What if say.. AOL->Nullsoft flat-out refused to pay these stupid software patent fees? Would they have the legal weight to get enough controversy going such that software patents are finally overturned? Or who else could perhaps do this? Public protest *does* change laws.
Re:That it deems appropriate?
on
CD Copy Stopper
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· Score: 2
1.A poem is not mere information, but an artistic expression of information. The information itself cannot be copyrighted.
Hmm.. but that artistic expression is itself information. If I strip the header off a JPEG image, is it still a picture or just random data?
2. Memorizing a poem is not copying or distributing it. In fact, to memorize the poem in the first place, you needed access to a (presumably) legal copy.
Lets say I borrowed someone else's copy, memorized it, then gave it back. In a sense, memorizing is copying. Information can't exist on its own; it must be embodied in some characteristic of a physical object--whether the neuron configuration in your brain or the RAM in your computer. Once I have the poem in my brain, I can speak it to a crowd--perhaps allowing them to memorize it as well, write it down on paper, or perhaps someday even upload it from my brain to my computer. To stop someone from doing any of these things would be a pretty huge violation of basic personal freedoms.
1.) Sleep deprivation is bad for your mental and physical health
2.) Caffeine is not a substitute for sleep
3.) Caffeine does have mild negative health effects, especially when taken on a regular basis
4.) Caffeine reduces the quality of sleep when you do get it.
5.) You have to sleep sometime. Why not do it at night and play games during the day instead so you don't screw up your biological clock?
6.) "Fragging all night" is a waste of time. Get out, socialize, make business contacts, write some neat software, etc.
Re:That it deems appropriate?
on
CD Copy Stopper
·
· Score: 2
Scarcity is not intrinsic to property, though it certainly provides an incentive to devise the concept of property. It is, however, wrong to presume that scarcity does not apply to intellectual property.
In a sense, perhaps, but 'intellectual property' only has artificial scarcity in the physical world. I would say that human intelligence has scarcity, but once knowledge is produced, the knowledge itself has no scarcity because it is infinitely reproducible whether by word of mouth, fiber optic cables, direct neural implant, whatever. If information can truly be owned, then it is wrong to memorize a poem without paying the author first. If information can truly be owned, then copyright and patents should never expire and should be passed along forever through many generations. Dunno.. maybe you catch my drift.
I still can't say I care for tabbed browsing, but a lot of people swear by it.
Browser tabs are like mouse wheels. They seem pointless at first, but then you get used to them and it's hard to go back. It's a subtle change, but consider how it affects the way you use the GUI: 1.) all web browsing is contained in a single window frame, thus making it easier to mentally seperate from other tasks, 2.) WM taskbars get shuffled, and make it easy to lose track of which windows belong to which applications. Browser tabs stay in the order that web pages were opened are spacially seperate. 3.) When doing heavy web browsing.. ie.) 10 windows open, it's much easier to have all controls at the top of the screen. instead of jumping around.
Re:That it deems appropriate?
on
CD Copy Stopper
·
· Score: 2
Unlike many here, I believe in intellectual property rights and have no problem protecting them.
I really wish people would stop using the term "intellectual property," because such a thing philosophically does not exist. Copyright and patent are man-made, social institutions. They are not underlying moral, unalienable human rights. Unlike the right to own physical property and be safe from having it taken away unjustly, so called "intellectual property" is not a necessity for capitalism and democracy. It is a compromise, a social contract, an economic rule of the game, a legally backed honor system. It is NOT property because it is NOT scarse. Note that I'm not arguing against a reasonable, balanced system of compensating artists and inventors for their work, but such as system must be fair and ultimately beneficial to all of society. It should not be a way to price gouge, get rich quick, monopolize markets, and leverage total control over consumers. And because it is a social compromise, it must always put basic individual rights above the priviledges given to beneficiaries. Copyright, like patent should be entirely a field of civil law, not criminal. Copyright holders should be able to sue for damages, but they should carry the entire burden of finding infringers and proving that they: 1.) purposely copied the work without permission, 2.) did so for purposes outside a very broad set of fair-use exceptions. 3.) were actually causing significant commercial damage such as to make a lawsuit appropriate. I believe this is more what our founding fathers had in mind when they established these institutions...
