if fair use applied to digital media (which it should), you could make as many copies as you please and distribute them for free, legally.
That is a misunderstanding of the "fair use" doctrine. You can make copies for yourself or use portions of a work as reference, but wholesale copying and redistribution is not covered by fair use.
They are going after individual lawbreakers, which is futile as long as....
While profit motive is compelling, there are any number of other motivations that will generate the same response. I'd like to know what you mean by futile since any enfocement of a given law will not result in an activity's cessation. In other words, laws against murder are futile in that they do not prevent murders. By that measure, all laws are futile (except for the ones like, "It's illegal to bathe your mule in the bathtub" - we don't see much of that going on here in AZ so the law must be pretty effective). If laws were effective, there would be no jails or prisons. People would just say, "Dang! That's against the law." and move on to something legal. Given that, does it then follow that laws should not be enforced? Should we disband agencies that enforce laws and allow anarchy to rule?
If you ask me, the sort of piracy this article talks about is what the industry should be fighting, the for-profit concerns, and not shackling their paying customers with crippled goods which are, in Mr. Valenti's own words, "wholly inferior."
Precisely why those who are actively lobbying our elected representatives should take the very words of the outspoken Mr. Valenti and use them against him and his witch hunt. This was obviously a for-profit venture, not Joe Consumer making backup copies or something of that nature. Now if the industry is going to admit publicly that pirated copies are "wholly inferior" (which by the way would exclude the scenario where the quality of the packaging was the only inferior part. "Wholly" implies that nothing in the package can touch the quality to be found in the commercial product) even when produced on equipment that the vast majority of consumers don't have available to them. They cannot at the same time push legislation to protect their IP from bit for bit exact duplication. One of their positions has to be a lie.
...the 1.1 version of the plugin also officially supports Chime - a plugin for viewing proteins and molecular structures - perfectly.
Man, I can't tell you how many times I've been cruising through the same old web content hoping to run across a good, viewable protein or molecular structure....
Actually, if I'd had mod points I would have modded you up as informative. Unfortunately all I had on me was a biting wit (or maybe only a half-wit).
What I was asking is if FS/OSS is getting more eyes on the code (e.g. more people spotting bugs) due to it's wider support & deployment now
Sorry for the delayed reply. Somehow I read just the opposite in your post. The snippet I quoted above is pretty much what my thoughts are. Things that slipped by in the past are being caught because of expanding community and also due to the cross-pollination that takes place when a piece of code from one project is appropriated for duty in another. Now a new set of programmers are looking at your code because they want to make sure it won't cause problems with their own project when it's folded in. Another factor may be that a new generation of programmers come aboard a project and free up some of the time for more experienced heads to review what's already out there.
So, my question is this: Do you think that this is simply a bad time for FS/OSS security? Are we at the threshold where there are enough eyes on the code to locate these kinds of bugs?
I don't follow you. Because someone found a bug that means there aren't enough eyes to find the bugs? Most of the eyes aren't involved with the project, they're "out there" in the rest of the community.
Funny, wan't this supposed to be impossible under Open Source?
Yes, it is impossible to introduce a bug in Linux code. It just can't happen.
I'd say this is more a demonstration of the "many eyes" principle at work (unless the RedHat employee who reported it has no eyes).
Seriously, it looks like maybe it isn't so simple. In the "golden days" a lot of companies bought into the idea that Open Source code was free from these types of major flaws... now they see this isn't true.
Still waiting for the "serious" part here. I don't know of a consensus among companies that postulated that view at any point in Linux history.
So, when the glow is off the rose we see that Linux is no more reliable (thanks to 4.2) and no more secure than a well maintained Windows 2000/XP system.
I don't think you're taking the glow off the rose as much as shaking the dew from the lilly here.
Fight tyranny and repression.... read/. at -1!
If this was an indication of your well reasoned response, that's the only way your posts will be read then. Don't mistake tasteful discretion for tyrannical repression, it'll only make you paranoid.
Sorry it took awhile to get back to this, but I couldn't help not replying.
Kids don't wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. Even if they did, it's easy enough to prevent them from doing so, and more importantly worth the effort.
Your first statement may be true for some subset of "Kids" but on the whole it is just plain false. Maybe when I was a kid and the only thing to watch in the wee hours was snow or a test pattern....
Your second statement amazes me. Having been a parent (and a fairly successful one if the proof is in the pudding) training kids is anything but easy. I'd like to know your simple solution to "prevent them" from waking up in the middle of the night and doing X. Such a system would be worth a fortune to many haggard parents who are sound sleepers.
Your final point, that it is worth the effort I will absolutely agree with.
