..so, does this mean that everybody here in/. has twice as much to bitch about, or will this be enough for one of the companies go out and start porting things?
Better yet, would a port of all of M$'s products be enough, or are you people going to insist that they release the source under the GPL and give everything away for free?
I'm not a lawyer, but... if I were to download a copy of the Kerberos Extension specs from microsoft.com, extract the data without reading/agreeing to the EULA/NDA, then post them, they couldn't touch me, right? I'm not in the US, so the DMCA doesn't apply to me - if I don't read the EULA/NDA MS shouldn't have any legal claim on what I do... I think....
The/. community is mostly made up of IT support staff, a lot of SysAdmins and a handful of people that matter decision wise. All that needs to be done, assuming everbody can stop bickering and hold the same thought in their heads for more that 10 seconds, is to write a letter to 3Com, for example, and tell them that we're after the specs / source for their discontinued hardware, and if we don't get it, we'll all go off to Cisco, or other appropriate rival, next time we need something. It's called blackmail. Whenever said company releases the docs, we turn to Cisco and and tell them that now 3Com have opened up, you have to do the same or you can kiss our checkbooks goodbye. That bit's about market share. Now, all we need is somebody that can liason, is semi-responsible and doesn't mind pestering companies. I nominate CowboyNeal. Job done.
The reason that people use Word is because, well, everybody uses Word.... As much as I hate it, and as much as I don't want to admit it, it's the industry standard. Windows is only popular because businesses need to use office - as anybody on this side of the world will tell you, the ECDL doesn't cover Corel Office, you don't learn about X-Windows....
XML requires an SGML parser - something like Lynx can be embedded in a typewriter, things like Mozilla / Opera / MIE will work under PC architectures, but I think perhaps the problem isn't rendering things... it's creating them. You or I, the average Slashdot reader shouldn't have much of a problem creating XML documents, but what about Joe Public? What about all those sad little Mac people who can't handle more than one mouse button (no offense;o) Users(TM) like to Drag'n'Drop(TM) - have any of you ever seen what the code that comes out of Frontpage looks like?
...or am I the ONLY PERSON here that sees a problem with terms like "Space Superiority"?
You can't own or take over parts of space - this whole thing is very wrong at a fundimental level. I'm sat here hoping that in 25 years a "Strategic Attack" will be an outdated concept...
Did the human race evolve to a certain point and then suddenly start to degenerate?
And am I the only person to notice that the section covering "Information Warfare" (a stupid concept anyway) is classified?
It's funny... slashdot's turned into this great little place where everybody says the same thing over and over again. It's always about "Us Vs Them", or more often "U.S. Vs Them". The People Against the Govenment(s). Linux Against Microsoft. The Geeks Against The Corps. To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of it.
Yes, it's about rights. People should have a right to look at whatever they want - be it porn, how to make a bomb, or how to create a more effecicient O/S.
The thing is, it's not just about your rights. Policians have to think about the rights of childeren, the rights of artists, or more to the point, they think about the rights that people with money believe they have.
I have downloaded MP3's. I think nearly everybody has. I have about 400 CD's worth of MP3's. The thing is, I bought about 300 CD's and MP3'd them. I figure that I paid to listen to them, and if I wish to listen to them in another format, that's my choice. The other 100 CD's are mostly old 80's hits you can't get anymore... On the other hand, I'm not denying the fact that the artists have rights. If any of the artists in question want royalties, they can come around and I'll pay them the same 5 cents the record company would. It's a similar story with CSS. I think the worst thing about CSS are the region codes.
The term "free as in speech, not as in beer" has kind of been warped around here. If you were to ask RMS, he'd tell you that programmers should be paid as much as possible. They (we) work very hard, and deserve to be rewarded. On the other hand, any program you pay for, you should be able to modify, change, give away, spraypaint pink or do whatever you feel is appropriate with, because one you pay for something it should be yours.
None of this license crap.
The other thing is the hidden internet. People have been talking about encryption, filtering, hidden or removed networks for longer than I've been here - so I ask everyone: Have ANY of you ever set anything like that up? Any IPv6 experts here? Anybody know how to set up a root server? Any CA's here? Many IMAP guru's? Everybody know how to configure SSL under Apache or AOLServer? Christ, do any of you even know how to untar Apache?
I've done most of those. It took an afternoon to get IPv6 running properly on all the Linux boxen and the NT servers - although I had a lot of fun tunneling through the switch (thanks 3Com), I have 3 DNS servers running fine and dandy here (with rob.is.a.turnip. pointing to/.:o) I look after webservers that host for more domains than you could fit on your fingers and toes.
I'll tell you what, if any of you are REALLY serious, I'll run as the root server, the CA, and offer SSL hosting for anybody that can prove they're a real geek. I'll run a tutorial showing everybody how to configure dial up networking so you can see what's going on. I'll explain how to configure IPv6 to anybody that wants to route packets around Germany / America / Mongolia. Better yet, I'll do the root server, CA, and help bit for free.
