All of these ignorant little schemes whereby the movie/music/content industry slowly work towards implosion will most likely be killed within the next couple of years. Look at the Charly Pride fiasco - they seemed to get enough people together to get a class action lawsuit and force a settlement out of the industry. What happens when 24-49 year old people begin to feel the effects of the RIAA/MPAA's poor business decisions and governmental influencing?
More and more people are getting connected, want to take advantage of all that "new" technology. What will happen when millions of those people are forced into adopting that technology and find that it does little that they want it to and far less than what they've been able to do in the past. Lawyers are probably chomping at the bit waiting for this day to come so that they can chew into the cash cow that is the RIAA/MPAA.
Most of us here are of a small vocal minority. In the "grand scheme" of things it's seen that we have little power over the outcome of these decisions. But is that in fact true. Everyday I come in close contact with at least 20 people, 10 of which I have regular conversations with. Almost every person within my sphere of influence knows about these issues because I've taken the time to communicate them and worked it into conversations about things that are already happening in their lives. How many people within your sphere know about these issues? What will you do to change that?
This issue stirs up so many past issues not just in the music industry but also in how the government is run (US and Global), how laws are passed/enforced/judged, Intellectual Property, "freedom" of information, telling the truth - ethics in company and government communication, etc. It's crazy that there's a connection between wanting to tape Dawson's Creek and the need for US government political finance reform. That connection shouldn't even be there, companies should not be able to shape the policies of a government, only individuals should have that power. No corporate junkets, hosting, food, clothing, ad time, benefit dinners, fund raisers, trips, private meetings. These are PUBLIC officials, everything that they do outside of their personal life should be OPEN AND AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC SCRUTINY. If individuals mass and make requests that are beneficial to the corporations then GREAT that means it's probably beneficial to the public/consumer also. I don't want to hear that Merk/Medco, Phillip/Morris, SONY, AOL/TW endorse candidate X or that GM's local union whatever endorses candidate Y. I don't want to hear about how many lobbyists that MS has hired out from under AOL. I definitely do not want to hear about how some company or corporate rights group is influencing the EU or China or India or other foreign government. That's just crap and more and more they are the reason that the US gets shat upon by other countries. India and Pakistan population were mad because several companies pulled out after 9/11 and that meant jobs and livelihood lost to those people, people already underpaid for their quality work.
We should limit companies ability to influence any government. Companies should not be allowed to voice their issues through the same means meant for individuals. Does that mean that I think government should ignore the needs of business - No - I just think that it should be through a seperate channel that takes the issues and stores them like data and all of that government/corporate/public communication would be free and viewable to the people (public would be anonymous by request... comments would be posted without ID). The government should take the data and be proactive in it's use, not reactive to the corporate needs but forecast those needs based on what the public is telling them is the real need. I know that's all idealistic, but why can't idealism create realism? Why can't what we dream and think be manifested into something tangeable?
The average Joe does not yet see these issues as a problem and won't until they effect him or someone he knows. Therefore it's our task to communicate how it is or will be soon effecting us (and them) and make it very REAL for average Joe. The other issue is that the people we really need on our side couldn't care less about this issue because they are struggling on issues of food or daycare or healthcare and not "can I watch my otaku goodies". Until we show them that, eirily enough, this does/can/will effect them then we won't have the votes necessary to really do some damage
Re:.Net fails the pr0n test
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.NETly News
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· Score: 2
I have full faith that Asia Carrera will rise to the occassion in full geek fashion and put.Net to the test proving that it is an excellent platform for pr0n.
So by the quote does that make VCRplus equiped in most VCR's illegal because it allows you to easily setup recording of your favorite show by punching in a simple code. Why, I could look up shows by genre on my cable box and program my VCR to record those shows, the horror, oh my God I'm stealing TV programming. Next they'll be banning TV guide for facilitating customers avoidance of bad programming and over abundant commercials.
"Newsflash: British Telecom to patent 'Electronic' Dewey Decimal system. When asked how this would differ from currently used technology BT's chief technologist said 'It won't'. When asked why this shift in development strategies BT responded: 'After the success we had patenting the hyperlink(tm) we, with advice from our counsel, decided it would be best for our shareholders and consumers alike to agressively pursue similar strategies. We have a whole host of products in development right now taking old world technology and bringing them into the future. These products include the modernization of the book 'index', 'footnotes', and 'bibliography' which will be retroactive to existing products of course. We also have a little known project concerning printed money and how to modernize it. Of course once all the research is done we will agressively pursue anyone using our technology unlicensed. We stand to make billions from the thousands of pounds worth of research we are doing. Even if the courts say we can't 'legally' keep the money from companies we negotiate with, just temporarily having it is enough to boost our stock price to the point where our executive board can sell and retire in luxury.'"
