WTF do schools need VOIP for? Why should we be subsidizing public schools' external phone connectivity?
It's debatable whether we should have jumped on the bandwagon of Internet enabling every school in the nation (rather than leaving it to the local school system and tax payers), but there's just no argument for yet-another-tax to give free phone calls to schools.
Developing Your Own 32-Bit Operating System Richard A. Burgess (c) 1995 SAMS Publishing ISBN: 0-672-30655-7 LoC: 94-69271
"Have you ever wanted to write your own operating system?
Or have you ever wanted to find out what it would take?
Or have you just wanted to see the source code with _real_ comments?
If so, then this book is for you! This book contains the ideas, suggestions, and tools you will need -- plus a sample operating system, MMURTL.
You will see these features of MMURTL highlighted:
Micro-kernel Message based Real-time Multitasking Multithreaded Cli ent/server oriented ISA 32-bit PC-compatible
The CD-ROM contains:
Complete MMURTL operating system source code Sample applications, including source code A 32-bit assembler, including source code A 32-bit C compiler, including source code"
We need a non-profit that will work with Open Source developers to file Statutory Invention Registrations (SIR) than can be used to prevent some of the patently silly behavior that's been going on recently.
I understand the process is cheaper than doing a full blown patent so it may not be as unreachable as it seems.
1) It's too big. 2) Did you see the keyboard? Typing on the 5500 was a chore and it's obvious that Sharp didn't learn anything from the BlackBerry or the Treo 600. 3) Did I mention it's too big?
There's no way this is going to fly in the enterprise.
By the end of the year, I'd managed to pretty much guarantee myself a B in the class and since as a Comp. Sci. student I didn't need to try sweating an A out of the course I decided I'd have some fun with the final.
I showed up to the final with a box of Crayola crayons and sat on the front row. I made a nice picture on the scantron answer sheet with my Crayons and turned the whole thing in after about 15 minutes.
The look on the faces of the people sitting behind me was priceless. I think one guy was gonna cry.
Easily the best final I ever took.
(Yes, I did get my B and it appears a crayon Christmas tree is worth a score of about 18% on a typical engineering physics final. No idea how the scantron picked up the crayon, but there you have it.)
Actually, you're wrong. The Educational and Productivity Solutions division is still very much a part of Texas Instruments. (See TI's 2003 annual report at: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor/ar03/page2.ht m )
You may have become confused because TI doesn't actually manufacture the calculators anymore (that's outsourced to a contract manufacturer), although TI does do all the design, marketing, etc.
As a percentage of total revenue for TI, the calculator business is not major contributor to TI's total revenue. E&PS typically hovers around $500 million in annual revenue. TI's other two business segments, Semiconductor and Sensors & Controls, came in at approximately $8 billion and $1 billion in revenue for 2003.
"Also, buy the most expensive house you can afford"
This is the most common advice I hear given to first time home buyers and it is among the worst financial advice to receive. DO NOT buy the most expensive house you can afford.
I know a lot of people who followed this advice and ended up house poor because their financial circumstances changed and yet they're still locked into an investment that's not liquid.
Most of these people found themselves screwed because they bought as big as house as they could afford and then suddenly realized that when they wanted to have children their house payment was holding them hostage: one of you want to stay home with the kids? sorry, got the mortage to pay.
Also due to the dip in the economy many of these people found themselves without a job. Whoops. Again, their high house payments meant they ability to respond financially (say by taking a lower paying job for a while) was compromised because they couldn't or didn't want to sell their house and at the same time they couldn't afford to take a job that wouldn't allow them to make payments!
When you're looking for a house location is more important than the current price or the square footage. Ideally you should be looking for a house in the lower range of a nice neighborhood; some place where you're not going to find a gas station or a fast food joint across from your back yard some morning.
As for the folks claiming the only advantage in having a house is the tax deduction, don't forget that: 1) You're not paying rent 2) Your house may appreciate in value as well.
