Such a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet is, and was intended to be used will result in the Chinese people using the Internet for less desirable purposes such as dissent, subversion, and spreading dangerous ideas such as freedom of thought and expression.
Some people would make the argument that Google has some responsibility in this because of how they designed their desktop search (as a local web server). The conclusion of this line of argument is that Google should have designed their software differently.
To rebut that argument, one could argue that when some other hypothetical exploit comes along (and there have been some in the past) that allows www.badguy.com to execute arbitrary code, that then www.badguy.com could still exploit Google's program. Should Google have to design to guard against any hypothetical vulnerability in Microsoft's browser? Maybe Google should also be required to design to guard against vulnerabilities in other Microsoft products. That way, when some other hypothetical exploit against a differnet Microsoft product can make use of GDS, it is not Google's fault?
Another rebuttal to that argument is that designing a program's user interface as a local web server is not an unreasonable design. GDS is not the first or only program to do this. I've seen several programs that offer a user interface via. a locally served web page. So all of those programs should be similarly blamed in the damage caused by www.badguy.com?
No. I think the blame is squarely on Microsoft for the vulnerability, and www.badguy.com for the exploit.
Very insightful. But you forget something. Not just to renew copyright, but to add patent protection. Didn't we just hear something about being able to patent stories?
You describe a future where software for windows falls into three categories.
Costs money, but is easy to install
Free, but more difficult to download and install
(and I suppose just for completeness...) Costs money, but is difficult to download and install
This could turn out to be good for Linux. If "free" software is easy to install on Linux, then it makes Linux become very attractive as long as all of the software that you need is available.
(Please note, I say this as a strong open source advocate.)
I hope the effect on open source is that this will make it difficult or even impossible to use Open Source on Windows.
No, I am not a troll. I do not use Windows. So it is easy for me to say something like this from my comfortable armchair, while it may cause great discomfort and expense to others who use Windows. Yes I do realize that the effect of no open source on Windows would also likely mean the end of "Freeware" on Windows. Whatever factors would make it difficult or impossible to distribute open source probably affect it in some financial way, such as a small cost to the distributor to use this system. Thus both "Freeware" and Open Source would be affected in the same way.
Just imagine! A future where the only software you can install on Windows must necessarily cost you money! This will absolutely be the most wonderful thing that could possibly happen for open source.
All they have to do go to every lending library in the world and check out the books they wrote. Then simply not return them.
Do you use a public library in a modern city?
You cannot check out material without a library card.
To get a library card, you provide some contact info, and agree to some basic conditions.
If you don't return a book, the library fines you. Eventually, they charge you for the book. I would imagine that at some point, a library takes some kind of collections action to recover their costs.
If an author checks out a book and keeps renewing it, the library msy simply obtain another copy. Alternately, the library, or another patron who wants the book could put it on reserve so that when the author tries to renew it, the library can collect it for the patron who has the book on reserve.
The EWeek article is talking about Microsoft Office xml formats, not OpenOffice.org xml formats. This, even though the first sentence confusingly uses the term "Office Open XML Formats".
The royalty-free license under which Microsoft plans to make its upcoming new Office Open XML Formats widely available is incompatible with the GNU General Public License and will thus prevent many free and open-source software projects from using the formats, community officials say.
Someone would have you believe that the EWeek article is talking about OpenOffice.org's Open Document format.
The MSDN Blog article, merely extols the virtues of Microsoft's open XML format for MS-Office. It says how great it would be for everyone to have a royalty-free open standard for office documents. What the blog, written by the MS Office program manager, ignores is that royalty-free is not good enough. The license for the format needs to be not only royalty-free, but must be able to be sub-licensed by anyone to anyone. That is, if I write a GPL program that reads/writes Monopoly Open XML Office formats, then YOU should not have to execute a "royalty-free" license with Microsoft before you can use my GPL software.
He wasn't fired for the subject of the talk. He was fired for disobeying his employer's instructions.
From TFA I didn't see that he received any specific instructions not to give the lecture. (Maybe he did?)
In any event, an employer cannot tell you what you can or cannot talk about (unless there is an NDA-type arrangement). They can take away your university venue, but they cannot stop you from talking in public. (The cafeteria might be questionable.)
Spanish Recording Industry Association and the MPAA [...] didn't want the population at large to see that P2P is a valid and legal tool, as that would damage their fight against piracy.
Don't use the word piracy to describe copyright infringement.
Piracy is a word that properly described the thugs and bullies, i.e. the Spanish Recording Industry Association and the MPAA.
Which group "boards your ship" (i.e. how about a BSA software "audit") to pillage and plunder you? (Pillage and plunder: what happens if you have even one single unlicensed BSA member application?)
what if you wanted to buy a gift for somebody? This isn't going to work all that well.
Some copyright law ammendments might be necessary to bring the law "up to date" with the technology.
Couldn't giving a DVD as a gift be construed as a copyright infringement? After all, you are transferring a copy -- to someone who didn't pay (an MPAA member) for it. You paid, but somebody else's eyeballs got to see the content.