Correct, but then you are talking theology and I'm talking the execution of the theology. Very little that happens within practitioners of religion actually adhere to the written theology. All systems work well on paper, throw in the chaos that is a human mind and rules get bent in ways you never thought they could.
<Paraphrase>It depends on how you define 'is'.</Paraphrase> -- Bill
Muslims will do many "Un-Islamic" things (lying, murder, torture, rape, hating, hygenic changes, etc.) in the name of serving Allah and Islam. It's simply another means to an end. Many religious groups at the end of the day (Christians, Muslims, Scientologists) excuse off their poor behavior with excuses of "I did it for...", "I was called to...", etc. The crusaders killed in the name of God, now the muslims kill in the name of Allah because of the crusades. Doing wrong is so easy to justify when you just don't care to be correct.
Download the updates automatically and notify me when they are ready to be installed.
Notify me before downloading any updates and notify me again before installing them on my computer.
Turn off automatic updating. I want to update my computer manually.
I think that the portion of the EULA being quoted is designed to cover possibly the first option and also possibly some of the web installers and activeX controls that get installed. Additionally it may help to cover the initial setup which can also automatically check for updates to the setup files themselves so that you have the most up to date setup package. I think people get confused with the phrase "automatically" because they assume that automatically means ZERO user intervention. It doesn't. Assume that I go to get a coke from the vending machine, is that an automatic or manual process? 1 step is manual, me putting money into the machine, the rest is automated and thus happens "automatically", meaning the machine does the rest of the work to actually dispense the purchased product. In XP's case it's automating what was a manual process and although there is some user intervention it is still for the most part considered an "automatic" process. This EULA allows for MS to cover their ass for when stupid people who can't RTFM or even take a simple tour decide that they "got screwed" and the only way to fix things is "format and startover". When some hotshot lawyer decides he can make some cash with a class action lawsuit for all those people who were unduely inconvenienced by Windows Update then MS can fall back on their EULA. Understand also that the EULA has not been proven legally binding in the past, I'm sure that the legallity of the EULA would be called into questioned and could be thrown out (and has been in the past). Primarily it's just an honor agreement so that when the lawyers come knocking the company can fend off all but the most serious people.
I guess it's a simantec issue. You are speaking of implementation in reference to the end implement much like MFC is an implementation of C++ or as GCC is an implement of C. I'm speaking of implementation as in JavaScript1.x/JScript are implementations of ECMAScript or VisualC++ is an implementation of C++. For the latter there is a core language and structure present that defines the language. While you use the core you are allowed to add additional functionality to that core without detracting from it. In this way you make it your own.
With java you are dissallowed from touching the core language. While you are allowed to create new packages and uses of the existing language you cannot add to it. The core language is controlled by Sun.
Additionally you are dissallowed from creating a "clean room" version of the language. Also parties that have used third party "implimentations" (PACKAGES/VM/Compilers) may be dissallowed from J2EE certifications or blocked from distributing the app open source or at all, even if said app uses the Java Language exactly and performs to the listed specifications for J2EE compliance. Why? Because it's Sun's ball and if they don't like you not playing by the "rules" then they will take the ball and go home. (See Lutris Enhydra... unable to continue Open Source J2EE app server due to discrepency in licensing schemes).
So while I can create my own implementation of ECMAScript and add all the functionality I want and it still be considered ECMAScript compliant, I cannot do the same with Java language without fear of reprisal. The licensing does not allow for this, in fact it expressly forbids it.
Quick and simple: you are talking about using an existing hammer someone gave you to build a door, I'm talking about building a hammer from parts of your hammer and new parts I created, that looks and acts just like yours, and will be usee to build a similar door. Both hammers work the same, both doors get built. Which door gets certified?
Wait, say that again, "third party implementations", meaning what exactly? Modifications to the original "standard" or building off of the already existing base? I don't think that I've seen a GPL'd java or a red-hat java. While I've seen plenty of vm's and additional components I don't think I've seen any truly third party implementations. If what you said was true then Microsoft would have had right to continue to fudge their version of java into anything they wanted to.
On to standards: Standards come in two forms A) Standard by popularity B) Standard by decree. While Java is a standard by popularity (similar to how IE is the standard browser), Sun refuses to give up any control whatsoever of the product in order for it to make a very important step into an actual documented and decreed standard. This would mean giving some measurable control up to a standards board such as ECMA, IETF, etc. What makes you think that Sun won't do exactly what it wants with Java?
