Again, I come back to the comparison with PCs. It's current more expensive to own two PCs than it is to own two consoles, _but_ you don't need two PCs to run two operating systems.
The fact that Microsoft don't have full control of all software on PCs doesn't mean that they don't have a monopoly on PC software in general. Similarly, while there's nothing to stop you having several consoles, if the XBox is the defacto console, most games will be created for them (again, much like PCs today), eveyone else will have one (and that means more network players), etc.
Regarding point 3 (that Microsoft would encourage development of systems such as Mandrake for the XBox, etc.), I don't think this would be that case.
At the moment, Microsoft aren't trying to make money (and they're clearly not doing so anyway). Rather they're trying to wrest control of the market from Sony (and, to a lesser extent, Nitendo and other console-makers). Basically they're trying the gain a monopoly in the market (ala PCs).
Once they have this control, _then_ they can begin to make money. They're sitting on enough cash to run as a loss-leader if they want, lose money at the outset, and then increase prices once people are tied in.
The development of alternative systems for the XBox may increase the purchase of the consoles short-term, but long-term it opens up the device to others, destroying the whole idea of monopolizing (i.e. they can't increase the price of games development on the system, of all of the software houses can just roll out a version of the game for Mandrake on the XBox to exactly the same end-users).
I think Microsoft will be no more keen to encourage 3rd party O/S development on the XBox than they are to encourage it in the PC market (and they're in a much better position to control it in the case of the XBox, as they control the hardware directly).
John Gilmore assertion that he wants his freinds to be able to send through the server are invalid, as he could always allow authenticated relaying instead of open relaying. This would allow authorized users to relay from anywhere without allowing abuse of the system.
Of course, everyone knows that this isn't the reason for his running of the relay - it's simply an issue of free speech, as I understand.
I bought a Sony DVP-S7700 back in Feb 2000, on the soul basis that according to the website I bought it from, it supported CD-R and CD-RW. It turns out that it only supports CD-R (I pointed this out to the website and they changed the description on their site, but I kept the player anyway).
I know this player has two lasers - one for CDs and one for DVDs, but as I understand it, the CD laser can't be properly reflected by CD-RW discs.
I've never had a problem playing any CD-R that I can remember - I've had problems playing home-made VCDs, but I I think that's more of a problem with my writing the CDs than the player having problems playing them.
Personally, I would prefer a player which plays CD-RWs only than a player that plays CD-Rs only. CD-RWs cost so little now, I could just use them instead, and part of the reason I got my particular player was that I wanted to copy my MP3s to minidisc using digital recording (i.e. writing some MP3s to CD in normal audio format, and using the optical out on the player to record to the minidisc) - with CD-RWs, I could just re-use the same disc, but with CD-Rs I can't.
--
If $10,000 means little to any hackers who could break the watermark, then how about they do the following:
Try to break the system. If they are successful, they tell SDMI that they have done so, but don't tell them how it was done.
SDMI then have a choice. If they launch the system, the crack can be released. If they choose not to launch the system, then that's fine anyway.
They do have a clause on their website which says you're only allowed to attempt to crack the files on the site, and only for the period of the challenge, but I can't see anything saying that you're not allowed to distribute the crack (again, this may be covered by the DMCA).
Also, even the posibillity of a crack for SDMI may be enough to scare off recording companies.
They're talking about BeOS (well, that's the one I recognise anyway).
The significance of BeOS is that it runs in VFAT (mainly used by Windows 98). Although Linux can use VFAT, it's native file system is EXT2 (and hopefully soon EXT3).
The only problem for Linux users is creating the boot disks (this requires a dos program), but I get the impression that although you can't boot to pure DOS, you can still run a dos prompt from within Millenium, which would be enough to run DOS programs.
Can anyone confirm that Millenium will have a DOS command prompt within the actual GUI (ala Windows 9x version)?
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Re:that "seemingly clueful post"...
