Well with theater profits plummiting, the movie industry has few methods other than movie sales to generate a profit; and just because it is easy to do something illegally does not> mean that it is legitmate to do so, or that it is in some way unacceptable to defend yourself against these illegal actions. And just so you know, customer generally implies people who paid. These people did not.
Well, there's a problems here. How is a person supposed to know that a file is copyrighted before he downloads it? It's not like these files show a big (C) on the them. Besides, even if they did, how is downloading a copyrighted file any different from picking up a copyrighted book lying in the street?
Whispering every so often is one thing, but my girlfriend and I have had some bad experiences with going out to see a movie. We had a couple sit down next to us and the woman was some frumpy, dumpy middle age woman and she kept glaring at my girlfriend (who was just resting her head on my shoulder) and even coughed up and sprayed a bunch of spit on my girlfriend's leg. Then there are the cell phones, the kids that aren't forced to sit down and watch the movie or leave and things like that.
A lot of the coughers with kids and cellphones are watching movies at home too so they can smoke their cigs, let their kids run, and pause the flick when the phone rings.
You stay home because they bother you and they stay home so you aren't bothered by them. I guess that's another reason why theater attendence is down.
Honestly, in terms of Desktop linux, MS can do this now. Desktop linux *is* currently stillborne.
Bullshit.
I'm using KDE 3.4.2 right now and I find it to be well integrated, feature full, and very responsive. For example, on my panel I have:
* A menu icon that accesses applications and funtions.
* Icons for immediate access to applications and functions.
* A pager to switch between virtual desktops
* A taskbar to indicate running applications
* A system tray with applets for monitoring system resources, accessing discs, controlling sound volume, getting rss feeds and weather information.
* A clock.
In addition the panel is configurable. I have mine set for transparency so all the contained icons "float" on the bottom of my desktop.
Now for the menu itself. It has:
* The expected heirarchy of applications.
* A quick files system browser.
* A find files function.
* A help function.
* A command launcher.
* Access to a load of utilities that do everything from format floppies, calculate, edit menus, and handle archive formats.
Also in the menu is access to the control center from which I can configure:
* My desktop appearance, styles, themes, and fonts.
* My desktop behavior, number of virtual desktops, panel behavior, etc
* Internet and network settings including file sharing and browser settings.
* Integrated component such as file management and resource use.
* Peripherals such as mouse, keyboard, display, printers, etc
* Power control
* Accessibillity options such as speech to text, keyboard shortcuts, and internationalization.
* Security and Privacy such as cryptography and personal information storage.
* Sound system and notifications
* Advanced system configuration such as boot management and software installation.
In addition to the large list above, my menu is chock full of office suites, editors, games, graphic tools, sound editors, multimedia players, internet applications, development tools, and tons of other programs to perform just about any task I can think of.
So tell me, what am I missing? Desktop Linux isn't "stillborn", it's alive, thriving, and getting better everyday.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...despite all the freedom and independence that linux affords all you linux users out there, you don't need to be so snobby to the rest of us. It isn't that we're dumb or unimaginative...its just that we have other things to be smart and imaginative about and we don't want to be distracted by having to deal with Linux. If you like it, fine. That's your prerogative. But you don't have any place being indignant and snobby toward the rest of us. What we sacrifice in control and nuts and bolts access to our OS's, we gain in not having to think about our computers as anything more than a task-tailored tool for the other shit in our lives that's more important to us. Well, the problem is that in this day and age what you don't know can kill you. It's a given that you can't know everything and in the end you have to depend on those who know things that you don't. So the questions then becomes who do you trust...those who are willing to show you how they get things done are those who hide they're methods from you? Just because you don't have the time or inclination to understand a thing doesn't mean that someone else does not, and if there is anything that I have learned from life it is that those who hide information do so only for their benefit, not for yours.
If you want Linux compatibility, you want nVidia. Yes, nVidia's drivers are closed-source, but they're at the same level as their Windows drivers, right down to the overclocking controls.
I guess that all depends on how you define compatible, and if it the drivers aren't open source then the drivers are not compatible with my open source system. I do research my hardware before I buy, and I will pay a premium to make sure that what I pay for will work with Linux without having to depend on some companies closed source drivers.
How many articles and comments do you see here about viruses and spyware being the cause of most computer problems? Executable files can be anywhere on a hard drive and can disguise loadable libs as anything.