See the media industry needs to roll with this instead of against it. They could market product spots much better. You'd have the primary market of first run shows and people watching them when they are on, the secondary market of PVR/VCR timeshifters, the tertiary markets of people who missed the programs altogther and need to trade over a connection. Advertise some shows in the client that downloads the files and boom you've increased your market share on a product that may have stopped running on the regular network some time ago. Just think all those "BJ and the Bear" shows might get seen again or maybe "Shazaam" will get a rousing come back. All without the media companies having to do anything but do some (more fake) studies about how the commercials ARE (not) getting customers to spend on those high ticket items. I say go with the flow.
Re:A lot of faulty arguments...
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AOL vs. Trillian
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· Score: 2
Active user is not defined by the client. Active user is defined by use of the network. Therefore AOL receives the same amount of ad revenue despite the fact that the client may never in fact see the ad. For example there are hacks available to remove the ad from AIM, AOL does not change the charges per user for ads based on whether this hack is available or being used.
AOL is already viewed as the RIAA (as of the Timewarner merger it is the RIAA and MPAA) of the IM world because of the many lock outs and denials it has already done. They have sued many underdogs already with/without justification. They have sued frivolously to protect common english phrases and acronyms. Suggesting that they wouldn't file suite because it might give them bad publicity is not a correct assumption. Trademark, copyright, etc. laws are based on a defense idea: if you do not defend your rights you do not have those rights. For example if my neighbor parks his car on my lawn for X amount of time and I do nothing to stop him then that part of my lawn becomes fair game. Now just saying no doesn't completely stop him, I have to use the law to stop him or it means nothing. Therefore these clients that "trespass" into AOL's network, while AOL is saying "NO", they are not using the law to stop them therefore it's meaningless.
Now I still don't think that AOL can file suite. I think if you look at the costs involved it would be much cheaper to file against one company and set precedent than to keep fending off company after company and the bad publicity that THAT brings. So it's a trade off of where you take your publicity hit. Like your police officer ticket analogy: Yes a law is nothing if it is not enforced. In this case AOL, if the law is in their favor, is choosing to do nothing.
I don't think any of the cases that you mentioned have ever been fully tested in the courts (and in certain cases mentioned they have not been fully tried and no judgements reached). Along with the DMCA their relevance has yet to be determined. Additionally I think there were some significant differences in the cases that would exclude the premise of "interoperability". Almost all of the cases included the modification of an existing product. Trillian does not modify anything it simply piggy backs on an already existing system. I.E. I might reverse engineer a cd so that I could create a compatible player. The CD company wouldn't really be able to do much since I'm not modifying their format nor am I competing against their product. It's arguable whether trillian truly competes against AIM given that it give significantly different benefits.
It's going to be significantly and prohibitively expensive for two or three people in a small company to file against a company like AOL/TW. The idea might have been weighed and then decided that legally they could use the back door as many many other clients already do and have in the past. Again I assert that Trillian is doing nothing illegal therefore your shooting the thief argument is not valid.
You are correct that there is not a law that says who AOL must open the system to. But if a user chose a client that exposed their username/password then that would be on the user not on AOL. AOL could not be held liable for that. I could just as easily create a media player program that found the AIM password would AOL be liable for that? No. So that analogy does not hold either.
Since Trillian just piggy backs the same signal/protocol that AIM natively uses then I don't really see it consuming more resources than AIM gains from ad revenue. And I think as others have pointed out AIM's ad revenue is geared more towards suplimental income and getting people onto the service than it is fully restitution. What I meant was that if AOL keeps running into the same problem - i.e. others using their finite resources - maybe it's time to look into other models for the system that might be more beneficial as opposed to workarounds that don't benefit either the business or the customer.
Alot of people making inferences about capitalism and socialism in respect to the bottom line and benefit to the individual. People look at what's good for the company and profitable as not good for the consumer and vice versa. I think that this is a broken concept. I think a company can be profitable and be beneficial to the customer. I think that long term profitability is only acheivable by being a benefit to the customer. Too many companies today sustain profitability through a series of acquisitions and subsequent cost cutting mesures that in the end do not benefit the customer or the company. At some point the company has to raise prices, reduce services, reduce the quality of goods, or sell off/close down properties to sustain profitability (all things that AOL has already done and continues to do). Lack of customer focus continues to drive away more customers than competing products will. This is AOL's problem more than anything else. If a competing product can prove to be more customer focused then AOL will lose. As AOL begins to fail it looks to strategies other than customer focus to solidify itself in the market place. This includes increasing it's branding into other markets, acquiring suplimentary income through acquisitions, etc. In time these will all fail. The only way that many many companies have come out of financial ruin is to start being customer focused again, only then did they truly succeed. So to say that I'm into socialism because I believe the consumer and common good should be served is not entirely true. I do believe in capitalism as an idea but do not like to see it poorly executed. Most companies idea of capitalism is to extinquish competitors. The destruction of competition only ensures stagnation of the destructive. Lack of competition means lack of inovation and the drive to inovate and to customer apathy for the product. Customer apathy means lower sales. It's better to have a customer that thinks you are doing something for them and they are more easily swayed to purchase your product. Lie to them to many times and they will justify any action to see you fail.