Personal experience aside I know that number can't be anywhere close to right. We do watch all the email that comes into our company and fully 75% or more of it, literally, is spam.
"The Department of Homeland Security should support US-CERT, IT-ISAC, or other entities to work with sofware producers to determine the effectiveness of practices that reduce software security vulnerabilities."
Translation: We'd like to hop on the government gravy train under the guise of "Homeland Security." Can we get some free money please? I mean seriously, why should we pay to fix our own programming errors when we can get the government to pay us to do it?
While I do believe that the CTEA was a bad piece of legislation, these guys are not going to win this case. They've got basically two claims:
1) Unlimited automatic copyright is a violation of First Amendment freedom of speech, and
2) Unlimited automatic copyright is a violation of the Progress clause of the Constitution.
Their argument for 1) is just mind boggling. Nothing in the copyright clause regulates my freedom of speech. In fact you might argue that it enchances my freedom of speech by granting me ownership and a legal monopoloy of the use of my speech. The CTEA imposes no burden on my free (as in freedom) speech, but it does make my work not free (as in beer).
As for 2), despite what the plantiffs think this is EXACTLY like Eldred v. Ashcroft because it comes down to the exact same root question. Does the Progress clause let Congress do pretty much anything they want with respect to copyright. The answer provided in Eldred was clear: yes, Congress' lattitude here is pretty wide.
The plantiffs would be better served by trying for a constitutional amendment or something like the Public Domain Enhancement Act, rather than beating their heads uselessly over legal arguments that are 1) frivilous and 2) already clearly answered.
Boy for a bunch of people who get all hot under the collar whenever someone paints all Computer Scientists as crazy socially deprived communist-hippy MP3 stealing intellectual property scoff-law virgins who live in Mom's basement, a lot of people here sure are quick to whip out the MBA-as-puppy-kickers stereotypes.
A little empathy goes a long way.
I am both a Computer Scientist as well as an MBA and I can assure you I haven't kicked a single puppy today. (Of course the day _is_ still young.)
I've got to tip my hat to you. It's rare that you can find someone so outspoken and with such an interesting interpretation of reality who is also able to elicit such vociferous and multitudinous responses from your friends and (more often) your enemies. Really, for your family's sake at least, I feel better knowing that when someone finally points out that the emperor has no clothes, you'll have no problems finding employment in the afternoon talk show circuit.
In the months since you've launched your Sisyphean attack on Linux and Open Source Software in general I've come to regard you with something of a grudging affinity. Like that crazy uncle you hope never shows up for family events but then miss terribly when he's not there, you've become a constant ache that I just know I'm going to miss. Who else can I count on to inspire such fits of laughter and frothing rage?
It's with this new found amiability towards you that I make the following offer. I know you've been wanting someone to buy up The SCO Group and in the interests of not seeing you completely financially devastated, I'd like to buy your company. I'd like to offer you a one crisp United States dollar bill for the entirety of The SCO Group. You may find the amount a little less than you'd hoped for, but as Homer Simpson was once counseled (if I may paraphrase) "I think you should take it."
You see I've been both amused, enraged, and more recently dismayed as the scope of your intellectual property land grab expands. I finally decided that some sort of intervention was necessary after I read your latest diatribe in which you both demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of intellectual property law as well as the GPL and made thinly veiled threats to employ the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to further expand your legal assault against Linux. Darl, have you even read the DMCA? Do you know what it is or says? Were you aware that you've got to actually demonstrate you've got copyright in something that's been infringed before you can even open that can of worms?
I'm sure it may have slipped your mind what with all the heavy composition you've apparently been engaged in, but although you've talked a lot about your lawsuits with IBM and RedHat, you haven't actually won either of them yet. As such, that presents a real problem for your DMCA strategy because so far you've been unable to demonstrate an intellectual property interest of The SCO Group that's been infringed in any way. Sort of putting the cart before the horse aren't we?
