The WinTV PVR 350 most certainly does do hardware mpeg decoding. Of course whether you can get that working with Linux or not is another matter (though ivtv does have preliminary support now).
I'm still trying to figure out what the hell they are really talking about! One of the things I did was search the US Copyright code 17 which he references for "financial gain". It appears in 5 places.
which tells you that willfully breaking a copyright for commercial advantage or private
financial gain or by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, sends you to Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure:: Crimes:: Stolen Property:: Criminal infringement of a copyright to find out your punishment.
So basically the phrase "financial gain" is simply used as a standard for deciding whether something is eligble for an exception, or whether punishments apply. What this means for what Darl and SCO are really trying to say though....
Is the default radio noise of space white noise? Does encrypted data look like white noise? Is it necessary to use an easily detectable carrier for communications? Is seti not really just searching for other species at a similar technological level to our own? Even if we do find a signl with seti, doesn't it suggest that we are finding a species who we are unlikely to encounter for a very long time (i.e. they have as long to go to be able to reach us as we have to reach them), rather than finding a species with "star-trek-tech"?
Try reading Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars series. Your plot is similar, though the earth's climate is not influenced by the colonists. I won't say anymore, wouldn't want to spoil it.
Moderators: is the parent really worth (Score: -1, Flamebait)? Why? Many others are questioning the sanity of using a point in space and not the moon, and this guy propses an unlikely but conceivable reason why people (politicians) mightn't be ready to set up camp on another planet. I personally would be very concerned about the possibility of a "territorial fight" if we went colonising/setting up permanent bases at this time, we're not stable down here by a long way. I wouldn't think it too likely we would find ourselves effecting the orbits, but given the impact we have had on earth, and the possibility that we could find ourselves doing things (like mining and processing) on new scales, we could conceivably have a drastic impact on the moon in many ways. If we tried to go for dramtic terroforming efforts (not within our grasp I don't believe) perhaps anything is possible!
You better watch out, you just posted on/. that you have a hideous record on the front of performing your civic duty of paying taxes, the taxman is coming!
Seriously, this indicates the role society plays in interpreting language. Only someone who understands that the most Americans view politics as a straightforward battle between 2 parties could ever interpret the parent post as intended. It also illustrates the sort of nightmares any attempts at computerised natural language processing will have.
Contents are:
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1068672750.Graphviz.2D.1884x1884.jpg
1069524880.2D.coords.txt
1069524880.2D.txt
1069524880.3D.coords.txt
1069524880.3D.wrl
1069524880.LGL.2D.2048x2048.png
1069524880.LGL.2D.400x400.png
1069524880.LGL.2D.700x700.png
1069524880.lgl.txt
1069646562.2D.coords.txt
1069646562.2D.txt
1069646562.LGL.2D.400x400.png
1069646562.LGL.2D.4096x4096.png
1069646562.LGL.2D.700x700.png
1069646562.lgl.txt
The images are quite nice, especially the monster png. I have to find me a quiet moment on the machine to check out the vrml. No sign of the goat (thats why not ac)!
I think the problem is that everyone is completely sick of every Linux story being commented on about how Gentoo is best! I think every balanced person out there agrees that when it comes to operating systems it's horses for courses. I for one though certainly do not see a source based distribution as how desktop linux should be, at least not a source based distribution to the end user! What I don't enderstand is why Gentoo didn't in itself become a Debian meta-distribution? Write their ports system within the existing debian development structure and then develop their own apt sources. The aims of the two projects are very similar in many ways, and if Gentoo had been at all sucessful in this, they could have seen their work being picked up by debian and then could have become an alternate debian experimental tree, or perhaps they could have even been in charge of producing the binary release packages, deciding optimisations and creating branches where they feel neccessary. I guess I'm asking what is Gentoo's raison d'etre, why is it a completely seperate distribution on it's own and not a collaborative partner with some other distribution? What does Gentoo bring to FOSS apart from someway to divert people who can use source code from using the same system that the people who can't use it, and take some of the faster machines which just might be helping out with development and instead have them (mainly uselessly) compiling code? Does it not just show an elite group who wish to work off on their own and not share their work with those less able?
This is slashdot after all it's been talked about for long enough as the sort of thing computers are good for so...
the best place for stacks of paper is a filing cabinet with tabbed folders. The floor just doesn't sort my phone bills as well as I thought it would.