Minor correction. The conditions for the AOL/TIMEWarner merger in regards to IM are: "AOL Time Warner must guarantee interoperability in its IM services before offering 'advanced IM-based high-speed services,' such as videoconferencing." Meaning that advanced service can be offered only after the basic interoperability has been addressed. Interoperability was to be accomplished either through adoption of a standard protocol, opening AOL's existing protocol, or licensing to another major network. AOL did license with another competitor which then promptly went bankrupt. They have yet to fulfil the part of the agreement that stated that they must sign additional partnerships within 180 days of the first. See http://screaming-penguin.com/main.php?storyid=1604
lets make something clear
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AOL vs. Trillian
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· Score: 5, Interesting
AOL generates ad revenue on a per user basis, not on whether the ad actually made it to the client.
What trillian does is not illegal, otherwise AOL would have taken them to court (which they did not do with MS/ATT/Jabber/Odigo et al).
Reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is granted by law (see VCR).
There are already hacks available for AOL/ICQ et al that strip the ad or replace the ad space and AOL takes no action against them.
AOL lies and states that it's a security issue and accuse the competitor of "hacking" to attempt to turn public sentiment against the compititor. If it were "hacking", AOL would be able to call the police, file a lawsuit, or notify the FBI. Since this is not "hacking", in their modified sense of the word, then no law has been broken and AOL can do nothing but shuffle their protocol to attempt to block people out. This comes down to basic fraud.
The ruling when AOL/Timewarner merged was that they could do so only if they opened their IM service. As far as I know, no timeline was put on that interoperability and therefore AOL could stall indefinitely. The makers of Trillian appear to just be helping we the consumer receive what the ruling had already requested, but in a significantly limited fashion (I.E. not true interoperability)
AOL took no action against Trillian until it gained significant popularity. Only then did it become a "security concern". Meanwhile any client under a million users is not technically a "security concern". So any of you hackers out there who want to hack into AOL's service feel free to get 900,000 of your compatriots together and nail their system. If there are security concerns with AOL's AIM protocol then why do they suggest that it is the best and most secure and want it as a standard above all others? If there is a security concern with the use/implementation of that protocol why not simply plug the hole and be done with it? Why? Because they are lying about the security risk implemented by alternate clients.
Why is it that no other im system has shut out Trillian? Because the rest of the IM systems/companies want interoperability and are working to that goal, only AOL remains apart from that venture because they are serving their own greed and monopolizing the IM market through preditory practices. AOL has the potential to make MS look like an amature when it comes to market predation.
Since I signed up with a user name on AIM they make money off of me. They use me as a resource to fund their activities therefore I will use them as a resource for mine. If through my choice of clients I consume more resources than they gain from me then it's time for them to look at a different business model. The last time I looked the majority ad on AIM was still for AOL's own over priced service. I did not, upon signing up with AIM, agree to use a particular client to consume said resource therefore they should not block me from use because of my choice. Saying that there is no "business relationship" makes it appear that AOL wants one, this is not the case as has been proven time and time again. AOL does not want business relationships that will do nothing to further their capture of market share.
It appears to me that the problem is with people getting set in their ways. Almost every single person that I've heard chime in about the interface being difficult has been a person who has used multiple tools in the past. These people typically get used to "their" interface and don't like to step out of that "standard". Meanwhile all of the newbies and people just getting into digital art that don't have 500-5,000 to spend on a tool step in and learn Blender in a couple of days and seem to do very well with it's un-intuitive interface. I think it's easier to ditch the product when you already own one or more products that in essence do the same thing. When you don't have those products then you are really forced to take some time to learn how things work and to understand why they work that way.
I understand your point. But think of it as being useful to some game designer who decides to market the game and let people try peices on the web to really see what it looks like without needing to download 75 megs worth of demo just to get a general feel for the game. Any tech can be missused by the under educated.
