The DeCSS program itself was written for Windows because Windows had the DVD driver support necessary!
It wasn't the drivers. It was suport for the file system that is used on DVDs. Linux did not have support for the filesystem at the time so it was developed on Windows to see if it would indeed work.
Quite simply, what DeCSS does is read and de-encrypt the raw MPEG-2 data off of a DVD. From there, it is pretty straightforward to decode the MPEG-2 and re-encode at a lower bitrate using DivX -- and then it's the whole napster nightmare for the MPAA.
No, the sound and video is not in MPEG-2 format. It is in a raw uncompressed format. Remember that while MPEG is good compression there is a price to pay. The color is not as distinct and the images are not as clear. Not too noticable but there is a trade off to be made. Plus even with DivX, the resulting file is still around 650MB. That is not very small. Even with broad band that takes a while to download. Most people don't want to bother saturating their connection for that long. There are some but not many.
MPAA != DVDCCA. Yes, the DVDCCA is concerned that their monopoly on DVD players is in jeopardy because of the release of the key. But that is entirely separate from DeCSS, a **Windows program** to decode DVDs.
Well then what about css-auth, the Linux version of DeCSS which some of the code is used by the LiViD for playing of DVDs? I think the intent was to allow projects like LiViD to show up. Decrepting the VOBs(the files that on the DVD that contain the raw video and audio) was needed to be done before a player could be made. I followed the events of the different groups trying to break the encryption for a long time. DeCSS came on the scene and it was instantly seen as a way to play DVDs. Molog
Windows users use Windows because they think its the best. If they sit down at at Mac, they'll think it's screwed up.
Have you ever seen a Windows user on a Mac? I'm going to tell you a little story from my college days. I worked for my school's lab for a little bit. One night I was overseeing the Mac lab that we had. Aparantly the power in the building that had all the PC labs went out and so all students who didn't have a computer came to the Mac lab to try to finish the papers they had been working on. Well lets just say things weren't pretty. I believe the comments I heard the most, and remember this was a Christian university (I know Christian's are all hypocrits, etc. etc.), "I hate this fucking thing!", "How does it fucking work?", "This fucking piece of shit sucks!" That is what happens when you get Windows users on a Mac. They don't know it and they hate it. You might be able to say that a new user might be able to use it easier but most of those ingrained in the Windows way will not like the Mac. Molog
If you modify a document, or print it you have not violated the author's copyright. If you got your pdf from a legit source the author looses control of that copy. If I wrote a book, could I tell you in what circumstances you could read it after you bought it? Could I tell you that you couldn't print it? No. I lost control once I sold it. Similar here. I don't care if the author doesn't want me to print it or edit it. They lost control when they distributed their document and they have no right to impose said restrictions on me. This isn't about copyright. This is about granting the authors additional rights than what they should have. Molog
Not true. In Texas Non compete agreements are not enforcable. There was a big stink about this in Austin 3 or 4 years ago and now a non compete is not enforaceable in the state of Texas. Molog
They could do this with BSD, but if they did it with Linux there would be hell to pay as Linus, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and everyone else would be bring law suits left and right. If they released Linux with the source and obeyed the GPL they would be fine. Molog
To me, "Free" means that I can do anything, and I mean anything,
with the software that I choose to do. The GPL takes
this freedom away.
Yes, this restriction is there. And if that is your definition of free then the GPL is not free. There are a set of freedoms the GPL allows, and your set which it doesn't allow. What you feel is freedom though allows you to take away freedoms of others by placing the software under a draconian license. That is the main push of the license, to keep the software with the GPL's freedoms in the future. I wanted to comment on your assertion that you can not make money with GPL software. What about Cygnus? They were making money for years with GPL software and the reason RedHat bought them was because they made money. Molog
Finding out what chemical cures what illness is a lot of it. Once that is out, copying is easy, and POOF goes millions or maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. The copier gets for free that that chemical is safe and effective and what it is and what disease it is for.
