In responce to the many "Just buy a Tivo" posts. Here is why I won't but a Tivo:
It is a closed system in which Tivo Inc dictates what I can do with it not me. For example I can't transfer shows over the network onto my computer, something which they were probably never allow due to MPAA and the like pressure. You can hack it do what you want to a certain extent, however the legality is questionable. Furthermore, it seams that Tivo Inc can even instruct it to record a show, without the users consent, as it did for BBC in Britan.
I want an open system in which I can control and add software to, legally.
There is a little known process known as Jury Nullification which could be used when the case goes to trial. In summary an informed jury has "the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge". That means that even if a P2P swapper is guilty under the NET act a jury can refuse to find the defendant guilty on the grounds the law is unjust. This is not a joke, this is very real. But hardly anyone knows about it.
In order for this to happen, however, the jurors need to some how be informed of this constitutional right. Which might not be easy, but it is certainly possible.
I strongly encourage anyone reading this to read the essay linked above and then go to the FIJA page to find out more.
Freenet is nice but it has some fundamental limitations. One of the biggest ones that it is all about the here and now. That is in freenet really popular documents are available quickly, not so popular ones may be available, and un-popular documents will just fall off the network. Freenet is nothing but a large cache and there is no real way to provide permanent storage of data. Freenet is also, in my view, overly concerned with anonymity, to the point where it hurts performance.
My network, DistribNet attempts to address these issues and more. It has been a while since I have worked on it but I plan on putting some serious effort into it in the next couple of months. You an check it out at DistribNet.sf.net.
Yes there is. However, if I was the project leader, I would simply
say tough since I am so sick of this type of thing. What would happen
to multimedia projects such as mplayer, lame, XViD or any other
project with questionable legal status if one of the key author
suddenly removed his code? It is bad enough when when companies remove
code do to possible legal threats, it is even worse when open source
projects do. He released his code to the public and I have every
legal right to use it. If he wishes to have his name removed from the
code than I would respect that wish, but I would not respect anyones
wish to throw away perfectly good code that I have a legal right to
use.
If I ever do contracting work I would work at a deal as follows:
For the lowest cost I will produce the solution they want and will
release the source code under the GPL in which I own the copyright.
When done I will post the source code on my web site for others to
benefit from. My base line price will be substantial lower than the
competition. Therefore, making this a very attractive option.
For an additional fee I will modify the code to protect company trade
secrets. The more code I have to modify the higher my fee.
I will also be willing to sell them a copy of the source code in
which they own all rights, but I will still own the GPL copy. The
total cost for this option will still be lower than the competition.
If they do not wish me to publish my work under the GPL they will
have to pay extra. The total cost for this option will be high enough
to make them think twice about it.
This is not the *real* reason. Heroine Warrior is not a company.
From there web site "We're not a corporation. We're not a guy in dorm
room trying to act like a corporation. We don't have accounts
receivable but we do have accounts payable". The *real* reason was
that Broadcast 2000 was not good enough. So they started to develop
Cinelerra and made Broadcast 2000 unavailable from there site. But to
keep it from getting to much attention they pretended it wasn't there
as you get this message "It's not here anymore. Why don't you go to
this award winning page." Where "this" takes you to Microsoft.com.
However, it is available here. Basically
these guys are still developing the software but like playing stupid
games to fool the general public into thinking there are no longer
doing anything to avoid getting too much attention. A nice overview
of the *real* history of Broadcast 2000/Cinelerra is available
with the Cinelerra docs.
This is not the *real* reason. Heroine Warrior is not a company. From there web site "We're not a corporation. We're not a guy in dorm room trying to act like a corporation. We don't have accounts receivable but we do have accounts payable". The *real* reason was that Broadcast 2000 was not good enough. So they started to develop Cinelerra and made Broadcast 2000 unavailable from there site. But to keep it from getting to much attention they pretended it wasn't there as you get this message "It's not here anymore. Why don't you go to this award winning page." Where "this" takes you to Microsoft.com. However, it is available <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/heroines /"&g t;here</a>. Basically these guys are still developing the software but like playing stupid games to fool the general public into thinking there are no longer doing anything to avoid getting too much attention. A nice overview of the *real* history of Broadcast 2000/Cinelerra is availably with the Cinelerra docs.