My understanding is that the blender plug-in is sandboxed by design. You could probably find out more from the site, but I'm relatively certain that it's sandboxed because some people had wanted to use it for active desktop interface but couldn't do much with it because of the sandboxing.
This plugin does not handle things in the same way that people think of VRML. Although Blender can work to create and read VRML the product and the plugin do much much more. 1) Blender is cross platform Win/Mac/*nix 2)You can create 3d objects to almost any level of realism that you want to (see the gallery on their site) 3) You can animate within the same package 4) You can create interactive content (i.e. games) in the same package. 5) the plugin/module architecture to create special effects is python driven. The web plugin allows for you to view a 3d object like maybe a product representation and then show it to your potential customer, or 3d games to run over the web, or interactive navigation for the website. There are tons of examples of what the plugin and application can do if one takes a little time to look through the web site. They even have an example of how to use the plugin to create interactive banner ads.
The tool is different from just about everything out there and once you get used to the method of interaction is seems very easy to get things done. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that bitch about the Linux interfaces and how hard they are to use, while many more people find them quick and efficient... give blender a try and see if it falls into this same scenario.
Stop griping about how it works/doesn't work or comparing it to other products like VRML until you've at least taken a look at what it can do. The user galleries and demos on the site are excellent examples of what can be done by an artist.
That's wild, i've never used any of those products and I mastered Blender enough to build - this - after about three days of running through the tuts and messing around with it.
The slowest machine I've set this up on is a P75 w/32 megs of ram. It worked fine although with the video card I had it couldn't get to higher color depths. Amazingly I didn't have to do anything to configure the modem, sound card or NIC and everything ran fine. Really helped a novice get on the net quick and play a few games that they like to play. No need to spend $600 for a new PC just so someone can surf the net and get mail and play card games, dust off the old PC and slap QNX on easier than a Mandrake install.
that's the key point - "Through their record label". Most of the companies are segmented out into seperate and semi-autonomous companies or divisions that do not report to each other. If the market has an opening for a product it's unlikely that Sony consumer electronics is going to give up market share to Philips to protect the interests of Sony music.
Notice that the original state statement mentions that he admitted to his "conduct" not "misconduct". Meaning that basically he admitted that he wrote a program that cracked the adobe file, not admitted that what he did was wrong. The second point is that he agreed to aid in the prosecution, well maybe he agreed to testify and the prosecution wants to use that testimony but that doesn't equate to him actually agreeing to "help/aid" the prosecution.
personally I think that the government is going to jerk around until enough people forget about this. I think in hind sight they do not want this very high profile case to go to court, likewise none of the media companies want it there either. They want this law to sit on the books for awhile and become "accepted" before anyone tries to test it. I'm sure another year from now we'll here some snippet blurb saying that the govt and elcomsoft entered into a "Plea" agreement where elcomsoft agree's not to sell the product in the US in exchange for the small slap on the wrist or "deferred" sentencing. What a joke!
There was a show on in the early 90's that did this, can't remember the name but I remember Linda Hunt as the chief and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa played the token alien partner. I think it was space rangers or something like that. It showed for about 3 or 4 episodes and then dissappeared. Of course it was competing against Babylon 5 for ratings so....
Slashdot Mirror
All of these ignorant little schemes whereby the movie/music/content industry slowly work towards implosion will most likely be killed within the next couple of years. Look at the Charly Pride fiasco - they seemed to get enough people together to get a class action lawsuit and force a settlement out of the industry. What happens when 24-49 year old people begin to feel the effects of the RIAA/MPAA's poor business decisions and governmental influencing?
More and more people are getting connected, want to take advantage of all that "new" technology. What will happen when millions of those people are forced into adopting that technology and find that it does little that they want it to and far less than what they've been able to do in the past. Lawyers are probably chomping at the bit waiting for this day to come so that they can chew into the cash cow that is the RIAA/MPAA.
Most of us here are of a small vocal minority. In the "grand scheme" of things it's seen that we have little power over the outcome of these decisions. But is that in fact true. Everyday I come in close contact with at least 20 people, 10 of which I have regular conversations with. Almost every person within my sphere of influence knows about these issues because I've taken the time to communicate them and worked it into conversations about things that are already happening in their lives. How many people within your sphere know about these issues? What will you do to change that?
