I've got to say that (as much as I might like to see a different outcome) the Supremes made the right decision in this matter. Had they made any other decision they would have been essentially legislating from the bench, which is a very bad precident, because it is very difficult to overturn a "law" enacted by the courts.
There really is no reason to be so pessimistic about this, though. There is hope, because it's (relatively) easy to change laws enacted by Congress. Congress just has to write a new law. What we need is for groups like the Electronic Freedom Foundation to start lobbying Congress, and educating the public (the non-technical public--geekdom is already plenty educated on this matter) on the issue. Most people I talk to agree that copyright laws need to be reformed to one extent or another, after I've explained the situation to them. However, it isn't an issue in their lives, and so they don't care that much about it. If the issue gets out in the forefront, then changes will start to happen.
Try not to be too cynical about the whole matter. All that leads to is defeatism. For the most part, the members of Congress aren't out-and-out bought. Most of them vote their consciences, most of the time. What they are, though, is uneducated on the matter, and the only education they get is from the music, movie, and publishing industries. We need to start educating them (without coming off as a bunch of hackers who want everything for free).
Unfortunately, the courts tend to be reluctant to prosecute for things that are now legal, even if they were illegal when the offense took place. The RIAA may be counting on the bill to pass, thus vindicating them.
Of course, the more likely scenario is that this is a hoax, or a scare tactic on the part of the RIAA.
Actually, I think it may be No. No. No. No. No. Although you're technically allowed to record for timeshifting purposes, I don't think you are allowed to keep a long-term archival copy of shows that you have recorded off TV (not that that's stopping anyone).
XM Satellite radio has a channel called "Unsigned", that plays nothing but unsigned bands from around the U.S. Most of it's really good. The also have links on their website to the websites of all the bands they play that have websites.
They have a sample stream of the station on their website, but I think it's in a Windows Media format.
Well, if you look at one of the other posts above, you'll see that both law and "business specialties" are in the list of possible H1-B areas, so I think there is an H1-B program for lawyers and MBA's. Also, last time I checked, neither one of those professions were unionized any more than programmers are.
Well, try to think of it this way. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The legal system (in the U.S. at least) doesn't discriminate between open source and closed source software. If the GPL can dictate how you make use of software that you have legally obtained, then so can proprietary software. That opens up all kinds of crap that can go into EULA's. I think that the GPL/LPGL can legitimately put restrictions on modifications to the GPL'd software itself, or to ways in which the GPL'd software can be redistributed, but I think it's pretty difficult to say restrictions on how the software can be used are legitimate. If I make a piece of software that links to a GPL'd library, and then tell you that you need to go get that GPL'd library to make my software work, the author of the GPL'd library would be on pretty shaky legal grounds trying to say that my software needs to be GPL'd, just as Microsoft would be on pretty shaky legal ground saying that no software that links to.Net stuff can be GPL'd.
A lot of people are complaining that the new binary module licensing changes are too restrictive, and reduce people's freedom when writing drivers (and I won't argue with that). Something else to think about, though, is whether the new changes are really the best thing to do from a purely GPL standpoint, where the end goal is to have as much software as possibly be free. As the GNU project points out in their discussions on licenses, it is sometimes a better idea to allow binary software. There are other operating systems than Linux (I hear there's a company in Redmond that makes one that's quite popular). If Linux discourages or forbids binary only drivers, the driver manufacturers won't make drivers for Linux (since, in many cases, they are bound by licenses that won't allow them to release open source drivers). If Linux doesn't have hardware support, then fewer people will be willing to use it, and thus fewer software companies will release Linux versions of their software. So far, Linux hardware support has been very good, but slow. New devices are often poorly supported. However, commercial drivers (binary and open source) have been starting to gain momentum, new hardware is more likely to have support, often from the manufacturers of the hardware themselves. I hope that the new 2.6 kernel won't stall that advancement, and seriously slow widespread adoption of Linux as a viable OS.
Actually, I think the article said exactly what the author meant. You just need to look at it in a broader context than just the internet. The internet provides a primarily pull-based form of information retrieval. It's also extremely new (it's really only been popular for about ten years). The article, on the other hand, refers to push as being the predominant means of data dispersal in the 20th century. I think he is referring to more classical forms of information dispersal, like newpapers, television, and radio, which are all push technologies.