All the more reason small radio stations need to start broadcasting nothing but independent artists. C'mon now. A college town is the perfect place to do this with all the local bands, university concerts, etc.
The driver for TV Out on the G400 is in a binary only module.
IIRC, Matrox refuses to document the TV Out because they were forced by the DVDCCA to license Macrovision in order to have DVD decoding onboard or some such nonsense. An open driver would allow users to disable Macrovision on the NTSC output and thus break Matrox's contract. Disgusting? You bet. Hopefully Matrox will not make similar mistakes with MPAA-sponsored, anti-consumer, third party tech in the future. Sorry I have no source. If anybody can confirm or correct me, please do.
ATI just released binary drivers for Radeon 8500. Feel stupid now?
Who cares. That doesn't change the fact that ATI adequately documents their hardware while NVidia does not. Open Source DRI drivers for the Radeon 8500 have existed for some time now. With NVidia, you're stuck with their binary crap drivers that only support Linux and Windoze. What if I run FreeBSD instead, eh? NVidia cards are totally worthless to me unless I want a GeForce4 Ti4600 that only does 2D. (And yes, there is DRI for BSD. See this page. ). Check your facts before you go around calling people stupid next time.
STOP SUPPORTING NVIDIA and their proprietary Ge-Whiz video game toys!! Buy ATI or Matrox instead. These companies both actually document their hardware and support Open Source developers! Who cares if your buddy gets 10fps higher in QuakeNukem III Arena Gold-Edition Whatever. It's a freak'n video game, people. And of course, ATI has the performance crown anyways now with the Radeon 9700 series.
So yeah, ideally we do need more Open Hardware. But at least, we need all hardware to come with very complete register level documentation, plus vendor supported GPL drivers. Considering the ridiculous markup on flimsy PC hardware produced in overseas sweatshops, I don't think this is too much to ask, do you? So vote with your dollars, folks. Demand full docs and support or take your wallet elsewhere.
The wording of this article is so obviously biased towards Hollywood / proprietary software industry interests, it's disgusting. Note how they suggest the Skylarov case was a proper use of the law to prosecute true criminals:
"Actual violations of the DMCA can be punished with a civil suit for damages or, if done for commercial gain, prosecuted as criminal acts. The Justice Department indicted Dmitry Sklyarov because his employer, ElcomSoft, sold an e-book decoder that he helped to create, triggering the DMCA's criminal penalties."
So basically, this article is saying that DMCA is good as long as "true academic researchers" aren't threatened. Well guess what Mr. McCullagh, that's not the point! DMCA is a bad (unconstitutional) law because it unduly limits free speech and restricts basic personal freedom to do what you want with something that you purchased--such as editing movies for your kids to watch, extracting video/sound-bites, playing DVD's in Linux, making backup copies of media and videogames, format-shifting for use in different types of digital players, etc. DMCA is a law to enhance greedy media giants' / proprietary software companies' ability to manipulate and rip off consumers. That's all there is to it.
This is the number one reason why I stopped using ATI products once the Mach64 chips came out. Their driver support has always been slow, incomplete, and crippling to their hardware.
ATI products were crap back in the days of Mach64 and the like--both hardware and drivers. This all changed with the introduction of the Radeon series, however. I've had no problem with their latest cards and Windoze drivers. Far more importantly, ATI products have better support in Linux because ATI, unlike NVidia, actually documents their hardware and plays friendly with Open Source developers. And it seems to me Radeon boards still have the GF4 beat hands down in 2D image (ie. analog signal) quality at high resolutions. Somebody with a high bandwidth oscilloscope want to do some S/N analysis?
How long will it be before people get it through their thick skulls that dying business models should not be propped up by nonsense copyright / patent laws. Let the 'invisible hand of the market' do it's work for crying out loud! This is supposed to be a free, open, democratic society we live in!