What about scanning your documents? You would have to keep some originals, but that would easily fit in one of those expanding folder cases (just so those 20 documents stay tidy). Just file your documents as you would if it had come from anywhere else (i.e. email), in fact you could even wrap the scanning up with a front-end which emails the scan to you as an attachment where you specify who it came from so you can even use your email filters on it. You could also automatically run ocr on the scan to create a text version for searching/as content of the email. I know I don't do it, but does anyone do any of it?
As I read through this story I was thinking that it was quite predictable and boring until I noticed that Suse were including nonprofits! It is certainly a significant manouver if a nonprofit can now get (for example) OpenExchange w/50 CALs for $499 (the ccv academic price) and included in that is telephone support! In fact they can kit out a 50 user office with OpenExchange server ($499), Suse Desktop (5*$399) and Enterprise Server ($399) with one years support for a grand total of $2893 or $58.76/desktop. It's not as good as getting it all free, but support isn't free and that is going to be a hard price for anyone to beat (I think). Would you support a 50 seat setup like that for $3k/annum?
I'd thought the reason for Broadcoms complete lack of a Free driver (you can use linuxants ndis driver loader with the windows drivers) for their wlan cards is that their cards are in fact general purpose radio transmitter/receivers, and with an open driver these features could be exposed and used which would prevent them selling the same hardware with different drivers for other applications. Of course this could be completely wrong!
Installation from a liveCD is different from say a debian installation. You can't stick on a bare base system and then hand pick what you want on top of it, but for 90%+ of the potential matket they would not want to tailor the install they just want to install! Of course once you have installed it you can strip things back out if that's what you desire.
Secondly on installing, you say that a liveCD install is worse because of higher system requirements. While I can understand your point I think that this again is linked to the first issue as the system would target a certain level of hardware and if you don't meet them then you would need a lighter weight system. Of course running from a liveCD requires a cdrom drive... or a network connection (Knoppix can be run across a network from etherboot) or copying the ISO onto a USB hard disk or...
Finally on installing, I do not see where your increased risk of trojans comes from. How is installing from a liveCD any different then installing from an installation cd? If you don't trust the source then you won't trust the system. Who is to say the the liveCD is going to install it's own binary content? It could simply act as a stage 1 gentoo system and then download and emerge the rest from online sources. Isn't an installation cd simply a different sort of liveCD which is used to install the system? Don't most systems usually install the kernel from the installation cd onto the new system for example?
I respect your opinion that currently liveCDs are limited, but I have to disagree. Perhaps they are limited for the devlopers of new liveCDs, but from the perspective of the end user (99%+ of the potential audience) there is variety out there. Just look at the Knoppix remasters out there which cater for everything from medics to dance dancers and clusterers.
It's great to hear that remasters based on Mandrake do exist (and I suspected they did) but it would be far nicer to see them out in the wild and being worked on by interested communities. Time for you to release maybe?
While I agree with most of what you say, I honestly feel that "Linux's best hope for widespread adoption" will be a live CD which allows people to boot up, see that things are going to work and then allows them install it from the liveCDs gui. Either that or a few major hardware manufacturers shipping with Linux by default (even if it is dual booting). Mandrake doesn't have a liveCD derivative out there does it (I know it has the tools to build one, but no community nor Mandrake are building one that I know of)?
Anacronym hell! OSS = Open Source Software. OSS = Open Sound System which is in itself OSS.... my head hurts!
What I really wanted to say was that RedHat always struck me as about 95% OSS becuase they used things like commercial OSS drivers... ok that's it, I'm going to lie down!
I for one am waiting for the day that a selection of artists such as Dre (and hence m'n'm), Madonna, George Michael, Kylie, Aphex Twin and Garth Brooks launch their own online music store, where you can purchase the music directly from the artists. Ideally the system would have a moderation system whereby as you buy music, you would be presented with the music which the artists you have purchased music from like, and/or the people who have also bought the music which you did also liked. That way the system would promote diveristy as you would not just be presented with the top 10, but with your own potential top 10. Until the artists come direct (and I don't think that will happen until some of the big players who have more than enough money to not care if things go wrong do it) to me this may be news but it sure doesn't matter.