This issue stirs up so many past issues not just in the music industry but also in how the government is run (US and Global), how laws are passed/enforced/judged, Intellectual Property, "freedom" of information, telling the truth - ethics in company and government communication, etc. It's crazy that there's a connection between wanting to tape Dawson's Creek and the need for US government political finance reform. That connection shouldn't even be there, companies should not be able to shape the policies of a government, only individuals should have that power. No corporate junkets, hosting, food, clothing, ad time, benefit dinners, fund raisers, trips, private meetings. These are PUBLIC officials, everything that they do outside of their personal life should be OPEN AND AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC SCRUTINY. If individuals mass and make requests that are beneficial to the corporations then GREAT that means it's probably beneficial to the public/consumer also. I don't want to hear that Merk/Medco, Phillip/Morris, SONY, AOL/TW endorse candidate X or that GM's local union whatever endorses candidate Y. I don't want to hear about how many lobbyists that MS has hired out from under AOL. I definitely do not want to hear about how some company or corporate rights group is influencing the EU or China or India or other foreign government. That's just crap and more and more they are the reason that the US gets shat upon by other countries. India and Pakistan population were mad because several companies pulled out after 9/11 and that meant jobs and livelihood lost to those people, people already underpaid for their quality work.
We should limit companies ability to influence any government. Companies should not be allowed to voice their issues through the same means meant for individuals. Does that mean that I think government should ignore the needs of business - No - I just think that it should be through a seperate channel that takes the issues and stores them like data and all of that government/corporate/public communication would be free and viewable to the people (public would be anonymous by request... comments would be posted without ID). The government should take the data and be proactive in it's use, not reactive to the corporate needs but forecast those needs based on what the public is telling them is the real need. I know that's all idealistic, but why can't idealism create realism? Why can't what we dream and think be manifested into something tangeable?
The average Joe does not yet see these issues as a problem and won't until they effect him or someone he knows. Therefore it's our task to communicate how it is or will be soon effecting us (and them) and make it very REAL for average Joe. The other issue is that the people we really need on our side couldn't care less about this issue because they are struggling on issues of food or daycare or healthcare and not "can I watch my otaku goodies". Until we show them that, eirily enough, this does/can/will effect them then we won't have the votes necessary to really do some damage
I have full faith that Asia Carrera will rise to the occassion in full geek fashion and put .Net to the test proving that it is an excellent platform for pr0n.
So by the quote does that make VCRplus equiped in most VCR's illegal because it allows you to easily setup recording of your favorite show by punching in a simple code. Why, I could look up shows by genre on my cable box and program my VCR to record those shows, the horror, oh my God I'm stealing TV programming. Next they'll be banning TV guide for facilitating customers avoidance of bad programming and over abundant commercials.
"Newsflash: British Telecom to patent 'Electronic' Dewey Decimal system. When asked how this would differ from currently used technology BT's chief technologist said 'It won't'. When asked why this shift in development strategies BT responded: 'After the success we had patenting the hyperlink(tm) we, with advice from our counsel, decided it would be best for our shareholders and consumers alike to agressively pursue similar strategies. We have a whole host of products in development right now taking old world technology and bringing them into the future. These products include the modernization of the book 'index', 'footnotes', and 'bibliography' which will be retroactive to existing products of course. We also have a little known project concerning printed money and how to modernize it. Of course once all the research is done we will agressively pursue anyone using our technology unlicensed. We stand to make billions from the thousands of pounds worth of research we are doing. Even if the courts say we can't 'legally' keep the money from companies we negotiate with, just temporarily having it is enough to boost our stock price to the point where our executive board can sell and retire in luxury.'"
Correct, but then you are talking theology and I'm talking the execution of the theology. Very little that happens within practitioners of religion actually adhere to the written theology. All systems work well on paper, throw in the chaos that is a human mind and rules get bent in ways you never thought they could.
<Paraphrase>It depends on how you define 'is'.</Paraphrase> -- Bill
Muslims will do many "Un-Islamic" things (lying, murder, torture, rape, hating, hygenic changes, etc.) in the name of serving Allah and Islam. It's simply another means to an end. Many religious groups at the end of the day (Christians, Muslims, Scientologists) excuse off their poor behavior with excuses of "I did it for...", "I was called to...", etc. The crusaders killed in the name of God, now the muslims kill in the name of Allah because of the crusades. Doing wrong is so easy to justify when you just don't care to be correct.
