But, how much of that "information" will be used? They had beta testers on Vista, they all complained about the slowness of it, the new-ness of the layout and other features but MS kept them in. All this is, is just a front for *IAA monitoring, and a way to tell people that MS owns your computer because you didn't pay for your OS. As for open-source projects, However as for "uses" of GNOME/KDE systems, there isn't much data that could be collected only via GNOME or KDE because they are just small parts of a working Linux system. What would you do for usability? Send in how many times the person clicked on the KDE logo? See how many keypresses on the GNOME panel? Usability tests work a lot better in person or via a recorded desktop that would slow down the system to unusable. Now, I am not suggesting that KDE/GNOME should not try to have usability studies, but doing them the way MS is doing them just doesn't work for usability. For MS's ways it would work because you could see how obtain CTRL+ALT+DEL was pressed, how frequently applications hanged, what bugs they were getting, which applications they liked but nothing related the usability (well except for how obtain it Blue Screens because you can't do much when that happens).
That though, has changed with Office 2007, most people that I know of are considering a change to a non-MS word processor such as OOo, buying a used copy of 2003 and some that are fed up with Vista running slow on their 3 Gig dual core system, are changing to XP while others are even thinking about Linux as an option. MS ends up profiting when people don't have a choice, in trying to make Office and Vista look "different and new" they have alienated people who are now looking at non MS solutions. MS isn't a big selling point anymore, people think of it as the creator of the BSoD and for Windows most people fail to realize there is a choice, Vista and Office are changing that. Rome only collapsed not because of people conquering it but because of civil unrest, MS is the same, its power is fading quickly and Open-source and Linux are the only logical things to replace it.
Take Open Office and compare it to Office 2007, in a medium to large company, OOo offers a familiar environment, cross platform (Linux, Windows, Mac) open source and free Word Processor in comparison to Office 2007 although it may have more features, it still costs over $100, runs only on Windows, Has a new environment that is radically different then any other processor people are used to. The choice is clear, OOo wins, there is nearly 0 down-time for retraining and if someone absolutely NEEDS the features in Office 2007, there usually is a stand-alone application that can do the job (or an extension for OOo)
I can see a "shadow internet" being born out of this. All the internet is, is a big network, in the age of wi-fi and the like, I can see an easy way of setting up the "shadow internet". Someone sets up a Linux (or other UNIX-like system) and has a "home network" then, their neighbors use their wireless router to extend the signal, from there it goes throughout the neighborhood. This then gets to a tower which acts like a giant wi-fi hotspot around the town, similar towers in another town close by get the signal. Now of course this comes with extra high latency, but you get the picture, a "shadow internet" can be born quickly and an ISP may not be needed.
Not to mention the time re-training people to use the next horrible UI, at least with OSS a large company can easily tweak OOo to look like *insert word processor here*
No, you have to realize that Apple is a proprietary Unix vendor, and thus opposed to Linux, OGG and other Free Software. Although they reconize open-source software is good, they still are a propriatary Unix vendor much like Sun.
I thought mobile content was the future too... Until they DRMed it so it became strictly "mobile content" you can't watch it on hardly anything else because of DRM, and until DRM becomes dead we will remain in this stalemate of 0 innovation.
Why are these even considered as possible patents anyways is the real question. How is this helping innovation either? For example, you can patent a T.V., however now you can patent "a device where viewers view audio and video at the same time from broadcasts over the air" and then the exact same patent with over the air replaced with Satellite/Cable. The first can help innovation because you can make an alternative device to a T.V. with the same function, like a T.V. only using an LCD screen rather then a CRT.