It seems we either have fundamental differences in how we think or have trouble in understanding the points we are raising. I see the issue as MS using it's monopoly in one area (personal computer operating systems) to try to create a monopoly in another area (media players). If you wait until MS actually has a monopoly on media players (and despite your protestations I wonder if it does not already have an effective monopoly) then it is a completely different proposition to rectify the situation than if you try to prevent them from extending their monopoly at the outset. As for the standards being open, are you suggesting that wmv, real or quicktime are open standards? I would say that there are virtually no open media formats (and without support for media formats a player is useless) as most are significantly encumbered by patents (such as mpeg2). Also you have to remember that as all good corporations try to do, this is not simply about the players, but about the production tools aswell. If MS manages to use its desktop dominence to make WMP the dominent media player (with say 90% usage) then it would be in a position to control the distribution of media content. For example it would be far easier for the **AA to get the sorts of non fair use DRM related restrictions they would like in computer equipment if they only had to convince/purchase the support of one manufacturer. Also the **AA could also exert pressuer on MS to remove all "legacy" codecs from WMP and to only allow content which is created by "authorised" producers from being playable (i.e. it if you want to amuse the world by performing a live internet concert of your first piano lesson you would not be able, and similarly if you want to rip your cd onto your laptop). This is why unregulated monopolies are bad, they can extend their influence and make choices for society based on their own value systems.
I would of course agree that both Quicktime and RealPlayer are horrible pieces of software, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether MS is using its monopoly in one area to gain a monopoly in another.
What is my metric for determining if a company has grown too big? There is no easy answer to that other than if they are able to dictate the to market as oppossed to being a part of a market. In some markets you can become a monopoly around the 50% mark. In others you need to reach 80%+ or perhaps even 95%+. The differences are usually related to barriers of entry and ease of replacement so for example it would take a larger share of the market to monopolise a basic commodity such as bottled water than it would to domainate something like mobile phones or PC OSs. I would find it hard to believe you could find a single independant person (say economists) who would not conclude that Microsoft has a monopoly on personal computer operating systems. On the other hand I would love to know what area either Sun or IBM could claim to have a market share in excess of 50% or even a share where it could be considered a monopoly?
As for why CNN is allowed to operate at its current size (I know nothing of CNNs power as a non american) and why Chevron Texaco exists... I can only assume it is for the same reason that MS is now only one company and not two or more, the US political system cares far more for corporate interests and cash to fund campaigns then it does for any sense of justice, morailty, competition, balance or long term stability and progress.
Microsoft has a "monopoly" on personal computer operating systems (not a total monopoly (100%) but an effective one (90%)). Microsoft "acquired" this monopoly by shipping a product which was unable to stream video without third party software. At a later date they added this function into Windows and also released the tools required to create their own streaming content. Now 90% of new computers sold arrive with the capability to stream video. Both Apple and Real provide free players for their streaming video and are/were attempting to profit from selling the content production software and servers. Now Microsoft can offer a solution which will automatically be successful for 90% of computers sold since the bundling of WMP, it is a far harder sell for Apple/Real to convince media producers that they should provide their format instead of or in addition to wmv as the end user is not guaranteed to be able to play these formats without having to download additional software.
For me the issue is what limitations should be placed on monopolies which are gained not through legislation but by commercial effort. Do you limit them or do you allow them to continue as any other non-monopolistic competitor would be allowed to do? I say you have to curtail them, otherwise MS will slowly but surely pick off each and every software manufacturer out there (well every one which has a large market) and it's power will increase even further (this story demonstrates already how powerful it is)! If MS manage to squeeze the others out of the marketplace, what would then prevent them from limiting access to their production facilities to those who will only produce content they agree with? If it is proven through experience that nobody can stop MS from doing whatever they like, I would expect Macromedia to suffer a similar fate to Real/Apple, where MS includes a similar tech to flash in their browsers and then offers the production software. Faced with the choice of using a technology which will require the majority of your end users to download additional software (and don't forget lots of people are drilled into the mentality of never running software from the internet) as opposed to using a technology which will just work out of the box on 90% of your potential audience, which method will most people pick. Anyone else care to suggest some of the other targets coming up on the road ahead for MS?
