system and own the copyright themselves. They then sue the pants off of anyone who even come close to infringing on their overbearing rights to creative content they didn't create. Then they turn around the screw the creators after charging at least twice the amount they need to for the public to view the work, thus making sure that the only people who get rich off of the creative work are the executives of the corporation itself.
So, to sum up, you've got a family that's not abusive in its power, just living off of a system that probably shouldn't exist. They're up against a corporation which screws everyone that it can and then tries to burn their corpse, claiming rape the entire time. Use your own judgement, but I know who I'm cheering for.
Because air traffic controllers work for results, whereas the TSA works for political capital. The only way the TSA would incorporate this is if they added it as another layer, thereby increasing the theater.
Why should we have to wait until a Supreme Court case to know if what we're doing is kosher? Because that was the check put in the constitution to make sure that the legislature stays in line.
see if the flamebait mods are accurate While I wouldn't say that all of your down mods were warranted, you definitely have a sonfrontational writing style and your logic wasn't always consistent. Instead of admitting that the disagreement was over a matter of opinion, you argued quite frequently that what you were arguing was the one and true way to view the subject and anything else was obviously wrong. Probably didn't deserve a lot of the moderation, but I wouldn't say it was a vendetta against you.
what steps will be taken to ensure that bugs of this type - whatever they might be - don't crop up again? All code in the kernel goes through a fairly exhaustive review process to the point where the major developers, like Linus, don't write code much, just review what's already been put in. If you look at the number of linux kernel exploits over the past year, you'll see that there's not a whole bunch (this is the only one I've heard of). Whether it's as good as a commercial, proprietary product, I don't know. But I do know that it's good enough to get the job done well.
I think universities should be granted patents...Especially in this case, where the idea seems novel, and non obvious. So, by definition, whenever a patent should be granted?
It's useful for ridiculously large data sets, like the entire internet. I know that medium sized stores (overstock, etc) use a relational database, and anything with less data than that is probably going to use a relational database. However, for extremely large data sets and certain repetitive, non-dependent loops (such as, say, looping through every website for a search), this can be useful. At least for now, relational databases are more useful overall, but tools like this have their place, and as data sets grow faster than real computational power, they'll be used more and more.
And the programmers for Windows ME probably don't deserve to have their jobs defended from being outsourced, but some things harm the good as well as the bad.
Apple computers have dominated the education environment for a long time now but their market share's grown slowly and is nowhere near Windows. While I agree that it would help to put linux desktops in schools, other factors will influence its adoption much, much more.
Really? Because the biggest reasons I can't move away from Microsoft are the drivers, IE, all my software, flash, and lack of support from any other company. Want to use Western Digitals tools to format a hard drive? Boot disk or Windows. Want to play any major video game from the past 10 years? If it's one of the five that support linux, you'll only have to download a new binary. More likely, you're fucked. Want to play WoW on linux? Fine, but one of their updates may break support because it thinks you're cheating. The list goes on and on, and they're all reasons people have a hard time getting away from windows. Luckily, there's a growing market of people who have been exposed to linux from the server market and realize that they should use it for desktops. It's gained a lot of steam in the past 2 years, and it's going to keep going for the foreseeable future. Until it's a major force, however, we're stuck with Windows being the only operating system where everything works on it.
Long passwords are trivial to enforce. Are you making sure that they're not keeping the passwords on a post it note on their monitor? Or as a text file on their desktop? Enforcement isn't enough if the users aren't on the same page.
Bruce Schneier wrote about the long password requirement and how it can backfire because users can't remember them. My dad keeps his passwords in a text file on his desktop because his job requires them to change it every month, have letters and number and be different from the last 6 passwords. While that's good in theory, it's counterproductive because he doesn't (and can't) keep the passwords safe. Besides, as seen by myspace and phishers, the strength of the password is rarely the weakest link, it's the security skills of the people. In 90% of the cases, strict passwords are completely useless because they're not the weakest link, other parts of the system and the users are.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that this is an abuse of the system, but that doesn't mean that the system needs to be fixed. The reason we have judges is so that they can look at what's going on and make their rulings based on all the facts, and that includes whether SCO's being frivolous and abusive.
It's not. Right now they can find out if the central server they're connecting to is, in fact, Microsofts using certificates and other security measures that work very well for one, centralized source. What they're planning on doing is relaxing the security of the update process to speed up the update process and take a load off of the central MS server and your company's internet server. Since when has Microsoft reduced security and the consumer come out ahead?
