<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <comment xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xslashdotcomment"> <phrase style="voice-tone:sarcasm;">Yeah, but everyone knows that Irish music sucks so its just not the same as when people copy Brittney Spears.</phrase> </comment>
Microsoft responded aggressively, saying that 'there is no such thing as free software. Nobody develops software for charity.' I develop software for "charity" all the time. No one is giving me any incentive, yet I do it anyway.
He added: "For innovation to continue, there needs to be value - and even open-source applications have some form of market model, which incentivises them to continue innovating." Excuse me while I barf.
PS: What is the chance that the person who said that at Microsoft will be looking for a job very shortly? Having your upper management assert that they are moving toward a more open model and then having some bozo say something like this must look terrible even to the Microsoft Marketing Department (tm).
Apparently even TFA didn't RTFA. It declares:
Proposed Md. bill would make intentional theft of wireless Internet access a crime But then it says:
Myers, R-Washington/Allegany, said his bill is meant to clarify intentional theft vs. accidental use.... He said he didn't want unintentional use like that to be prosecuted the same as computer hacking. And later:
A Fox News story says the man parked his truck in front of the shop during lunch breaks and checked his e-mail on his laptop computer. When a nearby business owner got suspicious, police talked to the man and ruled out that he was spying or stalking someone. However, a prosecutor filed the charge of stealing the wireless connection, the story says. The charge was a felony punishable by up to five years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. It sounds like the problem is that the law against wireless squatting is already there, but ill-defined; this bill would aim to clarify it so that only intentionally breaking into a network would be a crime. It certainly sounds more reasonable than the existing situation, but the article contradicts itself so many times you can't tell what it is trying to say.
As spoken by TFA:
The APS asks scientists to transfer their copyright to the society before they can publish in an APS journal. This prevents scientists contributing illustrations or other "derivative works" of their papers to many websites without explicit permission. So, in other words, the journal asks scientists to transfer their copyright for the explicit purpose of not allowing them to exercise it. Hmmm...
TFA says:
ZapMedia applied for the patents in 1999. One was granted in March 2006, the other on Tuesday. Remind me again why the patent office and the courts even allow people to sue over ex post facto patents?
A mother can produce enough force to lift the back end of a car off her kid. Why would you assume that by gaining the magical power of TK, I would somehow only be able to produce less force? The problem isn't one of producing the necessary force. The problem is of directing that force in a meaningful way, i.e. at the object you want to move, and not obliterating it in the process.
IE8, when released, will pass the Acid2 by default. Since Microsoft agreed to get rid of the mandatory switch for enabling standards mode, any page with a proper DOCTYPE will render in IE8's most standards-compliant mode by default. In other words, IE8 will act like every other browser.
Um... no. The point of Wikipedia is to make a free encyclopedia that can be referred to easily. If Wikipedia can cover things that a normal encyclopedia can't, well, that's just a happy side effect of its method of expansion. As Jimbo Wales has stated many times, the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia (and add garbage or trivia) is a means to an end, not the goal itself.
If you want to have a minimalistic but lengthy and well-written index of fundamental concepts, you need a traditional encyclopedia, not Wikipedia. If you want a searchable database of all human knowledge, you need a search engine, not Wikipedia.
Personally, I think of myself not as a deletionist or an inclusionist but as a AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTDist. For example, I like the articles that outline specific, well known mathematical proofs (like the proof that e is irrational, but I think many of the articles like "List of Magical Aliens in [insert random series here]" need to be merged (but not necessarily deleted).
Hell, call me when they accomplish anything that plays well with others. In case you haven't been paying attention, IE8 already pass Acid2, which is a strict enough test by itself. Don't tell me that isn't trying to be compliant, especially given IE7's miserable performance at that same test. That and the fact that, unlike any previous release of IE, Microsoft's stated goal for IE8 is to improve standards compliance.
FTFA:
They downloaded the swf file from my site, decompiled it, swapped out the little guy for the Fuwa characters, took my name off of it and republished it as their own. I can tell this is what happened because they are still using some of my original art from Snow Day (the clouds and the ice cube are exactly the same). So... the fact that both the mechanics and the artwork of the game are the same is not evidence that they stole it?
Someone please enlighten me. Explain to me how we, as programmers, are better off when the fruits of our labor are surrendered for free. It's called altruism.
I have come to regard it, at best, an idea for a perfect society So, according to your argument, because society is imperfect now, we shouldn't try to make it more perfect?