BTW why do you single out the EU laws as stupid, when the US successfully prosecuted MS for the same thing with IE? Of course in that case the stupid white men then proceeded to let them off the hook when GWB wasn't elected president.
If you'd said that he might be surprised to discover the sky doesn't make "The Simpsons" then you might have actually had a semi meaningful post. Sky (yet another Murdoch company) launched and built it's network in the UK based on a diet of Simpsons and Premiership football. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant percentage of UK viewers believes Sky owns and funds "The Simpsons", and as Fox and Sky are both Murdoch perhaps they'd be right!
You doubt he sees any additional income based on DVD sales? What planet are you living on? Just look at all they work they put into throughout the entire process just to ensure that they had the extended editions and all the bonus material. Do you think the extended edition sets would show the care and attention they do if he wasn't getting something out of them. I even remember him saying that it was part of the plan from the outset.
I'm not suggesting that there is any real conspiracy, all you have to do is listen to what they say and then wait until November 18th until you buy a DVD of it. Of course then you have to go to your local cinema which is showing all the extended editions in the run up to the final film release. Then you have to go back in a years time to spend a day at the cinema (maybe 14 hours if they give you an hour between films) watching all 3 extended editions on the big screen. I don't care about all of this though, as it is the right thing to do! If they released 4 hour films straight off, they would alienate a huge part of their cinema audience who wouldn't be willing to sit in a cinema that long (and how many cinemas would show it). Lots of those same people will watch it on DVD though as they can pause it at will and have "intermissions".
What I would have prefferred though is if they had gone for 6 films (yes, I am nuts) and gotten them all down to 2-3 hour films. But really it is not a conspiracy, just a shrewd decision that I think actually suits his material well. It would have been nicer if he had skipped the short DVD releases and just released extended editions from which you could view the original version but so be it.... it wasn't like anyone who is going to buy a DVD (except for as presents, but at least Christmas is after the Extended Editions are released) is not going to know an extended edition is coming. Of course, that didn't stop me getting the short version on DVD as a present:-(
What does really get to me though is this:
Amazon.com: $25.99
Amazon.co.uk: $40.23
And of course this which offers you the Region 3 DVD for STG19.99 as oppossed to Region 2 at STG25.99 or Region 1 at STG24.99! Good old CSS doing it's job.
Far more likely in my mind is that linux phones will win minds by having a simpler set of tools, which interoperate cleanly (just use standards, no integration beyond that) and go out of their way to minimise bandwidth usage over latency (i.e. use compressed tunnels for all data). Of course, the bandwidth thing will never happen as the carriers will all want to make sure they can charge you your 3/MB (current gprs/3g charge here in Ireland for a single phone user) and not the miserly 0.3 or less you would probably get away with using compression.
So an enterprise won't run on a mix of testing and unstable, but it will run on the same software provided by someone else if they call it stable? If you are running an enterprise system, then any software used should be adequately tested. With debian stable the amount of testing you have to do drops to a minimum, with any other distro (where the packages are going to be far younger as is the source upon which they are based) you need to do a far more comprehensive test to establish the stability, security and functionality of your system. Of course if Bruce's idea came to fruition, you would see Debian move faster as more people would be contributing to testing, packaging and bug-squashing. On the desktop you would probably see distros being stable/testing hybrids, but I imagine all enterprise distros would stick firmly with stable and promote the fact.
Because few people want/need to build their own system. Debian has shown an incredible ability to package stable and consistent software which has already become the basis for many different desktop distributions (Corel/Xandros, Lindows, Knoppix). Also Debian supports more architectures than any other Linux Distribution (correct?) and hence all the work done by the various parties would help to ensure that the computer market is held in balance in terms of architectures (i.e. if every Linux distro used Debian as a base, and Linux gained 30% of the desktops, then the ability for "the market" to switch architectures in the event of gross arrogance (i.e. AMD and Intel push through DRM technologies which require annual licensing) would be vastly improved compared to if the Linux distros in use were all derived from RedHat). Of course ideally Gentoo would also collaborate in this enterprise and would become debian derived (i.e. you could do a debian base install and then do "apt-get install gentoo-stageN" to have it use debian as the toolchain to build gentoo, perhaps even building the system out of debian source packages (with gentoo patches)).