As the article points out, as a publicly traded company, Borland is required to entertain offers from all comers. Whether or not they want to sell to MS may be irrelevent.
I think that every industry goes through this cycle of low quality at some point. In the 60's and 70's it was the automobile industry. The "big three" American automobile manufacturers decided during that period that what American consumers wanted was a cheap car that they could drive for a couple of years and then replace. So, they made crap and sold it cheap. I know what I'm talking about on this one. My father collects old cars, and I myself own a 1966 Ford Mustang. It's my baby, and I wouldn't sell it for anything, but I can also recognize that it's a piece of junk. I usually end up doing major repair work on it at least once a year in order to keep it on the road (and it only has 60,000 miles on it).
This isn't a permanent spiral away from quality, though. Eventually, technology will reach an equilibrium point where people start to want to buy quality products that will last again. It won't be today's major manufacturers that will offer that quality, though. It will be new upstarts who see a need and fill it, discovering (much to the surprise and chagrin of today's major manufacturers) that people really do like quality. In the automobile industry, it was the Japanese who came in and started selling an affordable quality car that lasted, and almost put the American auto manufacturers out of business in the 80's (one or more of the probably would have if the government hadn't saved them). So, although current quality probably is headed downward in consumer electronics, that doesn't mean that we're stuck with junk forever and ever. Just think what's going to happen when we rebuild the economies of Afghanistan and Iraq after the war, and they realize that they can start competing with us in the consumer electronics market.
I know this is completely off-topic, but as someone who does Linux programming for embedded devices, I'm curious why you don't think it's ready for running ATM's.
I'm not sure which I find funnier. Shatner's hillariously dry wit when answering these questions, or the fact that 90% of/. seems to be completely missing the point and taking great offense at them.
While this is impressive and all, it's really only a first step. The true power of the brain isn't in the hardware, it's in the software. Even with all that processing power, we still can't reproduce many of the brain's internal functions. What we really need to do is to petition God to release the source for the human brain (I hear it's written in Python) since that will make it much easier and quicker for every person to make their own improvements. Reverse engineering the compiled DNA just isn't getting us the information we need quickly enough. So, I say that until He honors our God-given right to see the source to our own heads and gives up His illegally held monopoly on the brain's operating system, we should boycott all human reproduction (shouldn't be hard for most/.'ers).
This could backfire, though. ISP's may be willing to cancel an account based on one complaint by SPEWS, since they know them to be reputable, but unwilling to cancel an account based on one complaint from SPEWS acting as Joe Schmoe, since it may very well be from a disgruntled employee or customer crying SPAM in order to exact some revenge. Therefore, the smart thing for an ISP to do (in fact, the only thing if they want to avoid a lawsuit) is to wait until they've received several complaints before they act against a potential spammer.
You're sort of right. The problem that the Samba team would have is that they would be accused of stealing the protocol and violating the NDA if they released a reverse engineered version of the protocol, having signed an NDA and proven that they did have access to the actual protocol at one time. Therefore, the only legally safe course of action is for no one even remotely related to the Samba development team to sign the NDA to obtain the protocol. On the other hand, whether signing the NDA to see the royaties opens them up to any possible prosecution down the road, I don't know. I can't see how it would.
Hmmm.... I seem to recall that the reason Y2K was a non-issue in the end was because people did get the word out, and the problems were fixed before anything bad happened. If the issue hadn't been addressed, do you really think we'd be talking about how Y2K fizzled? Like Y2K, DRM is a very real issue. If we ignore it, we'll wake up and realize too late that we're screwed. You're right that this article is a little extreme, and I doubt that's how things are going to end up being in the end. On the other hand, I think that (slightly) alarmist articles like this one will be part of the reason why things don't end up getting as bad as they possibly could.
You won't get any argument from me. The ineffectiveness of such surrveillance and profiling is all the more reason why our liberties shouldn't be taken away so that they can be perpetrated.
