Wow, they really DID call us Linux users "Freaks".
Possibly a misguided translation attempt by a non-native-English German.
Here in Germany, "Freak" has become part of German slang and is used much in the same way as you use "geek" or "nerd" - part insult, part joke, part praise of unusual talent.
I do say "Ich bin ein Computer-Freak" about myself in German and don't mind being called that way by others, while the actual English translation would be "I'm a computer geek".
Just as with every language, lots of foreign words find their way into German and sometimes change their original meaning a little bit during assimilation.
[In case anybody cares, here's my letter. I'll fact it to the offices of all US senators tonight. May help, may not, let's see.]
I am a computer scientist and the owner of an IT company.
It has come to my attention that the United States have recently passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which - to summarize it broadly - makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection devices such as the DeCSS algorithm, used for DVD video.
As a result, many previously lawful uses of digital media which used to be considered "fair use" have been seriously restricted for average consumers in the United States. Despite the protests of computer scientists, media professionals and consumer groups within and outside the United States, these horrifying consequences of the DMCA have come in effect today and first arrests have been made against software developers who do research on decryption. Already, non-American computer professionals have begun avoiding visiting US conferences because their perfectly legal work at home is considered illegal in the US and may lead to an arrest there.
Now, the United States are preparing an even stricter law. The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), proposed by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, will require all future "digital devices" to include a content control mechanism certified by the US government. This mechanism will allow the creators of audiovisual digital content to control when, where and how often a consumer may use digital media. As a consequence of SSSCA, un-certified hardware and software will become unlawful.
The implications of the SSSCA would be incredible. As an example, in a few years, a buyer of a DVD will not "own" the movie he bought, only the right to watch it a limited time. He will not be allowed to watch it outside his country's region (circumventing DVD region encoding is already semi-illegal under the DMCA today). "Fair use" for private, educational or research purposes will not exist anymore. Consumers will not be allowed to make backups of the digital media they own. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Building computers from scratch will be illegal. Research on these aspects in Universites and Colleges will be illegal. Open Source Software such as Linux, a primary part in IT education and a major force in the industry, will be illegal.
As a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, I should probably care less.
In fact, as a computer professional, I should even be glad that the US stifles innovation for its IT professionals, because it will help my country's industry to gain an advantage over US corporations. The combination of DMCA and SSSCA will seriously hurt the American IT industry and the American computer science education. The implications of these two laws are unconstitutional and will put lasting restrictions on the liberties of US citizens, who are the consumers of digital audiovisual media.
The German government has already made clear that it will not allow such restrictions to be imposed unto its citizens. Considering this, I'm glad not to live or work as a computer professional in the United States these days.
However, as a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it saddens me to see the United States of America going this path into such a bleak future, taking essential liberties away from its citizens and putting full control into the hands of media corporations.
I urge you to oppose the SSSCA and I ask you to remove the DMCA, in the interest of US citizens and in the interest of the international community of computer professionals.
...I'll have a little fun with this and write a letter to each US states' congressman, telling them how delighted I am that the US restricts innovation of its IT industry and freedom of its citizens, using methods that are unconstitutional in my country and thus making sure that my country will gain an advantage over US research & corporations...:-)
However in the case of Nimda, you had 16 months to patch your IIS server.
Funny. We installed a brand new edition of German Windows 2k (fresh CD from the store) and then the recommended patches from Microsoft's site, only three weeks before Nimda hit. Still, it appears we didn't catch all those necessairy. Our server got infected.
Embarassing for me, yes. But I also wonder why their update site does not list the patches for this problem in a concise manner and why a current, brand-new OS install CD is still affected by problems that are 16 months old (as you claim).
since the IIS exploits used in Nimda were the same as those in Code Red.
Nope. Nimda uses *more* and *different* exploits. Just compare a typical scan of Nimda in your logs with those of the two Code Red variations.
We had a IIS NT machine that had all the patches installed recommended by Microsoft against Code Red. Still, it was infected with Nimda.
Partly, we are to blame, as we are more familiar with Unix than with NT. Partly, I blame Microsoft because it does not offer a single "patch clearinghouse" that lists all currently necessairy patches for NT on one single page. You have to hunt down each patch on its own at MS.