Now, of course, I'm not really a big fan of "office suites" when it comes to word processing and the like (go LaTeX!!), but it's great to see more and more companies using GPL'ed code as a tool against M$ monopoly oppression. Overall, OpenOffice has been very disappointing thus far. It's buggy, it's slow, it's bloated, it uses its own widget library, and the code is spaghetti at it's best. Maybe the OpenOffice team will 'pull a mozilla' a couple years from now, but that seems a ways off. Parts of the 'Gnome Office' collection are great tools, but are also rather disjointed and have terribly buggy import/export filters it seems. KOffice 1.2 is slick, efficient, and very promising, but needs more developers. (it's my long term bet, actually) Now along comes (formerly-Gobe) Productive. By the looks of it, Productive won't become a 'competitor' to the other open projects for some time, but at least we'll have more code base to draw on. Perhaps it should be merged with the now-fragmented Gnome Office (and get rid of the uselessly anorexic AbiWord that doesn't even support tables). Perhaps the code contains some insight on making better import filters for M$ office formats. Perhaps we can agree on a standard XML format for vector graphics too. And of course, that's the biggest issue in all of this -- standardization. We need ONE file format that all Open Source office tools can use seemlessly.. a format that is feature-extensible, straight-forward, and consistant. And we need to agree on a single name for this format so that it can become recognized and comfortable, just as most non-clued business people now say "send me a Word document" or the like.
If M$ was pressuring Dell to remove the No OS option, they should have made a public fuss about it to get this practice better known. Even if that meant losing the contract. I mean, can you see the headlines in the financial papers? "Dell loses Microsoft contract for offering alternative, competing software bundles" That'd catch a few eyes. Maybe people would start buying Dell machines without an OS whether they wanted Windoze or not, just out of spite for the evil beast.
Think about it a second.. who actually uses these P2P networks? I'll bet it's at least 70% children between 12 and 17 years old--ie. the middle/high school crowd. I mean, can you imagine the scene? FBI knocks down door to some random house in US suburbia to find a 14 year old girl downloading NSuck albums and chatting on IM. Meanwhile, her parents, who have absolutely no idea what Kazaa is anyhow, are completely puzzled.
"laws must not be judged by what good they will do, but by what harm they will cause"
So what happens when these API docs are "accidentally" leaked to somebody that never signed any NDA. It would be nearly impossible to find out who leaked them after 100's of companies go through with the official procedure. What are they going to do even if they find someone with an unauthorized copy? Sue for copyright violation of $5 material? And suppose somebody writes their own API docs in their own words using the leaked M$ docs as reference, then destroys the originals.
The only other thing that this article brought to mind was a question about what the Linux community wants to do with Linux. Say it upseats Windows. Say it takes over on both the server and the desktop. Say that 95% of all computers now run some distro of Linux... Haven't we then just painted ourselves into the same corner that Microsoft is in, and wouldn't Linux receive the same amount of critisism for a variety of other things?
True, Linux / free software will receive growing criticism as it becomes more mainstream. The difference is that problems will actually get fixed. Compare to say.. all those "Windows Annoyances" type sites where folks moan and groan about problems they can't fix or offer half-baked solutions that sorta kludge out a solution. Yes, constructive criticism of free software is a good thing and should be embraced. Creative criticism is even better. And yes, that means that a lot of today's haughty, elitist free software coders are going to have to humble themselves a bit if they want to effect further progress in developing useful community software. They're going to have to treat users of their code with respect, accept new ideas, and bow to wishes other than their own. And they're going to have to learn that free software needs to be further commercialized as a service industry of consulting and specialization. As an aside, I think a great example of Open Source development breakdown is the Gimp--everyone's favorite free image editing tool.. oh wait.. it's the ONLY free image editor. Apparently, its developers needed a tool for doing nifty web graphics but then stopped just short of creating a truly versatile, quality program. So now, several years later, the Gimp is still only about par with roughly Photoshop version 3 or 4 and the project is seemingly stagnant other than converting to Gtk2. Frankly, I've used a lot of graphics tools in the past and Gimp pretty much sucks for anything but the most basic tasks. True, you can get most of the same work done, but it's a hastle and takes twice as long. Where are the features that have been direly needed for all these years? The dynamic layers and objects? (ie. if I scale a layer, it should apply a transform to the original data, not overwrite it) How about user-defined colorspaces? (ie. for print layout) Or maybe some simple CAD-style drawing tools? Writing software to meet one's own needs / desires is not good enough unless you're helping meet others needs as well. In many cases, business enterprise is the perfect way to do both at once--just specialize in your area of greatest interest. Some free software doesn't need this extra boost, other does. It's time we geeks get our asses in gear.