Well, first off, the Oklahoma City bombing wasn't perpetrated by a "young white Christian man", since McVeigh was an atheist. The sad truth is that there's probably a lot more profiling that goes on as a result of Okalahoma City than you think. We just don't hear about it because the news media is more inclined to disagree with the views of people like Timothy McVeigh, and therefore doesn't care as much if their rights are trampled on. I don't have any evidence, but I'd bet good money that we'd both be shocked if we knew how much surveillance our government does on people who choose to live away from "civilization" for one reason or another.
I agree with you completely in your conclusions, though. This kind of profiling is just plain wrong, and shouldn't be used to invade the privacy of anyone in this country, be they Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Caucasian, Arab, or Martian.
That's not really true. A province is just an administrative demarkation, for purposes of delegating the buerocracy. A country is a sovereign, or semi-sovereign state. If Scotland and Wales have sovereign rights (i.e. they have rights which Parliament in London can't override), then they are for all intents and purposes countries, albeit countries which have banded together to form a greater whole (which is also a country) for their own common good. I don't personally know the details of the UK's situation, though, so I may be wrong. I can guarantee, though, that our states aren't provinces, and it sounds like the UK's are pretty similar.
Well, this is a little off-topic, but I don't think you've quite got your facts straight there. Japan attacked the US first, while we were still a neutral party (at least as far as actual military involvement goes--we were providing arms to Britain). We didn't go to war with Germany until they declared war on us, a few days after we declared war on Japan in responce to the Pearl Harbor attacks.
What makes you think a republic isn't supposed to have voting? I can't think of very many republics out there today that don't at least have a token "vote" for its leaders, and even the Roman Republic had election of some of its officials.
What other group of voters? The media may bias people's opinions, but it's still ultimately up to the voter who they vote for.
I think you need to take some courses in American business law, because you have no idea what you're talking about. First of all, "LLC" stands for "Limited Liability Corporation", and is a form of (quite commercial) partnership between a small group of owners. I think what you mean to say is that it is a Non-profit organization, but even non-profits are allowed to initiate financial transactions. They just aren't allowed to distribute dividends to shareholders, and are somewhat limited in the amount of money they can keep in reserve at the end of the year. Still, though, there is nothing that defines the United States Government as a non-profit corporation. It's a government, not a company. I won't argue with you that much of the money they bring in from taxes is wasted, or that more taxes are levied than should be. Still, I don't see how that removes the USG's legitimacy.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got to say that (as much as I might like to see a different outcome) the Supremes made the right decision in this matter. Had they made any other decision they would have been essentially legislating from the bench, which is a very bad precident, because it is very difficult to overturn a "law" enacted by the courts.
There really is no reason to be so pessimistic about this, though. There is hope, because it's (relatively) easy to change laws enacted by Congress. Congress just has to write a new law. What we need is for groups like the Electronic Freedom Foundation to start lobbying Congress, and educating the public (the non-technical public--geekdom is already plenty educated on this matter) on the issue. Most people I talk to agree that copyright laws need to be reformed to one extent or another, after I've explained the situation to them. However, it isn't an issue in their lives, and so they don't care that much about it. If the issue gets out in the forefront, then changes will start to happen.
Try not to be too cynical about the whole matter. All that leads to is defeatism. For the most part, the members of Congress aren't out-and-out bought. Most of them vote their consciences, most of the time. What they are, though, is uneducated on the matter, and the only education they get is from the music, movie, and publishing industries. We need to start educating them (without coming off as a bunch of hackers who want everything for free).
Unfortunately, the courts tend to be reluctant to prosecute for things that are now legal, even if they were illegal when the offense took place. The RIAA may be counting on the bill to pass, thus vindicating them.
Of course, the more likely scenario is that this is a hoax, or a scare tactic on the part of the RIAA.
XM Satellite radio has a channel called "Unsigned", that plays nothing but unsigned bands from around the U.S. Most of it's really good. The also have links on their website to the websites of all the bands they play that have websites.
They have a sample stream of the station on their website, but I think it's in a Windows Media format.
Well, if you look at one of the other posts above, you'll see that both law and "business specialties" are in the list of possible H1-B areas, so I think there is an H1-B program for lawyers and MBA's. Also, last time I checked, neither one of those professions were unionized any more than programmers are.