Here's a random thought. Maybe the US rather enjoys 'pulling more than their own weight' in the World Bank, given that it essentially means all the more power to them, and equally appreciates the opportunity of throwing their weight around that the UN offers them.
Random seems right. How does loaning money to countries that are certain to default and hold anti-US political views bestow power on the US? As far as throwing our weight around at the UN, check the number of times votes are contrary to the US's position in a variety of matters and see if an informed thought can replace the random ones you're having now.
As far as the US acting in an unbecoming manner in some matters, I've already conceded that point. What torques my jaw is the implication that other nations are lilly-white while the US is the breeding grounds for all manner of evil intent. I guess I could chalk that up to the US being held to higher standards because the world expects more from us, but I'm a bit cynical.
Vast amounts of used clothing and old US cars go to Mexico. Some of the clothes are re-used while others are recycled into industrial rags.
This must be stopped immediately. Don't they know that it is our policy that castoff goods are only to be dumped where they can do the most environmental harm?
There are many who feel that the Kyoto treaty places undue burdens on the US - burdens that other nations are not required to shoulder. The US pulls more than their own weight in other areas (UN, World Bank, etc.) and yet it isn't enough.
It wouldn't matter what we did in any arena, there'd be flack from those saying it wasn't enough. Why are you helping here and not there? Why are you doing this at all since you don't belong here? Why stop genocide in Kosovo and let it continue in the Sudan and other nations?
As far as people "showing what they feel about this madness", apathy shows as much as activism, it just doesn't happen to line up with your passions. If you want something to be done so badly, start a private foundation, collect private monies, corporate grants and the like and go do something instead of harping on someone else to do it for you.
I think that's a great idea... an excise tax on computer equipment won't be popular, but if done right, it would help encourage more companies to set up recycling programs (like IBM).
This is silly. Without a plan in place to actually recycle the gear, the tax does nothing but line pockets.
"Yeah, we have a recycling program. The great thing is that now the government pays the shipping to China."
I should also point out that I'm brain-dead today. I found the link after Sept. 11 and keyed on that without looking at the year. When I saw the/. story I jumped to my bookmark (because I remembered info that wasn't in the link from the story) and did a cut and paste of a couple of quotes on what I thought was pretty impressive info. This likely may not even be the chip in question.
So, moderators, don't mod the parent to the parent up, but show a little mercy - it's been a long day.
This one's supposed to be better. According to Digital Photography Review, "...no pixels, or dots, were visible to the eye, even with the photograph blown up to a size of 8 feet by 4 feet." Wow! This chip is also supposed to be 16Mp megapixels, but at a lower price than Kodak. With the new technology though it's supposed to be "...able to capture digital images with a resolution of 4,096 by 4,096 picture elements - or pixels - per square inch. That, by some measures, is about twice the resolution of 35-millimeter film."
I think that software which nobody is interested in should be allowed to die gracefully.
Software that NOBODY's interested in would die gracefully. Think of the repository as a crypt. Perhaps a few visitors here and there to pay respects or just because they're curious.
The real value would be to those who are using perfectly usable software that is no longer sold or even supported by the company. Why should someone upgrade when the new product contains features they don't want and may require investment in beefier hardware while the existing product works fine. What if they want to deploy it on another machine? Can't buy the old one. Don't want the new one. Even without having the source code it shouldn't be a problem to obtain another copy (I lost my installation disk(s) or they were damaged). I've been there. So have many others.
IF I am, it seems that these licenses will not have been tested in court. So how useful are they?
I'd say about as useful as a custom built license by your attorney. If I read the article correctly these licenses will use standard legalese and may be built upon premises established in court already.
Right now Google tends to be among the bigger darlings of Slashdot, but will they remain that way if they release this product and it's not Open Source?
Google gets its kudos because they USE Open Source, not because they ARE an Open Source company. Their current search engine (the one you use at Google.com) is proprietary already. There may very well be some who will bemoan the fact that Google isn't opening their source, but that doesn't mean everyone in the community is of the same mind.
Yeah, I know this was probably a troll, but I needed to say that.
I don't think the consensus has ever been patents==evil. There has been wailing and gnashing of teeth over many patents here, but it is usually the "one-click" or other obvious "innovations" that prompt the backlash (or should that be backslash?) on/.....
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. How long did you have to wait for an opportunity to plug your resume in the body of a message without being OT?
if fair use applied to digital media (which it should), you could make as many copies as you please and distribute them for free, legally.
That is a misunderstanding of the "fair use" doctrine. You can make copies for yourself or use portions of a work as reference, but wholesale copying and redistribution is not covered by fair use.
They are going after individual lawbreakers, which is futile as long as....
