As pointed out in the blurb, it is an epistolean novel, and that means it consists of (fictional) letters and it has been done for a few hundred years. It is the first digital one, or the author claims so.
As said many times, GPL is not really binding, it's more like allowing. Without GPL the default copyright would be in place and the infringing party would have a little more serious problems.
"I'd guess the RFID thing might work the same way - use the RFID kit to read retail RFIDs and I wouldn't be surprised if it means there's a log somewhere that'll upload to Nokia/whomever. That would be a nice saleable resource for Nokia - I mean, people pay $000's for email lists of dubious provenance, what about a swipe-history of your RFID activity?"
Don't forget that Nokia is an European company, and since the EU has very strict rules regarding collecting/keeping personal data, it is very unlikely that Nokia would try to pull such a move - and if it would, it would most probably result in some BIG fine from the EU.
"The point of DRM is to prevent the adversary (the customer) from circumventing the copyright protection"
May I point out that Fairplay does at the same time a lot more and a lot less than protecting the copyright? It inhibits many ways of legit use yet it allow many ways of infringing on the copyright (e.g. it allows unauthorized public performance and broadcasting)
Re:WinFS WILL be in the next version, just no netw
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Oh, I see, that's a 3rd party tool, and the FS only supports symlinks for dirs (and it most probably does not go through SMB) Well, there's room for improvement:)
"I want a way that'll work with all distro's, not just a specific one. You can install the same program on windows 98/2000/xp. MS did it, now its time for linux to do it."
No, MS did not do it, because MS installers do not do a lot of things that rpms or debs handle - take dependency, for example. In Debian, that's solved. In Windows, it is not. There's no way to know within the borders of the "packaging system" if MFC42xy.DLL is installed, what version is, and if it is needed, there is no way to automatically install the newest version from some repository.
In fact, Debian's packaging system is WAY superior to Windows' one. Perhaps the interface is not that friendly to some users, but the underlying system is lightyears ahead.
"particularly in cultures where morality doesn't hold much sway"
Umm, hello? Small communities are the places where morality is VERY important and often strictly enforced.
Don't confuse "no morality" with "their morality has nothing against copyright infringement" (as most probably the latter is the case and that's no suprise as copyrigth is a concept that is far disconnected from the everyday realities of many Africans).
"3) I'm seriously of the opinon that the whole concept of marriage should be a covenant between two (or three, or whatever) people and/or their church, and should not be any province of the government at any scale, federal, state, local - WHATEVER."
You are making that same mistake as these gay-ban wackos: you are mixing up religious and civil marriage.
Civil marriage is a construct that has some important legal implications (mostly about owning stuff). I do not want it to go away.
The fine is not the point, it's just the silver lining on the ruling.
The real thins is that they HAVE to open their APIs (and offer Windows w/o WMP - although in itself it's not that big deal, it has its implications leading very far...)
"In linux, nothing gets written unless someone writes them."
Jeez, that's a really uncommon attribute of Linux:)
Your post is pure BS, by the way. If there are specs, then the driver gets written. The driver gets written even in cases when there are no specs (point in case: Aureal Vortex chipsets (now they have better support in Linux than in Windows 2000/XP))
"And so most every day hardware doesn't work properly in Linux.
No, MS is not required to release any code, just the API, and from the sound of it, they are expected to make it freely available. Here is the EU press release, that should be more accurate than that various news agencies make up.
Well, wood will not resonate as badly as thin metal plates do and probably it very effectively dampens any noise, so yes, it is probably silent. Nice, big, low RPM fans can take care of the heat. And transparency... well, that's silly:)
The video codec "market" (unlike the audio) is already pretty diverse as it is - there are 3 generations of DivX, there is XviD, all the other variations on MPEG-4, MPEG-2, etc. So there is really no problem with adding yet another codec to the mix. BTW, the newer "DivX-playing" chipset started to support Ogg Vorbis, so I'm sure that eventually we will se HW support for Theora as well.
