The risk is what matters. Firefox still has a much better reputation than IE in that there have been no worldwide meltdowns due to Firefox, but there have been several due to IE. Arguably this is because the security advisories related to Firefox have been:
Much less serious than IE's advisories, on average.
Theoretical and proactive, rather than actual and reactive.
Announced with a fix shortly after the fault was discovered (with 1 exception I'm aware of).
Comparing the total count of advisories is naive. You have to assess the threat, the impact and the likelihood. The total number of advisories says nothing substantial about any of those 3 assessments. It's like comparing two cakes by counting the number of ingredients but not bothering to taste them.
You are forgetting other uses of oil: medicine, plastics and lots of other stuff.
I "forgot" no such thing. Perhaps you "forgot" that the oil used for plastics and medicines can be synthesized. Once again, it simply comes at a higher cost. Google for "coal liquefication" and "coal gasification".
When we no longer have the means to protect ourselves (i.e. oil runs out), then Nature will be far more punishing than a hurricane, tsunami or earthquake. Just imagine other cities in the state of New Orleans because there is no electricity, water, gas or food production. All of those comforts are entirely dependent on a shrinking supply of oil.
No, they are not entirely dependent on oil. In the USA, oil powers only 14% of your power plants, which is a large chunk of your energy usage. Many countries use less oil than the US, relying instead on water, wind, coal or nuclear. Cars can be converted to run off ethanol, biofuels, and even electric power. Admittedly right now it's at a slightly higher cost than oil, but it's not a stupidly higher cost. It's close enough that even now you have some people in extreme situations choosing non-gasoline vehicles.
There are plenty of energy sources waiting in the wings. Oil rules the roost now because it's cheap, not because it's indispensible. Alarmist predictions about the end of the world once oil runs out are plain silly.
znes - Play all the good old Nintendo games
epsxe - Play all the Playstation 1 games
xmame - Play all the classic arcade games
dosemu - Most of the back-in-the-day Dos games work
When hiring I've never looked at anyone's qualifications, but at their experience.
Looking only at their experience and never at their qualifications is just as silly as looking only at their qualifications and never at their experience. Both qualifications and experience contribute to the skills a person has to offer. Unless you're being facetious to prove a point, you should be considering both when evaluating a potential recruit.
I've met a lot of so-called programmers with 10-15 years experience who write absolute garbage. It's quite obvious they haven't got a clue what they hell they're doing. Experience alone is not a measure of a person's skill, in the same way that qualifications alone mean absolutely diddly-squat.
University degrees do not entitle you to a job and if you're one of the people that treat them as such I suggest you get a large grip on reality.
I agree with that, but I think your extremist reaction of never looking at their qualifications has gone too far. It's too black and white. The world is full of colour.
Asimov also said that good sci-fi isn't about sci-fi: good sci-fi is about people.
Your claim that "sci-fi isn't about sci-fi" is a nonsensical statement. Perhaps you meant to say "science fiction isn't about science", which is a popular quote but I doubt Asimov said it, because it would be the direct opposite of his actual opinion.
From my standpoint, the most common mistake a science fiction writer makes is to downgrade science. Now, these days particularly, many science fiction writers have very little to do with science, and many science fiction stories have very little to do with science. -- Isaac Asimov
Probably you are confused and have misquoted Aldiss who said that "great science fiction isn't written for scientists".
Nightfall, arguably one of Asimov's best short stories / novels, could easily have been set in a fantasy world,
Funny that you should say that. Asimov always responded harshly to people who claimed that Nightfall was his best story. He didn't rank it even in his top three.
The story 'Nightfall' has since come to be considered a classic. A great many people think it was the best story I ever wrote, and some even think it was the best magazine science fiction story anyone ever wrote. Frankly, I think this is ridiculous and have always thought so.....In my favorite of the stories I've written, 'The Last Question,' it is not the writing that is over my head. It is the idea and the manner in which I constructed the climax....My second favorite is 'The Bicentennial Man'....Here, at last, it is the writing....My third favorite, 'The Ugly Little Boy,' is unusual in the same way. -- Isaac Asimov
As to your suggestion that the story could've easily been a fantasy. I'd like to see you explain how a story where the crucial plot device is a total eclipse on a world with multiple suns could possibly be anything other than science fiction.
[Battlestar Galactica and Firefly are] the best shows... [Rendezvous with Rama] is the same story, basically, that was told in the movie "Cube,"
I'm sorry. You had me flabbergasted when you praised Battlestar Galactica, but I burst out laughing when you compared Rama to that B-grade schlock The Cube.
