I wasn't talking about morality, I was talking about legal precedent.
Respondent cites a great number of cases in which the registration of a domain name identical to a celebrity's trademark was found to be in bad faith. In all of these cases, however, the respondent had some commercial interest in the domain name, whether it was using the domain name to sell products, display advertisements, or sell the domain name itself for valuable consideration in excess of documented out-of-pocket costs....
A domain squatter is only liable to lose his domain when he makes or intends to make profit from it. This could be as simple as banner ads, or asking a high price to sell the domain to the person with the trademark. In addition, one is liable to lose the domain if one is just squatting, and not doing anything with it. However, fallwell.com was clearly used to further social discourse. It doesn't specify whether profit was ever associated with the domain, but if it wasn't, then this ruling contradicts others already made. For example, dustindiamond.com.
Linux is just as easy to install as Windows. -- My mom can install Windows (without any help from me -- I just tell her "If you don't know what to do, just click Next"
Personally, I always find Linux easier to install. Why? All of the drivers are right there on the install disk. With Windows, sure, you can get something up and running without much trouble, but then nothing works, as you are pushed into a 16 color, 640x480 display on your 1280x1024 display with a high end graphics card, not able to connect to the network because Windows doesn't come with the drivers for your network card, unable to play sound until you hunt down those drivers too, and so on. If your mother can install Windows on her computer with no trouble, all her hardware must be stamped and approved by Bill Gates himself or something, because I have never installed Windows on a clean box and had all the drivers working. That is not an exaggeration.
...most of them are designed by open-source developer 12-year olds...
You're not helping by making such baseless generalizations.
His Myth 3: Installing software is easy with Linux. I find this one the most intriguing becaue he blames the users for not knowing where to look.
Depends on the distro. Some are easier than others. Sure, there's plenty of crap for both Windows and Linux. Most Linux distros have a repository of most of the applications you'll want or need right on the install disks. With Windows you can browse popup and spyware infested webpages to download apps that you would be a fool to trust, or you can pay a few extra thousand dollars to get the same functionality you get for free in Linux. Certainly, many Windows apps are still more robust and functional than their Linux counterparts. But (1) the delta is fast diminishing, and (2) most people don't care much about the functionality that's in that delta.
I'll grant one thing though. Windows has much better integration than Linux. Even if Linux "wins" and 95% percent of desktops are running some variant of Unix or other, it'll never be as integrated. That's the price to pay for GPL software. Someone can (and often will) fork it for whatever reason. You end up with many versions of very similar software that don't work too well together. But I'd rather have that than Microsoft.
Nature's solution is best in at least a few ways.
on
Living Without a Pulse
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...the VentrAssist is less likely to damage red blood cells because it moves the blood more slowly with a bigger impeller.
That's why you haven't seen more propellor based solutions--they tend to chop up the cells. Propellors work great on something you don't mind mincing up, such as air for planes, water for boats, and ice for that delicious smoothie. But I'd be hesitant to send my red blood cells through a propellor. I know they're talking about impellers and not propellors, but I see little difference in damage capacity.
I'm pretty sure the IT section is meant as a catch-all, so that every story falls into some category or other. It was probably done for orthogonality. Notice how every story falls into one subsection or other now?
You can't steal information? OK, so what if I can induce you to run a trojan on your system, and obtain all your credit card numbers and banking passwords? Would that be OK with you, or would you consider that theft of proprietary data?
You're confusing two different notions of "steal". My house was broken into a few months ago. Money, books, and my credit card were stolen. If someone broke into my computer and "stole" my banking account information, this would be a very different use of "steal", since I still have that information. Both uses are common, but I was clearly referring to the first sense. So you are unjustly equivocating.
That idea is just religious fundamentalism manifest as software devlopment ideology.
Well, it is a fundamental assumption. People present a certain dilemma, say that either games exist or copyright doesn't. In all cases, I bite the bullet and say that maintaining the libre aspect of ideas and their expressions is more important. Ultimately, any morality falls down to fundamental assumptions that cannot by themselves be justified. The original article states, "If all software is free, then X, Y, Z, etc." I say, "Ok, even if X, Y, Z, etc, software should still be free." That's simply consistency.
One, count 'em, one counter-example destroys your argument.
If you think this, then you weren't following the argument closely. I said that copyright should not exist. A response then questioned the plausibility of software as a product. The implication is that certain important software would cease to be. I pointed out that software as a service would pick up much of the slack, or, at the basic level, would be the only morally acceptable business plan. However, even in the free software world, there is software as product. This only helps my point that copyright is not necessary.