I will shut up now becuase I obviously didn't do my homework.
However, do you consider asking for hardware manufactures to release the specks of the cards "hand holding"? That is basically what I mean by offical support.
By doing what ever I want with it I mean offically support doing so as well as giving the specks for how the unit works. I want offical support to at the same level the Sharp provides for there new Zaurus PDA.
Also, I herd that the data is stored in some encrypted format therefore not allowing me to transfer the data to my computer and then to VCD or DVD for long term storage. I would also like to be able to edit the movies I record.
Um, last time I checked, you are not obligated to buy the service. Without the service, your TiVo will just let you pause live TV or record at sepcific times. This only makes sense. Why should they provide ongoing services to you (the programming guide) if you're not going to pay them?
Sorry I may of been mistaken by that part. But I still would like to be able to program the thing to get the information from another source.
Uh... see, there are these things called PCs... you might have heard of them... get yourself a video capture card with PVR software, a big honkin' hard disk, and a good sound system, and you are good to go.
Software for doing that with linux is still not very mature yet or I would consider setting one up if it was under say $500.
They offer just the hardware without requiring subscription (or huge up front fee) and the unit is mostly functional without it.
It becomes a general purpose multimedia machine which I can do what ever the heck I want to with.
1 may eventually happen but 2 will not likely happen do to legal problems even though it should be perfectly legal.
See more for my reasons at my home page.
I can tell you one thing. It is in the long run not going to
work. See The
Coming Storm. And we can prove to them that it is not going to
work by shoving the issue down there throat NOW. How, one of two
ways:
Convince TiVo to make there device a truly 100% open programmable
device with the ability to store content unencrypted and to be able to
transfer the content onto your computer. Such a device will be 100%
legal but you bet they will get sued beyond belief which is probably
the number one reason isn't right now. So, in order to prevent this
from being a reason convince EFF to provide them with legal assistance
and funding to fight the battle in court.
We, the open source community can develop such a device ourself.
I am in fact planning on doing just that. For more details see This
Message that I posted to the livid-user mailing list. If you are
interested fell free to email me at kevin at atkinson dhs org.
Choice number 1 will defiantly be preferable as it will get more public attention, however, choice number 2
is something we as geeks can defiantly do.
What the devil am I talking about, I am talking the the assault on our
freedom and in particular the freedom of fair use.
This device is precisely the thing the the media industries (The MPAA
and RIAA to mention a few) want, a closed device to deliver content to
the end user where they have complete control of what gets done with it.
It is just one in a serious of steps, including the DMCA, which the
media industries hope will eventually lead to this.
Is it going to happen, NO. But are they going to try, most defiantly.
There is a fundamental paradigm shift on our hand due to the Internet.
The simple fact is that it is going to be imposable to control the
flow of any sort of information. It has already happened with music
and it is eventually going to happen with video and other forms of
information. And there is nothing the media industries can due about
it. Unfortunately the media industry doesn't really see this and
those that due refuse to accept and will do everything in there power
to make the Internet into what they want. And thus it is going to
be hell. What we have seen already is just the begging of the storm.
It is going to get a lot worse in the coming years as they media
industry continue to try there tricks to control the free flow of
information. If you do not see this conflict by now I fell very sorry
for you as the signs are everywhere, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and
Microsoft's.NET to mention a few.
What can we do about it? Well that is a very good question. We can't
avoid this conflict but we can prepare for it. Some of the things we
can do are: 1) Support Open Source software (although I think that
goes with out saying). 2) Write (snailmail, not email) your
congressperson to repeal the DMCA. 3) Refuse to buy hardware you can't
develop for. I for one have no interest in TiVO are it competitors
for one simple reason, it is a black box that is not designed to be
user programmable. And finally 4) spread the word.