He doesn't sound like he's kidding. I have to agree. Star Wars is a very poor example of sci-fi. It's a brilliant example of cliched formulaic opera. You have a swashbuckling hero rescuing the princess from the evil villain. The villain is appropriately dressed in black with a cape; the only thing missing from his attire is the curly moustache. There's a love interest set against the backdrop of a war-torn Europe^Wgalaxy. You have two bumbling sidekicks that make you laugh while also explaining the narrative with their banter. Star Wars could just as easily have been Reluctant Hero Luke using Excalibur to rescue Damsel in Distress Leia from the Black Wizard Vader, riding his Flying Unicorn, with his companions a Dwarf named Artu Deetoo and a homosexual Elf named Seephree. It wouldn't have changed the plot one iota. The science is notably absent from the fiction that is Star Wars. Scientific devices like lasers and battleships are used, but they aren't fundamental to the plot, they are confetti sprinkled over the story.
Compare this against true sci-fi movies like 2001. It was only because Kubrick wielded so much clout that 2001 made it to the silver screen. Studios are reluctant to fund true sci-fi because audiences HATE the genre. Sci-fi has no need for heroes, villains, explosions, swordfights or punchups. Sci-fi aims to imbue you with a sense of wonder; to amaze you with a fictional world that might possibly exist due to miracle of scientific progress. Sci-fi recreates the feeling of elation that comes from exploration and discovery. Most people couldn't care less; they just want the hero to beat the villain.
Asimov himself wrote a short story that poked fun at this problem of operas pretending to be sci-fi. In the story, two children are listening to a robot that tells stories. The first child isn't happy that robot only tells fantasy stories. The second child records a new "noun reel" with sci-fi phrases like "battleship" and "laser" and "robot". However the children soon realise that the story-telling robot doesn't tell sci-fi; it's just telling fantasy stories with sci-fi nouns. The children lose interest immediately. I think Asimov was saying something quite profound about the state of sci-fi at the time, which was full of swashbuckling fantasy pretending to be sci-fi.
I guess the RIAA never saw the study that says that file sharers spent more money buying music online than those who don't share music at all.
Of course "they" saw the study. They're a huge association and I'd be shocked if the collective staff from all the member companies hadn't read every study ever written about music piracy. However "they" simply don't care. The RIAA's not concerned that pirates also purchase music because their profits aren't significantly affected by that tiny proportion of buyers. The RIAA's greatest fear is that if they turn a blind eye to the pirates then the practise of copying music will be legitimised in the eyes of the vast
majority of their customers, aka normal people, and that the majority of customers will stop buying music.
And that's why the RIAA uses pathetic copy prevention schemes, laughable studies and random lawsuits. They're not trying to convince YOU to stop copying. They know YOU will see through the bullshit and YOU will go to extreme lengths to circumvent the copy prevention. They know YOU are both incredibly smart (techwise) but also so lacking in common sense that you will risk having a criminal record to avoid spending $5 on a pressed CD from the bargain bin. They know YOU will spend countless hours reading websites and installing obscure software to get illegitimate copies of music.
However YOU are not the target of all their efforts. They're trying to convince the other 99% of the population that copying music isn't worth the effort. And they're using several techniques in a "shotgun" approach to do that. They're using scare tactics, "copy and you'll be sued", and appeals to emotion, "copy music and little Jimmy will starve to death", and appeals to decency, "copying is plain immoral", and technical barriers to copying that thwart 99% of people, "don't hold down the shift key", and stomping out networks like Napster so the digital copies that are made by smarter pirates aren't widely circulated.
There will always be criminals. The RIAA knows they can't stop them all. But they can deter the rest of the population from becoming criminals as well.
Solar activity cycles? I heard a scientist from NASA say that we are on the high end of a cycle of solar output. In 100 years it is just as likely that we'll be on the low end of solar output.
Yeah, because the climatologists hadn't already thought of that.
Well done genius. You'll get a Nobel prize for this for sure.
I expect this has been debated to death elsewhere, but:
You are right, the nvidia driver has been debated to death on LKML:-) Here is Linus personal opinion on that matter.
So in order for nVidia to be able to legally distribute a binary-only
kernel module, they have to be able to feel damn sure that they can
explain (in a court of law, if necessary) that the module isn't a derived
work. Enough to convince a judge. That's really all that matters. Our
blathering matters not at all.