Slashdot Mirror
The WinTV PVR 350 most certainly does do hardware mpeg decoding. Of course whether you can get that working with Linux or not is another matter (though ivtv does have preliminary support now).
- The definition Linus mentions.
- Sec. 1201. - Circumvention of copyright protection systems where nonprofit exceptions broken for commercial advantage or financial gain can lead to civil remedies and then the loss of exceptions.
- Sec. 110. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Exemption of certain performances and displays. Here financial gain excludes performances from being copyright exempt where they could otherwise be.
- Sec. 1204. - Criminal offenses and penalties
- which states the penalties which apply for people who break the code for commercial advantage or private
- financial gain.
- Sec. 506. - Criminal offenses
- which tells you that willfully breaking a copyright for commercial advantage or private
- financial gain or by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, sends you to Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure
:: Crimes :: Stolen Property :: Criminal infringement of a copyright to find out your punishment.
So basically the phrase "financial gain" is simply used as a standard for deciding whether something is eligble for an exception, or whether punishments apply. What this means for what Darl and SCO are really trying to say thoughIs the default radio noise of space white noise? Does encrypted data look like white noise? Is it necessary to use an easily detectable carrier for communications? Is seti not really just searching for other species at a similar technological level to our own? Even if we do find a signl with seti, doesn't it suggest that we are finding a species who we are unlikely to encounter for a very long time (i.e. they have as long to go to be able to reach us as we have to reach them), rather than finding a species with "star-trek-tech"?
Try reading Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars series. Your plot is similar, though the earth's climate is not influenced by the colonists. I won't say anymore, wouldn't want to spoil it.
Moderators: is the parent really worth (Score: -1, Flamebait)? Why? Many others are questioning the sanity of using a point in space and not the moon, and this guy propses an unlikely but conceivable reason why people (politicians) mightn't be ready to set up camp on another planet. I personally would be very concerned about the possibility of a "territorial fight" if we went colonising/setting up permanent bases at this time, we're not stable down here by a long way. I wouldn't think it too likely we would find ourselves effecting the orbits, but given the impact we have had on earth, and the possibility that we could find ourselves doing things (like mining and processing) on new scales, we could conceivably have a drastic impact on the moon in many ways. If we tried to go for dramtic terroforming efforts (not within our grasp I don't believe) perhaps anything is possible!
You better watch out, you just posted on /. that you have a hideous record on the front of performing your civic duty of paying taxes, the taxman is coming!
Seriously, this indicates the role society plays in interpreting language. Only someone who understands that the most Americans view politics as a straightforward battle between 2 parties could ever interpret the parent post as intended. It also illustrates the sort of nightmares any attempts at computerised natural language processing will have.
I was about to reply quite similarly but thought I'd check back to see who had beaten me too it! One thing, Perl 5.8.0-18 is in unstable.
Contents are: 1068668226.Graphviz.2D.1884x1884.jpg 1068672750.Graphviz.2D.1884x1884.jpg 1069524880.2D.coords.txt 1069524880.2D.txt 1069524880.3D.coords.txt 1069524880.3D.wrl 1069524880.LGL.2D.2048x2048.png 1069524880.LGL.2D.400x400.png 1069524880.LGL.2D.700x700.png 1069524880.lgl.txt 1069646562.2D.coords.txt 1069646562.2D.txt 1069646562.LGL.2D.400x400.png 1069646562.LGL.2D.4096x4096.png 1069646562.LGL.2D.700x700.png 1069646562.lgl.txt The images are quite nice, especially the monster png. I have to find me a quiet moment on the machine to check out the vrml. No sign of the goat (thats why not ac)!
I think the problem is that everyone is completely sick of every Linux story being commented on about how Gentoo is best! I think every balanced person out there agrees that when it comes to operating systems it's horses for courses. I for one though certainly do not see a source based distribution as how desktop linux should be, at least not a source based distribution to the end user! What I don't enderstand is why Gentoo didn't in itself become a Debian meta-distribution? Write their ports system within the existing debian development structure and then develop their own apt sources. The aims of the two projects are very similar in many ways, and if Gentoo had been at all sucessful in this, they could have seen their work being picked up by debian and then could have become an alternate debian experimental tree, or perhaps they could have even been in charge of producing the binary release packages, deciding optimisations and creating branches where they feel neccessary. I guess I'm asking what is Gentoo's raison d'etre, why is it a completely seperate distribution on it's own and not a collaborative partner with some other distribution? What does Gentoo bring to FOSS apart from someway to divert people who can use source code from using the same system that the people who can't use it, and take some of the faster machines which just might be helping out with development and instead have them (mainly uselessly) compiling code? Does it not just show an elite group who wish to work off on their own and not share their work with those less able?