Michael, if you're reading this - please rethink your style of commenting articles. Almost all of your recent comments have been either lame ("oh, I have to make some kind of comment"), flamish ("yes, that will stir up discussion on/.") or inappropriate (like this one).
Into submission of what? And why are they the target?
There *still* is no actual, direct proof that the Taliban government is involved with the WTC/Pentagon crashes. They supported a terrorist in the past, but did they directly or indirectly support this particular attack? That's the whole point of this argument.
Do you know any details? Do you know who and when is going to strike?
Do you? No. So, what was your point again?
Please reserve your judgment until you have something to judge.
Oh, of course. I'll just shut up and stop thinking about what the US officials are saying. They know best. They sure know better than both of us. I don't need to think. Who am I to judge their actions? History will prove them right, we are just so sure of it.
If we ignore legalism whenever it suits us, what would be the point of our constitutions (your country's and my country's)?
Speaking of which, there is a public discussion in German right now pointing out that supporting the military strike as it currently stands with German forces would be unconstitutional.
(The German constitution contains safeguards against abuse of military power by the state, a lesson learned from WW2.)
Now what does that tell you about the legal base of this campaign? That it's on a shaky ground? Oh, of course it only tells you that Germans are wheenies for even considering this point...
f you don't understand the effect that morale plays in combat, I suggest you enlist in the German armed forces, head out into battle, and then get back to me. Or, at least study military tactics and history some more.
Hehe. I did sign up for the German army and served there for two years when I was only required to do one. I'm now a civilian again, and also part of the reservist forces. If it comes to a full scale war against Germany or the Nato, I'll be there.
Okay, not really impressive, but don't you dare thinking I'm just a slacker student with a hippie attitude.:-)
My father was an officer of the (post-war) German army and served there for three decades, he taught young officers how to fly anti-tank helicopters and military tactics was an integral part of the lessons he gave.
My father is unable to see an operative in the military strike that is currently being prepared. And *he* should know.
"Oh, look, these guys are really really bad people, so we are so justified to go after them."
Still no proof that justifies a military strike. Sorry, we are going in circles here. You think it's enough proof, I think it isn't. And that's what will be the future problem of this campaign - if it will be done on a shaky legal base, people will still argue about it in decades. And that will give fanatics reason enough to be appalled by these actions and motivate them for new strikes.
Or do you think you Germans will be left alone by the terrorists if you just continue to be nice about hosting them?
Who said that the Germans should continue to be nice about hosting these terrorists? Find the head of these terrorists, I say, and put them in court. And if that head turns out to be Bin Laden, I'm all for a military strike against Afghanistan. But as I said before - German investigators haven't found a link between the (positively identified) Arab-German terrorists of the attack and Bin Laden, although they "keep investigating that direction".
You guys think that I'm trying to protect Bin Laden, but that's not it. That's why I said that this "bothers me" - Bin Laden is just a target that came up way too fast to allow for a level-headed response. We still don't know if he was behind it. If we did, this argument wouldn't be necessairy.
you don't just try to get the right psychopaths, you try to get all the psychopaths.
Ah yeah, "kill them all, let god sort them out", eh? That has always been a successful and justified military doctrine in previous wars...
Like, someone is out raping and killing women, your sister has just been raped and killed...
The children. You forgot to mention the poor children to make it a successful moralistic "silencing with a mallet" point that noone may argue with. Pure FUD.
Does this mean we surrender on a legalism?
If we ignore legalism whenever it suits us, what would be the point of our constitutions (your country's and my country's)?
You speak about "my ideology" and a "community" that you think I adhere to, but both don't apply. You don't even know my ideology and you haven't got the slightest idea what I stand for. Don't be so quick to judge. I don't have this view because I consider it "hip".
I mean it: Bush has not given enough reason for his military campaign so far. Sorry to say it: Going into Afghanistan without such proof *would* be a violation of international treaties.
I don't know if "catch phrase" was the right word (English is not my first language).
I support every move of the current business and investigative side of the current crackdown on the terrorists. Follow the money, folks, and let the flow run dry. But the military strike of this "war on terrorism" hasn't got a clear objective so far. So the US and their allies are going to do a military strike against Afghanistan to... uh, well, to do what, really?
But we all are against "terrorism", right? So we must be for this war, right? And if we aren't for this war, we are supporting terrorism, right?