Surely it's also obvious to you now that you've painted yourself into a corner with respect to the GNU Public License (GPL)? If you prevail and the GPL is declared invalid, as a distributor of many works (including Linux) which were formerly licensed under the GPL, The SCO Group would appear to be guilty of copyright infringement on a rather unprecedented scale. (Without the GPL Darl you can't distribute Linux or Samba.) If you fail, and the GPL is valid, you've released all your supposedly infringed works into the Open Source community under terms where you lose all ability to make infringement claims on pretty much any IP grounds. In which case any value of any intellectual property left in the corpses of your versions of Unix is pretty much gone.
So please, I urge you, it's time to stop the madness. Take me up on my offer, let Mr. Boise have his cut of my buyout, and walk away a winner Darl. I'm pretty sure it's the best offer you're going to get.
WRT to your comment on the election: (as usual IANAL)
1) The Supremes became involved because the issue at hand was the violation of the consitutionally protected right to have the votes counted fairly. All kinds of differing standards were being applied to the recounts. There was no standard as to what counted as a vote (or not) or where the votes were going to be recounted.
2) "W" won under all subsequent recounts of the votes.
3) The electorial college may not be perfect (or even a good idea) but it was the law of the land when everyone signed up for the race. Popular vote or not, those were the rules.
Ahhhh...so now Darl's evil plan is uncovered in full. He doesn't want to ship operating systems at all! If it's true that he's got to give the lion's share of any profit from an OS sale to Novell then Darl doesn't have much chance of resurrecting SCO by increasing operating system sales.
Linux liceneses, however, might be another story. Must SCO pay Novell for sales of a Linux run time license? I'd bet not. What an interesting idea: let the Linux community do all the heavy lifting of building an enterprise ready operating system and then sit back and just rake in $699 per copy. (GET RICH FAST!!!!) I think the term I'm looking for here is "freeloading." "Social loafer" also comes to mind.
(note to self: insert obligatory PROFIT joke here...)
IBM lies as before, not a muscle has moved, his head is still on the headboard, Yellin's sword at his side. Linux is alongside the bed; her eyes never leave his face.
Linux: Oh, IBM, will you ever forgive me?
IBM: What hideous sin have you committed lately?
Linux: I got 0wn3d. I didn't want to. It all happened so fast.
IBM: It never happened.
Linux: What?
IBM: It never happened.
Linux: But it did. I was there. Darl said, "All your code are belong to us."
IBM: Did SCO win its lawsuit?
BUTTERCUP: Well, no, we sort of skipped that part.
IBM: Then you're not 0wn3d-- if Chewbacca has fur you must acquit (a pause) -- wouldn't you agree, Your Slimy-ness?
CUT TO: Darl, entering the room, staring at them. He pulls out his sword, Boies.
Darl: A technicality that will shortly be remedied. But first things first. To the death.
IBM: No. (a little pause) To the pain.
Darl: (about to charge, stops short) I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
IBM: I'll explain. And I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you wart-hog-faced buffoon.
Darl: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
IBM: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your so-called trade secrets, below the ankles, then your copyrights at the wrists, next your patents.
Darl: -- and then my trademarks, I suppose. I sued you too slowly the last time, a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
IBM: I wasn't finished -- the next thing you lose will be your market capitalization, followed by your investors--
Darl: (takes step forward) -- and then my customers, I understand. Let's get on with it --
IBM: Wrong! Your customers you keep, and I'll tell you why --
CUT TO: Darl. And now he stops, and the look that was in his eyes at the wedding, that look of fear, is starting to return.
IBM: -- so that every shriek of every CIO at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish -- every IT manager that weeps at your approach, every system administrator who cries out, "Dear God, what is that thing?" will echo in the ears of your perfect customers. That is what "to the pain" means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
CUT TO: Darl, doing his best to hide the fear that keeps building inside him.