I don't know, maybe hundred thousand people need the same itch scratched, only they don't know that until they try the scratcher in a shopping mall. Copyright allows each of them to pay $19.99, rather than one to pay 2 million because he/she can copy this particular scratcher at no cost. Think of it, you probably pay a carpenter way more than you pay a software company, and a table doesn't require an effort of hundreds of people to make.
If less software get's sold, I'm not going to be particularly troubled by it. Let's take something that might easily be sold for $20, or at least was a few years ago--a set of card games. Well, few are going to pay $100k or whatever it cost to produce. But such games would still be produced, simply because people want to make them. I enjoy playing freecell on KPatience. All of that is under GPL, and so shouldn't even exist without a few wealthy patrons, if we follow your logic. However, it does exist. The exact sociological reasons for this are probably not straightforward, but understanding the underlying causes is not critical to realizing that such software still does get written.
Offtopic, I know, but just so no one gets confused, I'm running Mozilla 1.8a2 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040709
I'm an avid Linux user and have been for about 9 years now. I also do development support for a living. So I'm not speaking as an outsider on these issues.
I typed out a long reply to this just now, but the browser crashed, so this reply will be a bit more brief.
Anyway, you see the need for people to sell software as a product. I do not. I only see it being sold as a service. Take an accountant. His abilities have value. Companies will pay him to tap into his abilities, because they need his financial skills. But what he produces is not a product, it is a service. The demand comes from the consumer. He does not wrap together a package of accounting and try to sell it. This is not how service works.
So, for software, it simply wouldn't make sense for a company to create a package and sell it, at least, not in the ways they do now (note counterexample of Linux distros). Rather, people would solicite their need for service. They would see that the kernel needs better foobar support, and offer to pay for this. The software does not exist before it is paid for. There is no need to market a product, because there isn't any. There is only a service.
As for more artistic endeavors, I see that as highly dysfunctional at present. Only a very small minority of aspiring writers, musicians, painters, etc break even on their work. Pursuing a career in one of these fields is almost like playing the lottery. Sure, some will get rich, but no rational person can see it as breaking even on average, because it doesn't. Regardless, I don't think people would suddenly stop producing art, music, and writing if there were no copyright. Maybe there wouldn't be a Harry Potter. I don't know. But I'm not crying over the possibility.
What's your opinion on karma-whoring trolls, who copy/paste someone else's posts hoping to get modded-up? Is it OK to you? After all, "you don't believe in copyright, any of it".
I don't believe in taking credit for other's work. But that's not a copyright issue. That's an issue of simple fraud.
On "All Software Should be Free" Carpentry is a bad analogy. No one says that I should be able to take tables made by carpenters for free. However, the effects of idea creation are much more ephemeral. Or rather, they are much easier to duplicate than a well crafted table. This is exactly why analogies to "stealing" items in the real world do not carry over to the internet. I don't believe in copyright, any of it. But I still think things should have value. I just don't think that the government should grant monopolies on any idea. So, to go back to the analogy, I think you should be able to charge for what you make, be it software or tables. But I also think that the person you sell that item too should be able to make one of his own, and give it away or sell it or whatever. So comparing the internet to the real world we see that copyrights are just a legal entity, they are not real things, they do not exist outside of a goverment's promise to enforce them. So you can tables, CDs, and even bandwidth, but you can't steal information.
So, let's take this point and compare it with the previous point made concerning "scratching an itch". People in many professions get paid for their expertise. A plumber comes in, does his job, gets paid, and goes home. He doesn't make royalties on his work. He enjoys no monopoly on information, but of course, his job makes this unnecessary. But what we see from the case of the plumber is that people will still need software written, even if there are no monopolistic copyright protections when it is written. People will have "itches", and they will need to be scratched. And maybe they won't have the time to do it themselves. And so, others will be paid to scratch that itch. All of this takes place without any mention of copyright. It's not needed.
Well in this case, the alternative, staying with glasses or contact lenses, is pretty friggin safe. Of course, you could then say that a condom is safer than a vasectomy, but then that's just all the worse for that procedure too.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that own dedicated hosts that would be happy to offer shell accounts, if only the company that they rent from would allow it. I own several dedicated hosts, and none of the companies allow me to sell shell accounts from them.
I'm sure it wasn't done on a whim. Giving out shell accounts allows the potential for serious abuse, and when you start granting strangers permission to do so many random things from the shell, abuse is destined to occur.
I cheat. I'm farsighted, and get cheap reading glasses from the drug store. But I always get glasses powerful enough to read the monitor with my eyes basically at total rest. I once got glasses from an optometrist, but I still had to strain to work at the computer for long. Whereas I used to get tons of headaches looking at the monitor, I now get none.