Now, personally, I have my own judgment on what "derivative works" are,
and I use that judgement to decide if I'd complain or take the matter
further.
And so _I_ personally think some binary modules are ok, and you've heard
my arguments as to why. That means that _I_ won't sue over such uses,
since in my opinion there is no copyright infringement IN THOSE CASES due
to me not considering them derivative.
Other members on the list disagreed with Linus. Though as Linus has said, the only opinion that matters is that of the judge.
This is exactly what Linus Torvalds did with the Linux kernel. The kernel is GPLed, and an exception is granted for proprietary kernel modules.
There is no such exception. Linus has already clarified this (more than once).
Well, there really is no exception. However, copyright law obviously
hinges on the definition of "derived work", and as such anything can
always be argued on that point.
I personally consider anything a "derived work" that needs special hooks
in the kernel to function with Linux (ie it is _not_ acceptable to make a
small piece of GPL-code as a hook for the larger piece), as that obviously
implies that the bigger module needs "help" from the main kernel.
Similarly, I consider anything that has intimate knowledge about kernel
internals to be a derived work.
What is left in the gray area tends to be clearly separate modules: code
that had a life outside Linux from the beginning, and that do something
self-containted that doesn't really have any impact on the rest of the
kernel. A device driver that was originally written for something else,
and that doesn't need any but the standard UNIX read/write kind of
interfaces, for example.
I hope that makes it clear. There is no exception however Linus does not personally consider some modules to be derived works.
Just how little control do you think parents should have over their children? If you can't get the kids to go to bed and stay there while you watch a movie, you have bigger problems.
Spoken like somebody without any kids.
Re:...the same features we delivered seven years a
on
Windows 95 Turns 10
·
· Score: 1
This is, in fact, far ahead of anything currently available on Unix or Windows. In fact, it's so far ahead of what is currently available it will take quite a long time to get all parts of the OS and the apps that run on top of it to fully support the concepts Monad introduces. It's pretty damn innovative, if you ask me.
Doesn't sound innovative at all to me. You can use dcop from any UNIX shell and get access to components. Big whoopie. We've had it for years.
Though my husband has been on a kick recently that we need to replace all our controllers with wireless because the way I wrap up the cords "hurts" them. I think he's insane.
He is insane. Everybody knows that wrapping the controllers up in their cords gets them excited.
Checksums are a vital component of DRM because checksums are signatures. Checksums are not equivalent to DRM but nobody except you ever claimed that they were.
As for putting md5sums in the kernel that wouldn't make any sense.
Of course it wouldn't. That's why I wrote:
"That sort of functionality can't be implemented with "md5sums and Selinux"". I don't think I could have made it any clearer.
You seem to forget that "md5sums and Selinux" was your proposal as the reasonable alternative to DRM. Now you're trying to pretend it was my proposal? Get your story straight.
You should probably research DRM before claiming it will help you.
Oh that's amusing. Go back to your md5sums and SELinux. You are a waste of time.
The Firefox team could implement a md5sum server/client check policy for their binaries right inside of Firefox if they wanted. No DRM needed; people do it all the time.
That _*IS*_ DRM. In your scenario the Firefox team have implemented DRM, only in a proprietary half-assed easily-busted way. The intruder simply needs to modify the Firefox executable - either on-disk or in-memory - and the DRM implementation you propose is busted.
I would personally love to have DRM in Linux. For example, right now I can install a package on Debian and APT will check the signature of the package before installing it. That neatly solves the problem of installing a compromised package. However, once the package is installed there is no protection. If an intruder modifies a core binary like/usr/sbin/sshd then Linux will happily run the compromised binary. Programs like Tripwire can detect the modification but only after the event. If I run the compromised binary inbetween tripwire scans I'm screwed.
Now imagine a DRM-aware Linux. Not only is the package signed but so are the binaries. I import the Debian keyring into the kernel at boot time with "gpg --export >/proc/sys/keyring". The kernel loads the keys into the TCPA chip and the chip is then "locked down" so no additional keys can be loaded. Now when binaries are exec'd they are cryptographically verified by the kernel and the TCPA chip. If an intruder tries to run a compromised/usr/sbin/sshd the exec() fails and errors appear on my network management console. That sort of functionality can't be implemented with "md5sums and Selinux" (md5sums stuffed into the kernel is NOT equivalent).