Darl: I think you're bluffing --
IBM: It's possible, pig -- I might be bluffing -- it's conceivable, you miserable vomitous mass, that I'm only suing you for infringment of four of my patents because I lack the interest in finding the thousands of others -- then again, perhaps I have the interest after all.
And now, slowly, IBM begins to move. His body turns, his feet go to the floor, he starts to stand --
CUT TO: Darl, staring, eyes wide.
CUT TO: IBM. And now he is standing, lawyers in fighting position.
Actually, IBM was NOT busted for being a monopoly (in the US that is) in the 70's; they just spent a really long time in court before the whole thing was eventually dismissed. People moaned and whined about what a big bad monopoly IBM was until they lost control of the PC market and everyone forgot about the horrors we'd all suffer if someone didn't do something.
The same thing is gonna happen to MS; it's just a matter of time.
" the problem with your argument is that your ISP does not have any revenue from you if you use VoIP from someone else."
Well, that's the point actually; the cable company WOULDN'T be gettting any revenue for my VoIP use. So the argument of the ISP would be that I'm harming them by using their resources (bandwith) to compete with a service they provide. I'm not saying it's a good argument but it's certainly not an argument that not been advanced before, especially by the telcos:
"I, the incumbent last mile carrier, do all this hard work to provide all the infrastructure necessary for VoIP to happen, and incur all the costs then these upstart VoIP companies come in an just take advantage of it! It's not fair! We can't compete when they get to have the infrastructure for free!"
Replace VoIP with local/long distance service and you've pretty much got a mirror image of what's happening right now with the telcos and the FCC.
The telco's are certainly claiming harm from the competition for local/long distance calling, why would you not expect an ISP to attempt to block competitors to its own VoIP service in a similar way? (Yes, I know that the whole local/long distance fiasco is a result of a regulatory nightmare but the point remains the same.)
Well that depends on the Terms of Service now doesn't it?
As an example, it's pretty well known that Comcast's policy on VPN is that you can't use VPN on a normal "consumer" broadband connnection. If you want to use VPN then you need to "upgrade" to the very much more expensive business class cable service; which happens to be exactly same as the consumer service just with a higher price and without the VPN restriction in your ToS.
Thus, if you choose to VPN to ANYWHERE (even if it's a VPN for personal use!) and you've got a consumer service agreement then you're in violation of your ToS and are technically defrauding the company.
Which falls under the actions prohibited by this bill.
"with the intent to harm or defraud a communication service"
What's left unspecified is the definition of "harm." Is it harmful to a broadband ISP who offers a VoIP phone service if I choose to use another VoIP service vendor? Economically speaking, I think it's rather apparent that the my use of an alternate IP telephony company results in lost revenue for my ISP. That's harm; does it rise to a level prosecutable by this law?
Am I attempting to defraud my ISP if I use intentionally use "too much" bandwidth?
Is the mere posession of a wireless access point (where the possibility exists that someone outside of my household might be able to use it) enough to imply intent to harm or defraud? What if my WAP is running on one of those Linux boxes all those evil terrorist h4x0rs use?
And to your point about Terms of Service from your ISP; those are often changed without any notice to you. Does that open you to "intent to defraud" if yesterday P2P was ok, but today it's not and you inexplicably weren't rereading your ToS daily?
The problem with this is that, as usual, the reason for writing the bill (stop people from stealing things) got completely lost in the authoring process.
Slashdot Mirror
> yes it is because guess what, reason aside, he had no WMD's and was no threat!
Really? I guess that Sarin bomb they exploded the other day must have come from eBay.
WTF do schools need VOIP for? Why should we be subsidizing public schools' external phone connectivity?
It's debatable whether we should have jumped on the bandwagon of Internet enabling every school in the nation (rather than leaving it to the local school system and tax payers), but there's just no argument for yet-another-tax to give free phone calls to schools.
Developing Your Own 32-Bit Operating System
i ent/server oriented
Richard A. Burgess
(c) 1995
SAMS Publishing
ISBN: 0-672-30655-7
LoC: 94-69271
"Have you ever wanted to write your own operating system?
