P2P piracy denies compensation to someone who has legally granted rights. But Bill and his company lied, betrayed naive customers, destroyed entire markets that would have benefitted his customers, committed corporate purjury, and extorted tens of billions of dollars via documented abuses with OEMs and product tying.
As one who considered DR-DOS for my product in 1992, and who attempted to buy several PC systems without Windows over the years, I am a victim of his abuses with losses calculated in thousands of dollars *out of my pocket*.
And despite fleecing by Bill & Co. over the years, I've managed to pay for all my music, thanks.
Raelians: Small cult following space aliens SCO: Small company following space cadets
Raelians: Believe genetics will keep them immortal. SCO: Believe SYS5 never died.
Raelians: Announced a nonexistent clone for some rich suit, hid the evidence. SCO: Announced an expensive suit over a nonexistent clone, hid the evidence.
Raelians: From France, prefer outer space. SCO: From outer space, prefer Utah.
Raelians: Hideous pseudo-human spokesperson SCO: Ray Noorda
Raelians: Pull stunts for public attention, hoping we'll buy their crap. SCO: Ditto, but hope IBM will buy their crappy company.
I certainly did my part in bitching, pissing, and moaning as loud as I could.
I did too, making a point that I had been their customer for 6 years straight. In fact, I don't thinks the issue is "Can Hollywood learn from Intuit?" Rather, the issue is, "Can Hollywood's consumers learn from Intuit's consumers?"
Piss. Moan. Tell them about the titles you will *not* buy because of it. Compare them to seal-clubbers and boys who wear Jeff Foxworthy shirts to school. Tell your neighbor all about region coding. Send your congressman a voided check saying "this is what you would have got if not for your support of the DMCA (or replace with the name of your particular nasty legislation)."
Even an issue backed by a silent majority of consumers will fail without a vocal minority getting the message across in this day of megacorps, highest-bidder legislation, and perpetual copyright.
I think the desire for a short, clear, concise license is like the desire for a coding language that can be precise, do anything imaginable, and boil any problem down to a few lucid lines of code. In short: it doesn't exist. (Lets see how many PERL bots will flame me for saying that!)
With that analogy in place, one of my philosophies would apply to such attempts at licensing: design imaginatively, code conservatively. The GPL is (esp. for its time, was ) definitely an innovative design. I would leave the details of coding the language to the experts, with all their caveats and quirky phrases in place, so that when it comes time to test it, it holds firm. I would not expect to be able to fix the baggage that has been accumulated by generations of contract lawyers at this point in the game.
i'm sorry that sun has pulled the OO-wool over your eyes, but it sure as hell isn't OO. to be OO, it would need to support polymorphism, which it don't, and base types would have to be objects, which they ain't.
I am very suspicious: Jack Fegreus (open-mag's editorial director) may hail from a biased background. A simple search on Google brought up tidbits from his past like:
Why would any computer sign any of Microsoft's contracts just so they could put Windows on their computers? Why would they agree to Microsoft's terms?
Why indeed? I'm intrigued at the implication that anticompetitive licensing could invalidate copyright ownership, particularly in light of the latest round of stifling terms in Microsoft's contracts:
No defamation of Microsoft using frontpage
No benchmarking of SQL Server
No compiling of certain SDKs with free compilers
I would not cry upon seeing Microsoft lose rights to their software because of such outrageous terms. Rob: Can we interview this Roger Noll??
not just the subset you happen to have tediously burned to CD.
Yeah, I remember when I had an obsolete, slow CD burner. I'd still need to backup those kinds of media files, since I wouldn't trust my car to that job.
CD's self-destruct at fairly low temperature.
Last I checked, the temperature a CD-R blows at is was well above the operating temperature of most hard drives. At any rate, my CDs have stayed all summer in the Texas sun -- no problem.
The rest is up for grabs
For $1000-$2000 I would expect more bundled. A GUI; IO lines to control the car; GPS, to begin with.
it would have taken a lot of time and cost nearly as much
I think the point of mass-production should be product that is more expensive, not less, to do it yourself. And the value of what they did just doesn't justify such a premium price.
the 800 cd equivelant to and from the car, you
must have some magical lightweight cd collection.
Who would do that? I have an enormous commute (90 min each way). At that rate I barely have to change an ISO MP3 CDR twice a week. And since I keep 12 or so tucked under my visor (takes 3 seconds when I do), I can go 2 months without hearing the same song twice. And who would tote them to and from the car? It's not like the media is expensive.
I pity the poor slob that has to live in his car long enough to "enjoy" a bigger selection.
bit reservoir will run out and you may (may!) in a tiny split-second hear one little-bitty glitch in an entire album
True. I use the Aiwa unit with my own mp3s. It does fairly well with higher bit rates. I have noticed that above 192kb/s it is somewhat more likely to skip on really rough road. Not a problem unless I'm aiming for potholes and railroad tracks. I've found that 192kb/s average VBR with max at 384kb/s settings work well even when parked, except for some classical tracks that need more.
