Passing laws that interfered with business is exactly how the last revolution got started. Businessmen were turned into revolutionaries. A fat and happy populace never rebels. Anything that either interferes with business or the fat happiness of the masses has the potential to undo everything.
Decadent aristocrats usually don't stop to consider that though or are just too arrogant to think it can ever happen.
THIS is precisely why bills like SOPA should not even be considered, never mind passed.
People like you will whine that "it's only suppressing their free speech" and the Bill of Rights will become even more of a mockery than it already is.
Sometimes your credit score will determine if you can be employed. Some companies is it as a measure of your trustworthiness or likelihood that might be motivated to embezzle in the future.
People's credit have been trashed by similarly daft ideas like deciding to suddenly treat you as a poor credit risk just because you buy gas in the wrong zip code.
All it takes is one idiot to adopt an idea like this and your whole credit goes to sh*t.
No. Banks have simply gotten more careful since the recent mortgage industry meltdown. This kind of 3rd degree used to be commonplace. Most people aren't aware of it here simply because they are too young and inexperienced. They haven't been in the mortgage market very long if at all.
This kind of grilling by bankers was pretty common back when they actually cared about you paying back the loan.
They offered their "property" up in a fashion that assumes that other people will continue to redistribute it on their behalf. No pro-corporate legal interpretation of the Copyright Act will really change that.
Are you trying to suggest that any of the GOP members of my state's congressional delegation are any less Hollywood's bitch? Or less inclined to engage in "social meddling"?
No one outside of Slashdot even noticed it. It's not going to "harm" anything except for people that already know the players and already has an entrenched position on this issue.
Who are these mythical people that were claiming that this was somehow supposed to be some sort of "iPad killer"?
It think this whole thing is just a bogus false strawman.
Book readers predate the iPad. This is perhaps just a slightly better Book reader and is sized and priced accordingly. I think all of the people whining about "iPad killers" want to set up false expectations and some sort of hollow non-victory.
In other words it's the only thing bound to have any meaningful content since such things tend to step on someone's toes in some way. So we all try to avoid "touchy" subjects and everyone is stuck talking about the weather or football (perhaps not even that) for fear of offending someone.
...and it was already done before on MacOS too: Bodega.
This isn't even new on the platform in question. Bodega also still seems to be superior and more inclusive. It seems to be more complete in terms of what a user might actually want to install.
The App store is just Apple's walled garden. It's more like if Canonical had it's own store and universe and multiverse weren't available and no 3rd party repos were available either.
No. I think they just realize that innovation comes from unexpected places. If they restrict their platform too much, they risk suppressing the next big thing. They don't want to do that. They want to copy that next big thing and put the inventors out of business, but they don't want to suppress creativity entirely.
Microsoft's platform needs to be open enough to Free Software in order for innovation to work. I think Microsoft realizes that. They lose more by suppressing Free Software than they would gain.
A locked down bootloader is very much like the Apple store.
It doesn't explicitly ban certain things but it makes it harder for them to exist and less likely to exist with perhaps the requirement that certain other parties give up their rights.
The "side effects" are obvious to most of us. Although Microsoft could be forgiven for not being fully aware of such things given their track record. They could merely be incompetent rather than malicious.
Why does a freeware app of any kind "need" to be Tivo'ed.
It's simply an unnecessary bullshit constraint that doesn't serve the owner of the hardware, or the end user, but only serves the company that "owns the platform".
The crass control freak ads an extra layer of nonsense. So of course there is going to be some collateral damage. You don't get that kind of nonsense for free.
The only real question is whether or not "discriminating consumers" will put up with it or even better yet defend it.
GNU and the GPL has been around since Apple was still selling 8-bit computers.
It was Apple that decided to build a walled garden that clearly excludes Free Software. If you try to discriminate, you are the one at fault. You're trying to blame the victim.
The Apple terms of service are in direct conflict with copyleft.
VLC was pulled because the terms it was licensed under weren't being honored by Apple. Rather than allowing those terms to be honored, Apple dropped VLC.
Your lies and attempts at spin don't alter the truth.
More accurately, Apple "takes advantage" of rather than "contributes to" open source. So do actual Apple and Microsoft users. Although it seems that Microsoft is more comfortable with this.
They are willing to leave the likes of ffmpeg and vlc and xbmc alone and not actively prevent their users from installing them.
> My mom had a horrible experience with OpenOffice recently. > She just wants to print out some address labels and the only > way I could figure out how to do this involved making a > database.
Troll harder.
Learn how to use Google.
I print labels with OO all the time in various odd shapes and sizes. Mail merge doesn't look too hard either. One Google search makes it readily apparent that you don't need a database for it.
Gotta wonder if the excel+word version of this farce of yours would have been any better.
>> OpenOffice is, by and large, more than sufficient for most users. > > If you you going to place the "more than sufficient" > conditional, you can say the same about Notepad or > Wordpad for word processing.
So?
The fact remains that there's no good reason for the vast majority of people to be subjected "Word Perfect wannabes". The same mental block that prevents people from using LibreOffice prevent them from using any other of a wide array of suitable alternatives. Some of those are even commercial.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno. Mebbe you want to access metadata that just happens to be on the web? The web is the world's library.
Passing laws that interfered with business is exactly how the last revolution got started. Businessmen were turned into revolutionaries. A fat and happy populace never rebels. Anything that either interferes with business or the fat happiness of the masses has the potential to undo everything.
Decadent aristocrats usually don't stop to consider that though or are just too arrogant to think it can ever happen.
THIS is precisely why bills like SOPA should not even be considered, never mind passed.
People like you will whine that "it's only suppressing their free speech" and the Bill of Rights will become even more of a mockery than it already is.
You've got your values ass backwards.