US officials have said again and again that "each suspect has direct or indirect ties with Bin Laden", yet local investigators in Germany have said again and again that "so far, we can not confirm that they (the 3+2 suspects who studied at Harburg University) have ties with Bin Laden". (Source)
We are in a propaganda war right now. And you fell for the propaganda. Classic:
And the divisiveness hurts the morale of the soldiers, limiting their effectiveness, and increasing their chances of injury and death. So, please, put your personal ideology to rest until the effort/attack/war has concluded, for the well-being of the country and for the safety of our men and women in uniform.
Rethink your statement.
How does an attack on Afghanistan help the well-being of the USA? How does removing the Taliban government by a military strike help the well-being of the USA? *Why* are we risking the safety of our "men and women in uniform" (please play national anthem in the background while saying previous phrase) on a military operation that's basically built on "we're doing it because we have to do *something*"?
------
P.S.: I find it terrifying how much life imitates art. So now we have terrorists who copy the flamboyant madness of a James Bond plot on the one side and a US president who checks every item on the list of "Wag the Dog" on the other.
...is the constant chime of the news media that "the US is preparing their military strike against terrorism" (translated quote from German radio news, just minutes ago).
The US is acting like a big, very angered 900 pound gorilla, screaming out "whoever did that, come out and show yourself so that I can beat you up!" Yet, nobody showed up so far. And the investigation has shown quite a few false leads so far, including publishing a list with suspected kamikaze terrorists who are still alive and just happen to have had their passports stolen...
Of course, something must be done. But who is the enemy, really? Bush promised that he would give proof in his (hollywood-taylored *) speech, he didn't. I still don't know who the US and their allies are going to fight and how troops in Afghanistan will help fighting terrorism.
Everybody agrees that "terrorism" is a bad thing and that we should fight it. But isn't it just a catchphrase to drum up the support for this military campaign? (Oh, sorry, it's "America's new war", of course, as trademarked and repeated again and again by CNN.)
So far, a military campaign against the state of Afghanistan is still on a shaky ground. "Bomb these bastards to oblivion," says the general public, but I can't help that I feel bad about it.
AFAIK, for every GPL violation so far, the public outcry has been loud enough to make the violating company comply. (In this case, "public" = developers in the know.)
While I'm still waiting for the GPL to go to court one day, I think that community pressure is a much better strategy. Why sue someone when you can avoid feeding lawyers and bring the opposing into your own camp, at the same time?
I prefer small laptops and I want laptops with long battery life. Subnotebooks have been around before the Crusoe, but they had poor battery performance.
However, the designers of Crusoe laptops usually decide to make the batteries *even smaller* than those used in the old subnotebooks. Probably because "3 hourse is enough for most folks, so let's add features instead now that we save on the battery's size".
I really looked forward to Crusoe laptops, but so far, none of them delivered what I looked for in them. I hope that the PaceBook will one day stop being vaporware.
The problem with WMP isn't multimedia playback, but the forced inclusion of Microsoft's own media licensing scheme. Thanks to WMP, they will be able to control what media you may download and when and if you are "allowed" to play it.
Yes, Real is trying to do exactly the same thing with their software. Just wanted to remind everyone that it's not just software for media playback, but also for media licensing control.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, they really DID call us Linux users "Freaks".
Possibly a misguided translation attempt by a non-native-English German.
Here in Germany, "Freak" has become part of German slang and is used much in the same way as you use "geek" or "nerd" - part insult, part joke, part praise of unusual talent.
I do say "Ich bin ein Computer-Freak" about myself in German and don't mind being called that way by others, while the actual English translation would be "I'm a computer geek".
Just as with every language, lots of foreign words find their way into German and sometimes change their original meaning a little bit during assimilation.
I'll fact it to the offices
fax. I'll fax it...
The WTC and Germany's anti-hate-speech laws have nothing to do with this. Please stop ranting.
Fact is: Most of my spam comes from the US. I have the numbers to back it up.
[In case anybody cares, here's my letter. I'll fact it to the offices of all US senators tonight. May help, may not, let's see.]
I am a computer scientist and the owner of an IT company.
It has come to my attention that the United States have recently passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which - to summarize it broadly - makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection devices such as the DeCSS algorithm, used for DVD video.