Every time government in some form is involved in non-government related technology things go wrong. Think of the DMCA and other laws, if we try to pass laws to "fight spam" all that will do is further restrict our freedoms by perhaps forcing e-mail carriers to do logs of IP address and your real name and such. Yes, spam is a problem, however, when we get out of the "Oooohh A link click it" phase of the internet and finally after 10 years or so after teaching people that, they finally don't go randomly clicking links and double clicking on binaries to run them, spam will cease to be profitable. People don't pay money for advertising only to get.0000001 percent of people to actually buy it. Government (expectantly in the age of the *IAA controlling congress) doesn't need to mess in technology or else it will be horribly messed up, education is the answer (or Thunderbird and SpamAssasin)
Exactly, and they need "computer skills" not just "Microsoft Skills" I can't tell you how many upper-level tech people I have ran into that have no clue how any OS other then Windows and DOS work, and even then they really only know which programs to install and how to fix common problems, anything beyond the GUI is unknown to them. Most of them hardly know a thing about Linux and OS-X and even when they do it is only from what they have heard from the media or someone else, very few of them are true hackers. Now there are some that I have met that have skill, they can think beyond the "Microsoft Skills" into "computer skills" they know how an OS works and can recommend an OS rather then just "Well XP is fast and Vista is slow but looks nicer" and they can also program enough to know how a computer works at the lower levels. The moment we start teaching "Microsoft Skills" == "Computer Skills" they are forever doomed to a life of slavery to MS and *insert other evil empire that comes after MS falls* and they know nothing else other then MS, and they start thinking that an operating system == Windows, and Word Processing == MS Word and then Internet == Internet Explorer, these are the pitfalls that most Americans have fallen into and why most Americans don't know a thing about computers only about Microsoft and even then, you put them on Office 2007 or Vista, they are immediately puzzled even though the core of the OS/Program is the same in order to make it look "new" MS changed the GUI so radically and they are alienated by it. If the third world knows how to program and use a computer and understand source code, they have hope, otherwise they will be with America forever following the industry leader mindless of any other choice.
This is yet another way to try to use the OSS community to write code for businesses. Most companies that try to just make money selling other people's code fail, only the true "community" ways of writing code manage to survive, think of Red Hat, they have Fedora and many other ways for the Community to help write the software without it becoming a "we need you to write a program to do X" it is the way that people can work at their own pace and do what they are good at which makes OSS programming so successful, sure some jobs get neglected because people don't like writing drivers and the like, but over time, it creates a better user experience because there are multiple developers with their own agendas, not simply "unpaid work" like "crowd-sourcing" is. Companies need to realize that unless there is some sort of accomplishment such as bragging rights, a better software for you to use, pay, or fame, people won't work on these projects, they need to realize that OSS developers are looking for something and aren't just people who decide "oh I have a free evening lets spend 12 hours coding tonight for some companies project without being paid" they need something and "crowd-sourcing" doesn't do that.
But that could be applied to any number of things. For example, the purpose of a VCR recorder is to record things, Sony however won a case in which they proved that because the VCR had legitimate uses, it could be sold (that was before Sony became an arm of the *IAA and started making rootkits). A kitchen knife can have many uses, but they are still cutting and slicing, however, it would be utter stupidity to start making knives that automatically dulled whenever there was human presence. Or think of BitTorrent, there are many legitimate uses for it, I can download Linux ISOs and other Open-Source software, or I can download "protected" music and movies, however, if we started filtering.iso files from BitTorrent because I can send an image of a new game with it, that would be the same thing. There are Many, Many, Many other uses for sharing.MP3, WMA, OGG, AVI and other files via a network other then "unauthorized use" for example, you might want to send a MP3/OGG/WMA of someone in your family singing a song, however this would be blocked because it could be "unauthorized use" of it. Western Digital has gone to extremes to make sure that no one can use a 1 TB hard-disk as intended, to store and share media files, (I don't happen to have 1 TB of just text files.....) it is yet another product defective by design.
So, why doesn't the media companies sue MS for letting Kaza run on Windows? Same logic. Or what about Dell for selling computers that can function as a server?
But, even though she may have "distributed" the songs, the main point of this should be that she didn't buy the songs, 9K a song is not justifiable. In your example the police might arrest you, but if you haven't given any out, the record company hasn't lost any money and the purpose of this case isn't to say that what she did was wrong or right, it was to repay the damages done, and there isn't 9K a song in damages. Think of it this way, if I slip on someone's sidewalk, the most I am really able to sue for (if the judge is sane) is for my medical bills, or perhaps if I missed work or the like but I can't decide to sue for 2 million for a broken wrist, unless somehow I Lost 2 million. 9K or even 1K a song is absolute nonsense. Think of it this way, that very song at.99 a song (which is the price of a typical song on iTunes and thats the most popular music store) she would have to give the song to 9,000 people in it's entirety (which is unlikely due to P2P's nature of breaking up the files) to be justified 9K. And even then for 20 some songs I doubt that in all she distributed to around 180,000 people. And even if all this is true, and it is somehow "justified" to pay 9K a song, that needs to be changed. If we keep looking at things like these and just comment, nothing will be done, call your congressmen and tell them to change it! We need action if we are to go anywhere, if software patents and the DMCA are killed, we can truly be free, otherwise pointless lawsuits like this will continue.