I was about to read your post, but then I saw it was modded to flamebait so I just ignored it instead. Lemme guess: probably a bunch of FUD about how Free / Open Source doesn't work or some such nonsense mixed with personal jabs.
Since the 2.4Ghz. spectrum is unlicensed, just like CB radio or cordless phone bands, how can you possibly charge somebody with illegally receiving or transmitting in this range? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but is that not their explicit right so long as they use approved equipment and do not exceed FCC regulations on signal power? It's not like the court had exclusive permission to use this frequency. Similarly, what if this guy had switched off his 802.11 transmitter and just listened instead of actually interacting with the network?
It just seems ridiculous. If we're going to have unlicensed bands on the public airwaves, any expectations of privacy / security must be the burden of people using those bands, not law enforcement. This situation is entirely different than "wiggling door handles" because there is no trespass of private property involved.
Yes, but I understand his decision. He doesn't want to be the leader of a community project where he would do more management than coding. He wants to code his own engine for fun. Open-sourcing too early would not help and might result in problems.
Sorry, but that's a BS argument. Just because the source is available doesn't mean you have to accept patches to your pet project. And if somebody takes your code and forks, who cares?! Just be sure to protect your efforts with GPL so nobody can free-ride with commercial proprietary forks. More likely, this guy is unsure if he's ever going to release the source--which IMHO is silly because there's no way he can compete with the 'big boys'. He should release the source and sell artwork/levels/etc. Then it'd be more than just another no-name game company with mediocre products. Source code is insurance of community, therefore a market.
Why would any self-respecting geek want to write games for a proprietary Microsoft platform. For crying out loud, we need more multi-platform PC games! How about developing a highly modular Open Source game engine and then sell non-free scripting, levels, artwork, etc. (the part of game design that takes all the real time and effort) I would gladly support such an effort as compared to a game with binaries only. Then build a community around the game and encourage mods, network tournaments, etc. I guarantee you'll find a market because community is something that console systems will likely never have.
M$ is down and weakened. Their public opinion is in the toilet. They're rapidly losing their marketshare overseas as countries see value in technological independence. The word "Linux" appears at least a half dozen times in every issue of financial newspapers. The MS Office cash cow is shriveling up due to (finally) useful free office suites or equivalent software. Hailstorm flopped and.Net is still vaporware. And WinXP sales have been lackluster because well.. who needs it? -- especially when the economy is down and businesses are rather looking for ways to save.
And yet, ironically, the Open Source community seems to have somewhat fallen asleep in the midst of the imminent success of our dream: a world dominated by free, open, community-built software where the user / consumer no longer gets screwed at every opportunity. Now, I'm not talking about the major projects where developers have kept up their excellent work. But it's many of the sidelines projects that have ground to a halt. And somehow it seems as if folks aren't 'scratching their itches' as much these days. What happened to the break-neck progress we were making on all fronts? I have a growing list of needed feature-adds, bug fixes, new apps, etc. that is now impossible for me to keep up with on my own. And many are seemingly abandoned projects.
What happened to the faith in the Open Source model? Why aren't programmers in the US going after careers doing Free Software? One would think now is as good a time as any, especially with the industry in a rut and jobs so scarse! It's so blatantly obvious and yet hardly anyone is taking up the opportunity. For Open Source to win the day, we need to become the next generation of consultants--a new breed that actually supports the software because they can with the code.
Listen and listen well: Software is NOT a PRODUCT. People need to get over that idea and realize it is an outdated model from the prior tech boom. So if you're a geek looking for a job doing programming, that means you shouldn't be looking for a "software company" in the traditional sense. Instead, look for service-based companies that get paid to scratch the itches of their customers. Or start your own consulting firm with some buddies. Get connected in your local community and then move outwards according to capacity. Start organizations to coordinate development of needed free business software. I can't even begin to count the number of businesses I've heard of that are thoroughly fed up with the proprietary custom packages they use currently. The market is there for the taking!! It's time to go for the kill!
Time will tell. If the ACLU just wants an exception to the anti-circumvention clause and doesn't seek to overturn it entirely, wouldn't this do more harm than good? Asking for an exception would be like agreeing with the DMCA otherwise, it seems.