OSS shouldn't be about reverse engineering good ideas and making them freely available. Why not? If you can make a version of a proprietary program that can be modified and reused, and save some people money while you are at it, what's the problem?
I can't tell you a single thing, other than freeness, that those apps have provided the world. You say that like freeness isn't worth anything. It's worth a lot, in terms of liberty and of money saved by users.
Free air is destroying the market for oxygen bars! I am a representative from the AIAA (Air Industry Association of America). As a firm believer in the rights of plants and blue-green algae to earn money through their photosynthesis, I find it irresponsible and criminal that animals across the world use oxygen without paying the creators royalties. Therefore, I have decided that I am going to sue everyone on Earth. Not just humans, mind you. All of you bears and tigers and piranhas will have to pony up too! Gwahahaha! GWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA AAAGGHHHAGHH GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Of course, one big problem is that the scientific method is usually taught incorrectly. People frame it as if the scientific method explained everything about how actual scientists do actual science; there's this weird image that scientists just mechanically follow a set of steps, and science results. Exactly. I was taught in school that all scientists must follow some 7-step process I can't remember now, except to the extent that every single hypothesis, regardless of triviality, must be formally written down or it isn't science. Also, all scientists post their findings on three-panel cardboard sheets and display them at fairs.
With this logic, couldn't you also patent something like "to move cursor to the right side of the screen, use hand to move mouse to the right of the mousepad?" In this situation the competitors are free to implement "to move cursor to the right side of the screen, use hand to move mouse to the left of the mousepad." You couldn't patent the first one because it is already widely used. The second one would be patentable if it weren't for the fact that there is already prank software that does this to your mouse.
This is abuse of the patent system. Yes, it is. That doesn't stop it from happening.
Is their a open source implementation of the viewer? Yes. It's called Moonlight, and it's the project that is developing the implementation for Linux. Microsoft is currently working with (or at least tolerating giving information to) Novell to help develop the runtime faster. Look it up on Wikipedia for more information.
I've never understood something about the Higgs boson. It is supposed to give the massive bosons their mass, right? And yet, at the same time, it is itself supposed to be a massive boson, right? So, where does the Higgs' mass come from? Does every Higgs boson have an infinite trail of other Higgs tagging along behind it?
Ah, the dangers of getting all of your information from Science News. Mod me "idiot", but I'd like someone to explain this to me.
I wonder who at eBay is high up the kook-chain in Scientology? I think it is more like, "I wonder who in Scientology is high up the kook-chain at eBay?".
Slashdot Mirror
PS: What is the chance that the person who said that at Microsoft will be looking for a job very shortly? Having your upper management assert that they are moving toward a more open model and then having some bozo say something like this must look terrible even to the Microsoft Marketing Department (tm).
...that Wikipedia has policies against publishing research on it? You are allowed to cite your own work, so why not just reference the version the journal published?
Gotta remember that inverse-square law.
Did you know - that it's fun - speaking with - hyphens between - every phrase?
IE8, when released, will pass the Acid2 by default. Since Microsoft agreed to get rid of the mandatory switch for enabling standards mode, any page with a proper DOCTYPE will render in IE8's most standards-compliant mode by default. In other words, IE8 will act like every other browser.
Um... no. The point of Wikipedia is to make a free encyclopedia that can be referred to easily. If Wikipedia can cover things that a normal encyclopedia can't, well, that's just a happy side effect of its method of expansion. As Jimbo Wales has stated many times, the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia (and add garbage or trivia) is a means to an end, not the goal itself.
If you want to have a minimalistic but lengthy and well-written index of fundamental concepts, you need a traditional encyclopedia, not Wikipedia. If you want a searchable database of all human knowledge, you need a search engine, not Wikipedia.
Personally, I think of myself not as a deletionist or an inclusionist but as a AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTDist. For example, I like the articles that outline specific, well known mathematical proofs (like the proof that e is irrational, but I think many of the articles like "List of Magical Aliens in [insert random series here]" need to be merged (but not necessarily deleted).
Tell him to look at this link.
No one said Silverlight is Windows only. There is already support on OS X, and full Linux support is coming.
I've never understood something about the Higgs boson. It is supposed to give the massive bosons their mass, right? And yet, at the same time, it is itself supposed to be a massive boson, right? So, where does the Higgs' mass come from? Does every Higgs boson have an infinite trail of other Higgs tagging along behind it?
Ah, the dangers of getting all of your information from Science News. Mod me "idiot", but I'd like someone to explain this to me.
Ah... so you are Anonymous Coward?