Sometimes your credit score will determine if you can be employed. Some companies is it as a measure of your trustworthiness or likelihood that might be motivated to embezzle in the future.
Unless YOU PERSONALLY are running for office, you have no standing to make a comment like this.
Don't be so sure.
People's credit have been trashed by similarly daft ideas like deciding to suddenly treat you as a poor credit risk just because you buy gas in the wrong zip code.
All it takes is one idiot to adopt an idea like this and your whole credit goes to sh*t.
No. Banks have simply gotten more careful since the recent mortgage industry meltdown. This kind of 3rd degree used to be commonplace. Most people aren't aware of it here simply because they are too young and inexperienced. They haven't been in the mortgage market very long if at all.
This kind of grilling by bankers was pretty common back when they actually cared about you paying back the loan.
They offered their "property" up in a fashion that assumes that other people will continue to redistribute it on their behalf. No pro-corporate legal interpretation of the Copyright Act will really change that.
> what do you call it when several helicopters full of navy seals are sent into a foreign nation to kidnap or kill an individual who is living there
An act that prior permission was secured for.
> with the implicit permission of the host nation
They denied this part.
Things often sound worse than they really are when you leave out key details and try to lie about others.
Are you trying to suggest that any of the GOP members of my state's congressional delegation are any less Hollywood's bitch? Or less inclined to engage in "social meddling"?
I think you should watch less Fox News.
No. They're just willing to spend a lot of money for inferior performance on every other aspect of they technology beyond "fuel efficiency".
Have you actually driven one of those things?
It tends to sap you of all of your enthusiasm.
Don't kid yourself.
No one outside of Slashdot even noticed it. It's not going to "harm" anything except for people that already know the players and already has an entrenched position on this issue.
Who are these mythical people that were claiming that this was somehow supposed to be some sort of "iPad killer"?
It think this whole thing is just a bogus false strawman.
Book readers predate the iPad. This is perhaps just a slightly better Book reader and is sized and priced accordingly. I think all of the people whining about "iPad killers" want to set up false expectations and some sort of hollow non-victory.
In other words it's the only thing bound to have any meaningful content since such things tend to step on someone's toes in some way. So we all try to avoid "touchy" subjects and everyone is stuck talking about the weather or football (perhaps not even that) for fear of offending someone.
...and it was already done before on MacOS too: Bodega.
This isn't even new on the platform in question. Bodega also still seems to be superior and more inclusive. It seems to be more complete in terms of what a user might actually want to install.
The App store is just Apple's walled garden. It's more like if Canonical had it's own store and universe and multiverse weren't available and no 3rd party repos were available either.
No. I think they just realize that innovation comes from unexpected places. If they restrict their platform too much, they risk suppressing the next big thing. They don't want to do that. They want to copy that next big thing and put the inventors out of business, but they don't want to suppress creativity entirely.
Microsoft's platform needs to be open enough to Free Software in order for innovation to work. I think Microsoft realizes that. They lose more by suppressing Free Software than they would gain.
A locked down bootloader is very much like the Apple store.
It doesn't explicitly ban certain things but it makes it harder for them to exist and less likely to exist with perhaps the requirement that certain other parties give up their rights.
The "side effects" are obvious to most of us. Although Microsoft could be forgiven for not being fully aware of such things given their track record. They could merely be incompetent rather than malicious.
Why does a freeware app of any kind "need" to be Tivo'ed.
It's simply an unnecessary bullshit constraint that doesn't serve the owner of the hardware, or the end user, but only serves the company that "owns the platform".
The crass control freak ads an extra layer of nonsense. So of course there is going to be some collateral damage. You don't get that kind of nonsense for free.
The only real question is whether or not "discriminating consumers" will put up with it or even better yet defend it.
...sure.
Make sure that the only "open source" licenses that are left are those that companies like Apple can freely steal from.
That's kind of the point of this whole argument.
The industry's great satan appears to be less hostile to authors being able to control their work than the current "golden boy". It's terribly ironic.
Who came first?
GNU and the GPL has been around since Apple was still selling 8-bit computers.
It was Apple that decided to build a walled garden that clearly excludes Free Software. If you try to discriminate, you are the one at fault. You're trying to blame the victim.
Don't try to bullshit us.
The Apple terms of service are in direct conflict with copyleft.
VLC was pulled because the terms it was licensed under weren't being honored by Apple. Rather than allowing those terms to be honored, Apple dropped VLC.
Your lies and attempts at spin don't alter the truth.
You have a strange idea of "contributing".
They BAN it from their devices.
That's what this article is about.
More accurately, Apple "takes advantage" of rather than "contributes to" open source. So do actual Apple and Microsoft users. Although it seems that Microsoft is more comfortable with this.
They are willing to leave the likes of ffmpeg and vlc and xbmc alone and not actively prevent their users from installing them.
> but because it suits their purposes better
No. Probably not. It's merely the "default option" and "they can't be bothered" to try anything else.
This is how you end up with MS-DOS almost putting Apple out of business.
> My mom had a horrible experience with OpenOffice recently.
> She just wants to print out some address labels and the only
> way I could figure out how to do this involved making a
> database.
Troll harder.
Learn how to use Google.
I print labels with OO all the time in various odd shapes and sizes. Mail merge doesn't look too hard either. One Google search makes it readily apparent that you don't need a database for it.
Gotta wonder if the excel+word version of this farce of yours would have been any better.
>> OpenOffice is, by and large, more than sufficient for most users.
>
> If you you going to place the "more than sufficient"
> conditional, you can say the same about Notepad or
> Wordpad for word processing.
So?
The fact remains that there's no good reason for the vast majority of people to be subjected "Word Perfect wannabes". The same mental block that prevents people from using LibreOffice prevent them from using any other of a wide array of suitable alternatives. Some of those are even commercial.