Apple is a monopoly in the Apple market? WTF, so any company is a monopoly as long as you define "the market" in terms of that company's products? I guess that makes McDonalds a monopoly - in the market for McDonalds food. And Gap is a monopoly in the market for Gap clothing. And so on.
If Apple controls "the system" on their hardware, why can you delete OS X and install Linux on a PPC Mac?
You can delete Windows on a PC and install Linux too, yet Microsoft was convicted of illegal use of a monopoly due to restrictive software licensing. Apple maintains its monopoly by restrictive licensing of both software and hardware.
You'd expect the mechanic to have his own tools / jacks etc.
That doesn't mean he won't use yours if yours are more efficient for the job at hand. Suppose all his lifts are busy and all he needs to finish your car is inspect the brakes? If I had a file called windows-xp-keygen.exe on my desktop I'd expect it to be reported. If the same file was in C:\Games, clearly the tech has no reason to be in that directory (assuming that wasn't my "windows" aka %systemroot% directory)
Well I'm definitely not a lawyer but a Google search lead me to [URL=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase .pl?court=us&vol=466&invol=109]United States-vs-Jacobsen[/URL]: "The initial invasions of respondents' package were occasioned by private action. Those invasions revealed that the package contained only one significant item, a suspicious looking tape tube. Cutting the end of the tube and extracting its contents revealed a suspicious looking plastic bag of white powder. Whether those invasions were accidental or deliberate, 10 and whether they were reasonable or unreasonable, they did not violate the Fourth Amendment because of their private character."
So, it appears that if a private party finds illegal material all expectation of privacy is out the window as far as the found items are concerned. As for the mechanics, or computer techs, there are any number of reasons why they may be looking in areas not directly related to the repair in question. Jacks are located in trunks, software that runs hardware is located on computer hard drives.
When Westbrook dropped off his personal computer at a Gateway Computer store for servicing, a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal. Gateway called the police, who searched through personal files on Westbrook's hard drive looking for more evidence -- before ever getting a warrant. The trial court found, and EFF argues in its brief to the appeals court, that this violated Westbrook's Fourth Amendment rights.
If I drop off my car and hand the keys to a mechanic I've basically surrendered my right to privacy concerning anything he finds in the car while going about the repairs so if he finds anything illegal it is perfectly right for him to report it to the police if he feels that is his duty. The same applies to the technician.
The police, on the other hand, were obviously wrong in not obtaining a warrent to search the drive.
...they need to rewrite Monty Python's "Galaxy Song"?
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go 'round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
This is hardly the place to discuss the finer details or to draft a formal and globalized definition of porn, but let's just throw the dog a bone by suggesting that if you wouldn't want a 5-year-old to see it and it's sexual in nature, then it's probably porn.
I wouldn't let a five-year-old use a computer without supervision nor go to a site that I haven't checked out first. Look, when my kids were growing up I chose what movies and books I felt were appropriate for their ages and now they do the same for their kids. What is so different about the internet that makes parents feel they can't excercise a little responsibility?
My god! Don't you see the irony here? Internet porn will always be there. But if we were able to have all porn sites go under *.xxx then they'd be easier to block. I see this thing as a major convenience for everyone. I say let.XXX happen and then we can start blocking when we want to not see it... or is it just better to have this stuff in our faces "accidentally" all the time?
It'd be even easier to block porn if everyone who was offended by something stuck to one a domain where that something was prohibited. The problem is that the internet is a global medium and definitions of obscenity vary by locality. In some parts of the world bare breasts are acceptable while in others it is illegal for women to uncover their faces in public.
Maybe I just haven't played with Firefox enough to get it set up the way I want but I find the Mozilla interface much more comfortable.
I've actually played with it to the point that I got the interface to resemble the Mozilla suite, including finding the port of the Sky Pilot Classic theme, but I still find my self launching the suite 99% of the time. Maybe it's an old dog and new tricks thing, I don't know, but I still think of web browsing, reading email, editing web pages, and posting to newsgroups as integrated tasks.
They force people to buy older cheaper cards because they refuse to open source their drivers. Really though, it's okay because it leaves me a few hundred extra dollars to spend on CPUs and motherboards.
This lawyer is a strong open source advocate who posts regular updates on SCO and other issues. He might be someone you would be interested in contacting.
Until, of course, they get to the age where they're property owners in their own right (and no, MP3 players are not what I mean), and realize that people deserve compensation for their efforts, and not to have it ripped off by amoral bastards.