"the Alsa Project's longstanding philosophical refusal to move software mixing into the central driver means you still can't expect Linux to run games on any random piece of desktop PC hardware."
Now, would you care to elaborate this point? Because you basically state that since using some coundcards only one APPLICATION can access the sound HW at a time, that somehow implies that you can not run games. I call bullshit on this.
I guess the difference is something like 10g (guesswork based on how much my Diva mp3 player and a 128MB CF weighs) - and in the era of sub-100g phones that is a lot.
Well, it's size, really. Phone manufacturers are really trying their best to make the phones as small and light as possible, and CF's size and weight is a real impediment in this effort. It seems now that the trend is: Small, light gizmos: SD/MMC (or even xD) More robust gizmos: CF Type I Pro stuff: CF Type II
If the system is anything like ours (probably, since we all are in the EU) it is a set price like (numbers are made up) $0.10 per blank CD or $0.01 per megabyte of storage used in a music player device (BTW there is also a similar levy on photocopiers) - it's in exchange for copying/downloading music for your own use which is legal. It could be a fair and good system - where it fails is the distribution of the collected money.
Now, let's input the following commands into the brain of an average speaker of English: 'cat', 'grep', 'sed', 'pine', 'mc', 'cd'.
The output is:
Kitten! WtF?... WtF?... A tree. Yo, brada! Shiny disc.
Oh, that helped.
I guess most people never realizes what does 'cd' stand for (much less 'cat') and most people do not have any problem learning them no matter what language they speak.
Slashdot Mirror
As pointed out in the blurb, it is an epistolean novel, and that means it consists of (fictional) letters and it has been done for a few hundred years.
It is the first digital one, or the author claims so.
As said many times, GPL is not really binding, it's more like allowing. Without GPL the default copyright would be in place and the infringing party would have a little more serious problems.
"I'd guess the RFID thing might work the same way - use the RFID kit to read retail RFIDs and I wouldn't be surprised if it means there's a log somewhere that'll upload to Nokia/whomever.
That would be a nice saleable resource for Nokia - I mean, people pay $000's for email lists of dubious provenance, what about a swipe-history of your RFID activity?"
Don't forget that Nokia is an European company, and since the EU has very strict rules regarding collecting/keeping personal data, it is very unlikely that Nokia would try to pull such a move - and if it would, it would most probably result in some BIG fine from the EU.
"The point of DRM is to prevent the adversary (the customer) from circumventing the copyright protection"
May I point out that Fairplay does at the same time a lot more and a lot less than protecting the copyright?
It inhibits many ways of legit use yet it allow many ways of infringing on the copyright (e.g. it allows unauthorized public performance and broadcasting)
In the EU WMP most probably will be optional.
Oh, I see, that's a 3rd party tool, and the FS only supports symlinks for dirs (and it most probably does not go through SMB) :)
Well, there's room for improvement
Will WinFS support symlinks? (Or something functionally equivalent?)
"I want a way that'll work with all distro's, not just a specific one. You can install the same program on windows 98/2000/xp. MS did it, now its time for linux to do it."
No, MS did not do it, because MS installers do not do a lot of things that rpms or debs handle - take dependency, for example. In Debian, that's solved.
In Windows, it is not. There's no way to know within the borders of the "packaging system" if MFC42xy.DLL is installed, what version is, and if it is needed, there is no way to automatically install the newest version from some repository.
In fact, Debian's packaging system is WAY superior to Windows' one. Perhaps the interface is not that friendly to some users, but the underlying system is lightyears ahead.
"particularly in cultures where morality doesn't hold much sway"
Umm, hello? Small communities are the places where morality is VERY important and often strictly enforced.
Don't confuse "no morality" with "their morality has nothing against copyright infringement" (as most probably the latter is the case and that's no suprise as copyrigth is a concept that is far disconnected from the everyday realities of many Africans).