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What if say.. AOL->Nullsoft flat-out refused to pay these stupid software patent fees? Would they have the legal weight to get enough controversy going such that software patents are finally overturned? Or who else could perhaps do this? Public protest *does* change laws.
1.A poem is not mere information, but an artistic expression of information. The information itself cannot be copyrighted.
Hmm.. but that artistic expression is itself information. If I strip the header off a JPEG image, is it still a picture or just random data?
2. Memorizing a poem is not copying or distributing it. In fact, to memorize the poem in the first place, you needed access to a (presumably) legal copy.
Lets say I borrowed someone else's copy, memorized it, then gave it back. In a sense, memorizing is copying. Information can't exist on its own; it must be embodied in some characteristic of a physical object--whether the neuron configuration in your brain or the RAM in your computer. Once I have the poem in my brain, I can speak it to a crowd--perhaps allowing them to memorize it as well, write it down on paper, or perhaps someday even upload it from my brain to my computer. To stop someone from doing any of these things would be a pretty huge violation of basic personal freedoms.
ATTN geeks:
1.) Sleep deprivation is bad for your mental and physical health
2.) Caffeine is not a substitute for sleep
3.) Caffeine does have mild negative health effects, especially when taken on a regular basis
4.) Caffeine reduces the quality of sleep when you do get it.
5.) You have to sleep sometime. Why not do it at night and play games during the day instead so you don't screw up your biological clock?
6.) "Fragging all night" is a waste of time. Get out, socialize, make business contacts, write some neat software, etc.
Scarcity is not intrinsic to property, though it certainly provides an incentive to devise the concept of property. It is, however, wrong to presume that scarcity does not apply to intellectual property.
In a sense, perhaps, but 'intellectual property' only has artificial scarcity in the physical world. I would say that human intelligence has scarcity, but once knowledge is produced, the knowledge itself has no scarcity because it is infinitely reproducible whether by word of mouth, fiber optic cables, direct neural implant, whatever. If information can truly be owned, then it is wrong to memorize a poem without paying the author first. If information can truly be owned, then copyright and patents should never expire and should be passed along forever through many generations. Dunno.. maybe you catch my drift.
I still can't say I care for tabbed browsing, but a lot of people swear by it.
Browser tabs are like mouse wheels. They seem pointless at first, but then you get used to them and it's hard to go back. It's a subtle change, but consider how it affects the way you use the GUI: 1.) all web browsing is contained in a single window frame, thus making it easier to mentally seperate from other tasks, 2.) WM taskbars get shuffled, and make it easy to lose track of which windows belong to which applications. Browser tabs stay in the order that web pages were opened are spacially seperate. 3.) When doing heavy web browsing.. ie.) 10 windows open, it's much easier to have all controls at the top of the screen. instead of jumping around.
Unlike many here, I believe in intellectual property rights and have no problem protecting them.
I really wish people would stop using the term "intellectual property," because such a thing philosophically does not exist. Copyright and patent are man-made, social institutions. They are not underlying moral, unalienable human rights. Unlike the right to own physical property and be safe from having it taken away unjustly, so called "intellectual property" is not a necessity for capitalism and democracy. It is a compromise, a social contract, an economic rule of the game, a legally backed honor system. It is NOT property because it is NOT scarse. Note that I'm not arguing against a reasonable, balanced system of compensating artists and inventors for their work, but such as system must be fair and ultimately beneficial to all of society. It should not be a way to price gouge, get rich quick, monopolize markets, and leverage total control over consumers. And because it is a social compromise, it must always put basic individual rights above the priviledges given to beneficiaries. Copyright, like patent should be entirely a field of civil law, not criminal. Copyright holders should be able to sue for damages, but they should carry the entire burden of finding infringers and proving that they: 1.) purposely copied the work without permission, 2.) did so for purposes outside a very broad set of fair-use exceptions. 3.) were actually causing significant commercial damage such as to make a lawsuit appropriate. I believe this is more what our founding fathers had in mind when they established these institutions...
All the more reason small radio stations need to start broadcasting nothing but independent artists. C'mon now. A college town is the perfect place to do this with all the local bands, university concerts, etc.