Content restrictions are a small part of DRM, and as far as I'm concerned an utterly irrelevant topic of discussion. I don't pirate content and I have no sympathy for those people who do. From the point of view of creating secure computer networks and systems, I personally can't wait for DRM to be everywhere. Securing computer systems and keeping them secure is simply too expensive. The software should be doing a better job of protecting itself, and DRM is one tool that looks likely to help.
Eh? How exactly can you even talk about "open-source DRM"? It's one of strongest oxymorons here, DRM by definition is about restricting access, while openness is about allowing it.
"Open DRM" is not an oxymoron.
"Open" originally meant open standards before it was hijacked by ESR when he coined Open Source. Now "Open" is commonly mistaken to be equivalent with "Open Source" but many old-timers don't accept the revised meaning of the word. For example, in the 80s we had The Open Group and Open Software Foundation, both of which were actually open standards organisations rather than "open source" software developers.
Now that answers your actual question, I would say that I don't think "Open Source DRM" is an oxymoron either. The problem here is your point of view. You can only see DRM as stopping you from doing something, so your immediate desire is to circumvent the software. However if the DRM is beneficial to you then the oxymoron no longer exists. For example, DRM might prove to be as useful as symmetric key algorithms.
If you can't beat em, join em. Sorry, but the idea of DRM is wrong in any form.
How about DRM to ensure that only authorized binaries can run on your webserver, thus removing the threat of your server being compromised
How about DRM to ensure those Firefox plugins you've downloaded are the real versions and don't contain trojans.
DRM's primary objective might be for the media companies to exert control over the viewing of their content, but the technology itself is quite interesting and I see it being useful for other purposes.
This once again proves that the OS is unimportant, and only the application matters. Who cares what OS was used to run the program that allowed this development? Certainly not the patients that benefit from it.
That's a very short-sighted view of things. If the Linux box proves to more reliable than the alternatives then that might mean the difference between 1000 scans per year and 995 scans per year. To the 5 patients who otherwise wouldn't have received an MRI scan, the fact that it's Linux is important even if they never know what software runs the MRI application. Similar arguments are applicable for costs related to development, maintenance, support, license fees, etc. Even if the savings are only one tenth of one percent, that still translates directly into lives saved over the lifetime of the machine.
It's easy to be cynical. It's harder to be critical. Try thinking critically.
Slashdot Mirror
The risk is what matters. Firefox still has a much better reputation than IE in that there have been no worldwide meltdowns due to Firefox, but there have been several due to IE. Arguably this is because the security advisories related to Firefox have been:
Comparing the total count of advisories is naive. You have to assess the threat, the impact and the likelihood. The total number of advisories says nothing substantial about any of those 3 assessments. It's like comparing two cakes by counting the number of ingredients but not bothering to taste them.
Those graphs are for the lineout and aren't that impressive. For more enlightenment, try reading these pages.
Ok, but then...
He goes and says the exact opposite!
The iPod might have many superior features but high quality sound wasn't one of them. Anybody who thinks any iPod "sounds great" has a tin ear.
I "forgot" no such thing. Perhaps you "forgot" that the oil used for plastics and medicines can be synthesized. Once again, it simply comes at a higher cost. Google for "coal liquefication" and "coal gasification".
No, they are not entirely dependent on oil. In the USA, oil powers only 14% of your power plants, which is a large chunk of your energy usage. Many countries use less oil than the US, relying instead on water, wind, coal or nuclear. Cars can be converted to run off ethanol, biofuels, and even electric power. Admittedly right now it's at a slightly higher cost than oil, but it's not a stupidly higher cost. It's close enough that even now you have some people in extreme situations choosing non-gasoline vehicles.
There are plenty of energy sources waiting in the wings. Oil rules the roost now because it's cheap, not because it's indispensible. Alarmist predictions about the end of the world once oil runs out are plain silly.
I find dosbox is better than dosemu.
Also don't forget scummvm.
Looking only at their experience and never at their qualifications is just as silly as looking only at their qualifications and never at their experience. Both qualifications and experience contribute to the skills a person has to offer. Unless you're being facetious to prove a point, you should be considering both when evaluating a potential recruit.
I've met a lot of so-called programmers with 10-15 years experience who write absolute garbage. It's quite obvious they haven't got a clue what they hell they're doing. Experience alone is not a measure of a person's skill, in the same way that qualifications alone mean absolutely diddly-squat.
I agree with that, but I think your extremist reaction of never looking at their qualifications has gone too far. It's too black and white. The world is full of colour.
Type in "1.30 aud per litre in usd per gallon" and get "1.30 (Australian dollars per litre) = 3.76065521 U.S. dollars per US gallon".