As I read through this story I was thinking that it was quite predictable and boring until I noticed that Suse were including nonprofits! It is certainly a significant manouver if a nonprofit can now get (for example) OpenExchange w/50 CALs for $499 (the ccv academic price) and included in that is telephone support! In fact they can kit out a 50 user office with OpenExchange server ($499), Suse Desktop (5*$399) and Enterprise Server ($399) with one years support for a grand total of $2893 or $58.76/desktop. It's not as good as getting it all free, but support isn't free and that is going to be a hard price for anyone to beat (I think). Would you support a 50 seat setup like that for $3k/annum?
I'd thought the reason for Broadcoms complete lack of a Free driver (you can use linuxants ndis driver loader with the windows drivers) for their wlan cards is that their cards are in fact general purpose radio transmitter/receivers, and with an open driver these features could be exposed and used which would prevent them selling the same hardware with different drivers for other applications. Of course this could be completely wrong!
Installation from a liveCD is different from say a debian installation. You can't stick on a bare base system and then hand pick what you want on top of it, but for 90%+ of the potential matket they would not want to tailor the install they just want to install! Of course once you have installed it you can strip things back out if that's what you desire.
Secondly on installing, you say that a liveCD install is worse because of higher system requirements. While I can understand your point I think that this again is linked to the first issue as the system would target a certain level of hardware and if you don't meet them then you would need a lighter weight system. Of course running from a liveCD requires a cdrom drive ... or a network connection (Knoppix can be run across a network from etherboot) or copying the ISO onto a USB hard disk or ...
Finally on installing, I do not see where your increased risk of trojans comes from. How is installing from a liveCD any different then installing from an installation cd? If you don't trust the source then you won't trust the system. Who is to say the the liveCD is going to install it's own binary content? It could simply act as a stage 1 gentoo system and then download and emerge the rest from online sources. Isn't an installation cd simply a different sort of liveCD which is used to install the system? Don't most systems usually install the kernel from the installation cd onto the new system for example?
I respect your opinion that currently liveCDs are limited, but I have to disagree. Perhaps they are limited for the devlopers of new liveCDs, but from the perspective of the end user (99%+ of the potential audience) there is variety out there. Just look at the Knoppix remasters out there which cater for everything from medics to dance dancers and clusterers.
It's great to hear that remasters based on Mandrake do exist (and I suspected they did) but it would be far nicer to see them out in the wild and being worked on by interested communities. Time for you to release maybe?
While I agree with most of what you say, I honestly feel that "Linux's best hope for widespread adoption" will be a live CD which allows people to boot up, see that things are going to work and then allows them install it from the liveCDs gui. Either that or a few major hardware manufacturers shipping with Linux by default (even if it is dual booting). Mandrake doesn't have a liveCD derivative out there does it (I know it has the tools to build one, but no community nor Mandrake are building one that I know of)?
Anacronym hell! OSS = Open Source Software. OSS = Open Sound System which is in itself OSS .... my head hurts!
What I really wanted to say was that RedHat always struck me as about 95% OSS becuase they used things like commercial OSS drivers ... ok that's it, I'm going to lie down!
Does Walmart really have anything remotely resembling a monopoly in any area which could make it liable to be looked at in an anti-trust light?
I for one am waiting for the day that a selection of artists such as Dre (and hence m'n'm), Madonna, George Michael, Kylie, Aphex Twin and Garth Brooks launch their own online music store, where you can purchase the music directly from the artists. Ideally the system would have a moderation system whereby as you buy music, you would be presented with the music which the artists you have purchased music from like, and/or the people who have also bought the music which you did also liked. That way the system would promote diveristy as you would not just be presented with the top 10, but with your own potential top 10. Until the artists come direct (and I don't think that will happen until some of the big players who have more than enough money to not care if things go wrong do it) to me this may be news but it sure doesn't matter.