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
·
· Score: 1
The problem here is to do with lumping together routing for a number of locations.
NZ Telecom route data for ORBS. They also route data for a number of other customers. When they report to other companies about who they route for, they don't say 'we route for customer X, customer Y, and ORBS' - they say 'we route for this block of computers' which includes all of the customers they route for.
This means that when NZ Telecom tell me who they route for, I only get one lot of routing - for every NZ Telecom.
MAPS broadcast the fact that they can route to NZ Telecom. This is perfectly valid, as they can. They will route data for any other customers of NZ Telecom's. However, as a result of broadcasting the fact that they route to NZ Telecom, they also indirectly broadcast the fact that they route to ORBS via NZ Telecom.
This means that if I want to route data to ORBS, I will see that Above.net route for them, and send them the data. Unfortunately, as they are blackholing ORBS, any data I send them is silently dropped.
This in itself is still not a problem. However, if I have two routes to ORBS, but I know for a fact that Above.net is faster, I will ALWAYS send data via Above.net, even though they blackhole ORBS (I don't know that - in terms of automation, that is).
This means that although there is a perfectly valid route which will allow me to send data to ORBS, Above.net are reporting that they accept data for ORBS (as a general routing for all of NZ Telecom), and so I send via them (and the data never gets there).
People on the side of ORBS would say that this is unfair as Above.net are broadcasting routing for network addresses which they do not route for, and then dropping the packets, effectively sucking in and throwing away data which, if they didn't broadcast routing information for, would in most cases reach it's destination via some other route.
Supporters of Above.net would say that they are simply passing on routing details passed to them by NZ Telecom - which they validly route to - but because NZ pass them the routing in one chunk, they cannot distinguish between ORBS (which they will not route to) and other NZ customers (which they will).
---- END OF IMPARTIAL COMMENTS ----
Personally, I lean in the favour of ORBS in this situation. It's valid for Above.net to block ORBS traffic through their network if they see fit (it's their network, after all), but to tell other people that they will route that data - blatently not true, seems wrong. I think it's up to Above.net to resolve the problem of having the routing lumped in to one single route - if they block traffic for specific networks, they should also remove those networks from their routing broadcasts.
Having said that, I think the two companies (that's ORBS and Above.net, not ORBS and MAPS - MAPS effectively have no direct connecion with this issue) should just sit down, put their differences aside, and resolve the 'problem'.
It would seem to me that if ORBS agree not to test any of Above.net's servers - something which they state on their website they are happy to do - then Above.net should stop blocking them. Unfortunately, ORBS not testing Above.net's mail servers means Above.net being listed in ORBS as a potential relay (seems fair - if they don't want to be tested to see if they do relay, they must be assumed to relay). I think that Above.net aren't too happy with this though - they seem to want to have their cake and eat it - they don't want to be tested, but they also don't want to be listed.
PLEASE NOTE - THE ABOVE IS MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION, AND IS NOT COMPLETELEY VERIFIED AS CORRECT
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I'm a bit confused by section 33 of his 'prediction'.
He says that, of the eight possibilities, only 3 are currently legal. I'm guessing that he's refering to that a file can have one name, be in one directory and many files can share one directory.
I use Linux, and as far as I can tell, 5 of the possibilities are legal.
In linux, one file can have many filenames (hard links), and can be in more than one directory (er, hard-links again), as well as the above.
In fact, you can also have a file with no filename (just an inode) - this is what you get when you delete a file - you're just deleting the filename really, but i'm not including that, as currently you can't really do anything with an inode with no filename attached (except for overwrite it:0) ).
Also, I'm not sure about his comment on the first page, saying:
'...today's hottest item is Linux, which is a version of Unix, which was new in 1976.'
That seems a bit like saying that the latest fighter jet is obsolete because it's based on a plane, which was first sucessfully flown in 1903.