Or have you ever wanted to find out what it would take?
Or have you just wanted to see the source code with _real_ comments?
If so, then this book is for you! This book contains the ideas, suggestions,
and tools you will need -- plus a sample operating system, MMURTL.
You will see these features of MMURTL highlighted:
Micro-kernel
Message based
Real-time
Multitasking
Multithreaded
Cl
ISA 32-bit PC-compatible
The CD-ROM contains:
Complete MMURTL operating system source code
Sample applications, including source code
A 32-bit assembler, including source code
A 32-bit C compiler, including source code"
We need a non-profit that will work with Open Source developers to file Statutory Invention Registrations (SIR) than can be used to prevent some of the patently silly behavior that's been going on recently.
I understand the process is cheaper than doing a full blown patent so it may not be as unreachable as it seems.
See:
Types of Patents
1) It's too big.
2) Did you see the keyboard? Typing on the 5500 was a chore and it's obvious that Sharp didn't learn anything from the BlackBerry or the Treo 600.
3) Did I mention it's too big?
There's no way this is going to fly in the enterprise.
Heh...reminds me of one of my Physics finals.
By the end of the year, I'd managed to pretty much guarantee myself a B in the class and since as a Comp. Sci. student I didn't need to try sweating an A out of the course I decided I'd have some fun with the final.
I showed up to the final with a box of Crayola crayons and sat on the front row. I made a nice picture on the scantron answer sheet with my Crayons and turned the whole thing in after about 15 minutes.
The look on the faces of the people sitting behind me was priceless. I think one guy was gonna cry.
Easily the best final I ever took.
(Yes, I did get my B and it appears a crayon Christmas tree is worth a score of about 18% on a typical engineering physics final. No idea how the scantron picked up the crayon, but there you have it.)
Jared
Actually, you're wrong. The Educational and Productivity Solutions division is still very much a part of Texas Instruments. (See TI's 2003 annual report at: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor/ar03/page2.ht m )
You may have become confused because TI doesn't actually manufacture the calculators anymore (that's outsourced to a contract manufacturer), although TI does do all the design, marketing, etc.
As a percentage of total revenue for TI, the calculator business is not major contributor to TI's total revenue. E&PS typically hovers around $500 million in annual revenue. TI's other two business segments, Semiconductor and Sensors & Controls, came in at approximately $8 billion and $1 billion in revenue for 2003.
"Also, buy the most expensive house you can afford"
This is the most common advice I hear given to first time home buyers and it is among the worst financial advice to receive. DO NOT buy the most expensive house you can afford.
I know a lot of people who followed this advice and ended up house poor because their financial circumstances changed and yet they're still locked into an investment that's not liquid.
Most of these people found themselves screwed because they bought as big as house as they could afford and then suddenly realized that when they wanted to have children their house payment was holding them hostage: one of you want to stay home with the kids? sorry, got the mortage to pay.
Also due to the dip in the economy many of these people found themselves without a job. Whoops. Again, their high house payments meant they ability to respond financially (say by taking a lower paying job for a while) was compromised because they couldn't or didn't want to sell their house and at the same time they couldn't afford to take a job that wouldn't allow them to make payments!
When you're looking for a house location is more important than the current price or the square footage. Ideally you should be looking for a house in the lower range of a nice neighborhood; some place where you're not going to find a gas station or a fast food joint across from your back yard some morning.
As for the folks claiming the only advantage in having a house is the tax deduction, don't forget that:
1) You're not paying rent
2) Your house may appreciate in value as well.
Jared
Personal experience aside I know that number can't be anywhere close to right. We do watch all the email that comes into our company and fully 75% or more of it, literally, is spam.
That's up from 40% at this time last year.
`We, the proprietary software industry have finally come to realize that writing secure software is quite beyond our capabililties..."
If you're willing to change "beyond our capabilities" to "expensive and our customers don't care anyway" then I think you've on the right track.