"3) I'm seriously of the opinon that the whole concept of marriage should be a covenant between two (or three, or whatever) people and/or their church, and should not be any province of the government at any scale, federal, state, local - WHATEVER."
You are making that same mistake as these gay-ban wackos: you are mixing up religious and civil marriage.
Civil marriage is a construct that has some important legal implications (mostly about owning stuff). I do not want it to go away.
The fine is not the point, it's just the silver lining on the ruling.
The real thins is that they HAVE to open their APIs (and offer Windows w/o WMP - although in itself it's not that big deal, it has its implications leading very far...)
"In linux, nothing gets written unless someone writes them."
:)
Jeez, that's a really uncommon attribute of Linux
Your post is pure BS, by the way.
If there are specs, then the driver gets written.
The driver gets written even in cases when there are no specs (point in case: Aureal Vortex chipsets (now they have better support in Linux than in Windows 2000/XP))
"And so most every day hardware doesn't work properly in Linux.
And so Linux isn't being used all that much."
Are you from the early '90s, or what?...
No, MS is not required to release any code, just the API, and from the sound of it, they are expected to make it freely available.
Here is the EU press release, that should be more accurate than that various news agencies make up.
"I wonder who'll be picking up their copy of the relevant code in 120 days to help with Linux coding efforts to provide Windows interoperability?"
No one, since it is explicitly stated that they are ordered to release API info, NOT source code.
Well, wood will not resonate as badly as thin metal plates do and probably it very effectively dampens any noise, so yes, it is probably silent. :)
Nice, big, low RPM fans can take care of the heat.
And transparency... well, that's silly
The video codec "market" (unlike the audio) is already pretty diverse as it is - there are 3 generations of DivX, there is XviD, all the other variations on MPEG-4, MPEG-2, etc.
So there is really no problem with adding yet another codec to the mix.
BTW, the newer "DivX-playing" chipset started to support Ogg Vorbis, so I'm sure that eventually we will se HW support for Theora as well.
"Perhaps those email-hoxes of old about a virus completely destroying your computer were actually profetic."
Well, those email-hoaxes about viruses spreading in email most certainly were prophetic.
"the Alsa Project's longstanding philosophical refusal to move software mixing into the central driver means you still can't expect Linux to run games on any random piece of desktop PC hardware."
Now, would you care to elaborate this point?
Because you basically state that since using some coundcards only one APPLICATION can access the sound HW at a time, that somehow implies that you can not run games.
I call bullshit on this.
"One of the biggest problems with *nix systems are dependencies."
You should try Debian with apt-get. Really.
I guess the difference is something like 10g (guesswork based on how much my Diva mp3 player and a 128MB CF weighs) - and in the era of sub-100g phones that is a lot.
Well, it's size, really. Phone manufacturers are really trying their best to make the phones as small and light as possible, and CF's size and weight is a real impediment in this effort.
It seems now that the trend is:
Small, light gizmos: SD/MMC (or even xD)
More robust gizmos: CF Type I
Pro stuff: CF Type II
It's "whose"
If the system is anything like ours (probably, since we all are in the EU) it is a set price like (numbers are made up) $0.10 per blank CD or $0.01 per megabyte of storage used in a music player device (BTW there is also a similar levy on photocopiers) - it's in exchange for copying/downloading music for your own use which is legal.
It could be a fair and good system - where it fails is the distribution of the collected money.
He was also the mother of Odin's horse - mythology can be REAL WICKED :)
Actually, he is a giant, not a god, although giants can be considered to be "evil gods".
Now, let's input the following commands into the brain of an average speaker of English:
'cat', 'grep', 'sed', 'pine', 'mc', 'cd'.
The output is:
Kitten!
WtF?...
WtF?...
A tree.
Yo, brada!
Shiny disc.
Oh, that helped.
I guess most people never realizes what does 'cd' stand for (much less 'cat') and most people do not have any problem learning them no matter what language they speak.