Are we really wondering why the market barfed at this?
I thought long and hard before I coughed up the mere $300 for the AIWA MP3 player. Sure, it only holds one ISO9660 disk at a time, but that's 15-18 albums, better than most changers. And I keep a stash of ISO disks under my visor, making for more than 10 GB. And it plays VBR encoded tracks at my preferred higher bitrates.
Scrolling to find a track on a HD with 4,000 tracks would a pain on the freeway too.
Downside is that the AIWA is the *ugliest* thing around; It fits in with my old pickup though.
In a related story, Gutenberg was "overwhelmed by guilt" when he witnessed recent blatant fabrication of news by manipulative corporate editors. "It caused me to re-evaluate the whole idea....and cry over the heartbreaking tragedy," said the inventor of the surreptitious movable type technology that allowed the evil men to further their aims. "I was sent hate mail... in the behalf of millions of people," he sobbed.
The solution is apparent. There is only one court in which to try this aggregious stunt. No not the federal courts: we've seen them throw out entire remedies on the appearance of bias without any evidence of bias. Sheesh.
The place to try them is in the court of public opinion.
How to do that? Well, don't try to do it alone. First you've got to alert the media, since it affects their integrity directly. No news organization can claim to be objective and use Microsoft Frontpage on it's website. Find out which ones use it. (Google?) Look especially hard at the big ones: Time-Warner, Newscorp, etc. Point the problem out to them. Suggest they cover it as a story. I suggest the notification use the most official-looking letterhead as is possible. Perhaps some of those German law firms can be persuaded to invoke actions on behalf of Microsoft on sorry publishers who use Frontpage and who post unflattering news, as they reportedly did for Adobe.
Great question! We've been working on this solution for a year, and plan to go alpha this month. Basically, it's a privacy firewall and service platform that allows an ISP or other provider (whom you already trust and typically already knows all about you) to customize the content or services you get without your personal info flying all over the net. A sandbox approach even allows content providers to provide customization and policies for it.
I'm Goodstein, The Illogical Scientist. Based on my statistically valid sample of one, I have concluded that all elementary education curriculums exclude science. Based on this, I have also been able to succesfully extrapolate the motives of a large group of heterogenous personalities as hostile, specifically by ignoring the large deviations and focusing on Mrs. Strickland, that evil 5th grade teacher who made me finish that book report from the Brambly Hedge series.
I'm glad I'm a self-important school administrator now, so I can publish my personal baggage with a PhD. in front of my name so all readers will know to turn off their own brains and let me do their thinking for them. Thank you for your time.
It's not just Hollywood arrogance we see in this ruling. California's "Long Arm" statute is being employed as an excuse to regulate the Internet in the interest of its constituent corporpations.
An in order to do this, they tried to get Pavlovich to concede that California is the center of the computing industry. That is arrogance, considering that softwaremag rankings show only 2 California corporations in the top 10 of software, together scoring less that 13% of the revenue. (This is a software matter, right? DeCSS is not hardware..) Pavlovich & counsel screwed up by not being ready for this pitch that the world revolves around California.
Apparently, the state's judiciary has bought in to the delusion as well.
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license.
One problem is ther are 2 ways to "use" code. Ballmer takes advantage of the confusion between the liberal terms granted to end users and the more constrictive terms placed on future developers by only a few licenses. Aunti Gert reading the Sun-Times now believes that she cannot run open-source programs along side of Quicken.
I agree that government-funded code should be able to be used by all. Just as government funded roads and parks should be free for everyone's use.
However, when individuals or companies decide to improve a park, the improvements should remain part of the park. Road improvements on freeways should preclude folks from constructing toll booths.
That's why GPL can become a tool for building common software infrastructure that never gets coopted by private concerns. In my opionion, it only makes sense for OS and other enabling technologies. When used there, it can actually promote more IP, since the developers who use the enabling platform do not have to worry about future hidden costs from a change in licensing, as many Windows users are about to experience.
It's hard to find areas where the US government actually looks out for end-consumer interests anymore. And spoiled business interests scream like this whenever they don't get the considation for which they paid and lobbied. News-flash: the government is *not* obliged to benefit company profits with everything it does.
If Microsoft crosses them then voila, the switch browsers in AOL 7.0. If not, they just use the threat of it to get
concessions from Microsoft.
Microsoft has negotiated better end of the deal though, because of the exit price. When Microsoft it wants to back out, they simply delete an icon on their desktop. When AOL wants to back out, they have to retest/redo all their content and interoperability with the broswer or platform with which they replace IE. With time, the investment will become so large that AOL will be handcuffed to whatever terms Redmond demands.