Having said all of that, I do agree with point 24 in the document, that creating a metaphor for a computer system does cause people to not consider creating features above the functions of the metaphor.
--
Interesting. I've intentionally taken out the flash plugin from Netscape in Linux and Windows, as it's not an open source plugin. I mean, imagine if everyone started using Flash. They could start charging for the plugin, and there'd be nothing anyone could do about it (OK, so there are open source plugins for Flash, but the last one I used, about 6 months ago, didn't work with every site).
Unfortunately, bungee don't have 'complete control over which platforms they develop for'.
I quote:
'"We have the responsibility to make smart business decisions," Seropian told us. But beyond that, it's Bungie's call...'
I would put money on the fact that Microsoft consider restricting applicaions to only their platform as a 'smart business decision'. If they don't release the game for any other platforms, pretty much all the people who don't boycott Microsoft will say to themselves 'Darn. It's not going to be released for the PC/Mac. Ah well, I guess I'll have to buy an X-Box'. That way, Microsoft sell more X-Boxes, and, although the sales of the game will drop, I reckon the extra sales of X-Boxes will cover that.
After that, they've got more people with X-Boxes, and so more people will be interested in buying games for it - they wouldn't need to pay out for the console, so they wouldn't care if the game was for the PC/Mac or the X-Box.
Hey presto! A new monopoly is born (well, out of an old one).
I personally hope that they do release it for the Mac. I make a point of not buying games unless they either use open standards (i.e. OpenGL, not DirectX), or games which are on more than one platform. That way, I'm not buying anything which could be part of a monopoly (in most cases). I really like the look of the game, so I'd like to buy it on something.
Regarding the point about search engines doing the same, I guess provided they check a robots.txt files, it would be OK.
For anyone who doesn't know, robots.txt is a file which tells (some ) search engines not to index certain pages on your site (such as logs, images, cgi, etc.).
If you didn't want search engines to have an impact on your server, you could just list your root in the file.
It's just a shame that not all search engines check robots.txt.
Well, they have the anti-aliased fonts, but I don't think they have full alpha-channel support for pngs (please do correct my if I'm wrong - I've only looked into this up until IE 5 - maybe 5.5 has better png support).
--
As far as I can figure out, any changes you made to your code would still be under the GPL, and therefore the company wouldn't own the software (although it is possible that they would also have to see the licence so they are aware of it - but I doubt it).
However, just because the program is under the GPL, doesn't mean that the company is required to distribute it. For example, if I were to write some software, apply the GPL to it, and then lock it away somewhere and never distribute it, I wouldn't be breaking the terms of the GPL. However, if I gave it to one other person, they would (I guess) be able to distribute it themselves, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
I think in this situation, any changes you make are still under GPL and are therefore not owned by the company (otherwise me and my friend could pay each other to make changes to some GPL software, and then make it proprietry - obviously not correct), so you could write it for them and distribute it, and that would be legal (I think). However, I don't suppose it's anything someone whould want to find out in court.
The best thing to do, IMHO, is ask them if it's OK with them to distribute. If it isn't, it's down you you what you do. You could make the changes and never distribute them, make the changes and distribute them without the permission of the company, or refuse to do the work. I think in any case, you would be within your rights.
I think any posts which contain actual source should be removed, as they are breaking the law (and to anyone who says make a stand and keep them up, it's a nice idea, but none of us would be paying for SlahDot's legal fees:))
Any postings which don't actually contain source should be left up though, IMHO, as they don't contain any information which is protected in any way. Even people who have suggested ways of avoiding agreeing to the licence (as I was planning on doing, until I saw someone had suggested the same thing) should be left up, as (I assume) they don't break the law either.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, I come back to the comparison with PCs. It's current more expensive to own two PCs than it is to own two consoles, _but_ you don't need two PCs to run two operating systems.
The fact that Microsoft don't have full control of all software on PCs doesn't mean that they don't have a monopoly on PC software in general. Similarly, while there's nothing to stop you having several consoles, if the XBox is the defacto console, most games will be created for them (again, much like PCs today), eveyone else will have one (and that means more network players), etc.