The options are:
I think that the portion of the EULA being quoted is designed to cover possibly the first option and also possibly some of the web installers and activeX controls that get installed. Additionally it may help to cover the initial setup which can also automatically check for updates to the setup files themselves so that you have the most up to date setup package. I think people get confused with the phrase "automatically" because they assume that automatically means ZERO user intervention. It doesn't. Assume that I go to get a coke from the vending machine, is that an automatic or manual process? 1 step is manual, me putting money into the machine, the rest is automated and thus happens "automatically", meaning the machine does the rest of the work to actually dispense the purchased product. In XP's case it's automating what was a manual process and although there is some user intervention it is still for the most part considered an "automatic" process. This EULA allows for MS to cover their ass for when stupid people who can't RTFM or even take a simple tour decide that they "got screwed" and the only way to fix things is "format and startover". When some hotshot lawyer decides he can make some cash with a class action lawsuit for all those people who were unduely inconvenienced by Windows Update then MS can fall back on their EULA. Understand also that the EULA has not been proven legally binding in the past, I'm sure that the legallity of the EULA would be called into questioned and could be thrown out (and has been in the past). Primarily it's just an honor agreement so that when the lawyers come knocking the company can fend off all but the most serious people.
With java you are dissallowed from touching the core language. While you are allowed to create new packages and uses of the existing language you cannot add to it. The core language is controlled by Sun.
Additionally you are dissallowed from creating a "clean room" version of the language. Also parties that have used third party "implimentations" (PACKAGES/VM/Compilers) may be dissallowed from J2EE certifications or blocked from distributing the app open source or at all, even if said app uses the Java Language exactly and performs to the listed specifications for J2EE compliance. Why? Because it's Sun's ball and if they don't like you not playing by the "rules" then they will take the ball and go home. (See Lutris Enhydra... unable to continue Open Source J2EE app server due to discrepency in licensing schemes).
So while I can create my own implementation of ECMAScript and add all the functionality I want and it still be considered ECMAScript compliant, I cannot do the same with Java language without fear of reprisal. The licensing does not allow for this, in fact it expressly forbids it.
Quick and simple: you are talking about using an existing hammer someone gave you to build a door, I'm talking about building a hammer from parts of your hammer and new parts I created, that looks and acts just like yours, and will be usee to build a similar door. Both hammers work the same, both doors get built. Which door gets certified?
Wait, say that again, "third party implementations", meaning what exactly? Modifications to the original "standard" or building off of the already existing base? I don't think that I've seen a GPL'd java or a red-hat java. While I've seen plenty of vm's and additional components I don't think I've seen any truly third party implementations. If what you said was true then Microsoft would have had right to continue to fudge their version of java into anything they wanted to.
On to standards: Standards come in two forms A) Standard by popularity B) Standard by decree. While Java is a standard by popularity (similar to how IE is the standard browser), Sun refuses to give up any control whatsoever of the product in order for it to make a very important step into an actual documented and decreed standard. This would mean giving some measurable control up to a standards board such as ECMA, IETF, etc. What makes you think that Sun won't do exactly what it wants with Java?
See the media industry needs to roll with this instead of against it. They could market product spots much better. You'd have the primary market of first run shows and people watching them when they are on, the secondary market of PVR/VCR timeshifters, the tertiary markets of people who missed the programs altogther and need to trade over a connection. Advertise some shows in the client that downloads the files and boom you've increased your market share on a product that may have stopped running on the regular network some time ago. Just think all those "BJ and the Bear" shows might get seen again or maybe "Shazaam" will get a rousing come back. All without the media companies having to do anything but do some (more fake) studies about how the commercials ARE (not) getting customers to spend on those high ticket items. I say go with the flow.
Alot of people making inferences about capitalism and socialism in respect to the bottom line and benefit to the individual. People look at what's good for the company and profitable as not good for the consumer and vice versa. I think that this is a broken concept. I think a company can be profitable and be beneficial to the customer. I think that long term profitability is only acheivable by being a benefit to the customer. Too many companies today sustain profitability through a series of acquisitions and subsequent cost cutting mesures that in the end do not benefit the customer or the company. At some point the company has to raise prices, reduce services, reduce the quality of goods, or sell off/close down properties to sustain profitability (all things that AOL has already done and continues to do). Lack of customer focus continues to drive away more customers than competing products will. This is AOL's problem more than anything else. If a competing product can prove to be more customer focused then AOL will lose. As AOL begins to fail it looks to strategies other than customer focus to solidify itself in the market place. This includes increasing it's branding into other markets, acquiring suplimentary income through acquisitions, etc. In time these will all fail. The only way that many many companies have come out of financial ruin is to start being customer focused again, only then did they truly succeed. So to say that I'm into socialism because I believe the consumer and common good should be served is not entirely true. I do believe in capitalism as an idea but do not like to see it poorly executed. Most companies idea of capitalism is to extinquish competitors. The destruction of competition only ensures stagnation of the destructive. Lack of competition means lack of inovation and the drive to inovate and to customer apathy for the product. Customer apathy means lower sales. It's better to have a customer that thinks you are doing something for them and they are more easily swayed to purchase your product. Lie to them to many times and they will justify any action to see you fail.