It also helps that I only use LCD monitors now. CRTs are poison for your eyes.
I get so sick and tired of this anti Microsoft lobby. Microsoft is not an evil company, it's a company. Period.
Well, any such moral judgment is going to be largely subjective. Maybe you see nothing wrong with Microsoft's actions. I do, and in this context, it's really not necessary to take things further. After all, the original poster was only asking why people would be motivated to install WineX. So, whether Microsoft is indeed an evil company is one question. But that many see Microsoft as an evil company is not a question, it's a fact.
Seriously, instead of trying to get a buggy emulator to work why don't you just install the games on a Windows partition.
I know this is a troll, but it is a question many ask in earnest. The answer is simple. Some people wish to enjoy at least a small portion of the cornucopia of applications developed for the Windows platform without supporting what they see as an evil company.
Even if TransGaming is not software libre, those who would use it have already made the choice to give up some of their freedom of use in exchange for enjoyment--very few games that would require WineX are themselves libre. However, one may wish to support the developer of a game without supporting an evil organization that they are associated with.
An analogous situation might be, for example, going to a live performance of a band rather than buying their CD in a store, as, presumably, the live performance gives a minimal amount, if anything, to the RIAA, while giving plenty to the band.
The only thing you can't do is redistribute WineX code for any commercial purpose.
That's not software libre.
Once we have reached our subscription goals, we plan to release all of the WineX source code under the Wine license, which will allow it to be directly integrated with the core Wine project code hosted at www.winehq.com.
Yeah, they've been saying that they were going to release everything from the beginning. Remember the beginning? As soon as they got enough money, they were going to distribute it for free for everyone. Well, after many bought into that, the promise changed. They liked making a profit. Nothing wrong with that, but people don't like being deceived, even when the initial promises are so ill conceived.
They're updating everything in a flurry. But they have no intention of gypping their paying members:
Thanks for subscribing to Yahoo! Mail Plus. It's our goal to offer you an email experience that makes it easy to stay in touch and offers great value. Periodically, we make changes to enhance the service for our users. As of June 15, 2004, you'll enjoy the following benefits at no additional charge:
* Increase in your storage quota to 2GB
* No graphical ads
* A streamlined interface that's even easier to use...
Still, I paid for 50MB, and have yet to receive the upgrade. It'll probably just take them a day or two to get things straightened out.
I've used Yahoo for ages, tried other things, and have always gone back. Why? Webmail is extremely convenient. I can be on the road and check it from there. I have 5 computers. If I'm using Thunderbird or Mozilla, and download the messages from the server, it (by default) deletes them, and saves them to the local harddrive. I can change this, but then it redownloads the messages on each computer. I also frequently upgrade my computers, putting all my data at risk. Furthermore, what if a Mozilla or Thunderbird changes the underlying database format? It may be less of a problem now but it was certainly a problem several years ago. But overall, I've found webmail in general is just easier.
Slashdot Mirror
Decision regarding dispute over dustindiamond.com.
That case seems to parallel this one quite nicely.
A domain squatter is only liable to lose his domain when he makes or intends to make profit from it. This could be as simple as banner ads, or asking a high price to sell the domain to the person with the trademark. In addition, one is liable to lose the domain if one is just squatting, and not doing anything with it. However, fallwell.com was clearly used to further social discourse. It doesn't specify whether profit was ever associated with the domain, but if it wasn't, then this ruling contradicts others already made. For example, dustindiamond.com.
You're not helping by making such baseless generalizations.
Depends on the distro. Some are easier than others. Sure, there's plenty of crap for both Windows and Linux. Most Linux distros have a repository of most of the applications you'll want or need right on the install disks. With Windows you can browse popup and spyware infested webpages to download apps that you would be a fool to trust, or you can pay a few extra thousand dollars to get the same functionality you get for free in Linux. Certainly, many Windows apps are still more robust and functional than their Linux counterparts. But (1) the delta is fast diminishing, and (2) most people don't care much about the functionality that's in that delta.
I'll grant one thing though. Windows has much better integration than Linux. Even if Linux "wins" and 95% percent of desktops are running some variant of Unix or other, it'll never be as integrated. That's the price to pay for GPL software. Someone can (and often will) fork it for whatever reason. You end up with many versions of very similar software that don't work too well together. But I'd rather have that than Microsoft.
I'm pretty sure the IT section is meant as a catch-all, so that every story falls into some category or other. It was probably done for orthogonality. Notice how every story falls into one subsection or other now?
I'm an avid Linux user and have been for about 9 years now. I also do development support for a living. So I'm not speaking as an outsider on these issues.
(hopes browser doesn't crash again.)