Regarding point 3 (that Microsoft would encourage development of systems such as Mandrake for the XBox, etc.), I don't think this would be that case.
At the moment, Microsoft aren't trying to make money (and they're clearly not doing so anyway). Rather they're trying to wrest control of the market from Sony (and, to a lesser extent, Nitendo and other console-makers). Basically they're trying the gain a monopoly in the market (ala PCs).
Once they have this control, _then_ they can begin to make money. They're sitting on enough cash to run as a loss-leader if they want, lose money at the outset, and then increase prices once people are tied in.
The development of alternative systems for the XBox may increase the purchase of the consoles short-term, but long-term it opens up the device to others, destroying the whole idea of monopolizing (i.e. they can't increase the price of games development on the system, of all of the software houses can just roll out a version of the game for Mandrake on the XBox to exactly the same end-users).
I think Microsoft will be no more keen to encourage 3rd party O/S development on the XBox than they are to encourage it in the PC market (and they're in a much better position to control it in the case of the XBox, as they control the hardware directly).
John Gilmore assertion that he wants his freinds to be able to send through the server are invalid, as he could always allow authenticated relaying instead of open relaying. This would allow authorized users to relay from anywhere without allowing abuse of the system.
Of course, everyone knows that this isn't the reason for his running of the relay - it's simply an issue of free speech, as I understand.
I use a 4096-bit GPG key. It may take a day to encrypt a message, but at least the encryption can't be broken (yet).
I bought a Sony DVP-S7700 back in Feb 2000, on the soul basis that according to the website I bought it from, it supported CD-R and CD-RW. It turns out that it only supports CD-R (I pointed this out to the website and they changed the description on their site, but I kept the player anyway).
I know this player has two lasers - one for CDs and one for DVDs, but as I understand it, the CD laser can't be properly reflected by CD-RW discs.
I've never had a problem playing any CD-R that I can remember - I've had problems playing home-made VCDs, but I I think that's more of a problem with my writing the CDs than the player having problems playing them.
Personally, I would prefer a player which plays CD-RWs only than a player that plays CD-Rs only. CD-RWs cost so little now, I could just use them instead, and part of the reason I got my particular player was that I wanted to copy my MP3s to minidisc using digital recording (i.e. writing some MP3s to CD in normal audio format, and using the optical out on the player to record to the minidisc) - with CD-RWs, I could just re-use the same disc, but with CD-Rs I can't.
--
According to the story, it appears that interception of computer communications is illegal, but is also required for logging purposes.
Isn't this a contradiction?
--
This story appears to be offensive to canadians:
...something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae).
This appears to imply that Canada can only sustain lichens and algae.
I must say, I've never been to Canada, but I would imagine that all Canadians can't be covered in the above description, as you imply.
Has anyone been there? Is this really what it's like?
PS, IANAL = I am not a lichen.
--
I have a suggestion.
If $10,000 means little to any hackers who could break the watermark, then how about they do the following:
Try to break the system. If they are successful, they tell SDMI that they have done so, but don't tell them how it was done.
SDMI then have a choice. If they launch the system, the crack can be released. If they choose not to launch the system, then that's fine anyway.
They do have a clause on their website which says you're only allowed to attempt to crack the files on the site, and only for the period of the challenge, but I can't see anything saying that you're not allowed to distribute the crack (again, this may be covered by the DMCA).
Also, even the posibillity of a crack for SDMI may be enough to scare off recording companies.
Just a thought.
PS, IANAL.
--
They're talking about BeOS (well, that's the one I recognise anyway).
The significance of BeOS is that it runs in VFAT (mainly used by Windows 98). Although Linux can use VFAT, it's native file system is EXT2 (and hopefully soon EXT3).