Your claim that "sci-fi isn't about sci-fi" is a nonsensical statement. Perhaps you meant to say "science fiction isn't about science", which is a popular quote but I doubt Asimov said it, because it would be the direct opposite of his actual opinion.
Probably you are confused and have misquoted Aldiss who said that "great science fiction isn't written for scientists".
Funny that you should say that. Asimov always responded harshly to people who claimed that Nightfall was his best story. He didn't rank it even in his top three.
As to your suggestion that the story could've easily been a fantasy. I'd like to see you explain how a story where the crucial plot device is a total eclipse on a world with multiple suns could possibly be anything other than science fiction.
I'm sorry. You had me flabbergasted when you praised Battlestar Galactica, but I burst out laughing when you compared Rama to that B-grade schlock The Cube.
I'm done here.
He doesn't sound like he's kidding. I have to agree. Star Wars is a very poor example of sci-fi. It's a brilliant example of cliched formulaic opera. You have a swashbuckling hero rescuing the princess from the evil villain. The villain is appropriately dressed in black with a cape; the only thing missing from his attire is the curly moustache. There's a love interest set against the backdrop of a war-torn Europe^Wgalaxy. You have two bumbling sidekicks that make you laugh while also explaining the narrative with their banter. Star Wars could just as easily have been Reluctant Hero Luke using Excalibur to rescue Damsel in Distress Leia from the Black Wizard Vader, riding his Flying Unicorn, with his companions a Dwarf named Artu Deetoo and a homosexual Elf named Seephree. It wouldn't have changed the plot one iota. The science is notably absent from the fiction that is Star Wars. Scientific devices like lasers and battleships are used, but they aren't fundamental to the plot, they are confetti sprinkled over the story.
Compare this against true sci-fi movies like 2001. It was only because Kubrick wielded so much clout that 2001 made it to the silver screen. Studios are reluctant to fund true sci-fi because audiences HATE the genre. Sci-fi has no need for heroes, villains, explosions, swordfights or punchups. Sci-fi aims to imbue you with a sense of wonder; to amaze you with a fictional world that might possibly exist due to miracle of scientific progress. Sci-fi recreates the feeling of elation that comes from exploration and discovery. Most people couldn't care less; they just want the hero to beat the villain.
Asimov himself wrote a short story that poked fun at this problem of operas pretending to be sci-fi. In the story, two children are listening to a robot that tells stories. The first child isn't happy that robot only tells fantasy stories. The second child records a new "noun reel" with sci-fi phrases like "battleship" and "laser" and "robot". However the children soon realise that the story-telling robot doesn't tell sci-fi; it's just telling fantasy stories with sci-fi nouns. The children lose interest immediately. I think Asimov was saying something quite profound about the state of sci-fi at the time, which was full of swashbuckling fantasy pretending to be sci-fi.
50 years later, nothing has changed.
That the unicorn is pink while also being invisible is proof of her incredible power.
Of course "they" saw the study. They're a huge association and I'd be shocked if the collective staff from all the member companies hadn't read every study ever written about music piracy. However "they" simply don't care. The RIAA's not concerned that pirates also purchase music because their profits aren't significantly affected by that tiny proportion of buyers. The RIAA's greatest fear is that if they turn a blind eye to the pirates then the practise of copying music will be legitimised in the eyes of the vast majority of their customers, aka normal people, and that the majority of customers will stop buying music.
And that's why the RIAA uses pathetic copy prevention schemes, laughable studies and random lawsuits. They're not trying to convince YOU to stop copying. They know YOU will see through the bullshit and YOU will go to extreme lengths to circumvent the copy prevention. They know YOU are both incredibly smart (techwise) but also so lacking in common sense that you will risk having a criminal record to avoid spending $5 on a pressed CD from the bargain bin. They know YOU will spend countless hours reading websites and installing obscure software to get illegitimate copies of music.
However YOU are not the target of all their efforts. They're trying to convince the other 99% of the population that copying music isn't worth the effort. And they're using several techniques in a "shotgun" approach to do that. They're using scare tactics, "copy and you'll be sued", and appeals to emotion, "copy music and little Jimmy will starve to death", and appeals to decency, "copying is plain immoral", and technical barriers to copying that thwart 99% of people, "don't hold down the shift key", and stomping out networks like Napster so the digital copies that are made by smarter pirates aren't widely circulated.
There will always be criminals. The RIAA knows they can't stop them all. But they can deter the rest of the population from becoming criminals as well.