As I posted elsewhere, this is a fairly transparent effort to get on the government gravy train.
You need read no further (in the summary) than:
"The Department of Homeland Security should support US-CERT, IT-ISAC, or other entities to work with sofware producers to determine the effectiveness of practices that reduce software security vulnerabilities."
Translation: We'd like to hop on the government gravy train under the guise of "Homeland Security." Can we get some free money please? I mean seriously, why should we pay to fix our own programming errors when we can get the government to pay us to do it?
While I do believe that the CTEA was a bad piece of legislation, these guys are not going to win this case. They've got basically two claims:
1) Unlimited automatic copyright is a violation of First Amendment freedom of speech, and
2) Unlimited automatic copyright is a violation of the Progress clause of the Constitution.
Their argument for 1) is just mind boggling. Nothing in the copyright clause regulates my freedom of speech. In fact you might argue that it enchances my freedom of speech by granting me ownership and a legal monopoloy of the use of my speech. The CTEA imposes no burden on my free (as in freedom) speech, but it does make my work not free (as in beer).
As for 2), despite what the plantiffs think this is EXACTLY like Eldred v. Ashcroft because it comes down to the exact same root question. Does the Progress clause let Congress do pretty much anything they want with respect to copyright. The answer provided in Eldred was clear: yes, Congress' lattitude here is pretty wide.
The plantiffs would be better served by trying for a constitutional amendment or something like the Public Domain Enhancement Act, rather than beating their heads uselessly over legal arguments that are 1) frivilous and 2) already clearly answered.
Jared
Boy for a bunch of people who get all hot under the collar whenever someone paints all Computer Scientists as crazy socially deprived communist-hippy MP3 stealing intellectual property scoff-law virgins who live in Mom's basement, a lot of people here sure are quick to whip out the MBA-as-puppy-kickers stereotypes.
A little empathy goes a long way.
I am both a Computer Scientist as well as an MBA and I can assure you I haven't kicked a single puppy today. (Of course the day _is_ still young.)
Jared
Good point; hadn't even considered that one. Thanks!
Darl,
I've got to tip my hat to you. It's rare that you can find someone so outspoken and with such an interesting interpretation of reality who is also able to elicit such vociferous and multitudinous responses from your friends and (more often) your enemies. Really, for your family's sake at least, I feel better knowing that when someone finally points out that the emperor has no clothes, you'll have no problems finding employment in the afternoon talk show circuit.
In the months since you've launched your Sisyphean attack on Linux and Open Source Software in general I've come to regard you with something of a grudging affinity. Like that crazy uncle you hope never shows up for family events but then miss terribly when he's not there, you've become a constant ache that I just know I'm going to miss. Who else can I count on to inspire such fits of laughter and frothing rage?
It's with this new found amiability towards you that I make the following offer. I know you've been wanting someone to buy up The SCO Group and in the interests of not seeing you completely financially devastated, I'd like to buy your company. I'd like to offer you a one crisp United States dollar bill for the entirety of The SCO Group. You may find the amount a little less than you'd hoped for, but as Homer Simpson was once counseled (if I may paraphrase) "I think you should take it."
You see I've been both amused, enraged, and more recently dismayed as the scope of your intellectual property land grab expands. I finally decided that some sort of intervention was necessary after I read your latest diatribe in which you both demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of intellectual property law as well as the GPL and made thinly veiled threats to employ the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to further expand your legal assault against Linux. Darl, have you even read the DMCA? Do you know what it is or says? Were you aware that you've got to actually demonstrate you've got copyright in something that's been infringed before you can even open that can of worms?
I'm sure it may have slipped your mind what with all the heavy composition you've apparently been engaged in, but although you've talked a lot about your lawsuits with IBM and RedHat, you haven't actually won either of them yet. As such, that presents a real problem for your DMCA strategy because so far you've been unable to demonstrate an intellectual property interest of The SCO Group that's been infringed in any way. Sort of putting the cart before the horse aren't we?