The only problem for Linux users is creating the boot disks (this requires a dos program), but I get the impression that although you can't boot to pure DOS, you can still run a dos prompt from within Millenium, which would be enough to run DOS programs.
Can anyone confirm that Millenium will have a DOS command prompt within the actual GUI (ala Windows 9x version)?
--
The problem here is to do with lumping together routing for a number of locations.
NZ Telecom route data for ORBS. They also route data for a number of other customers. When they report to other companies about who they route for, they don't say 'we route for customer X, customer Y, and ORBS' - they say 'we route for this block of computers' which includes all of the customers they route for.
This means that when NZ Telecom tell me who they route for, I only get one lot of routing - for every NZ Telecom.
MAPS broadcast the fact that they can route to NZ Telecom. This is perfectly valid, as they can. They will route data for any other customers of NZ Telecom's. However, as a result of broadcasting the fact that they route to NZ Telecom, they also indirectly broadcast the fact that they route to ORBS via NZ Telecom.
This means that if I want to route data to ORBS, I will see that Above.net route for them, and send them the data. Unfortunately, as they are blackholing ORBS, any data I send them is silently dropped.
This in itself is still not a problem. However, if I have two routes to ORBS, but I know for a fact that Above.net is faster, I will ALWAYS send data via Above.net, even though they blackhole ORBS (I don't know that - in terms of automation, that is).
This means that although there is a perfectly valid route which will allow me to send data to ORBS, Above.net are reporting that they accept data for ORBS (as a general routing for all of NZ Telecom), and so I send via them (and the data never gets there).
People on the side of ORBS would say that this is unfair as Above.net are broadcasting routing for network addresses which they do not route for, and then dropping the packets, effectively sucking in and throwing away data which, if they didn't broadcast routing information for, would in most cases reach it's destination via some other route.
Supporters of Above.net would say that they are simply passing on routing details passed to them by NZ Telecom - which they validly route to - but because NZ pass them the routing in one chunk, they cannot distinguish between ORBS (which they will not route to) and other NZ customers (which they will).
---- END OF IMPARTIAL COMMENTS ----
Personally, I lean in the favour of ORBS in this situation. It's valid for Above.net to block ORBS traffic through their network if they see fit (it's their network, after all), but to tell other people that they will route that data - blatently not true, seems wrong. I think it's up to Above.net to resolve the problem of having the routing lumped in to one single route - if they block traffic for specific networks, they should also remove those networks from their routing broadcasts.
Having said that, I think the two companies (that's ORBS and Above.net, not ORBS and MAPS - MAPS effectively have no direct connecion with this issue) should just sit down, put their differences aside, and resolve the 'problem'.
It would seem to me that if ORBS agree not to test any of Above.net's servers - something which they state on their website they are happy to do - then Above.net should stop blocking them. Unfortunately, ORBS not testing Above.net's mail servers means Above.net being listed in ORBS as a potential relay (seems fair - if they don't want to be tested to see if they do relay, they must be assumed to relay). I think that Above.net aren't too happy with this though - they seem to want to have their cake and eat it - they don't want to be tested, but they also don't want to be listed.
PLEASE NOTE - THE ABOVE IS MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION, AND IS NOT COMPLETELEY VERIFIED AS CORRECT
--
I'm a bit confused by section 33 of his 'prediction'.
:0) ).
He says that, of the eight possibilities, only 3 are currently legal. I'm guessing that he's refering to that a file can have one name, be in one directory and many files can share one directory.
I use Linux, and as far as I can tell, 5 of the possibilities are legal.
In linux, one file can have many filenames (hard links), and can be in more than one directory (er, hard-links again), as well as the above.
In fact, you can also have a file with no filename (just an inode) - this is what you get when you delete a file - you're just deleting the filename really, but i'm not including that, as currently you can't really do anything with an inode with no filename attached (except for overwrite it
Also, I'm not sure about his comment on the first page, saying:
'...today's hottest item is Linux, which is a version of Unix, which was new in 1976.'