The driver for TV Out on the G400 is in a binary only module.
IIRC, Matrox refuses to document the TV Out because they were forced by the DVDCCA to license Macrovision in order to have DVD decoding onboard or some such nonsense. An open driver would allow users to disable Macrovision on the NTSC output and thus break Matrox's contract. Disgusting? You bet. Hopefully Matrox will not make similar mistakes with MPAA-sponsored, anti-consumer, third party tech in the future. Sorry I have no source. If anybody can confirm or correct me, please do.
ATI just released binary drivers for Radeon 8500. Feel stupid now?
Who cares. That doesn't change the fact that ATI adequately documents their hardware while NVidia does not. Open Source DRI drivers for the Radeon 8500 have existed for some time now. With NVidia, you're stuck with their binary crap drivers that only support Linux and Windoze. What if I run FreeBSD instead, eh? NVidia cards are totally worthless to me unless I want a GeForce4 Ti4600 that only does 2D. (And yes, there is DRI for BSD. See this page. ). Check your facts before you go around calling people stupid next time.
STOP SUPPORTING NVIDIA and their proprietary Ge-Whiz video game toys!! Buy ATI or Matrox instead. These companies both actually document their hardware and support Open Source developers! Who cares if your buddy gets 10fps higher in QuakeNukem III Arena Gold-Edition Whatever. It's a freak'n video game, people. And of course, ATI has the performance crown anyways now with the Radeon 9700 series.
So yeah, ideally we do need more Open Hardware. But at least, we need all hardware to come with very complete register level documentation, plus vendor supported GPL drivers. Considering the ridiculous markup on flimsy PC hardware produced in overseas sweatshops, I don't think this is too much to ask, do you? So vote with your dollars, folks. Demand full docs and support or take your wallet elsewhere.
The only way we will ever stop spam is if ISP's work together to perfect open source spam blocking software and share blacklists.
The wording of this article is so obviously biased towards Hollywood / proprietary software industry interests, it's disgusting. Note how they suggest the Skylarov case was a proper use of the law to prosecute true criminals:
"Actual violations of the DMCA can be punished with a civil suit for damages or, if done for commercial gain, prosecuted as criminal acts. The Justice Department indicted Dmitry Sklyarov because his employer, ElcomSoft, sold an e-book decoder that he helped to create, triggering the DMCA's criminal penalties."
So basically, this article is saying that DMCA is good as long as "true academic researchers" aren't threatened. Well guess what Mr. McCullagh, that's not the point! DMCA is a bad (unconstitutional) law because it unduly limits free speech and restricts basic personal freedom to do what you want with something that you purchased--such as editing movies for your kids to watch, extracting video/sound-bites, playing DVD's in Linux, making backup copies of media and videogames, format-shifting for use in different types of digital players, etc. DMCA is a law to enhance greedy media giants' / proprietary software companies' ability to manipulate and rip off consumers. That's all there is to it.
This is the number one reason why I stopped using ATI products once the Mach64 chips came out. Their driver support has always been slow, incomplete, and crippling to their hardware.
ATI products were crap back in the days of Mach64 and the like--both hardware and drivers. This all changed with the introduction of the Radeon series, however. I've had no problem with their latest cards and Windoze drivers. Far more importantly, ATI products have better support in Linux because ATI, unlike NVidia, actually documents their hardware and plays friendly with Open Source developers. And it seems to me Radeon boards still have the GF4 beat hands down in 2D image (ie. analog signal) quality at high resolutions. Somebody with a high bandwidth oscilloscope want to do some S/N analysis?
How long will it be before people get it through their thick skulls that dying business models should not be propped up by nonsense copyright / patent laws. Let the 'invisible hand of the market' do it's work for crying out loud! This is supposed to be a free, open, democratic society we live in!