For more insight into this issue see the article The
Coming Storm by Bruce Bell.
Truthfully, one thing I personally would really like to do is to
develop, but really don't have the resources to do so, is a truly open
TiVO like device that is *designed* to be user programmable and will
store everything completely unencrypted. This device will force the
MPAA industry to accept the inevitable. It is completely legal but
the MPAA will completely hate it and will do everything in there power
to stop it. And with out a lot of will power and a major team of
legal exports to back me up they probably will.
Now I admit, I have no idea how knowing that a shower creates a small huricane will become personally useful to me. But that does not mean that some aspect of this will not become useful in the future.
Well maybe someone can use his simulation to design a shower which does not have this problem. True there is the simple solution of a heavy shower curtain but some people are cheap. If the actual shower can be designed so that the sucking never happens and the solution is cheap it will eventually become the standard for new showers. Thus the problem will eventually go away -- even when a cheap light weight curtain is used.
Have Faith, But Expect to Waste Tones of Resources
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 1
Even though I agree with almost all of the points in this article I
want to point out one thing we must never forget. Even though it may
get way worse, the American legal system does have a way of correcting
things wrongs in the end. It will probably take the supreme court to
settle out some of this none sense but I have faith that the supreme
court if it gets up that high, will note rule that simply linking to
something can be illegal and that domain names are in fact property.
The unfortunate part is that it takes a long time for the nonsense to
get straightened out due to way to many self interested lobbyist groups
that only care only about one thing and will never lessen to common
sense. Many of them are small, but all too many of them are way to
large, the tobacco industry, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
(Determined mothers are the worst offenders of the bunch), Insurance
Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) (there care nothing about safety,
only saving insurance companies money and will rather see ever
Interstate highway with a speed limit of 50 or less). See my now
outdated RDU page for more
information on the latter two. Even though the latter two look like
they win most of there battles, they don't win them all. The National Speed
Limit is now a goner despite IIHS wishes. The unfortunate part
is that it took over 14 years for it to happen.
The basic point is eventually things do get better in the United
States, it takes way to long for things to happen. So keep on fighting
and have faith in the System, just expect to waste way to mush time
and money fighting through bureaucrats and layers neither of which tend
to demonstrate very much common sense.
Although some functional programming languages use a lot of parentheses, this is not true for all of them. Haskell for example hardly uses any parentheses and has about the cleanest syntax of any language I have seen.
While you may associate functional programming languages with recursive thinking, please do not associate them with Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses as this is just plain false.
What do you think of the Mozilla C++ Portability Guidelines? My personal view is that the guidelines can be summed up in one sentence, "Program in the dark ages of C++". Unfortunately there still seams to be a need for it. Because so many major C++ projects still go by similar guidelines, Mozilla and AbiSource come to mind, I fear that my Aspell project will never get used by them and in general does not used nearly as much as it could.
Do you think that that the portibility guidelines are still needed?
Are there any supreme court rulings on the legality of stupid patients like this? If not I would say not to boycott them so that this case could migrate to the supreme court and then put an end to patent madness once and for all. If the supreme court rules that stupid patents like this are legal then we have reason to really scared....
The IceWM seams to do a very good job of not having to use the mouse. In particular it uses almost all of the MS Windows shortcuts for window manipulation. For some reason people don't seam to like icewm. Could it be because it just to simple? Or could it be becuase it is too much like MS Windows?
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In responce to the many "Just buy a Tivo" posts. Here is why I won't but a Tivo:
It is a closed system in which Tivo Inc dictates what I can do with it not me. For example I can't transfer shows over the network onto my computer, something which they were probably never allow due to MPAA and the like pressure. You can hack it do what you want to a certain extent, however the legality is questionable. Furthermore, it seams that Tivo Inc can even instruct it to record a show, without the users consent, as it did for BBC in Britan.