That seems a bit like saying that the latest fighter jet is obsolete because it's based on a plane, which was first sucessfully flown in 1903.
Having said all of that, I do agree with point 24 in the document, that creating a metaphor for a computer system does cause people to not consider creating features above the functions of the metaphor.
--
Interesting. I've intentionally taken out the flash plugin from Netscape in Linux and Windows, as it's not an open source plugin. I mean, imagine if everyone started using Flash. They could start charging for the plugin, and there'd be nothing anyone could do about it (OK, so there are open source plugins for Flash, but the last one I used, about 6 months ago, didn't work with every site).
Hmmm...
--
Unfortunately, bungee don't have 'complete control over which platforms they develop for'.
I quote:
'"We have the responsibility to make smart business decisions," Seropian told us. But beyond that, it's Bungie's call...'
I would put money on the fact that Microsoft consider restricting applicaions to only their platform as a 'smart business decision'. If they don't release the game for any other platforms, pretty much all the people who don't boycott Microsoft will say to themselves 'Darn. It's not going to be released for the PC/Mac. Ah well, I guess I'll have to buy an X-Box'. That way, Microsoft sell more X-Boxes, and, although the sales of the game will drop, I reckon the extra sales of X-Boxes will cover that.
After that, they've got more people with X-Boxes, and so more people will be interested in buying games for it - they wouldn't need to pay out for the console, so they wouldn't care if the game was for the PC/Mac or the X-Box.
Hey presto! A new monopoly is born (well, out of an old one).
I personally hope that they do release it for the Mac. I make a point of not buying games unless they either use open standards (i.e. OpenGL, not DirectX), or games which are on more than one platform. That way, I'm not buying anything which could be part of a monopoly (in most cases). I really like the look of the game, so I'd like to buy it on something.
--
Regarding the point about search engines doing the same, I guess provided they check a robots.txt files, it would be OK.
For anyone who doesn't know, robots.txt is a file which tells (some ) search engines not to index certain pages on your site (such as logs, images, cgi, etc.).
If you didn't want search engines to have an impact on your server, you could just list your root in the file.
It's just a shame that not all search engines check robots.txt.
--
Well, they have the anti-aliased fonts, but I don't think they have full alpha-channel support for pngs (please do correct my if I'm wrong - I've only looked into this up until IE 5 - maybe 5.5 has better png support).
--
As far as I can figure out, any changes you made to your code would still be under the GPL, and therefore the company wouldn't own the software (although it is possible that they would also have to see the licence so they are aware of it - but I doubt it).
However, just because the program is under the GPL, doesn't mean that the company is required to distribute it. For example, if I were to write some software, apply the GPL to it, and then lock it away somewhere and never distribute it, I wouldn't be breaking the terms of the GPL. However, if I gave it to one other person, they would (I guess) be able to distribute it themselves, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
I think in this situation, any changes you make are still under GPL and are therefore not owned by the company (otherwise me and my friend could pay each other to make changes to some GPL software, and then make it proprietry - obviously not correct), so you could write it for them and distribute it, and that would be legal (I think). However, I don't suppose it's anything someone whould want to find out in court.
The best thing to do, IMHO, is ask them if it's OK with them to distribute. If it isn't, it's down you you what you do. You could make the changes and never distribute them, make the changes and distribute them without the permission of the company, or refuse to do the work. I think in any case, you would be within your rights.
--
I think any posts which contain actual source should be removed, as they are breaking the law (and to anyone who says make a stand and keep them up, it's a nice idea, but none of us would be paying for SlahDot's legal fees :))
Any postings which don't actually contain source should be left up though, IMHO, as they don't contain any information which is protected in any way. Even people who have suggested ways of avoiding agreeing to the licence (as I was planning on doing, until I saw someone had suggested the same thing) should be left up, as (I assume) they don't break the law either.
Andy.
--