To reinstall it's put the restore CD in the drive and boot.
Restore CD? What is this Restore CD you speak of?
Friend, you should not use such strange language.
Could you perhaps be imagining some fantastic innovation that could be introduced to computers in the distant future? Or, perhaps you might be referring to some ancient artifact of computing long past? It is presently unclear if either of these could be what you might have meant.
Why would I be thankful to be alive after a major nuclear war that resulted in conditions such as having to depend on SPAM to survive? That's why I'm glad I live near what, well used to be during cold war, a primary target.
I am not an advocate of either C or C++, especially for just about every type of software that runs in userspace.
That said...
Even I, the non C advocate, recognize an advantage of C over C++. In C you can "see" every single clock cycle in your program. If you pass a pointer into a function, then inside that function, you can "see" the dereferences. Every single operation that costs cpu time is vislble as some kind of operation / operator in C. No hidden array bounds checking. If you check array bounds (yourself), you can see it happening. Absolutely every single clock cycle exposed in the source code for everyone to see.
Therefore, and also because of the portability of C compilers, C is a great high level and portable "assembly language".
As an "assembly language" it can be targeted as output of other compilers. Imagine the portability of huge mountains of software if only a simple C compiler has to be ported to a new processor architecture in order to initially get a bunch of stuff working. Remember that TinyC compiler that could recompile the entire Linux kernel as part of the boot process, in only about 15 seconds?
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Clearly, the Chinese government has misunderstood the very purpose of the Internet .
Such a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet is, and was intended to be used will result in the Chinese people using the Internet for less desirable purposes such as dissent, subversion, and spreading dangerous ideas such as freedom of thought and expression.
You give a very clear description of the problem.
I understand that you are not bashing Google.
Some people would make the argument that Google has some responsibility in this because of how they designed their desktop search (as a local web server). The conclusion of this line of argument is that Google should have designed their software differently.
To rebut that argument, one could argue that when some other hypothetical exploit comes along (and there have been some in the past) that allows www.badguy.com to execute arbitrary code, that then www.badguy.com could still exploit Google's program. Should Google have to design to guard against any hypothetical vulnerability in Microsoft's browser? Maybe Google should also be required to design to guard against vulnerabilities in other Microsoft products. That way, when some other hypothetical exploit against a differnet Microsoft product can make use of GDS, it is not Google's fault?
Another rebuttal to that argument is that designing a program's user interface as a local web server is not an unreasonable design. GDS is not the first or only program to do this. I've seen several programs that offer a user interface via. a locally served web page. So all of those programs should be similarly blamed in the damage caused by www.badguy.com?
No. I think the blame is squarely on Microsoft for the vulnerability, and www.badguy.com for the exploit.
Very insightful. But you forget something. Not just to renew copyright, but to add patent protection. Didn't we just hear something about being able to patent stories?
Have you ever heard of the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" ?
You can't sue *EVERYONE*
:-)
Gimme a break. Next you'll be telling me that I can NOT win a boxing match against a cloud of locusts.
- Costs money, but is easy to install
- Free, but more difficult to download and install
- (and I suppose just for completeness...) Costs money, but is difficult to download and install
This could turn out to be good for Linux. If "free" software is easy to install on Linux, then it makes Linux become very attractive as long as all of the software that you need is available.Here is how I Hope it will affect Open Source.
(Please note, I say this as a strong open source advocate.)
I hope the effect on open source is that this will make it difficult or even impossible to use Open Source on Windows.
No, I am not a troll. I do not use Windows. So it is easy for me to say something like this from my comfortable armchair, while it may cause great discomfort and expense to others who use Windows. Yes I do realize that the effect of no open source on Windows would also likely mean the end of "Freeware" on Windows. Whatever factors would make it difficult or impossible to distribute open source probably affect it in some financial way, such as a small cost to the distributor to use this system. Thus both "Freeware" and Open Source would be affected in the same way.
Just imagine! A future where the only software you can install on Windows must necessarily cost you money! This will absolutely be the most wonderful thing that could possibly happen for open source.
All they have to do go to every lending library in the world and check out the books they wrote. Then simply not return them.
Do you use a public library in a modern city?
You cannot check out material without a library card.
To get a library card, you provide some contact info, and agree to some basic conditions.
If you don't return a book, the library fines you. Eventually, they charge you for the book. I would imagine that at some point, a library takes some kind of collections action to recover their costs.
If an author checks out a book and keeps renewing it, the library msy simply obtain another copy. Alternately, the library, or another patron who wants the book could put it on reserve so that when the author tries to renew it, the library can collect it for the patron who has the book on reserve.
The EWeek article is talking about Microsoft Office xml formats, not OpenOffice.org xml formats. This, even though the first sentence confusingly uses the term "Office Open XML Formats". Someone would have you believe that the EWeek article is talking about OpenOffice.org's Open Document format.