Minor correction. The conditions for the AOL/TIMEWarner merger in regards to IM are: "AOL Time Warner must guarantee interoperability in its IM services before offering 'advanced IM-based high-speed services,' such as videoconferencing." Meaning that advanced service can be offered only after the basic interoperability has been addressed. Interoperability was to be accomplished either through adoption of a standard protocol, opening AOL's existing protocol, or licensing to another major network. AOL did license with another competitor which then promptly went bankrupt. They have yet to fulfil the part of the agreement that stated that they must sign additional partnerships within 180 days of the first. See http://screaming-penguin.com/main.php?storyid=1604
Since I signed up with a user name on AIM they make money off of me. They use me as a resource to fund their activities therefore I will use them as a resource for mine. If through my choice of clients I consume more resources than they gain from me then it's time for them to look at a different business model. The last time I looked the majority ad on AIM was still for AOL's own over priced service. I did not, upon signing up with AIM, agree to use a particular client to consume said resource therefore they should not block me from use because of my choice. Saying that there is no "business relationship" makes it appear that AOL wants one, this is not the case as has been proven time and time again. AOL does not want business relationships that will do nothing to further their capture of market share.
It appears to me that the problem is with people getting set in their ways. Almost every single person that I've heard chime in about the interface being difficult has been a person who has used multiple tools in the past. These people typically get used to "their" interface and don't like to step out of that "standard". Meanwhile all of the newbies and people just getting into digital art that don't have 500-5,000 to spend on a tool step in and learn Blender in a couple of days and seem to do very well with it's un-intuitive interface. I think it's easier to ditch the product when you already own one or more products that in essence do the same thing. When you don't have those products then you are really forced to take some time to learn how things work and to understand why they work that way.
I understand your point. But think of it as being useful to some game designer who decides to market the game and let people try peices on the web to really see what it looks like without needing to download 75 megs worth of demo just to get a general feel for the game. Any tech can be missused by the under educated.
My understanding is that the blender plug-in is sandboxed by design. You could probably find out more from the site, but I'm relatively certain that it's sandboxed because some people had wanted to use it for active desktop interface but couldn't do much with it because of the sandboxing.
read up. The IE plugin was released months ago, they are playing catch up in releasing the Linux plugin.
The tool is different from just about everything out there and once you get used to the method of interaction is seems very easy to get things done. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that bitch about the Linux interfaces and how hard they are to use, while many more people find them quick and efficient... give blender a try and see if it falls into this same scenario.
Stop griping about how it works/doesn't work or comparing it to other products like VRML until you've at least taken a look at what it can do. The user galleries and demos on the site are excellent examples of what can be done by an artist.
look around they have the penquin too.
That's wild, i've never used any of those products and I mastered Blender enough to build - this - after about three days of running through the tuts and messing around with it.
The slowest machine I've set this up on is a P75 w/32 megs of ram. It worked fine although with the video card I had it couldn't get to higher color depths. Amazingly I didn't have to do anything to configure the modem, sound card or NIC and everything ran fine. Really helped a novice get on the net quick and play a few games that they like to play. No need to spend $600 for a new PC just so someone can surf the net and get mail and play card games, dust off the old PC and slap QNX on easier than a Mandrake install.
that's the key point - "Through their record label". Most of the companies are segmented out into seperate and semi-autonomous companies or divisions that do not report to each other. If the market has an opening for a product it's unlikely that Sony consumer electronics is going to give up market share to Philips to protect the interests of Sony music.
personally I think that the government is going to jerk around until enough people forget about this. I think in hind sight they do not want this very high profile case to go to court, likewise none of the media companies want it there either. They want this law to sit on the books for awhile and become "accepted" before anyone tries to test it. I'm sure another year from now we'll here some snippet blurb saying that the govt and elcomsoft entered into a "Plea" agreement where elcomsoft agree's not to sell the product in the US in exchange for the small slap on the wrist or "deferred" sentencing. What a joke!
There was a show on in the early 90's that did this, can't remember the name but I remember Linda Hunt as the chief and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa played the token alien partner. I think it was space rangers or something like that. It showed for about 3 or 4 episodes and then dissappeared. Of course it was competing against Babylon 5 for ratings so....
hmmm sounds alot like the us government. At any given time you have at least one part doing their damn best to hinder the other two.