Now, of course, I'm not really a big fan of "office suites" when it comes to word processing and the like (go LaTeX!!), but it's great to see more and more companies using GPL'ed code as a tool against M$ monopoly oppression. Overall, OpenOffice has been very disappointing thus far. It's buggy, it's slow, it's bloated, it uses its own widget library, and the code is spaghetti at it's best. Maybe the OpenOffice team will 'pull a mozilla' a couple years from now, but that seems a ways off. Parts of the 'Gnome Office' collection are great tools, but are also rather disjointed and have terribly buggy import/export filters it seems. KOffice 1.2 is slick, efficient, and very promising, but needs more developers. (it's my long term bet, actually) Now along comes (formerly-Gobe) Productive. By the looks of it, Productive won't become a 'competitor' to the other open projects for some time, but at least we'll have more code base to draw on. Perhaps it should be merged with the now-fragmented Gnome Office (and get rid of the uselessly anorexic AbiWord that doesn't even support tables). Perhaps the code contains some insight on making better import filters for M$ office formats. Perhaps we can agree on a standard XML format for vector graphics too. And of course, that's the biggest issue in all of this -- standardization. We need ONE file format that all Open Source office tools can use seemlessly.. a format that is feature-extensible, straight-forward, and consistant. And we need to agree on a single name for this format so that it can become recognized and comfortable, just as most non-clued business people now say "send me a Word document" or the like.
If M$ was pressuring Dell to remove the No OS option, they should have made a public fuss about it to get this practice better known. Even if that meant losing the contract. I mean, can you see the headlines in the financial papers? "Dell loses Microsoft contract for offering alternative, competing software bundles" That'd catch a few eyes. Maybe people would start buying Dell machines without an OS whether they wanted Windoze or not, just out of spite for the evil beast.
Think about it a second.. who actually uses these P2P networks? I'll bet it's at least 70% children between 12 and 17 years old--ie. the middle/high school crowd. I mean, can you imagine the scene? FBI knocks down door to some random house in US suburbia to find a 14 year old girl downloading NSuck albums and chatting on IM. Meanwhile, her parents, who have absolutely no idea what Kazaa is anyhow, are completely puzzled.
"laws must not be judged by what good they will do, but by what harm they will cause"
So what happens when these API docs are "accidentally" leaked to somebody that never signed any NDA. It would be nearly impossible to find out who leaked them after 100's of companies go through with the official procedure. What are they going to do even if they find someone with an unauthorized copy? Sue for copyright violation of $5 material? And suppose somebody writes their own API docs in their own words using the leaked M$ docs as reference, then destroys the originals.
The only other thing that this article brought to mind was a question about what the Linux community wants to do with Linux. Say it upseats Windows. Say it takes over on both the server and the desktop. Say that 95% of all computers now run some distro of Linux... Haven't we then just painted ourselves into the same corner that Microsoft is in, and wouldn't Linux receive the same amount of critisism for a variety of other things?
True, Linux / free software will receive growing criticism as it becomes more mainstream. The difference is that problems will actually get fixed. Compare to say.. all those "Windows Annoyances" type sites where folks moan and groan about problems they can't fix or offer half-baked solutions that sorta kludge out a solution. Yes, constructive criticism of free software is a good thing and should be embraced. Creative criticism is even better. And yes, that means that a lot of today's haughty, elitist free software coders are going to have to humble themselves a bit if they want to effect further progress in developing useful community software. They're going to have to treat users of their code with respect, accept new ideas, and bow to wishes other than their own. And they're going to have to learn that free software needs to be further commercialized as a service industry of consulting and specialization. As an aside, I think a great example of Open Source development breakdown is the Gimp--everyone's favorite free image editing tool.. oh wait.. it's the ONLY free image editor. Apparently, its developers needed a tool for doing nifty web graphics but then stopped just short of creating a truly versatile, quality program. So now, several years later, the Gimp is still only about par with roughly Photoshop version 3 or 4 and the project is seemingly stagnant other than converting to Gtk2. Frankly, I've used a lot of graphics tools in the past and Gimp pretty much sucks for anything but the most basic tasks. True, you can get most of the same work done, but it's a hastle and takes twice as long. Where are the features that have been direly needed for all these years? The dynamic layers and objects? (ie. if I scale a layer, it should apply a transform to the original data, not overwrite it) How about user-defined colorspaces? (ie. for print layout) Or maybe some simple CAD-style drawing tools? Writing software to meet one's own needs / desires is not good enough unless you're helping meet others needs as well. In many cases, business enterprise is the perfect way to do both at once--just specialize in your area of greatest interest. Some free software doesn't need this extra boost, other does. It's time we geeks get our asses in gear.