Then explain why DuPont spent 3x as much on PR than they did on R&D. Molog
A good question. Why would anything get developed if there was no money in doing it. Many open source projects tend to be fun things to work on. There are some things that aren't as fun, but mostly the programmers work on what they want to work on. There are some things that just aren't that fun, like avionics, database programming, and stuff like that that businesses need. If there is a need for anything, there will be money spent on developers to make it. For this reason programmers will always have a revenue stream because of projects that a business needs to have that isn't available. If open source does anything it will just kill revenue for the fun programming jobs but even then I doubt that will ever happen as a new way to make money would be found. Molog
Please excuse the trollish subject. I thought that journalists can be held responsible if they print something with no backing evidance. With Taco not even checking if the story was valid make/. guilty of slandering Apple seeing how there is no real indication of any case being filed against Freetype? Molog
In the company I work for all of our code is done in C++ for applications and assembly for the drivers. I haven't seen a major app written in Java. It might be a good language but with the exception of web page development, Java hasn't hit the big time. C++ is still the king of application development. Might change but I don't think it's going to change too much. People will tend to use tools they are familure with. C++ is a pretty handy tool despite its flaws. It can be used to make good apps and is fairly easy, IMHO, to learn. Java bytecode is still a dog even on a fast processor. C++ produces binaries that run pretty fast for me. I'm not a language biggot by any means and if people like using Java that is great but I don't think it would be correct to state that Java is eating C++'s lunch. Molog
Wrong. DOS was not the foundation of OS/2. OS/2 had a layer that could emulate DOS calls when the programs were run but it was written from the ground up. I'm not going to argue too much on NT taking from OS/2 as many parts were canabalized like the filesystem but NT is a different horse with a very different design.
or MULTICS -> UNIX -> MINIX -> LINUX
BeOS is written from scratch with out all the age-old crap underneath. I'd say in the time they've been on x86 and the rate their gaining that Windows AND Linux just better stay the fuck out of the way.
Many OSs have been written from scratch. Technical supperiority does not lend oneself to being the market dominator. I believe market dominance has more to do with how many apps users want or need are avaliable on that OS. The free/open source OSs are the exception as many users wrote the applications they wanted. What is the BeOS's killer app? It might be a great OS but without a killer app it has no future. Molog
How is the Baldur's Gate series a rehash of Half-Life? As much as I hate it, what about EQ? Both of these titles are not in the same category and are yet making lots of sales. Not every game coming out for the PC is a 3D shooter. There are some very good games with real depth and they are not too hard to find. Molog
Actually my post was more to the point that in the current system you can't stand against them if you play the patent game. That is their game, you can't play them at their game with their rules and win. I want a change and I am active in writing my representatives and I vote. The problem is that the multi-nationals pay for the campaign of our officials. I will continue to fight it but until more people stop being apathetic to the whole thing it isn't going to be an easy fight. Molog
You didn't answer his other points though. If you are posting here, it means you are probably a small company. You can not stand against the patent machine of the large multi-nationals or the Patent-it-and-sue-em companies out there. Anything you come up with unless really, really new, will most likely infringe on one of the big boys' patents an then you are screwed. Also if I came up with an idea myself, without knowledge of your patent why should I have to pay you to use my own idea? That is the major reason that the patent system is unjust and a travesty. Molog
- Copyright (covers source and binary) lasts for 40ish years, and does NOT cover independant rediscovery. (So, company A copyrights something, company B "independantly" rediscovers it, all is okay. This is like MS making SMB and Samba implementing it from scratch.)
Actually copyrights last the lifetime of author plus 50 years or something like that, while if a company or corp has it, they only expire after 70 years. Molog
Borprise have made some really terrible mistakes in the past now it seems they want to lock us into a single window manager currently hyped with a lot of vapour promises.
Which window manager is that? BlackBox, Windowmaker, enlightenment, sawfish, xvfm, xvfm2 or any of the others? Which window manager do you mean and how are they tying us to it? Hmm? Molog
Similarly, the horribly misnamed Constitution party isn't in a position to demand the reimposition of "blue laws" (no stores open on Sunday cause the Bible says that's a day of rest).
Interestingly enough, the Bible says that the Sabbath day is between dusk on Friday and dusk on Saturday. Molog
Really, if anyone should be put on it it is them. UU.NET is the ogrigonator of nearly 80% of the spam I get. Of course I guess I could set up my own mail server and take care of it myself. Molog
I hate to be the doom sayer but social security is going to die anyway. Right now the money taken from my check goes straight to those who recieve. Their money was not stored away or invested for their retirement years like it was supposed to be. What happens when the baby boomers(my father's generation) hits retirement age, which might I add is coming fast? There are a hell of a lot of them. That's going to mean a hell of a lot more being taken out of my pay check. People are not going to stand for that. I am not counting on it for my retirement. Everyone who is expecting it in the next 20 years should think again and plan for the worst. Molog
The real questions comes down to this, is abortion murder? That means you must determine if the unborn fetus is human. If it is human then an abortion is murder, if not then who cares. Scientifically the fetus is human, just in a very early stage. Although the fetus is not a thinking sentient conscious being yet either so there is a lot of room for disagreement. Now taken for another angle, does this infringe on anyone's rights? The answer is no unless you believe that the unborn fetus is human. This is pretty much an irresolvable conflict here no matter which way you believe. It would be nice if there were never unwanted pregnancies but that is not the world we live in. The best solution in my mind is to legalize it as it can prevent more problems then there would be otherwise. Molog
Making an emulator is not illegal, nor is possession of one. By simulating the instruction set of a particular machine it could be argued that this was done for intercompatibility and would be protected under the DMCA(still not a good law). Remember that company(sorry I forgot the name but I'm sure someone will chirp in to call me an idiot for not remembering it) that won over Sony in the emulation of the Playstation case. What is illegal is downloading a copy of a ROM that you never purchased a copy of if the copyright holder has not waived their copyright. Molog
Slashdot Mirror
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
It wasn't the drivers. It was suport for the file system that is used on DVDs. Linux did not have support for the filesystem at the time so it was developed on Windows to see if it would indeed work.