On certain x86 processors, Clarus x86 says fooF!
Yeah, because the climatologists hadn't already thought of that.
Well done genius. You'll get a Nobel prize for this for sure.
You are right, the nvidia driver has been debated to death on LKML :-) Here is Linus personal opinion on that matter.
Other members on the list disagreed with Linus. Though as Linus has said, the only opinion that matters is that of the judge.
There is no such exception. Linus has already clarified this (more than once).
I hope that makes it clear. There is no exception however Linus does not personally consider some modules to be derived works.
Spoken like somebody without any kids.
Doesn't sound innovative at all to me. You can use dcop from any UNIX shell and get access to components. Big whoopie. We've had it for years.
He is insane. Everybody knows that wrapping the controllers up in their cords gets them excited.
Checksums are a vital component of DRM because checksums are signatures. Checksums are not equivalent to DRM but nobody except you ever claimed that they were.
Of course it wouldn't. That's why I wrote: "That sort of functionality can't be implemented with "md5sums and Selinux"". I don't think I could have made it any clearer.
You seem to forget that "md5sums and Selinux" was your proposal as the reasonable alternative to DRM. Now you're trying to pretend it was my proposal? Get your story straight.
Oh that's amusing. Go back to your md5sums and SELinux. You are a waste of time.
That _*IS*_ DRM. In your scenario the Firefox team have implemented DRM, only in a proprietary half-assed easily-busted way. The intruder simply needs to modify the Firefox executable - either on-disk or in-memory - and the DRM implementation you propose is busted.
I would personally love to have DRM in Linux. For example, right now I can install a package on Debian and APT will check the signature of the package before installing it. That neatly solves the problem of installing a compromised package. However, once the package is installed there is no protection. If an intruder modifies a core binary like /usr/sbin/sshd then Linux will happily run the compromised binary. Programs like Tripwire can detect the modification but only after the event. If I run the compromised binary inbetween tripwire scans I'm screwed.
Now imagine a DRM-aware Linux. Not only is the package signed but so are the binaries. I import the Debian keyring into the kernel at boot time with "gpg --export > /proc/sys/keyring". The kernel loads the keys into the TCPA chip and the chip is then "locked down" so no additional keys can be loaded. Now when binaries are exec'd they are cryptographically verified by the kernel and the TCPA chip. If an intruder tries to run a compromised /usr/sbin/sshd the exec() fails and errors appear on my network management console. That sort of functionality can't be implemented with "md5sums and Selinux" (md5sums stuffed into the kernel is NOT equivalent).
Content restrictions are a small part of DRM, and as far as I'm concerned an utterly irrelevant topic of discussion. I don't pirate content and I have no sympathy for those people who do. From the point of view of creating secure computer networks and systems, I personally can't wait for DRM to be everywhere. Securing computer systems and keeping them secure is simply too expensive. The software should be doing a better job of protecting itself, and DRM is one tool that looks likely to help.
"Open DRM" is not an oxymoron.
"Open" originally meant open standards before it was hijacked by ESR when he coined Open Source. Now "Open" is commonly mistaken to be equivalent with "Open Source" but many old-timers don't accept the revised meaning of the word. For example, in the 80s we had The Open Group and Open Software Foundation, both of which were actually open standards organisations rather than "open source" software developers.
Now that answers your actual question, I would say that I don't think "Open Source DRM" is an oxymoron either. The problem here is your point of view. You can only see DRM as stopping you from doing something, so your immediate desire is to circumvent the software. However if the DRM is beneficial to you then the oxymoron no longer exists. For example, DRM might prove to be as useful as symmetric key algorithms.
How about DRM to ensure that only authorized binaries can run on your webserver, thus removing the threat of your server being compromised
How about DRM to ensure those Firefox plugins you've downloaded are the real versions and don't contain trojans.
DRM's primary objective might be for the media companies to exert control over the viewing of their content, but the technology itself is quite interesting and I see it being useful for other purposes.
That's a very short-sighted view of things. If the Linux box proves to more reliable than the alternatives then that might mean the difference between 1000 scans per year and 995 scans per year. To the 5 patients who otherwise wouldn't have received an MRI scan, the fact that it's Linux is important even if they never know what software runs the MRI application. Similar arguments are applicable for costs related to development, maintenance, support, license fees, etc. Even if the savings are only one tenth of one percent, that still translates directly into lives saved over the lifetime of the machine.
It's easy to be cynical. It's harder to be critical. Try thinking critically.
Dude!