I was about to read your post, but then I saw it was modded to flamebait so I just ignored it instead. Lemme guess: probably a bunch of FUD about how Free / Open Source doesn't work or some such nonsense mixed with personal jabs.
Since the 2.4Ghz. spectrum is unlicensed, just like CB radio or cordless phone bands, how can you possibly charge somebody with illegally receiving or transmitting in this range? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but is that not their explicit right so long as they use approved equipment and do not exceed FCC regulations on signal power? It's not like the court had exclusive permission to use this frequency. Similarly, what if this guy had switched off his 802.11 transmitter and just listened instead of actually interacting with the network?
It just seems ridiculous. If we're going to have unlicensed bands on the public airwaves, any expectations of privacy / security must be the burden of people using those bands, not law enforcement. This situation is entirely different than "wiggling door handles" because there is no trespass of private property involved.
Yes, but I understand his decision. He doesn't want to be the leader of a community project where he would do more management than coding. He wants to code his own engine for fun. Open-sourcing too early would not help and might result in problems.
Sorry, but that's a BS argument. Just because the source is available doesn't mean you have to accept patches to your pet project. And if somebody takes your code and forks, who cares?! Just be sure to protect your efforts with GPL so nobody can free-ride with commercial proprietary forks. More likely, this guy is unsure if he's ever going to release the source--which IMHO is silly because there's no way he can compete with the 'big boys'. He should release the source and sell artwork/levels/etc. Then it'd be more than just another no-name game company with mediocre products. Source code is insurance of community, therefore a market.
Why would any self-respecting geek want to write games for a proprietary Microsoft platform. For crying out loud, we need more multi-platform PC games! How about developing a highly modular Open Source game engine and then sell non-free scripting, levels, artwork, etc. (the part of game design that takes all the real time and effort) I would gladly support such an effort as compared to a game with binaries only. Then build a community around the game and encourage mods, network tournaments, etc. I guarantee you'll find a market because community is something that console systems will likely never have.
M$ is down and weakened. Their public opinion is in the toilet. They're rapidly losing their marketshare overseas as countries see value in technological independence. The word "Linux" appears at least a half dozen times in every issue of financial newspapers. The MS Office cash cow is shriveling up due to (finally) useful free office suites or equivalent software. Hailstorm flopped and .Net is still vaporware. And WinXP sales have been lackluster because well.. who needs it? -- especially when the economy is down and businesses are rather looking for ways to save.
And yet, ironically, the Open Source community seems to have somewhat fallen asleep in the midst of the imminent success of our dream: a world dominated by free, open, community-built software where the user / consumer no longer gets screwed at every opportunity. Now, I'm not talking about the major projects where developers have kept up their excellent work. But it's many of the sidelines projects that have ground to a halt. And somehow it seems as if folks aren't 'scratching their itches' as much these days. What happened to the break-neck progress we were making on all fronts? I have a growing list of needed feature-adds, bug fixes, new apps, etc. that is now impossible for me to keep up with on my own. And many are seemingly abandoned projects.
What happened to the faith in the Open Source model? Why aren't programmers in the US going after careers doing Free Software? One would think now is as good a time as any, especially with the industry in a rut and jobs so scarse! It's so blatantly obvious and yet hardly anyone is taking up the opportunity. For Open Source to win the day, we need to become the next generation of consultants--a new breed that actually supports the software because they can with the code.
Listen and listen well: Software is NOT a PRODUCT. People need to get over that idea and realize it is an outdated model from the prior tech boom. So if you're a geek looking for a job doing programming, that means you shouldn't be looking for a "software company" in the traditional sense. Instead, look for service-based companies that get paid to scratch the itches of their customers. Or start your own consulting firm with some buddies. Get connected in your local community and then move outwards according to capacity. Start organizations to coordinate development of needed free business software. I can't even begin to count the number of businesses I've heard of that are thoroughly fed up with the proprietary custom packages they use currently. The market is there for the taking!! It's time to go for the kill!
Time will tell. If the ACLU just wants an exception to the anti-circumvention clause and doesn't seek to overturn it entirely, wouldn't this do more harm than good? Asking for an exception would be like agreeing with the DMCA otherwise, it seems.