As a result, many previously lawful uses of digital media which used to be considered "fair use" have been seriously restricted for average consumers in the United States. Despite the protests of computer scientists, media professionals and consumer groups within and outside the United States, these horrifying consequences of the DMCA have come in effect today and first arrests have been made against software developers who do research on decryption. Already, non-American computer professionals have begun avoiding visiting US conferences because their perfectly legal work at home is considered illegal in the US and may lead to an arrest there.
Now, the United States are preparing an even stricter law. The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), proposed by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, will require all future "digital devices" to include a content control mechanism certified by the US government. This mechanism will allow the creators of audiovisual digital content to control when, where and how often a consumer may use digital media. As a consequence of SSSCA, un-certified hardware and software will become unlawful.
The implications of the SSSCA would be incredible. As an example, in a few years, a buyer of a DVD will not "own" the movie he bought, only the right to watch it a limited time. He will not be allowed to watch it outside his country's region (circumventing DVD region encoding is already semi-illegal under the DMCA today). "Fair use" for private, educational or research purposes will not exist anymore. Consumers will not be allowed to make backups of the digital media they own. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Building computers from scratch will be illegal. Research on these aspects in Universites and Colleges will be illegal. Open Source Software such as Linux, a primary part in IT education and a major force in the industry, will be illegal.
As a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, I should probably care less.
In fact, as a computer professional, I should even be glad that the US stifles innovation for its IT professionals, because it will help my country's industry to gain an advantage over US corporations. The combination of DMCA and SSSCA will seriously hurt the American IT industry and the American computer science education. The implications of these two laws are unconstitutional and will put lasting restrictions on the liberties of US citizens, who are the consumers of digital audiovisual media.
The German government has already made clear that it will not allow such restrictions to be imposed unto its citizens. Considering this, I'm glad not to live or work as a computer professional in the United States these days.
However, as a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it saddens me to see the United States of America going this path into such a bleak future, taking essential liberties away from its citizens and putting full control into the hands of media corporations.
I urge you to oppose the SSSCA and I ask you to remove the DMCA, in the interest of US citizens and in the interest of the international community of computer professionals.
Sincerely,
Hanno Müller
...I'll have a little fun with this and write a letter to each US states' congressman, telling them how delighted I am that the US restricts innovation of its IT industry and freedom of its citizens, using methods that are unconstitutional in my country and thus making sure that my country will gain an advantage over US research & corporations... :-)
People in the EU can still get Spam from around the globe.
And most of my daily spam comes from America. I'm in Germany.
However in the case of Nimda, you had 16 months to patch your IIS server.
Funny. We installed a brand new edition of German Windows 2k (fresh CD from the store) and then the recommended patches from Microsoft's site, only three weeks before Nimda hit. Still, it appears we didn't catch all those necessairy. Our server got infected.
Embarassing for me, yes. But I also wonder why their update site does not list the patches for this problem in a concise manner and why a current, brand-new OS install CD is still affected by problems that are 16 months old (as you claim).
since the IIS exploits used in Nimda were the same as those in Code Red.
Nope. Nimda uses *more* and *different* exploits. Just compare a typical scan of Nimda in your logs with those of the two Code Red variations.
We had a IIS NT machine that had all the patches installed recommended by Microsoft against Code Red. Still, it was infected with Nimda.
Partly, we are to blame, as we are more familiar with Unix than with NT. Partly, I blame Microsoft because it does not offer a single "patch clearinghouse" that lists all currently necessairy patches for NT on one single page. You have to hunt down each patch on its own at MS.
I agree.
/.") or inappropriate (like this one).
Michael, if you're reading this - please rethink your style of commenting articles. Almost all of your recent comments have been either lame ("oh, I have to make some kind of comment"), flamish ("yes, that will stir up discussion on
Into submission of what? And why are they the target?
There *still* is no actual, direct proof that the Taliban government is involved with the WTC/Pentagon crashes. They supported a terrorist in the past, but did they directly or indirectly support this particular attack? That's the whole point of this argument.
Do you know any details? Do you know who and when is going to strike?
Do you? No. So, what was your point again?
Please reserve your judgment until you have something to judge.