I want an open system in which I can control and add software to, legally.
In order for this to happen, however, the jurors need to some how be informed of this constitutional right. Which might not be easy, but it is certainly possible.
I strongly encourage anyone reading this to read the essay linked above and then go to the FIJA page to find out more.
A non-profit origination is allowed to hire people and sell products. It is just not allowed to make a "profit" as I understand it.
Could someone who runs a non-profit orignization tell me what exactly a non-profit origination is and is-not allowed to do.
My network, DistribNet attempts to address these issues and more. It has been a while since I have worked on it but I plan on putting some serious effort into it in the next couple of months. You an check it out at DistribNet.sf.net.
Yes there is. However, if I was the project leader, I would simply say tough since I am so sick of this type of thing. What would happen to multimedia projects such as mplayer, lame, XViD or any other project with questionable legal status if one of the key author suddenly removed his code? It is bad enough when when companies remove code do to possible legal threats, it is even worse when open source projects do. He released his code to the public and I have every legal right to use it. If he wishes to have his name removed from the code than I would respect that wish, but I would not respect anyones wish to throw away perfectly good code that I have a legal right to use.
Oops posted twise. Some one please moderate *this* one down but leave the other one alone.
This is not the *real* reason. Heroine Warrior is not a company. From there web site "We're not a corporation. We're not a guy in dorm room trying to act like a corporation. We don't have accounts receivable but we do have accounts payable". The *real* reason was that Broadcast 2000 was not good enough. So they started to develop Cinelerra and made Broadcast 2000 unavailable from there site. But to keep it from getting to much attention they pretended it wasn't there as you get this message "It's not here anymore. Why don't you go to this award winning page." Where "this" takes you to Microsoft.com. However, it is available here. Basically these guys are still developing the software but like playing stupid games to fool the general public into thinking there are no longer doing anything to avoid getting too much attention. A nice overview of the *real* history of Broadcast 2000/Cinelerra is available with the Cinelerra docs.
This is not the *real* reason. Heroine Warrior is not a company.s /"&g t;here</a>. Basically
From there web site "We're not a corporation. We're not a guy in dorm
room trying to act like a corporation. We don't have accounts
receivable but we do have accounts payable". The *real* reason was
that Broadcast 2000 was not good enough. So they started to develop
Cinelerra and made Broadcast 2000 unavailable from there site. But to
keep it from getting to much attention they pretended it wasn't there
as you get this message "It's not here anymore. Why don't you go to
this award winning page." Where "this" takes you to Microsoft.com.
However, it is available <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/heroine
these guys are still developing the software but like playing stupid
games to fool the general public into thinking there are no longer
doing anything to avoid getting too much attention. A nice overview
of the *real* history of Broadcast 2000/Cinelerra is availably
with the Cinelerra docs.
I will shut up now becuase I obviously didn't do my homework.
However, do you consider asking for hardware manufactures to release the specks of the cards "hand holding"? That is basically what I mean by offical support.
By doing what ever I want with it I mean offically support doing so as well as giving the specks for how the unit works. I want offical support to at the same level the Sharp provides for there new Zaurus PDA.
Also, I herd that the data is stored in some encrypted format therefore not allowing me to transfer the data to my computer and then to VCD or DVD for long term storage. I would also like to be able to edit the movies I record.
- They offer just the hardware without requiring subscription (or huge up front fee) and the unit is mostly functional without it.
- It becomes a general purpose multimedia machine which I can do what ever the heck I want to with.
1 may eventually happen but 2 will not likely happen do to legal problems even though it should be perfectly legal. See more for my reasons at my home page.Choice number 1 will defiantly be preferable as it will get more public attention, however, choice number 2 is something we as geeks can defiantly do.
What the devil am I talking about, I am talking the the assault on our freedom and in particular the freedom of fair use.
This device is precisely the thing the the media industries (The MPAA and RIAA to mention a few) want, a closed device to deliver content to the end user where they have complete control of what gets done with it. It is just one in a serious of steps, including the DMCA, which the media industries hope will eventually lead to this.