While profit motive is compelling, there are any number of other motivations that will generate the same response. I'd like to know what you mean by futile since any enfocement of a given law will not result in an activity's cessation. In other words, laws against murder are futile in that they do not prevent murders. By that measure, all laws are futile (except for the ones like, "It's illegal to bathe your mule in the bathtub" - we don't see much of that going on here in AZ so the law must be pretty effective). If laws were effective, there would be no jails or prisons. People would just say, "Dang! That's against the law." and move on to something legal. Given that, does it then follow that laws should not be enforced? Should we disband agencies that enforce laws and allow anarchy to rule?
If you ask me, the sort of piracy this article talks about is what the industry should be fighting, the for-profit concerns, and not shackling their paying customers with crippled goods which are, in Mr. Valenti's own words, "wholly inferior."
Precisely why those who are actively lobbying our elected representatives should take the very words of the outspoken Mr. Valenti and use them against him and his witch hunt. This was obviously a for-profit venture, not Joe Consumer making backup copies or something of that nature. Now if the industry is going to admit publicly that pirated copies are "wholly inferior" (which by the way would exclude the scenario where the quality of the packaging was the only inferior part. "Wholly" implies that nothing in the package can touch the quality to be found in the commercial product) even when produced on equipment that the vast majority of consumers don't have available to them. They cannot at the same time push legislation to protect their IP from bit for bit exact duplication. One of their positions has to be a lie.
...the 1.1 version of the plugin also officially supports Chime - a plugin for viewing proteins and molecular structures - perfectly.
Man, I can't tell you how many times I've been cruising through the same old web content hoping to run across a good, viewable protein or molecular structure....
Actually, if I'd had mod points I would have modded you up as informative. Unfortunately all I had on me was a biting wit (or maybe only a half-wit).
Aye wash noteasing simular problimbs wythe they're artickle.
These crazy guys were dropping down it in a little in box with wheels and it ended by crashing into hay barrels.
Hay barrels? Don't know about that, but this thing looks more fun than a bale of monkeys!
So, was it one of you farm boys that's responsible for the goatse link? Prob'ly not the Kansas crew or it'd more likely be cowse....
What I was asking is if FS/OSS is getting more eyes on the code (e.g. more people spotting bugs) due to it's wider support & deployment now
Sorry for the delayed reply. Somehow I read just the opposite in your post. The snippet I quoted above is pretty much what my thoughts are. Things that slipped by in the past are being caught because of expanding community and also due to the cross-pollination that takes place when a piece of code from one project is appropriated for duty in another. Now a new set of programmers are looking at your code because they want to make sure it won't cause problems with their own project when it's folded in. Another factor may be that a new generation of programmers come aboard a project and free up some of the time for more experienced heads to review what's already out there.
Guilty.
So, my question is this: Do you think that this is simply a bad time for FS/OSS security? Are we at the threshold where there are enough eyes on the code to locate these kinds of bugs?
I don't follow you. Because someone found a bug that means there aren't enough eyes to find the bugs? Most of the eyes aren't involved with the project, they're "out there" in the rest of the community.
Funny, wan't this supposed to be impossible under Open Source?
/. at -1!
Yes, it is impossible to introduce a bug in Linux code. It just can't happen.
I'd say this is more a demonstration of the "many eyes" principle at work (unless the RedHat employee who reported it has no eyes).
Seriously, it looks like maybe it isn't so simple. In the "golden days" a lot of companies bought into the idea that Open Source code was free from these types of major flaws... now they see this isn't true.
Still waiting for the "serious" part here. I don't know of a consensus among companies that postulated that view at any point in Linux history.
So, when the glow is off the rose we see that Linux is no more reliable (thanks to 4.2) and no more secure than a well maintained Windows 2000/XP system.
I don't think you're taking the glow off the rose as much as shaking the dew from the lilly here.
Fight tyranny and repression.... read
If this was an indication of your well reasoned response, that's the only way your posts will be read then. Don't mistake tasteful discretion for tyrannical repression, it'll only make you paranoid.
Sorry it took awhile to get back to this, but I couldn't help not replying.
Kids don't wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. Even if they did, it's easy enough to prevent them from doing so, and more importantly worth the effort.
Your first statement may be true for some subset of "Kids" but on the whole it is just plain false. Maybe when I was a kid and the only thing to watch in the wee hours was snow or a test pattern....
Your second statement amazes me. Having been a parent (and a fairly successful one if the proof is in the pudding) training kids is anything but easy. I'd like to know your simple solution to "prevent them" from waking up in the middle of the night and doing X. Such a system would be worth a fortune to many haggard parents who are sound sleepers.