Surely it's also obvious to you now that you've painted yourself into a corner with respect to the GNU Public License (GPL)? If you prevail and the GPL is declared invalid, as a distributor of many works (including Linux) which were formerly licensed under the GPL, The SCO Group would appear to be guilty of copyright infringement on a rather unprecedented scale. (Without the GPL Darl you can't distribute Linux or Samba.) If you fail, and the GPL is valid, you've released all your supposedly infringed works into the Open Source community under terms where you lose all ability to make infringement claims on pretty much any IP grounds. In which case any value of any intellectual property left in the corpses of your versions of Unix is pretty much gone.
So please, I urge you, it's time to stop the madness. Take me up on my offer, let Mr. Boise have his cut of my buyout, and walk away a winner Darl. I'm pretty sure it's the best offer you're going to get.
Your friend,
Specter
WRT to your comment on the election: (as usual IANAL)
1) The Supremes became involved because the issue at hand was the violation of the consitutionally protected right to have the votes counted fairly. All kinds of differing standards were being applied to the recounts. There was no standard as to what counted as a vote (or not) or where the votes were going to be recounted.
2) "W" won under all subsequent recounts of the votes.
3) The electorial college may not be perfect (or even a good idea) but it was the law of the land when everyone signed up for the race. Popular vote or not, those were the rules.
Ahhhh...so now Darl's evil plan is uncovered in full. He doesn't want to ship operating systems at all! If it's true that he's got to give the lion's share of any profit from an OS sale to Novell then Darl doesn't have much chance of resurrecting SCO by increasing operating system sales.
Linux liceneses, however, might be another story. Must SCO pay Novell for sales of a Linux run time license? I'd bet not. What an interesting idea: let the Linux community do all the heavy lifting of building an enterprise ready operating system and then sit back and just rake in $699 per copy. (GET RICH FAST!!!!) I think the term I'm looking for here is "freeloading." "Social loafer" also comes to mind.
(note to self: insert obligatory PROFIT joke here...)
Jared
Copyright Basics - Notice of Copyright
Jared
Ok, you asked for it:
IBM lies as before, not a muscle has moved, his head is still on the headboard, Yellin's sword at his side. Linux is alongside the bed; her eyes never leave his face.
Linux: Oh, IBM, will you ever forgive me?
IBM: What hideous sin have you committed lately?
Linux: I got 0wn3d. I didn't want to. It all happened so fast.
IBM: It never happened.
Linux: What?
IBM: It never happened.
Linux: But it did. I was there. Darl said, "All your code are belong to us."
IBM: Did SCO win its lawsuit?
BUTTERCUP: Well, no, we sort of skipped that part.
IBM: Then you're not 0wn3d-- if Chewbacca has fur you must acquit (a pause) -- wouldn't you agree, Your Slimy-ness?
CUT TO: Darl, entering the room, staring at them. He pulls out his sword, Boies.
Darl: A technicality that will shortly be remedied. But first things first. To the death.
IBM: No. (a little pause) To the pain.
Darl: (about to charge, stops short) I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
IBM: I'll explain. And I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you wart-hog-faced buffoon.
Darl: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
IBM: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your so-called trade secrets, below the ankles, then your copyrights at the wrists, next your patents.
Darl: -- and then my trademarks, I suppose. I sued you too slowly the last time, a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
IBM: I wasn't finished -- the next thing you lose will be your market capitalization, followed by your investors--
Darl: (takes step forward) -- and then my customers, I understand. Let's get on with it --
IBM: Wrong! Your customers you keep, and I'll tell you why --
CUT TO: Darl. And now he stops, and the look that was in his eyes at the wedding, that look of fear, is starting to return.
IBM: -- so that every shriek of every CIO at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish -- every IT manager that weeps at your approach, every system administrator who cries out, "Dear God, what is that thing?" will echo in the ears of your perfect customers. That is what "to the pain" means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
CUT TO: Darl, doing his best to hide the fear that keeps building inside him.