Just reading through the patent I noticed one or two things
The patent is only valid for a system returning HTML? I guess a system returning XML wouldn't be covered.
It's only valid if it outputs (partially) my id, billing and shipping address when I'm done?
Amazon takes my name / address / payment details, issues me a cookie and from there on in does everything automagically whenever I click / highlight / press on a button? Does this mean that if I change the cookie somebody else will get billed for and have delivered 4000 copies of the Kama Sutra?
I'm also a bit curious how in sections 6 and 9 the client and server systems respectivly include shopping cart components, yet section 11 (the actual method) specifically says "the item is ordered independently of a shopping cart model"
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet, would a port of all of M$'s products be enough, or are you people going to insist that they release the source under the GPL and give everything away for free?
Flamebaiter: One who tells an unpleasant truth.
Can anybody prove me right or wrong?
The /. community is mostly made up of IT support staff, a lot of SysAdmins and a handful of people that matter decision wise. All that needs to be done, assuming everbody can stop bickering and hold the same thought in their heads for more that 10 seconds, is to write a letter to 3Com, for example, and tell them that we're after the specs / source for their discontinued hardware, and if we don't get it, we'll all go off to Cisco, or other appropriate rival, next time we need something. It's called blackmail. Whenever said company releases the docs, we turn to Cisco and and tell them that now 3Com have opened up, you have to do the same or you can kiss our checkbooks goodbye. That bit's about market share. Now, all we need is somebody that can liason, is semi-responsible and doesn't mind pestering companies. I nominate CowboyNeal. Job done.
XML requires an SGML parser - something like Lynx can be embedded in a typewriter, things like Mozilla / Opera / MIE will work under PC architectures, but I think perhaps the problem isn't rendering things... it's creating them. You or I, the average Slashdot reader shouldn't have much of a problem creating XML documents, but what about Joe Public? What about all those sad little Mac people who can't handle more than one mouse button (no offense ;o) Users(TM) like to Drag'n'Drop(TM) - have any of you ever seen what the code that comes out of Frontpage looks like?
Snip - ed.
You can't own or take over parts of space - this whole thing is very wrong at a fundimental level. I'm sat here hoping that in 25 years a "Strategic Attack" will be an outdated concept...
Did the human race evolve to a certain point and then suddenly start to degenerate?
And am I the only person to notice that the section covering "Information Warfare" (a stupid concept anyway) is classified?
It's funny... slashdot's turned into this great little place where everybody says the same thing over and over again. It's always about "Us Vs Them", or more often "U.S. Vs Them". The People Against the Govenment(s). Linux Against Microsoft. The Geeks Against The Corps. To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of it.
Yes, it's about rights. People should have a right to look at whatever they want - be it porn, how to make a bomb, or how to create a more effecicient O/S.
The thing is, it's not just about your rights. Policians have to think about the rights of childeren, the rights of artists, or more to the point, they think about the rights that people with money believe they have.
I have downloaded MP3's. I think nearly everybody has. I have about 400 CD's worth of MP3's. The thing is, I bought about 300 CD's and MP3'd them. I figure that I paid to listen to them, and if I wish to listen to them in another format, that's my choice. The other 100 CD's are mostly old 80's hits you can't get anymore...
On the other hand, I'm not denying the fact that the artists have rights. If any of the artists in question want royalties, they can come around and I'll pay them the same 5 cents the record company would.
It's a similar story with CSS. I think the worst thing about CSS are the region codes.
The term "free as in speech, not as in beer" has kind of been warped around here. If you were to ask RMS, he'd tell you that programmers should be paid as much as possible. They (we) work very hard, and deserve to be rewarded. On the other hand, any program you pay for, you should be able to modify, change, give away, spraypaint pink or do whatever you feel is appropriate with, because one you pay for something it should be yours.
None of this license crap.
The other thing is the hidden internet. People have been talking about encryption, filtering, hidden or removed networks for longer than I've been here - so I ask everyone: Have ANY of you ever set anything like that up? Any IPv6 experts here? Anybody know how to set up a root server? Any CA's here? Many IMAP guru's? Everybody know how to configure SSL under Apache or AOLServer? Christ, do any of you even know how to untar Apache?
I've done most of those. It took an afternoon to get IPv6 running properly on all the Linux boxen and the NT servers - although I had a lot of fun tunneling through the switch (thanks 3Com), I have 3 DNS servers running fine and dandy here (with rob.is.a.turnip. pointing to
I'll tell you what, if any of you are REALLY serious, I'll run as the root server, the CA, and offer SSL hosting for anybody that can prove they're a real geek. I'll run a tutorial showing everybody how to configure dial up networking so you can see what's going on. I'll explain how to configure IPv6 to anybody that wants to route packets around Germany / America / Mongolia. Better yet, I'll do the root server, CA, and help bit for free.
Who's interested?
</RANT>
If anybody can clear these up....
eason.ie - not necessarily the best, but the rate against sterling is very good these days. You could also try waterstones.co.uk or whsmith.co.uk.