But I wouldn't worry AOL, its not like Microsoft to take advantage of another company. "Hello, broker? Sell AOL!"
Slashdot Mirror
Both are stealing, but hardly in the same sense.
P2P piracy denies compensation to someone who has legally granted rights. But Bill and his company lied, betrayed naive customers, destroyed entire markets that would have benefitted his customers, committed corporate purjury, and extorted tens of billions of dollars via documented abuses with OEMs and product tying.
As one who considered DR-DOS for my product in 1992, and who attempted to buy several PC systems without Windows over the years, I am a victim of his abuses with losses calculated in thousands of dollars *out of my pocket*.
And despite fleecing by Bill & Co. over the years, I've managed to pay for all my music, thanks.
Certainly, here it is[was].
Raelians:
Small cult following space aliens
SCO:
Small company following space cadets
Raelians:
Believe genetics will keep them immortal.
SCO:
Believe SYS5 never died.
Raelians:
Announced a nonexistent clone for some rich suit, hid the evidence.
SCO:
Announced an expensive suit over a nonexistent clone, hid the evidence.
Raelians:
From France, prefer outer space.
SCO:
From outer space, prefer Utah.
Raelians:
Hideous pseudo-human spokesperson
SCO:
Ray Noorda
Raelians:
Pull stunts for public attention, hoping we'll buy their crap.
SCO:
Ditto, but hope IBM will buy their crappy company.
I did too, making a point that I had been their customer for 6 years straight. In fact, I don't thinks the issue is "Can Hollywood learn from Intuit?" Rather, the issue is, "Can Hollywood's consumers learn from Intuit's consumers?"
Piss. Moan. Tell them about the titles you will *not* buy because of it. Compare them to seal-clubbers and boys who wear Jeff Foxworthy shirts to school. Tell your neighbor all about region coding. Send your congressman a voided check saying "this is what you would have got if not for your support of the DMCA (or replace with the name of your particular nasty legislation)."
Even an issue backed by a silent majority of consumers will fail without a vocal minority getting the message across in this day of megacorps, highest-bidder legislation, and perpetual copyright.
Unfortunately, "google" is trademarked. D'Oh!
With that analogy in place, one of my philosophies would apply to such attempts at licensing: design imaginatively, code conservatively. The GPL is (esp. for its time, was ) definitely an innovative design. I would leave the details of coding the language to the experts, with all their caveats and quirky phrases in place, so that when it comes time to test it, it holds firm. I would not expect to be able to fix the baggage that has been accumulated by generations of contract lawyers at this point in the game.
Isn't an unintentional attack an oxymoron? Like an intentional accident?
ABERDEEN GROUP SALES ORDER FORM
Please fill this out for your next report by Aberdeen:
Customer Name: _______________________
Number of Martinis At Sales Lunch:
( ) 2 ( ) 4 ( ) too drunk to count
Report Topic: ________________________
Payment Type:
( ) Credit Card
( ) Bill Front Company with Altruistic Sounding Name
( ) Subsidiary Debt Laundering Scheme (Enron Only)
( ) Bill Gates' Sofa Change
( ) Chevy Hubcaps
Number of weeks we should act like we're working on the report:
( ) 3 ( )6 ( ) Dont even bother
Specify Report Conclusion: (30 words or less)
I nominate this!
I am very suspicious: Jack Fegreus (open-mag's editorial director) may hail from a biased background. A simple search on Google brought up tidbits from his past like:
Jack Fegreus, my former boss at Digital Review , is now the editor of the Windows NT-centric BackOffice Magazine .
Why indeed? I'm intrigued at the implication that anticompetitive licensing could invalidate copyright ownership, particularly in light of the latest round of stifling terms in Microsoft's contracts:
I would not cry upon seeing Microsoft lose rights to their software because of such outrageous terms.
Rob: Can we interview this Roger Noll??
Yeah, I remember when I had an obsolete, slow CD burner. I'd still need to backup those kinds of media files, since I wouldn't trust my car to that job.
CD's self-destruct at fairly low temperature.
Last I checked, the temperature a CD-R blows at is was well above the operating temperature of most hard drives. At any rate, my CDs have stayed all summer in the Texas sun -- no problem.
The rest is up for grabs
For $1000-$2000 I would expect more bundled. A GUI; IO lines to control the car; GPS, to begin with.
it would have taken a lot of time and cost nearly as much
I think the point of mass-production should be product that is more expensive, not less, to do it yourself. And the value of what they did just doesn't justify such a premium price.
At 3 hours / day communting I change ISO MP3 CDs twice a week. And then, it doesn't have to be hard.
Who would do that? I have an enormous commute (90 min each way). At that rate I barely have to change an ISO MP3 CDR twice a week. And since I keep 12 or so tucked under my visor (takes 3 seconds when I do), I can go 2 months without hearing the same song twice. And who would tote them to and from the car? It's not like the media is expensive.