Oh, of course. I'll just shut up and stop thinking about what the US officials are saying. They know best. They sure know better than both of us. I don't need to think. Who am I to judge their actions? History will prove them right, we are just so sure of it.
Oh my.
If we ignore legalism whenever it suits us, what would be the point of our constitutions (your country's and my country's)?
Speaking of which, there is a public discussion in German right now pointing out that supporting the military strike as it currently stands with German forces would be unconstitutional.
(The German constitution contains safeguards against abuse of military power by the state, a lesson learned from WW2.)
Now what does that tell you about the legal base of this campaign? That it's on a shaky ground? Oh, of course it only tells you that Germans are wheenies for even considering this point...
f you don't understand the effect that morale plays in combat, I suggest you enlist in the German armed forces, head out into battle, and then get back to me. Or, at least study military tactics and history some more.
:-)
Hehe. I did sign up for the German army and served there for two years when I was only required to do one. I'm now a civilian again, and also part of the reservist forces. If it comes to a full scale war against Germany or the Nato, I'll be there.
Okay, not really impressive, but don't you dare thinking I'm just a slacker student with a hippie attitude.
My father was an officer of the (post-war) German army and served there for three decades, he taught young officers how to fly anti-tank helicopters and military tactics was an integral part of the lessons he gave.
My father is unable to see an operative in the military strike that is currently being prepared. And *he* should know.
So, what makes you an expert in military tactics?
"Oh, look, these guys are really really bad people, so we are so justified to go after them."
Still no proof that justifies a military strike. Sorry, we are going in circles here. You think it's enough proof, I think it isn't. And that's what will be the future problem of this campaign - if it will be done on a shaky legal base, people will still argue about it in decades. And that will give fanatics reason enough to be appalled by these actions and motivate them for new strikes.
Or do you think you Germans will be left alone by the terrorists if you just continue to be nice about hosting them?
Who said that the Germans should continue to be nice about hosting these terrorists? Find the head of these terrorists, I say, and put them in court. And if that head turns out to be Bin Laden, I'm all for a military strike against Afghanistan. But as I said before - German investigators haven't found a link between the (positively identified) Arab-German terrorists of the attack and Bin Laden, although they "keep investigating that direction".
You guys think that I'm trying to protect Bin Laden, but that's not it. That's why I said that this "bothers me" - Bin Laden is just a target that came up way too fast to allow for a level-headed response. We still don't know if he was behind it. If we did, this argument wouldn't be necessairy.
you don't just try to get the right psychopaths, you try to get all the psychopaths.
Ah yeah, "kill them all, let god sort them out", eh? That has always been a successful and justified military doctrine in previous wars...
Like, someone is out raping and killing women, your sister has just been raped and killed...
The children. You forgot to mention the poor children to make it a successful moralistic "silencing with a mallet" point that noone may argue with. Pure FUD.
Does this mean we surrender on a legalism?
If we ignore legalism whenever it suits us, what would be the point of our constitutions (your country's and my country's)?
You speak about "my ideology" and a "community" that you think I adhere to, but both don't apply. You don't even know my ideology and you haven't got the slightest idea what I stand for. Don't be so quick to judge. I don't have this view because I consider it "hip".
I mean it: Bush has not given enough reason for his military campaign so far. Sorry to say it: Going into Afghanistan without such proof *would* be a violation of international treaties.
I don't know if "catch phrase" was the right word (English is not my first language).
I support every move of the current business and investigative side of the current crackdown on the terrorists. Follow the money, folks, and let the flow run dry. But the military strike of this "war on terrorism" hasn't got a clear objective so far. So the US and their allies are going to do a military strike against Afghanistan to... uh, well, to do what, really?
But we all are against "terrorism", right? So we must be for this war, right? And if we aren't for this war, we are supporting terrorism, right?
US officials have said again and again that "each suspect has direct or indirect ties with Bin Laden", yet local investigators in Germany have said again and again that "so far, we can not confirm that they (the 3+2 suspects who studied at Harburg University) have ties with Bin Laden". (Source)
We are in a propaganda war right now. And you fell for the propaganda. Classic:
And the divisiveness hurts the morale of the soldiers, limiting their effectiveness, and increasing their chances of injury and death. So, please, put your personal ideology to rest until the effort/attack/war has concluded, for the well-being of the country and for the safety of our men and women in uniform.