The MSDN Blog article, merely extols the virtues of Microsoft's open XML format for MS-Office. It says how great it would be for everyone to have a royalty-free open standard for office documents. What the blog, written by the MS Office program manager, ignores is that royalty-free is not good enough. The license for the format needs to be not only royalty-free, but must be able to be sub-licensed by anyone to anyone. That is, if I write a GPL program that reads/writes Monopoly Open XML Office formats, then YOU should not have to execute a "royalty-free" license with Microsoft before you can use my GPL software.
My Engrish speaking friend has been anxiousry araiting the space shutter's Return to Fright.
But here is a logical fallacy...
If they are perfectly happy with XXXX are they brainwashed?
You meant to imply that being happy with XXXX (where XXXX = Windows, in this case) must mean lack of brainwashing.
Quite the contrary could be true. Let's try some different assignments....
Let, XXXX = Jim Jones' cult (in the 1970's); a cult from which we get the phrase "they drank the koolaid".
Let, XXXX = some other cult?
Let, XXXX = anything that actually requires brainwashing.
Happiness does not imply lack of brainwashing. Brainwashing does not imply lack of happiness.
Do not take this to mean that people who are happy with Windows are necessarily brainwashed.
I would also point out that Internet Explorer is only 91 KB!! And look at its list of features!
Yep, just take a look and see: iexplore.exe is 91 KB.
It is amazing that those programming wizards at Microsoft could pack so much functionality into a 91 KB program.
(I'll stop being sarcastic now. I didn't mention anything about the size of DLL dependencies.)
He wasn't fired for the subject of the talk. He was fired for disobeying his employer's instructions.
From TFA I didn't see that he received any specific instructions not to give the lecture. (Maybe he did?)
In any event, an employer cannot tell you what you can or cannot talk about (unless there is an NDA-type arrangement). They can take away your university venue, but they cannot stop you from talking in public. (The cafeteria might be questionable.)
Spanish Recording Industry Association and the MPAA [...] didn't want the population at large to see that P2P is a valid and legal tool, as that would damage their fight against piracy.
Don't use the word piracy to describe copyright infringement.
Piracy is a word that properly described the thugs and bullies, i.e. the Spanish Recording Industry Association and the MPAA.
Which group "boards your ship" (i.e. how about a BSA software "audit") to pillage and plunder you? (Pillage and plunder: what happens if you have even one single unlicensed BSA member application?)
The solution is actually quite simple. Simply select the least valuable finger and amputate it.
Hey, the title of the thread was "GIVE your dvd player the finger".
what if you wanted to buy a gift for somebody? This isn't going to work all that well.
Some copyright law ammendments might be necessary to bring the law "up to date" with the technology.
Couldn't giving a DVD as a gift be construed as a copyright infringement? After all, you are transferring a copy -- to someone who didn't pay (an MPAA member) for it. You paid, but somebody else's eyeballs got to see the content.
To reinstall it's put the restore CD in the drive and boot.
Restore CD? What is this Restore CD you speak of?
Friend, you should not use such strange language.
Could you perhaps be imagining some fantastic innovation that could be introduced to computers in the distant future? Or, perhaps you might be referring to some ancient artifact of computing long past? It is presently unclear if either of these could be what you might have meant.
In what way are OOo's native documents bloated? My experience is that an equivalent document in OOo is way smaller than MS Office.
Don't speculate. Assert. You know it's true. Couple that with ignorance and you've got the typical large ISP admin.
Do their DNS servers run on Windows, and hence we are discussing Windows admins?
Or maybe they don't run Windows for DNS. In that case... Never attribute to ignorance what can be explained by malice.
Switch your DSL to Verison and see what you've been missing with your existing DSL service.
<insert music here>
Sign up for Verizon Naked DSL today and watch your Pr0n download like never before! Can you see me now!
I no longer know for a fact that it is a primary target, but I didn't mean to suggest it is not. Hence the way I phrased it.
Why would I be thankful to be alive after a major nuclear war that resulted in conditions such as having to depend on SPAM to survive? That's why I'm glad I live near what, well used to be during cold war, a primary target.
The thing they were going to do anyway. Ask the US government to bomb them.
The word you meant is liberate. Maybe you need to attend a re-education camp?
C has NO benefits over C++
I am not an advocate of either C or C++, especially for just about every type of software that runs in userspace.
That said...
Even I, the non C advocate, recognize an advantage of C over C++. In C you can "see" every single clock cycle in your program. If you pass a pointer into a function, then inside that function, you can "see" the dereferences. Every single operation that costs cpu time is vislble as some kind of operation / operator in C. No hidden array bounds checking. If you check array bounds (yourself), you can see it happening. Absolutely every single clock cycle exposed in the source code for everyone to see.
Therefore, and also because of the portability of C compilers, C is a great high level and portable "assembly language".
As an "assembly language" it can be targeted as output of other compilers. Imagine the portability of huge mountains of software if only a simple C compiler has to be ported to a new processor architecture in order to initially get a bunch of stuff working. Remember that TinyC compiler that could recompile the entire Linux kernel as part of the boot process, in only about 15 seconds?