I pity the poor slob that has to live in his car long enough to "enjoy" a bigger selection.
Sheesh, $1000 / 3 seconds delay when you change a disk. Even my billing rate isn't that high. :)
True. I use the Aiwa unit with my own mp3s. It does fairly well with higher bit rates. I have noticed that above 192kb/s it is somewhat more likely to skip on really rough road. Not a problem unless I'm aiming for potholes and railroad tracks. I've found that 192kb/s average VBR with max at 384kb/s settings work well even when parked, except for some classical tracks that need more.
I thought long and hard before I coughed up the mere $300 for the AIWA MP3 player. Sure, it only holds one ISO9660 disk at a time, but that's 15-18 albums, better than most changers. And I keep a stash of ISO disks under my visor, making for more than 10 GB. And it plays VBR encoded tracks at my preferred higher bitrates.
Scrolling to find a track on a HD with 4,000 tracks would a pain on the freeway too.
Downside is that the AIWA is the *ugliest* thing around; It fits in with my old pickup though.
In a related story, Gutenberg was "overwhelmed by guilt" when he witnessed recent blatant fabrication of news by manipulative corporate editors. "It caused me to re-evaluate the whole idea....and cry over the heartbreaking tragedy," said the inventor of the surreptitious movable type technology that allowed the evil men to further their aims. "I was sent hate mail
The place to try them is in the court of public opinion.
How to do that? Well, don't try to do it alone. First you've got to alert the media, since it affects their integrity directly. No news organization can claim to be objective and use Microsoft Frontpage on it's website. Find out which ones use it. (Google?) Look especially hard at the big ones: Time-Warner, Newscorp, etc. Point the problem out to them. Suggest they cover it as a story. I suggest the notification use the most official-looking letterhead as is possible. Perhaps some of those German law firms can be persuaded to invoke actions on behalf of Microsoft on sorry publishers who use Frontpage and who post unflattering news, as they reportedly did for Adobe.
Great question! We've been working on this solution for a year, and plan to go alpha this month. Basically, it's a privacy firewall and service platform that allows an ISP or other provider (whom you already trust and typically already knows all about you) to customize the content or services you get without your personal info flying all over the net. A sandbox approach even allows content providers to provide customization and policies for it.
http://www.netdestinysystems.com
I found on Fox news that Sept 11, 1922 was the date that a British mandate was proclaimed in Palestine.
I'm Goodstein, The Illogical Scientist. Based on my statistically valid sample of one, I have concluded that all elementary education curriculums exclude science. Based on this, I have also been able to succesfully extrapolate the motives of a large group of heterogenous personalities as hostile, specifically by ignoring the large deviations and focusing on Mrs. Strickland, that evil 5th grade teacher who made me finish that book report from the Brambly Hedge series.
I'm glad I'm a self-important school administrator now, so I can publish my personal baggage with a PhD. in front of my name so all readers will know to turn off their own brains and let me do their thinking for them. Thank you for your time.
An in order to do this, they tried to get Pavlovich to concede that California is the center of the computing industry. That is arrogance, considering that softwaremag rankings show only 2 California corporations in the top 10 of software, together scoring less that 13% of the revenue. (This is a software matter, right? DeCSS is not hardware..) Pavlovich & counsel screwed up by not being ready for this pitch that the world revolves around California.
Apparently, the state's judiciary has bought in to the delusion as well.
One problem is ther are 2 ways to "use" code. Ballmer takes advantage of the confusion between the liberal terms granted to end users and the more constrictive terms placed on future developers by only a few licenses. Aunti Gert reading the Sun-Times now believes that she cannot run open-source programs along side of Quicken.
I agree that government-funded code should be able to be used by all. Just as government funded roads and parks should be free for everyone's use.
However, when individuals or companies decide to improve a park, the improvements should remain part of the park. Road improvements on freeways should preclude folks from constructing toll booths.
That's why GPL can become a tool for building common software infrastructure that never gets coopted by private concerns. In my opionion, it only makes sense for OS and other enabling technologies. When used there, it can actually promote more IP, since the developers who use the enabling platform do not have to worry about future hidden costs from a change in licensing, as many Windows users are about to experience.
It's hard to find areas where the US government actually looks out for end-consumer interests anymore. And spoiled business interests scream like this whenever they don't get the considation for which they paid and lobbied. News-flash: the government is *not* obliged to benefit company profits with everything it does.
Microsoft has negotiated better end of the deal though, because of the exit price. When Microsoft it wants to back out, they simply delete an icon on their desktop. When AOL wants to back out, they have to retest/redo all their content and interoperability with the broswer or platform with which they replace IE. With time, the investment will become so large that AOL will be handcuffed to whatever terms Redmond demands.
But I wouldn't worry AOL, its not like Microsoft to take advantage of another company. "Hello, broker? Sell AOL!"