Rethink your statement.
How does an attack on Afghanistan help the well-being of the USA? How does removing the Taliban government by a military strike help the well-being of the USA? *Why* are we risking the safety of our "men and women in uniform" (please play national anthem in the background while saying previous phrase) on a military operation that's basically built on "we're doing it because we have to do *something*"?
------
P.S.: I find it terrifying how much life imitates art. So now we have terrorists who copy the flamboyant madness of a James Bond plot on the one side and a US president who checks every item on the list of "Wag the Dog" on the other.
...is the constant chime of the news media that "the US is preparing their military strike against terrorism" (translated quote from German radio news, just minutes ago).
The US is acting like a big, very angered 900 pound gorilla, screaming out "whoever did that, come out and show yourself so that I can beat you up!" Yet, nobody showed up so far. And the investigation has shown quite a few false leads so far, including publishing a list with suspected kamikaze terrorists who are still alive and just happen to have had their passports stolen...
Of course, something must be done. But who is the enemy, really? Bush promised that he would give proof in his (hollywood-taylored *) speech, he didn't. I still don't know who the US and their allies are going to fight and how troops in Afghanistan will help fighting terrorism.
Everybody agrees that "terrorism" is a bad thing and that we should fight it. But isn't it just a catchphrase to drum up the support for this military campaign? (Oh, sorry, it's "America's new war", of course, as trademarked and repeated again and again by CNN.)
So far, a military campaign against the state of Afghanistan is still on a shaky ground. "Bomb these bastards to oblivion," says the general public, but I can't help that I feel bad about it.
AFAIK, for every GPL violation so far, the public outcry has been loud enough to make the violating company comply. (In this case, "public" = developers in the know.)
While I'm still waiting for the GPL to go to court one day, I think that community pressure is a much better strategy. Why sue someone when you can avoid feeding lawyers and bring the opposing into your own camp, at the same time?
Exactly. Sorry for being a jerk, but I suspected a jerk. I know quite a few people who actually *are* that way, so I'm a bit touchy on that subject.
No, problem not fixed.
I work on a dual boot machine. I use Windows when I need it for a particular task and I use Linux when I need that for another particular task.
Thank you for demonstrating useless advocacy without being helpful whatsoever.
What does this .eml file do and how do I get rid of it?
(I had a readme.eml file on my computer after visiting the URL of a compromised server - bad idea. However, the file was only 6k in size.)
sounds like you weren't using the encoder optimsed for the Athlon SIMD instruction set
There is a specific encoder for AMD? Afaik, the DivX codec (the Windows binary) is compiled for both platforms and is partly optimized for both.
I am also doing some additional filters on the material in VirtualDub - e.g. resizing and subtitling.
It all adds up, making the whole process slow.
There is a player for Linux [...] which gives excellent hardware video acceleration on Matrox G200 [...]
Uhm, thanks, but I am looking for hardware acceleration of the encoding process.
An AMD Athlon should do you quite nicely
My last round of encoding on an Athlon 1200 took more than a day (120 min movie, dual pass).
Currently, my home PC (Duron 800) is busy encoding another movie, encoding time is estimated at 30 hours.
No, just a CPU doesn't do quite nicely. That was the point of my original question. I want a dedicated DSP to speed-up things.
Btw, is there hardware available *now* for reasonable cost that would allow me to speed-up the ProjectMajo/DivX/MPEG-4 encoding process on my home PC?
I prefer small laptops and I want laptops with long battery life. Subnotebooks have been around before the Crusoe, but they had poor battery performance.
However, the designers of Crusoe laptops usually decide to make the batteries *even smaller* than those used in the old subnotebooks. Probably because "3 hourse is enough for most folks, so let's add features instead now that we save on the battery's size".
I really looked forward to Crusoe laptops, but so far, none of them delivered what I looked for in them. I hope that the PaceBook will one day stop being vaporware.
The problem with WMP isn't multimedia playback, but the forced inclusion of Microsoft's own media licensing scheme. Thanks to WMP, they will be able to control what media you may download and when and if you are "allowed" to play it.
Yes, Real is trying to do exactly the same thing with their software. Just wanted to remind everyone that it's not just software for media playback, but also for media licensing control.