It seems we either have fundamental differences in how we think or have trouble in understanding the points we are raising. I see the issue as MS using it's monopoly in one area (personal computer operating systems) to try to create a monopoly in another area (media players). If you wait until MS actually has a monopoly on media players (and despite your protestations I wonder if it does not already have an effective monopoly) then it is a completely different proposition to rectify the situation than if you try to prevent them from extending their monopoly at the outset. As for the standards being open, are you suggesting that wmv, real or quicktime are open standards? I would say that there are virtually no open media formats (and without support for media formats a player is useless) as most are significantly encumbered by patents (such as mpeg2). Also you have to remember that as all good corporations try to do, this is not simply about the players, but about the production tools aswell. If MS manages to use its desktop dominence to make WMP the dominent media player (with say 90% usage) then it would be in a position to control the distribution of media content. For example it would be far easier for the **AA to get the sorts of non fair use DRM related restrictions they would like in computer equipment if they only had to convince/purchase the support of one manufacturer. Also the **AA could also exert pressuer on MS to remove all "legacy" codecs from WMP and to only allow content which is created by "authorised" producers from being playable (i.e. it if you want to amuse the world by performing a live internet concert of your first piano lesson you would not be able, and similarly if you want to rip your cd onto your laptop). This is why unregulated monopolies are bad, they can extend their influence and make choices for society based on their own value systems.
I would of course agree that both Quicktime and RealPlayer are horrible pieces of software, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether MS is using its monopoly in one area to gain a monopoly in another.
What is my metric for determining if a company has grown too big? There is no easy answer to that other than if they are able to dictate the to market as oppossed to being a part of a market. In some markets you can become a monopoly around the 50% mark. In others you need to reach 80%+ or perhaps even 95%+. The differences are usually related to barriers of entry and ease of replacement so for example it would take a larger share of the market to monopolise a basic commodity such as bottled water than it would to domainate something like mobile phones or PC OSs. I would find it hard to believe you could find a single independant person (say economists) who would not conclude that Microsoft has a monopoly on personal computer operating systems. On the other hand I would love to know what area either Sun or IBM could claim to have a market share in excess of 50% or even a share where it could be considered a monopoly?
As for why CNN is allowed to operate at its current size (I know nothing of CNNs power as a non american) and why Chevron Texaco exists ... I can only assume it is for the same reason that MS is now only one company and not two or more, the US political system cares far more for corporate interests and cash to fund campaigns then it does for any sense of justice, morailty, competition, balance or long term stability and progress.
Microsoft has a "monopoly" on personal computer operating systems (not a total monopoly (100%) but an effective one (90%)). Microsoft "acquired" this monopoly by shipping a product which was unable to stream video without third party software. At a later date they added this function into Windows and also released the tools required to create their own streaming content. Now 90% of new computers sold arrive with the capability to stream video. Both Apple and Real provide free players for their streaming video and are/were attempting to profit from selling the content production software and servers. Now Microsoft can offer a solution which will automatically be successful for 90% of computers sold since the bundling of WMP, it is a far harder sell for Apple/Real to convince media producers that they should provide their format instead of or in addition to wmv as the end user is not guaranteed to be able to play these formats without having to download additional software.
For me the issue is what limitations should be placed on monopolies which are gained not through legislation but by commercial effort. Do you limit them or do you allow them to continue as any other non-monopolistic competitor would be allowed to do? I say you have to curtail them, otherwise MS will slowly but surely pick off each and every software manufacturer out there (well every one which has a large market) and it's power will increase even further (this story demonstrates already how powerful it is)! If MS manage to squeeze the others out of the marketplace, what would then prevent them from limiting access to their production facilities to those who will only produce content they agree with? If it is proven through experience that nobody can stop MS from doing whatever they like, I would expect Macromedia to suffer a similar fate to Real/Apple, where MS includes a similar tech to flash in their browsers and then offers the production software. Faced with the choice of using a technology which will require the majority of your end users to download additional software (and don't forget lots of people are drilled into the mentality of never running software from the internet) as opposed to using a technology which will just work out of the box on 90% of your potential audience, which method will most people pick. Anyone else care to suggest some of the other targets coming up on the road ahead for MS?