No, I think they're going to realize that the cost to society as a whole far outweighs any value that current IP laws contribute. The vast majority of people get paid for the work that they did today, not for the work they did yesterday. They are going to have just as hard a time understanding why someone should continue to profit from an effort made decades ago particularly when those profiting do so by violating the social contract that gives them the monopoly that enables them to do so in the first place.
You see, in the US at least, the purpose of copyrights and patents is to increase the amount of creative works available to the public. It says so right in the Constitution. But most of those who profit from creative works only see them as permanant revenue streams and pursue every avenue they can to restrict their distribution even to the point of refusing the public access to works that are no longer profitable.
Well, you see, little boy, in our society we consider that people can have intellectual, as well as physical property.
Also in our society little boys, and girls, grow up to become voting men and women and will elect representatives who share their world view which is likely to be diametrically opposed to those currently in power.
But the important question is... why not BitTorrent?
Because BitTorrent's major strength is also its major weakness. What I mean is that since more people downloading increases its efficiency, fewer people downloading has the opposite effect. The more obscure a file is the longer it takes, which just feeds the pablum marketing machine of the RIAA. USENET and direct downloading are simply better methods for distributing out of the mainstream material.
More than that, the unchangable UI things need some improvement. KDE has really bad right-click menus in almost all cases. The options availible there need to be pruned down, moved into sub-menus, or "hidden" as accelerators attached to clicks.
I'm a big fan of the "hermetic interface", where simple commands are availible from the menus, buttons, and so forth, but really powerful commands are "hidden". They don't clutter the UI, the newbie doesn't care about them, and the old-hands will find out how to use these features.
Now I'm just the opposite. I like having all my options available in my menus and was quite surprised to see "Delete" disappear with my last upgrade. If I want a file gone, I want it gone. But hey, at least they left a way to put it back in the control center and config.
Its a known fact that China commits industrial espionage as a regular activity on a daily basis. When you steal all your technology from someone else, that is not "progress", that is ripping off someone else's work.
So what royalties did "The West" pay for gunpowder and spaghetti?
Slashdot Mirror
Well with theater profits plummiting, the movie industry has few methods other than movie sales to generate a profit; and just because it is easy to do something illegally does not> mean that it is legitmate to do so, or that it is in some way unacceptable to defend yourself against these illegal actions. And just so you know, customer generally implies people who paid. These people did not.
Well, there's a problems here. How is a person supposed to know that a file is copyrighted before he downloads it? It's not like these files show a big (C) on the them. Besides, even if they did, how is downloading a copyrighted file any different from picking up a copyrighted book lying in the street?
Whispering every so often is one thing, but my girlfriend and I have had some bad experiences with going out to see a movie. We had a couple sit down next to us and the woman was some frumpy, dumpy middle age woman and she kept glaring at my girlfriend (who was just resting her head on my shoulder) and even coughed up and sprayed a bunch of spit on my girlfriend's leg. Then there are the cell phones, the kids that aren't forced to sit down and watch the movie or leave and things like that.
A lot of the coughers with kids and cellphones are watching movies at home too so they can smoke their cigs, let their kids run, and pause the flick when the phone rings.
You stay home because they bother you and they stay home so you aren't bothered by them. I guess that's another reason why theater attendence is down.
Honestly, in terms of Desktop linux, MS can do this now. Desktop linux *is* currently stillborne.
Bullshit.
I'm using KDE 3.4.2 right now and I find it to be well integrated, feature full, and very responsive. For example, on my panel I have:
* A menu icon that accesses applications and funtions.
* Icons for immediate access to applications and functions.
* A pager to switch between virtual desktops
* A taskbar to indicate running applications
* A system tray with applets for monitoring system resources, accessing discs, controlling sound volume, getting rss feeds and weather information.
* A clock.
In addition the panel is configurable. I have mine set for transparency so all the contained icons "float" on the bottom of my desktop.
Now for the menu itself. It has:
* The expected heirarchy of applications.
* A quick files system browser.
* A find files function.
* A help function.
* A command launcher.
* Access to a load of utilities that do everything from format floppies, calculate, edit menus, and handle archive formats.
Also in the menu is access to the control center from which I can configure:
* My desktop appearance, styles, themes, and fonts.
* My desktop behavior, number of virtual desktops, panel behavior, etc
* Internet and network settings including file sharing and browser settings.
* Integrated component such as file management and resource use.
* Peripherals such as mouse, keyboard, display, printers, etc
* Power control
* Accessibillity options such as speech to text, keyboard shortcuts, and internationalization.