Well, try to think of it this way. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The legal system (in the U.S. at least) doesn't discriminate between open source and closed source software. If the GPL can dictate how you make use of software that you have legally obtained, then so can proprietary software. That opens up all kinds of crap that can go into EULA's. I think that the GPL/LPGL can legitimately put restrictions on modifications to the GPL'd software itself, or to ways in which the GPL'd software can be redistributed, but I think it's pretty difficult to say restrictions on how the software can be used are legitimate. If I make a piece of software that links to a GPL'd library, and then tell you that you need to go get that GPL'd library to make my software work, the author of the GPL'd library would be on pretty shaky legal grounds trying to say that my software needs to be GPL'd, just as Microsoft would be on pretty shaky legal ground saying that no software that links to .Net stuff can be GPL'd.
A lot of people are complaining that the new binary module licensing changes are too restrictive, and reduce people's freedom when writing drivers (and I won't argue with that). Something else to think about, though, is whether the new changes are really the best thing to do from a purely GPL standpoint, where the end goal is to have as much software as possibly be free. As the GNU project points out in their discussions on licenses, it is sometimes a better idea to allow binary software. There are other operating systems than Linux (I hear there's a company in Redmond that makes one that's quite popular). If Linux discourages or forbids binary only drivers, the driver manufacturers won't make drivers for Linux (since, in many cases, they are bound by licenses that won't allow them to release open source drivers). If Linux doesn't have hardware support, then fewer people will be willing to use it, and thus fewer software companies will release Linux versions of their software. So far, Linux hardware support has been very good, but slow. New devices are often poorly supported. However, commercial drivers (binary and open source) have been starting to gain momentum, new hardware is more likely to have support, often from the manufacturers of the hardware themselves. I hope that the new 2.6 kernel won't stall that advancement, and seriously slow widespread adoption of Linux as a viable OS.
Actually, I think the article said exactly what the author meant. You just need to look at it in a broader context than just the internet. The internet provides a primarily pull-based form of information retrieval. It's also extremely new (it's really only been popular for about ten years). The article, on the other hand, refers to push as being the predominant means of data dispersal in the 20th century. I think he is referring to more classical forms of information dispersal, like newpapers, television, and radio, which are all push technologies.
As the article points out, as a publicly traded company, Borland is required to entertain offers from all comers. Whether or not they want to sell to MS may be irrelevent.
I think that every industry goes through this cycle of low quality at some point. In the 60's and 70's it was the automobile industry. The "big three" American automobile manufacturers decided during that period that what American consumers wanted was a cheap car that they could drive for a couple of years and then replace. So, they made crap and sold it cheap. I know what I'm talking about on this one. My father collects old cars, and I myself own a 1966 Ford Mustang. It's my baby, and I wouldn't sell it for anything, but I can also recognize that it's a piece of junk. I usually end up doing major repair work on it at least once a year in order to keep it on the road (and it only has 60,000 miles on it).
This isn't a permanent spiral away from quality, though. Eventually, technology will reach an equilibrium point where people start to want to buy quality products that will last again. It won't be today's major manufacturers that will offer that quality, though. It will be new upstarts who see a need and fill it, discovering (much to the surprise and chagrin of today's major manufacturers) that people really do like quality. In the automobile industry, it was the Japanese who came in and started selling an affordable quality car that lasted, and almost put the American auto manufacturers out of business in the 80's (one or more of the probably would have if the government hadn't saved them). So, although current quality probably is headed downward in consumer electronics, that doesn't mean that we're stuck with junk forever and ever. Just think what's going to happen when we rebuild the economies of Afghanistan and Iraq after the war, and they realize that they can start competing with us in the consumer electronics market.
I know this is completely off-topic, but as someone who does Linux programming for embedded devices, I'm curious why you don't think it's ready for running ATM's.
I'm not sure which I find funnier. Shatner's hillariously dry wit when answering these questions, or the fact that 90% of /. seems to be completely missing the point and taking great offense at them.