Your final point, that it is worth the effort I will absolutely agree with.
....if they do we ought to sling their parenting habits right back at them....
So, you're suggesting that good parents are the ones who stay awake all night to monitor what their kids might do if they should wake up?
Here's a random thought. Maybe the US rather enjoys 'pulling more than their own weight' in the World Bank, given that it essentially means all the more power to them, and equally appreciates the opportunity of throwing their weight around that the UN offers them.
Random seems right. How does loaning money to countries that are certain to default and hold anti-US political views bestow power on the US? As far as throwing our weight around at the UN, check the number of times votes are contrary to the US's position in a variety of matters and see if an informed thought can replace the random ones you're having now.
As far as the US acting in an unbecoming manner in some matters, I've already conceded that point. What torques my jaw is the implication that other nations are lilly-white while the US is the breeding grounds for all manner of evil intent. I guess I could chalk that up to the US being held to higher standards because the world expects more from us, but I'm a bit cynical.
Vast amounts of used clothing and old US cars go to Mexico. Some of the clothes are re-used while others are recycled into industrial rags.
This must be stopped immediately. Don't they know that it is our policy that castoff goods are only to be dumped where they can do the most environmental harm?
There are many who feel that the Kyoto treaty places undue burdens on the US - burdens that other nations are not required to shoulder. The US pulls more than their own weight in other areas (UN, World Bank, etc.) and yet it isn't enough.
It wouldn't matter what we did in any arena, there'd be flack from those saying it wasn't enough. Why are you helping here and not there? Why are you doing this at all since you don't belong here? Why stop genocide in Kosovo and let it continue in the Sudan and other nations?
As far as people "showing what they feel about this madness", apathy shows as much as activism, it just doesn't happen to line up with your passions. If you want something to be done so badly, start a private foundation, collect private monies, corporate grants and the like and go do something instead of harping on someone else to do it for you.
I think that's a great idea... an excise tax on computer equipment won't be popular, but if done right, it would help encourage more companies to set up recycling programs (like IBM).
This is silly. Without a plan in place to actually recycle the gear, the tax does nothing but line pockets.
"Yeah, we have a recycling program. The great thing is that now the government pays the shipping to China."
I should also point out that I'm brain-dead today. I found the link after Sept. 11 and keyed on that without looking at the year. When I saw the /. story I jumped to my bookmark (because I remembered info that wasn't in the link from the story) and did a cut and paste of a couple of quotes on what I thought was pretty impressive info. This likely may not even be the chip in question.
So, moderators, don't mod the parent to the parent up, but show a little mercy - it's been a long day.
:g/16Mp megapixels/s//16 megapixels/
And I should point out that this was a pre-release test reported on Sept. 11, so it didn't get much notice that day.
This one's supposed to be better. According to Digital Photography Review, "...no pixels, or dots, were visible to the eye, even with the photograph blown up to a size of 8 feet by 4 feet." Wow! This chip is also supposed to be 16Mp megapixels, but at a lower price than Kodak. With the new technology though it's supposed to be "...able to capture digital images with a resolution of 4,096 by 4,096 picture elements - or pixels - per square inch. That, by some measures, is about twice the resolution of 35-millimeter film."
I think that software which nobody is interested in should be allowed to die gracefully.
Software that NOBODY's interested in would die gracefully. Think of the repository as a crypt. Perhaps a few visitors here and there to pay respects or just because they're curious.
The real value would be to those who are using perfectly usable software that is no longer sold or even supported by the company. Why should someone upgrade when the new product contains features they don't want and may require investment in beefier hardware while the existing product works fine. What if they want to deploy it on another machine? Can't buy the old one. Don't want the new one. Even without having the source code it shouldn't be a problem to obtain another copy (I lost my installation disk(s) or they were damaged). I've been there. So have many others.
IF I am, it seems that these licenses will not have been tested in court. So how useful are they?
I'd say about as useful as a custom built license by your attorney. If I read the article correctly these licenses will use standard legalese and may be built upon premises established in court already.
Right now Google tends to be among the bigger darlings of Slashdot, but will they remain that way if they release this product and it's not Open Source?
Google gets its kudos because they USE Open Source, not because they ARE an Open Source company. Their current search engine (the one you use at Google.com) is proprietary already. There may very well be some who will bemoan the fact that Google isn't opening their source, but that doesn't mean everyone in the community is of the same mind.
Yeah, I know this was probably a troll, but I needed to say that.
I don't think the consensus has ever been patents==evil. There has been wailing and gnashing of teeth over many patents here, but it is usually the "one-click" or other obvious "innovations" that prompt the backlash (or should that be backslash?) on /.....