* Security and Privacy such as cryptography and personal information storage.
* Sound system and notifications
* Advanced system configuration such as boot management and software installation.
In addition to the large list above, my menu is chock full of office suites, editors, games, graphic tools, sound editors, multimedia players, internet applications, development tools, and tons of other programs to perform just about any task I can think of.
So tell me, what am I missing? Desktop Linux isn't "stillborn", it's alive, thriving, and getting better everyday.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...despite all the freedom and independence that linux affords all you linux users out there, you don't need to be so snobby to the rest of us. It isn't that we're dumb or unimaginative...its just that we have other things to be smart and imaginative about and we don't want to be distracted by having to deal with Linux. If you like it, fine. That's your prerogative. But you don't have any place being indignant and snobby toward the rest of us. What we sacrifice in control and nuts and bolts access to our OS's, we gain in not having to think about our computers as anything more than a task-tailored tool for the other shit in our lives that's more important to us.
Well, the problem is that in this day and age what you don't know can kill you. It's a given that you can't know everything and in the end you have to depend on those who know things that you don't. So the questions then becomes who do you trust...those who are willing to show you how they get things done are those who hide they're methods from you? Just because you don't have the time or inclination to understand a thing doesn't mean that someone else does not, and if there is anything that I have learned from life it is that those who hide information do so only for their benefit, not for yours.
If you want Linux compatibility, you want nVidia. Yes, nVidia's drivers are closed-source, but they're at the same level as their Windows drivers, right down to the overclocking controls.
I guess that all depends on how you define compatible, and if it the drivers aren't open source then the drivers are not compatible with my open source system. I do research my hardware before I buy, and I will pay a premium to make sure that what I pay for will work with Linux without having to depend on some companies closed source drivers.
Tyan motherboards, yes. Opteron processors, yes. Audigy sound cards, yes. But NVidia cards, no.
Guess I'll just keep pluggin along with my Radeon 9200 until this project makes more progress.
How many articles and comments do you see here about viruses and spyware being the cause of most computer problems? Executable files can be anywhere on a hard drive and can disguise loadable libs as anything.
Apple is a monopoly in the Apple market? WTF, so any company is a monopoly as long as you define "the market" in terms of that company's products? I guess that makes McDonalds a monopoly - in the market for McDonalds food. And Gap is a monopoly in the market for Gap clothing. And so on.
If Apple controls "the system" on their hardware, why can you delete OS X and install Linux on a PPC Mac?
You can delete Windows on a PC and install Linux too, yet Microsoft was convicted of illegal use of a monopoly due to restrictive software licensing. Apple maintains its monopoly by restrictive licensing of both software and hardware.
The Apple market. They control both the system and the hardware that runs it.
You'd expect the mechanic to have his own tools / jacks etc.
That doesn't mean he won't use yours if yours are more efficient for the job at hand. Suppose all his lifts are busy and all he needs to finish your car is inspect the brakes?
If I had a file called windows-xp-keygen.exe on my desktop I'd expect it to be reported. If the same file was in C:\Games, clearly the tech has no reason to be in that directory (assuming that wasn't my "windows" aka %systemroot% directory)
Software can be executed from any directory.
It's also why I use Linux. Whether it's software or hardware, a monopoly is a monopoly.
Dang, mixed up my html and php. The proper caselaw link is here.
Well I'm definitely not a lawyer but a Google search lead me to [URL=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase .pl?court=us&vol=466&invol=109]United States-vs-Jacobsen[/URL]:
"The initial invasions of respondents' package were occasioned by private action. Those invasions revealed that the package contained only one significant item, a suspicious looking tape tube. Cutting the end of the tube and extracting its contents revealed a suspicious looking plastic bag of white powder. Whether those invasions were accidental or deliberate, 10 and whether they were reasonable or unreasonable, they did not violate the Fourth Amendment because of their private character."
So, it appears that if a private party finds illegal material all expectation of privacy is out the window as far as the found items are concerned. As for the mechanics, or computer techs, there are any number of reasons why they may be looking in areas not directly related to the repair in question. Jacks are located in trunks, software that runs hardware is located on computer hard drives.
When Westbrook dropped off his personal computer at a Gateway Computer store for servicing, a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal. Gateway called the police, who searched through personal files on Westbrook's hard drive looking for more evidence -- before ever getting a warrant. The trial court found, and EFF argues in its brief to the appeals court, that this violated Westbrook's Fourth Amendment rights.