While this is impressive and all, it's really only a first step. The true power of the brain isn't in the hardware, it's in the software. Even with all that processing power, we still can't reproduce many of the brain's internal functions. What we really need to do is to petition God to release the source for the human brain (I hear it's written in Python) since that will make it much easier and quicker for every person to make their own improvements. Reverse engineering the compiled DNA just isn't getting us the information we need quickly enough. So, I say that until He honors our God-given right to see the source to our own heads and gives up His illegally held monopoly on the brain's operating system, we should boycott all human reproduction (shouldn't be hard for most /.'ers).
NO more closed source babies!!!!
This could backfire, though. ISP's may be willing to cancel an account based on one complaint by SPEWS, since they know them to be reputable, but unwilling to cancel an account based on one complaint from SPEWS acting as Joe Schmoe, since it may very well be from a disgruntled employee or customer crying SPAM in order to exact some revenge. Therefore, the smart thing for an ISP to do (in fact, the only thing if they want to avoid a lawsuit) is to wait until they've received several complaints before they act against a potential spammer.
Imagine trying to sit through "The Titanic" (don't laugh - I'm assuming I'm on a date here) with 2 or 3 pints in your system.
I wouldn't even consider sitting through "Titanic" with less than five pints in my system.
You're sort of right. The problem that the Samba team would have is that they would be accused of stealing the protocol and violating the NDA if they released a reverse engineered version of the protocol, having signed an NDA and proven that they did have access to the actual protocol at one time. Therefore, the only legally safe course of action is for no one even remotely related to the Samba development team to sign the NDA to obtain the protocol. On the other hand, whether signing the NDA to see the royaties opens them up to any possible prosecution down the road, I don't know. I can't see how it would.
Hmmm.... I seem to recall that the reason Y2K was a non-issue in the end was because people did get the word out, and the problems were fixed before anything bad happened. If the issue hadn't been addressed, do you really think we'd be talking about how Y2K fizzled? Like Y2K, DRM is a very real issue. If we ignore it, we'll wake up and realize too late that we're screwed. You're right that this article is a little extreme, and I doubt that's how things are going to end up being in the end. On the other hand, I think that (slightly) alarmist articles like this one will be part of the reason why things don't end up getting as bad as they possibly could.
You won't get any argument from me. The ineffectiveness of such surrveillance and profiling is all the more reason why our liberties shouldn't be taken away so that they can be perpetrated.
Well, first off, the Oklahoma City bombing wasn't perpetrated by a "young white Christian man", since McVeigh was an atheist. The sad truth is that there's probably a lot more profiling that goes on as a result of Okalahoma City than you think. We just don't hear about it because the news media is more inclined to disagree with the views of people like Timothy McVeigh, and therefore doesn't care as much if their rights are trampled on. I don't have any evidence, but I'd bet good money that we'd both be shocked if we knew how much surveillance our government does on people who choose to live away from "civilization" for one reason or another.
I agree with you completely in your conclusions, though. This kind of profiling is just plain wrong, and shouldn't be used to invade the privacy of anyone in this country, be they Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Caucasian, Arab, or Martian.
Sorry. Not true
That certainly sounds like a scam to me. I don't know anyone who would consider that an "accepted American business practice".
I think that was the point of the playlist.
Unfortunately, FCC regulations require you to have someone tending the station at all times, even if a preset playlist is choosing the songs.
That's not really true. A province is just an administrative demarkation, for purposes of delegating the buerocracy. A country is a sovereign, or semi-sovereign state. If Scotland and Wales have sovereign rights (i.e. they have rights which Parliament in London can't override), then they are for all intents and purposes countries, albeit countries which have banded together to form a greater whole (which is also a country) for their own common good. I don't personally know the details of the UK's situation, though, so I may be wrong. I can guarantee, though, that our states aren't provinces, and it sounds like the UK's are pretty similar.
Well, this is a little off-topic, but I don't think you've quite got your facts straight there. Japan attacked the US first, while we were still a neutral party (at least as far as actual military involvement goes--we were providing arms to Britain). We didn't go to war with Germany until they declared war on us, a few days after we declared war on Japan in responce to the Pearl Harbor attacks.