Actually some phones have wi-fi built in so you only need to use someone's open access point (the iPhone supports wi-fi) and use that. Torrents would be good, but there isn't much disk space in the phones to make it useful for data storage such as for CD ISOs and not for DVD ISOs in the least, 4-8 gigs is the max the iPhone has and most other phones give you 4 gigs at max. So until data increases, it doesn't have much practical purpose, expessaly when you can't get data off your phone in a normal way you have to use some proprietary way to get it off which ususally you can't use Linux (until someone finds a way to at least) and have to buy sometimes some proprietary USB cables. So until phones have large disk space and USB mass storage device support, Torrents won't be that useful except for some music and video.
Well that is totally odd compared to US companies who charge you comparatively more for texting then from voice calls to get the same information across... The 300 some character limit is annoying....
First off the company is based in New York, USA not China. Sure they may have suppliers in China, but most major companies do. Next, the company was selling defective batteries and as previous posters have noted, they sold defective AC adapters too. For trademark and copyright infringement, think of it this way, theres nothing wrong with me making a website, theres nothing wrong with me putting ads on website nor is there anything wrong with making a search engine. However, if I get say gooogle.com, make it look like Google and put spyware and adware all over it and record people's searches, that is bad. As for quality people thought they were getting an true IBM battery they didn't think they were getting a battery that would explode, there are places all over the web that buy things in bulk or have deals with OEMs and can sell technology and computers for cheap, I am sure that 99% of the people thought this company was doing the same, when they got it, it had the IBM logo on it so they thought like most of us do IBM logo == IBM. That is what IBM is suing for, the fact that they mislead customers that they were getting an IBM battery, not some Explode-O brand battery.
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No the key phrase for years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 is "This is the year of Linux on the desktop"
But, how much of that "information" will be used? They had beta testers on Vista, they all complained about the slowness of it, the new-ness of the layout and other features but MS kept them in. All this is, is just a front for *IAA monitoring, and a way to tell people that MS owns your computer because you didn't pay for your OS. As for open-source projects, However as for "uses" of GNOME/KDE systems, there isn't much data that could be collected only via GNOME or KDE because they are just small parts of a working Linux system. What would you do for usability? Send in how many times the person clicked on the KDE logo? See how many keypresses on the GNOME panel? Usability tests work a lot better in person or via a recorded desktop that would slow down the system to unusable. Now, I am not suggesting that KDE/GNOME should not try to have usability studies, but doing them the way MS is doing them just doesn't work for usability. For MS's ways it would work because you could see how obtain CTRL+ALT+DEL was pressed, how frequently applications hanged, what bugs they were getting, which applications they liked but nothing related the usability (well except for how obtain it Blue Screens because you can't do much when that happens).
No, they just want to play WoW without any lag.
And, in the Vista licence, you can only run it on 2 or so processors, so in other news, MS is suing Iran for illegally using Vista.
Then Apple/Nokia should open up the standards under a F/OSS licence.
Actually they were convicted of being an abusive monopoly in both the US and EU, they just didn't do anything about it.
That though, has changed with Office 2007, most people that I know of are considering a change to a non-MS word processor such as OOo, buying a used copy of 2003 and some that are fed up with Vista running slow on their 3 Gig dual core system, are changing to XP while others are even thinking about Linux as an option. MS ends up profiting when people don't have a choice, in trying to make Office and Vista look "different and new" they have alienated people who are now looking at non MS solutions. MS isn't a big selling point anymore, people think of it as the creator of the BSoD and for Windows most people fail to realize there is a choice, Vista and Office are changing that. Rome only collapsed not because of people conquering it but because of civil unrest, MS is the same, its power is fading quickly and Open-source and Linux are the only logical things to replace it.