Great idea. Then the smart ass 12 year old Polish kid's going to use a TV remote to blow it up. Aside from the added weight and technical complexity that this would add to the satellite, if those codes get hacked it's millions if not billions of dollars down the toilet. Maybe more, if they detonated the satellites at a strategically advantageous time.
That's a short sighted view, although I can't deny that the record labels would take it. However, with the current laws, the record label actually owns the copyright, so if the copyright expired when the artist died, that would be quite bad for the label that they're signed with, but good for the others. Also, if an artist starts having positive cash flow, it'd be in the best interests of the label to see if that person could become something more than a one hit wonder. Imagine how much profit would have been lost if the labels only had Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" album.
There's a much simpler solution to that problem anyway: make the copyright end when the artist dies.
Communist.
But seriously, as long as they require a warrant for it, is there a problem with this?
:'( beautiful, just beautiful. To think we used to call you people trolls. :'(
I find it more ironic that he feared the failure of FSF if it lost its greatest liability. As much as I can see RMS's points, and as much as I know that he's a decent programmer, he's gone out of his way to look like he's a crackpot. If RMS had been my first introduction to free software, I would have run the other way.
I believe you were referring to Helsinki Syndrome, as in Helsinki, Sweden.
None of the politicians will go after casual games. The same number will go after the hard core games until those games also receive mainstream status, which is going to be another decade or so at the current rate.
On the one hand, you have the descendants of a man who wrote a great series of novels, probably the most important novels in the fantasy genre. They're using a system to live off of that work when they probably shouldn't.
On the other hand, you have a corporation which doesn't actually create anything, just facilitate others creating it. They then use those same set of laws to abuse the system and own the copyright themselves. They then sue the pants off of anyone who even come close to infringing on their overbearing rights to creative content they didn't create. Then they turn around the screw the creators after charging at least twice the amount they need to for the public to view the work, thus making sure that the only people who get rich off of the creative work are the executives of the corporation itself.
So, to sum up, you've got a family that's not abusive in its power, just living off of a system that probably shouldn't exist. They're up against a corporation which screws everyone that it can and then tries to burn their corpse, claiming rape the entire time. Use your own judgement, but I know who I'm cheering for.
Because air traffic controllers work for results, whereas the TSA works for political capital. The only way the TSA would incorporate this is if they added it as another layer, thereby increasing the theater.
It's useful for ridiculously large data sets, like the entire internet. I know that medium sized stores (overstock, etc) use a relational database, and anything with less data than that is probably going to use a relational database. However, for extremely large data sets and certain repetitive, non-dependent loops (such as, say, looping through every website for a search), this can be useful. At least for now, relational databases are more useful overall, but tools like this have their place, and as data sets grow faster than real computational power, they'll be used more and more.
And the programmers for Windows ME probably don't deserve to have their jobs defended from being outsourced, but some things harm the good as well as the bad.
Apple computers have dominated the education environment for a long time now but their market share's grown slowly and is nowhere near Windows. While I agree that it would help to put linux desktops in schools, other factors will influence its adoption much, much more.
Really? Because the biggest reasons I can't move away from Microsoft are the drivers, IE, all my software, flash, and lack of support from any other company. Want to use Western Digitals tools to format a hard drive? Boot disk or Windows. Want to play any major video game from the past 10 years? If it's one of the five that support linux, you'll only have to download a new binary. More likely, you're fucked. Want to play WoW on linux? Fine, but one of their updates may break support because it thinks you're cheating. The list goes on and on, and they're all reasons people have a hard time getting away from windows. Luckily, there's a growing market of people who have been exposed to linux from the server market and realize that they should use it for desktops. It's gained a lot of steam in the past 2 years, and it's going to keep going for the foreseeable future. Until it's a major force, however, we're stuck with Windows being the only operating system where everything works on it.
Bruce Schneier wrote about the long password requirement and how it can backfire because users can't remember them. My dad keeps his passwords in a text file on his desktop because his job requires them to change it every month, have letters and number and be different from the last 6 passwords. While that's good in theory, it's counterproductive because he doesn't (and can't) keep the passwords safe. Besides, as seen by myspace and phishers, the strength of the password is rarely the weakest link, it's the security skills of the people. In 90% of the cases, strict passwords are completely useless because they're not the weakest link, other parts of the system and the users are.