Darl: I think you're bluffing --
IBM: It's possible, pig -- I might be bluffing -- it's conceivable, you miserable vomitous mass, that I'm only suing you for infringment of four of my patents because I lack the interest in finding the thousands of others -- then again, perhaps I have the interest after all.
And now, slowly, IBM begins to move. His body turns, his feet go to the floor, he starts to stand --
CUT TO: Darl, staring, eyes wide.
CUT TO: IBM. And now he is standing, lawyers in fighting position.
IBM: -- DROP YOUR LAWSUIT!
WSJ.com - Portals
Nice to see some friendly high profile coverage here. Thanks Lee!
Jared
SCO whining about "unsubstantiated allegations?" That's rich!
Actually, IBM was NOT busted for being a monopoly (in the US that is) in the 70's; they just spent a really long time in court before the whole thing was eventually dismissed. People moaned and whined about what a big bad monopoly IBM was until they lost control of the PC market and everyone forgot about the horrors we'd all suffer if someone didn't do something.
The same thing is gonna happen to MS; it's just a matter of time.
Jared
" the problem with your argument is that your ISP does not have any revenue from you if you use VoIP from someone else."
Well, that's the point actually; the cable company WOULDN'T be gettting any revenue for my VoIP use. So the argument of the ISP would be that I'm harming them by using their resources (bandwith) to compete with a service they provide. I'm not saying it's a good argument but it's certainly not an argument that not been advanced before, especially by the telcos:
"I, the incumbent last mile carrier, do all this hard work to provide all the infrastructure necessary for VoIP to happen, and incur all the costs then these upstart VoIP companies come in an just take advantage of it! It's not fair! We can't compete when they get to have the infrastructure for free!"
Replace VoIP with local/long distance service and you've pretty much got a mirror image of what's happening right now with the telcos and the FCC.
The telco's are certainly claiming harm from the competition for local/long distance calling, why would you not expect an ISP to attempt to block competitors to its own VoIP service in a similar way?
(Yes, I know that the whole local/long distance fiasco is a result of a regulatory nightmare but the point remains the same.)
Jared
"Does a VPN "harm or defraud" an ISP? NO"
Well that depends on the Terms of Service now doesn't it?
As an example, it's pretty well known that Comcast's policy on VPN is that you can't use VPN on a normal "consumer" broadband connnection. If you want to use VPN then you need to "upgrade" to the very much more expensive business class cable service; which happens to be exactly same as the consumer service just with a higher price and without the VPN restriction in your ToS.
Thus, if you choose to VPN to ANYWHERE (even if it's a VPN for personal use!) and you've got a consumer service agreement then you're in violation of your ToS and are technically defrauding the company.
Which falls under the actions prohibited by this bill.
D'oh...
Jared
"Wait, there are yet more words here..."
The specific phrase actually says:
"with the intent to harm or defraud a communication service"
What's left unspecified is the definition of "harm." Is it harmful to a broadband ISP who offers a VoIP phone service if I choose to use another VoIP service vendor? Economically speaking, I think it's rather apparent that the my use of an alternate IP telephony company results in lost revenue for my ISP. That's harm; does it rise to a level prosecutable by this law?
Am I attempting to defraud my ISP if I use intentionally use "too much" bandwidth?
Is the mere posession of a wireless access point (where the possibility exists that someone outside of my household might be able to use it) enough to imply intent to harm or defraud? What if my WAP is running on one of those Linux boxes all those evil terrorist h4x0rs use?
And to your point about Terms of Service from your ISP; those are often changed without any notice to you. Does that open you to "intent to defraud" if yesterday P2P was ok, but today it's not and you inexplicably weren't rereading your ToS daily?
The problem with this is that, as usual, the reason for writing the bill (stop people from stealing things) got completely lost in the authoring process.
Jared