I typed out a long reply to this just now, but the browser crashed, so this reply will be a bit more brief.
Anyway, you see the need for people to sell software as a product. I do not. I only see it being sold as a service. Take an accountant. His abilities have value. Companies will pay him to tap into his abilities, because they need his financial skills. But what he produces is not a product, it is a service. The demand comes from the consumer. He does not wrap together a package of accounting and try to sell it. This is not how service works.
So, for software, it simply wouldn't make sense for a company to create a package and sell it, at least, not in the ways they do now (note counterexample of Linux distros). Rather, people would solicite their need for service. They would see that the kernel needs better foobar support, and offer to pay for this. The software does not exist before it is paid for. There is no need to market a product, because there isn't any. There is only a service.
As for more artistic endeavors, I see that as highly dysfunctional at present. Only a very small minority of aspiring writers, musicians, painters, etc break even on their work. Pursuing a career in one of these fields is almost like playing the lottery. Sure, some will get rich, but no rational person can see it as breaking even on average, because it doesn't. Regardless, I don't think people would suddenly stop producing art, music, and writing if there were no copyright. Maybe there wouldn't be a Harry Potter. I don't know. But I'm not crying over the possibility.
On "All Software Should be Free"
Carpentry is a bad analogy. No one says that I should be able to take tables made by carpenters for free. However, the effects of idea creation are much more ephemeral. Or rather, they are much easier to duplicate than a well crafted table. This is exactly why analogies to "stealing" items in the real world do not carry over to the internet. I don't believe in copyright, any of it. But I still think things should have value. I just don't think that the government should grant monopolies on any idea. So, to go back to the analogy, I think you should be able to charge for what you make, be it software or tables. But I also think that the person you sell that item too should be able to make one of his own, and give it away or sell it or whatever. So comparing the internet to the real world we see that copyrights are just a legal entity, they are not real things, they do not exist outside of a goverment's promise to enforce them. So you can tables, CDs, and even bandwidth, but you can't steal information.
So, let's take this point and compare it with the previous point made concerning "scratching an itch". People in many professions get paid for their expertise. A plumber comes in, does his job, gets paid, and goes home. He doesn't make royalties on his work. He enjoys no monopoly on information, but of course, his job makes this unnecessary. But what we see from the case of the plumber is that people will still need software written, even if there are no monopolistic copyright protections when it is written. People will have "itches", and they will need to be scratched. And maybe they won't have the time to do it themselves. And so, others will be paid to scratch that itch. All of this takes place without any mention of copyright. It's not needed.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that own dedicated hosts that would be happy to offer shell accounts, if only the company that they rent from would allow it. I own several dedicated hosts, and none of the companies allow me to sell shell accounts from them.
I'm sure it wasn't done on a whim. Giving out shell accounts allows the potential for serious abuse, and when you start granting strangers permission to do so many random things from the shell, abuse is destined to occur.
I cheat. I'm farsighted, and get cheap reading glasses from the drug store. But I always get glasses powerful enough to read the monitor with my eyes basically at total rest. I once got glasses from an optometrist, but I still had to strain to work at the computer for long. Whereas I used to get tons of headaches looking at the monitor, I now get none.
It also helps that I only use LCD monitors now. CRTs are poison for your eyes.
All about decaffeination.
Even if TransGaming is not software libre, those who would use it have already made the choice to give up some of their freedom of use in exchange for enjoyment--very few games that would require WineX are themselves libre. However, one may wish to support the developer of a game without supporting an evil organization that they are associated with.
An analogous situation might be, for example, going to a live performance of a band rather than buying their CD in a store, as, presumably, the live performance gives a minimal amount, if anything, to the RIAA, while giving plenty to the band.
Yeah, they've been saying that they were going to release everything from the beginning. Remember the beginning? As soon as they got enough money, they were going to distribute it for free for everyone. Well, after many bought into that, the promise changed. They liked making a profit. Nothing wrong with that, but people don't like being deceived, even when the initial promises are so ill conceived.
Still, I paid for 50MB, and have yet to receive the upgrade. It'll probably just take them a day or two to get things straightened out.
I've used Yahoo for ages, tried other things, and have always gone back. Why? Webmail is extremely convenient. I can be on the road and check it from there. I have 5 computers. If I'm using Thunderbird or Mozilla, and download the messages from the server, it (by default) deletes them, and saves them to the local harddrive. I can change this, but then it redownloads the messages on each computer. I also frequently upgrade my computers, putting all my data at risk. Furthermore, what if a Mozilla or Thunderbird changes the underlying database format? It may be less of a problem now but it was certainly a problem several years ago. But overall, I've found webmail in general is just easier.