Take Open Office and compare it to Office 2007, in a medium to large company, OOo offers a familiar environment, cross platform (Linux, Windows, Mac) open source and free Word Processor in comparison to Office 2007 although it may have more features, it still costs over $100, runs only on Windows, Has a new environment that is radically different then any other processor people are used to. The choice is clear, OOo wins, there is nearly 0 down-time for retraining and if someone absolutely NEEDS the features in Office 2007, there usually is a stand-alone application that can do the job (or an extension for OOo)
I can see a "shadow internet" being born out of this. All the internet is, is a big network, in the age of wi-fi and the like, I can see an easy way of setting up the "shadow internet". Someone sets up a Linux (or other UNIX-like system) and has a "home network" then, their neighbors use their wireless router to extend the signal, from there it goes throughout the neighborhood. This then gets to a tower which acts like a giant wi-fi hotspot around the town, similar towers in another town close by get the signal. Now of course this comes with extra high latency, but you get the picture, a "shadow internet" can be born quickly and an ISP may not be needed.
Not to mention the time re-training people to use the next horrible UI, at least with OSS a large company can easily tweak OOo to look like *insert word processor here*
Exactly, just as you take Firefox 3 and even in betas it is like 50% faster then FF 2, while being more complient with standards and more secure.
No, you have to realize that Apple is a proprietary Unix vendor, and thus opposed to Linux, OGG and other Free Software. Although they reconize open-source software is good, they still are a propriatary Unix vendor much like Sun.
I thought mobile content was the future too... Until they DRMed it so it became strictly "mobile content" you can't watch it on hardly anything else because of DRM, and until DRM becomes dead we will remain in this stalemate of 0 innovation.
Why are these even considered as possible patents anyways is the real question. How is this helping innovation either? For example, you can patent a T.V., however now you can patent "a device where viewers view audio and video at the same time from broadcasts over the air" and then the exact same patent with over the air replaced with Satellite/Cable. The first can help innovation because you can make an alternative device to a T.V. with the same function, like a T.V. only using an LCD screen rather then a CRT.
Every time government in some form is involved in non-government related technology things go wrong. Think of the DMCA and other laws, if we try to pass laws to "fight spam" all that will do is further restrict our freedoms by perhaps forcing e-mail carriers to do logs of IP address and your real name and such. Yes, spam is a problem, however, when we get out of the "Oooohh A link click it" phase of the internet and finally after 10 years or so after teaching people that, they finally don't go randomly clicking links and double clicking on binaries to run them, spam will cease to be profitable. People don't pay money for advertising only to get .0000001 percent of people to actually buy it. Government (expectantly in the age of the *IAA controlling congress) doesn't need to mess in technology or else it will be horribly messed up, education is the answer (or Thunderbird and SpamAssasin)
Which type of aliens though? Fom space or those just seeking a job?
Exactly, and they need "computer skills" not just "Microsoft Skills" I can't tell you how many upper-level tech people I have ran into that have no clue how any OS other then Windows and DOS work, and even then they really only know which programs to install and how to fix common problems, anything beyond the GUI is unknown to them. Most of them hardly know a thing about Linux and OS-X and even when they do it is only from what they have heard from the media or someone else, very few of them are true hackers. Now there are some that I have met that have skill, they can think beyond the "Microsoft Skills" into "computer skills" they know how an OS works and can recommend an OS rather then just "Well XP is fast and Vista is slow but looks nicer" and they can also program enough to know how a computer works at the lower levels. The moment we start teaching "Microsoft Skills" == "Computer Skills" they are forever doomed to a life of slavery to MS and *insert other evil empire that comes after MS falls* and they know nothing else other then MS, and they start thinking that an operating system == Windows, and Word Processing == MS Word and then Internet == Internet Explorer, these are the pitfalls that most Americans have fallen into and why most Americans don't know a thing about computers only about Microsoft and even then, you put them on Office 2007 or Vista, they are immediately puzzled even though the core of the OS/Program is the same in order to make it look "new" MS changed the GUI so radically and they are alienated by it. If the third world knows how to program and use a computer and understand source code, they have hope, otherwise they will be with America forever following the industry leader mindless of any other choice.
This is yet another way to try to use the OSS community to write code for businesses. Most companies that try to just make money selling other people's code fail, only the true "community" ways of writing code manage to survive, think of Red Hat, they have Fedora and many other ways for the Community to help write the software without it becoming a "we need you to write a program to do X" it is the way that people can work at their own pace and do what they are good at which makes OSS programming so successful, sure some jobs get neglected because people don't like writing drivers and the like, but over time, it creates a better user experience because there are multiple developers with their own agendas, not simply "unpaid work" like "crowd-sourcing" is. Companies need to realize that unless there is some sort of accomplishment such as bragging rights, a better software for you to use, pay, or fame, people won't work on these projects, they need to realize that OSS developers are looking for something and aren't just people who decide "oh I have a free evening lets spend 12 hours coding tonight for some companies project without being paid" they need something and "crowd-sourcing" doesn't do that.