If I drop off my car and hand the keys to a mechanic I've basically surrendered my right to privacy concerning anything he finds in the car while going about the repairs so if he finds anything illegal it is perfectly right for him to report it to the police if he feels that is his duty. The same applies to the technician.
The police, on the other hand, were obviously wrong in not obtaining a warrent to search the drive.
...they need to rewrite Monty Python's "Galaxy Song"?
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
This is hardly the place to discuss the finer details or to draft a formal and globalized definition of porn, but let's just throw the dog a bone by suggesting that if you wouldn't want a 5-year-old to see it and it's sexual in nature, then it's probably porn.
I wouldn't let a five-year-old use a computer without supervision nor go to a site that I haven't checked out first. Look, when my kids were growing up I chose what movies and books I felt were appropriate for their ages and now they do the same for their kids. What is so different about the internet that makes parents feel they can't excercise a little responsibility?
My god! Don't you see the irony here? Internet porn will always be there. But if we were able to have all porn sites go under *.xxx then they'd be easier to block. I see this thing as a major convenience for everyone. I say let
It'd be even easier to block porn if everyone who was offended by something stuck to one a domain where that something was prohibited. The problem is that the internet is a global medium and definitions of obscenity vary by locality. In some parts of the world bare breasts are acceptable while in others it is illegal for women to uncover their faces in public.
Maybe I just haven't played with Firefox enough to get it set up the way I want but I find the Mozilla interface much more comfortable.
I've actually played with it to the point that I got the interface to resemble the Mozilla suite, including finding the port of the Sky Pilot Classic theme, but I still find my self launching the suite 99% of the time. Maybe it's an old dog and new tricks thing, I don't know, but I still think of web browsing, reading email, editing web pages, and posting to newsgroups as integrated tasks.
And how about ATI/NVidia?
They force people to buy older cheaper cards because they refuse to open source their drivers. Really though, it's okay because it leaves me a few hundred extra dollars to spend on CPUs and motherboards.
This lawyer is a strong open source advocate who posts regular updates on SCO and other issues. He might be someone you would be interested in contacting.
Until, of course, they get to the age where they're property owners in their own right (and no, MP3 players are not what I mean), and realize that people deserve compensation for their efforts, and not to have it ripped off by amoral bastards.
No, I think they're going to realize that the cost to society as a whole far outweighs any value that current IP laws contribute. The vast majority of people get paid for the work that they did today, not for the work they did yesterday. They are going to have just as hard a time understanding why someone should continue to profit from an effort made decades ago particularly when those profiting do so by violating the social contract that gives them the monopoly that enables them to do so in the first place.
You see, in the US at least, the purpose of copyrights and patents is to increase the amount of creative works available to the public. It says so right in the Constitution. But most of those who profit from creative works only see them as permanant revenue streams and pursue every avenue they can to restrict their distribution even to the point of refusing the public access to works that are no longer profitable.
Well, you see, little boy, in our society we consider that people can have intellectual, as well as physical property.
Also in our society little boys, and girls, grow up to become voting men and women and will elect representatives who share their world view which is likely to be diametrically opposed to those currently in power.
But the important question is... why not BitTorrent?
Because BitTorrent's major strength is also its major weakness. What I mean is that since more people downloading increases its efficiency, fewer people downloading has the opposite effect. The more obscure a file is the longer it takes, which just feeds the pablum marketing machine of the RIAA. USENET and direct downloading are simply better methods for distributing out of the mainstream material.
More than that, the unchangable UI things need some improvement. KDE has really bad right-click menus in almost all cases. The options availible there need to be pruned down, moved into sub-menus, or "hidden" as accelerators attached to clicks.
I'm a big fan of the "hermetic interface", where simple commands are availible from the menus, buttons, and so forth, but really powerful commands are "hidden". They don't clutter the UI, the newbie doesn't care about them, and the old-hands will find out how to use these features.
Now I'm just the opposite. I like having all my options available in my menus and was quite surprised to see "Delete" disappear with my last upgrade. If I want a file gone, I want it gone. But hey, at least they left a way to put it back in the control center and config.
Its a known fact that China commits industrial espionage as a regular activity on a daily basis. When you steal all your technology from someone else, that is not "progress", that is ripping off someone else's work.
So what royalties did "The West" pay for gunpowder and spaghetti?
Well it certainly sounds like they have some pretty hard evidence, so why don't they try him?