Is it going to happen, NO. But are they going to try, most defiantly. There is a fundamental paradigm shift on our hand due to the Internet. The simple fact is that it is going to be imposable to control the flow of any sort of information. It has already happened with music and it is eventually going to happen with video and other forms of information. And there is nothing the media industries can due about it. Unfortunately the media industry doesn't really see this and those that due refuse to accept and will do everything in there power to make the Internet into what they want. And thus it is going to be hell. What we have seen already is just the begging of the storm. It is going to get a lot worse in the coming years as they media industry continue to try there tricks to control the free flow of information. If you do not see this conflict by now I fell very sorry for you as the signs are everywhere, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and Microsoft's .NET to mention a few.
What can we do about it? Well that is a very good question. We can't avoid this conflict but we can prepare for it. Some of the things we can do are: 1) Support Open Source software (although I think that goes with out saying). 2) Write (snailmail, not email) your congressperson to repeal the DMCA. 3) Refuse to buy hardware you can't develop for. I for one have no interest in TiVO are it competitors for one simple reason, it is a black box that is not designed to be user programmable. And finally 4) spread the word.
For more insight into this issue see the article The Coming Storm by Bruce Bell.
Truthfully, one thing I personally would really like to do is to develop, but really don't have the resources to do so, is a truly open TiVO like device that is *designed* to be user programmable and will store everything completely unencrypted. This device will force the MPAA industry to accept the inevitable. It is completely legal but the MPAA will completely hate it and will do everything in there power to stop it. And with out a lot of will power and a major team of legal exports to back me up they probably will.
But with a little effort. See, Talkback: Is Ripping a Crime? on the same site.
The unfortunate part is that it takes a long time for the nonsense to get straightened out due to way to many self interested lobbyist groups that only care only about one thing and will never lessen to common sense. Many of them are small, but all too many of them are way to large, the tobacco industry, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) (Determined mothers are the worst offenders of the bunch), Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) (there care nothing about safety, only saving insurance companies money and will rather see ever Interstate highway with a speed limit of 50 or less). See my now outdated RDU page for more information on the latter two. Even though the latter two look like they win most of there battles, they don't win them all. The National Speed Limit is now a goner despite IIHS wishes. The unfortunate part is that it took over 14 years for it to happen.
The basic point is eventually things do get better in the United States, it takes way to long for things to happen. So keep on fighting and have faith in the System, just expect to waste way to mush time and money fighting through bureaucrats and layers neither of which tend to demonstrate very much common sense.
> Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses and ...
Although some functional programming languages use a lot of parentheses, this is not true for all of them. Haskell for example hardly uses any parentheses and has about the cleanest syntax of any language I have seen.
While you may associate functional programming languages with recursive thinking, please do not associate them with Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses as this is just plain false.
What do you think of the Mozilla C++ Portability Guidelines? My personal view is that the guidelines can be summed up in one sentence, "Program in the dark ages of C++". Unfortunately there still seams to be a need for it. Because so many major C++ projects still go by similar guidelines, Mozilla and AbiSource come to mind, I fear that my Aspell project will never get used by them and in general does not used nearly as much as it could.
Do you think that that the portibility guidelines are still needed?
Are there any supreme court rulings on the legality of stupid patients like this? If not I would say not to boycott them so that this case could migrate to the supreme court and then put an end to patent madness once and for all. If the supreme court rules that stupid patents like this are legal then we have reason to really scared....
You mean it doesn't come with nice defaults? My prefrence is for MS's Windows manipulation shortcuts and IceWM's for switching desktops.
The IceWM seams to do a very good job of not having to use the mouse. In particular it uses almost all of the MS Windows shortcuts for window manipulation. For some reason people don't seam to like icewm. Could it be because it just to simple? Or could it be becuase it is too much like MS Windows?
Could this at all be inspered by the osOpinion article One area where Windows is ahead of Linux?