But that could be applied to any number of things. For example, the purpose of a VCR recorder is to record things, Sony however won a case in which they proved that because the VCR had legitimate uses, it could be sold (that was before Sony became an arm of the *IAA and started making rootkits). A kitchen knife can have many uses, but they are still cutting and slicing, however, it would be utter stupidity to start making knives that automatically dulled whenever there was human presence. Or think of BitTorrent, there are many legitimate uses for it, I can download Linux ISOs and other Open-Source software, or I can download "protected" music and movies, however, if we started filtering .iso files from BitTorrent because I can send an image of a new game with it, that would be the same thing. There are Many, Many, Many other uses for sharing .MP3, WMA, OGG, AVI and other files via a network other then "unauthorized use" for example, you might want to send a MP3/OGG/WMA of someone in your family singing a song, however this would be blocked because it could be "unauthorized use" of it. Western Digital has gone to extremes to make sure that no one can use a 1 TB hard-disk as intended, to store and share media files, (I don't happen to have 1 TB of just text files.....) it is yet another product defective by design.
So, why doesn't the media companies sue MS for letting Kaza run on Windows? Same logic. Or what about Dell for selling computers that can function as a server?
But, even though she may have "distributed" the songs, the main point of this should be that she didn't buy the songs, 9K a song is not justifiable. In your example the police might arrest you, but if you haven't given any out, the record company hasn't lost any money and the purpose of this case isn't to say that what she did was wrong or right, it was to repay the damages done, and there isn't 9K a song in damages. Think of it this way, if I slip on someone's sidewalk, the most I am really able to sue for (if the judge is sane) is for my medical bills, or perhaps if I missed work or the like but I can't decide to sue for 2 million for a broken wrist, unless somehow I Lost 2 million. 9K or even 1K a song is absolute nonsense. Think of it this way, that very song at .99 a song (which is the price of a typical song on iTunes and thats the most popular music store) she would have to give the song to 9,000 people in it's entirety (which is unlikely due to P2P's nature of breaking up the files) to be justified 9K. And even then for 20 some songs I doubt that in all she distributed to around 180,000 people. And even if all this is true, and it is somehow "justified" to pay 9K a song, that needs to be changed. If we keep looking at things like these and just comment, nothing will be done, call your congressmen and tell them to change it! We need action if we are to go anywhere, if software patents and the DMCA are killed, we can truly be free, otherwise pointless lawsuits like this will continue.
But for the Windows user, it could cut down MASSIVLY on the ammount of malware they get.
Actually some phones have wi-fi built in so you only need to use someone's open access point (the iPhone supports wi-fi) and use that. Torrents would be good, but there isn't much disk space in the phones to make it useful for data storage such as for CD ISOs and not for DVD ISOs in the least, 4-8 gigs is the max the iPhone has and most other phones give you 4 gigs at max. So until data increases, it doesn't have much practical purpose, expessaly when you can't get data off your phone in a normal way you have to use some proprietary way to get it off which ususally you can't use Linux (until someone finds a way to at least) and have to buy sometimes some proprietary USB cables. So until phones have large disk space and USB mass storage device support, Torrents won't be that useful except for some music and video.
Well that is totally odd compared to US companies who charge you comparatively more for texting then from voice calls to get the same information across... The 300 some character limit is annoying....
First off the company is based in New York, USA not China. Sure they may have suppliers in China, but most major companies do. Next, the company was selling defective batteries and as previous posters have noted, they sold defective AC adapters too. For trademark and copyright infringement, think of it this way, theres nothing wrong with me making a website, theres nothing wrong with me putting ads on website nor is there anything wrong with making a search engine. However, if I get say gooogle.com, make it look like Google and put spyware and adware all over it and record people's searches, that is bad. As for quality people thought they were getting an true IBM battery they didn't think they were getting a battery that would explode, there are places all over the web that buy things in bulk or have deals with OEMs and can sell technology and computers for cheap, I am sure that 99% of the people thought this company was doing the same, when they got it, it had the IBM logo on it so they thought like most of us do IBM logo == IBM. That is what IBM is suing for, the fact that they mislead customers that they were getting an IBM battery, not some Explode-O brand battery.