Quite simply, what DeCSS does is read and de-encrypt the raw MPEG-2 data off of a DVD. From there, it is pretty straightforward to decode the MPEG-2 and re-encode at a lower bitrate using DivX -- and then it's the whole napster nightmare for the MPAA.
No, the sound and video is not in MPEG-2 format. It is in a raw uncompressed format. Remember that while MPEG is good compression there is a price to pay. The color is not as distinct and the images are not as clear. Not too noticable but there is a trade off to be made. Plus even with DivX, the resulting file is still around 650MB. That is not very small. Even with broad band that takes a while to download. Most people don't want to bother saturating their connection for that long. There are some but not many.
MPAA != DVDCCA. Yes, the DVDCCA is concerned that their monopoly on DVD players is in jeopardy because of the release of the key. But that is entirely separate from DeCSS, a **Windows program** to decode DVDs.
Well then what about css-auth, the Linux version of DeCSS which some of the code is used by the LiViD for playing of DVDs? I think the intent was to allow projects like LiViD to show up. Decrepting the VOBs(the files that on the DVD that contain the raw video and audio) was needed to be done before a player could be made. I followed the events of the different groups trying to break the encryption for a long time. DeCSS came on the scene and it was instantly seen as a way to play DVDs.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Have you ever seen a Windows user on a Mac? I'm going to tell you a little story from my college days. I worked for my school's lab for a little bit. One night I was overseeing the Mac lab that we had. Aparantly the power in the building that had all the PC labs went out and so all students who didn't have a computer came to the Mac lab to try to finish the papers they had been working on. Well lets just say things weren't pretty. I believe the comments I heard the most, and remember this was a Christian university (I know Christian's are all hypocrits, etc. etc.), "I hate this fucking thing!", "How does it fucking work?", "This fucking piece of shit sucks!" That is what happens when you get Windows users on a Mac. They don't know it and they hate it. You might be able to say that a new user might be able to use it easier but most of those ingrained in the Windows way will not like the Mac.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Yes, this restriction is there. And if that is your definition of free then the GPL is not free. There are a set of freedoms the GPL allows, and your set which it doesn't allow. What you feel is freedom though allows you to take away freedoms of others by placing the software under a draconian license. That is the main push of the license, to keep the software with the GPL's freedoms in the future. I wanted to comment on your assertion that you can not make money with GPL software. What about Cygnus? They were making money for years with GPL software and the reason RedHat bought them was because they made money.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Then explain why DuPont spent 3x as much on PR than they did on R&D.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Can't argue too much there.
or DOS -> OS/2 -> NT
Wrong. DOS was not the foundation of OS/2. OS/2 had a layer that could emulate DOS calls when the programs were run but it was written from the ground up. I'm not going to argue too much on NT taking from OS/2 as many parts were canabalized like the filesystem but NT is a different horse with a very different design.
or MULTICS -> UNIX -> MINIX -> LINUX
BeOS is written from scratch with out all the age-old crap underneath. I'd say in the time they've been on x86 and the rate their gaining that Windows AND Linux just better stay the fuck out of the way.
Many OSs have been written from scratch. Technical supperiority does not lend oneself to being the market dominator. I believe market dominance has more to do with how many apps users want or need are avaliable on that OS. The free/open source OSs are the exception as many users wrote the applications they wanted. What is the BeOS's killer app? It might be a great OS but without a killer app it has no future.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Actually copyrights last the lifetime of author plus 50 years or something like that, while if a company or corp has it, they only expire after 70 years.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Which window manager is that? BlackBox, Windowmaker, enlightenment, sawfish, xvfm, xvfm2 or any of the others? Which window manager do you mean and how are they tying us to it? Hmm?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Interestingly enough, the Bible says that the Sabbath day is between dusk on Friday and dusk on Saturday.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?