BTW why do you single out the EU laws as stupid, when the US successfully prosecuted MS for the same thing with IE? Of course in that case the stupid white men then proceeded to let them off the hook when GWB wasn't elected president.
If you'd said that he might be surprised to discover the sky doesn't make "The Simpsons" then you might have actually had a semi meaningful post. Sky (yet another Murdoch company) launched and built it's network in the UK based on a diet of Simpsons and Premiership football. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant percentage of UK viewers believes Sky owns and funds "The Simpsons", and as Fox and Sky are both Murdoch perhaps they'd be right!
You doubt he sees any additional income based on DVD sales? What planet are you living on? Just look at all they work they put into throughout the entire process just to ensure that they had the extended editions and all the bonus material. Do you think the extended edition sets would show the care and attention they do if he wasn't getting something out of them. I even remember him saying that it was part of the plan from the outset.
I'm not suggesting that there is any real conspiracy, all you have to do is listen to what they say and then wait until November 18th until you buy a DVD of it. Of course then you have to go to your local cinema which is showing all the extended editions in the run up to the final film release. Then you have to go back in a years time to spend a day at the cinema (maybe 14 hours if they give you an hour between films) watching all 3 extended editions on the big screen. I don't care about all of this though, as it is the right thing to do! If they released 4 hour films straight off, they would alienate a huge part of their cinema audience who wouldn't be willing to sit in a cinema that long (and how many cinemas would show it). Lots of those same people will watch it on DVD though as they can pause it at will and have "intermissions".
What I would have prefferred though is if they had gone for 6 films (yes, I am nuts) and gotten them all down to 2-3 hour films. But really it is not a conspiracy, just a shrewd decision that I think actually suits his material well. It would have been nicer if he had skipped the short DVD releases and just released extended editions from which you could view the original version but so be it.... it wasn't like anyone who is going to buy a DVD (except for as presents, but at least Christmas is after the Extended Editions are released) is not going to know an extended edition is coming. Of course, that didn't stop me getting the short version on DVD as a present :-(
What does really get to me though is this:
- Amazon.com: $25.99
- Amazon.co.uk: $40.23
And of course this which offers you the Region 3 DVD for STG19.99 as oppossed to Region 2 at STG25.99 or Region 1 at STG24.99! Good old CSS doing it's job.Far more likely in my mind is that linux phones will win minds by having a simpler set of tools, which interoperate cleanly (just use standards, no integration beyond that) and go out of their way to minimise bandwidth usage over latency (i.e. use compressed tunnels for all data). Of course, the bandwidth thing will never happen as the carriers will all want to make sure they can charge you your 3/MB (current gprs/3g charge here in Ireland for a single phone user) and not the miserly 0.3 or less you would probably get away with using compression.
So an enterprise won't run on a mix of testing and unstable, but it will run on the same software provided by someone else if they call it stable? If you are running an enterprise system, then any software used should be adequately tested. With debian stable the amount of testing you have to do drops to a minimum, with any other distro (where the packages are going to be far younger as is the source upon which they are based) you need to do a far more comprehensive test to establish the stability, security and functionality of your system. Of course if Bruce's idea came to fruition, you would see Debian move faster as more people would be contributing to testing, packaging and bug-squashing. On the desktop you would probably see distros being stable/testing hybrids, but I imagine all enterprise distros would stick firmly with stable and promote the fact.
Because few people want/need to build their own system. Debian has shown an incredible ability to package stable and consistent software which has already become the basis for many different desktop distributions (Corel/Xandros, Lindows, Knoppix). Also Debian supports more architectures than any other Linux Distribution (correct?) and hence all the work done by the various parties would help to ensure that the computer market is held in balance in terms of architectures (i.e. if every Linux distro used Debian as a base, and Linux gained 30% of the desktops, then the ability for "the market" to switch architectures in the event of gross arrogance (i.e. AMD and Intel push through DRM technologies which require annual licensing) would be vastly improved compared to if the Linux distros in use were all derived from RedHat). Of course ideally Gentoo would also collaborate in this enterprise and would become debian derived (i.e. you could do a debian base install and then do "apt-get install gentoo-stageN" to have it use debian as the toolchain to build gentoo, perhaps even building the system out of debian source packages (with gentoo patches)).
Perhaps your just discovering how articulate Brent Snowcroft is.