The whole "Linux is a kernel" argument is weak. 99% of the Linux fanboys go around talking about how Linux does this better than Windows and Linux does that better than Windows; then when it is pointed out how Windows handles something far better, then Linux is conveniently "just a Kernel." Idiotic.
" I would submit that the problem may not be so easily laid to rest as it would seem that ignoring the Middle East and allowing countries there to lag behind the entire rest of the world including other third-world nations in terms of technology, economy, civilization, education, etc has already cost us and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here."
How are we responsible for that, and how are we going to improve the technology, economy, civilization and education of nations that don't want our help and will in fact violently resist any such help?
Ultimately the responsibility lies with them, but the world seems to think it does with us. We *are* responsible for the actions our nations have taken which make things worse, and it would seem that when we ignore what is going on in countries the people in those countries will try to get our attention. Sometimes they get our attention by blowing shit up. If we do not like that ignoring them will not make it stop.
" and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here."
The root of the problems in the Middle-East is Islam.
The problems of the Middle East far predate Islam. Islam is just part of the flavour of the current witches' brew but it is not the problem in itself. Islam has been with us for less than 1400 years but European adventures into the Middle East (and problems when they fail to adventure there) have been a part of life for many times that number of years. I said 100,000 because about that time conflicts between Cro Magnon and Neanderthal ranged through the area but it's just as significant to consider the wars of Egypt, Persia, etc which are as old as civilization as we know it. 1000 years before Islam the Persian Empire threatened Europe and vice versa; 600 years before that we have the Trojan war and the people of Philistia who might well have included some Europeans. In any case war has been going on in the Middle East for longer than Man remembers and Europe/the West has been involved roughly (or at least almost) as long as people have recorded history.
Islam is not the problem so much as the misunderstanding between people of Islam and people who worship differently (or not at all) and the rise of fundamentalism. That is a problem in all religions not at all unique to Islam. Even during the Crusades, when people lived together in the Middle East they often learned to better understand and respect one another. There were times in that same period when Jews, Christians, and Muslims all prayed together on the Temple Mount. We've actually managed to deteriorate from that point and instead of learning to come together we have Muslims blaming Christians for the problem and Christians blaming Muslims, and atheists saying "let's call the whole thing off."
" It's not a problem of intervening so much as intervening in the wrong way (setting up oppressive governments that discriminate against the most predominant religion, for instance"
What? Oppressive Islamic governments oppress Muslims? Since when? They oppress mainly Christians, Jews and other religious minorities.
Not the governments set up by the US. Two good examples are Egypt and Iran (during the Shah's reign), both of which were responsible for gathering up, imprisoning, and torturing the hell out of Muslims. In the case of Egypt it was because they opposed the government and in the case of Iran it started out that way but ended up in a state where Islam was outlawed and people were punished for going to their mosques. This turned the Ayatollah Khomeini into a hero and made the 1979 revolution possible. In Egypt the Islamic Brotherhood and the teacher who made Ossama Bin Laden what he is (and taught him the basics of his Jihadist philosophy as well as how to start a movement in that regard) were basically created in the prisons of Egypt. Fundamentalism takes passion and nothing builds passion like a healthy dose of to
"(The article dismisses Linux desktops in the enterprise in a single bullet item.)" And how is this still considered a noteworthy article?
Insightful, my eye. The bullet in question, from TFA, was:
The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.
And that is different from this noteworthy article on using Linux on the desktop how? Because that is basically what I get from that article even though it is an article in which the author is actually *trying* to use Linux as a desktop OS.
If we are so blinded by our religion that we cannot see what is wrong with our chosen OS for a given application we are worse than Microsoft. The fact of the matter is that the bullet is valid and more than enough said for why the choice is between Mac and Windows as it has been for aeons. What's sad for Linux is that Apple has done basically what Linux should have done ages ago, especially since this is not the first time Apple has done it, that is, take UNIX and put an Apple-cool user-friendly face upon it (A/UX being the first attempt I know of, with a System 7 style interface as well as a command line).
This time they even used Open Source tech and shared back most of what they did. The GUI is not open source, but you'd think that it would not be hard to replicate or build something similar. Tech-wise it is no more challenging than what already exists in 5000 forms on Linux. The difference here is in design. Interface design has always been the worst part of software so it is no surprise that it would be especially bad in the FOSS community. It's just that you'd think people would eventually get with the program or that some company or group would have obfuscated the ugliness by now.
What I like best about Mac OS X is that like the mythical Linux distro that does not exist everything you can do in the GUI can be done in the command line, and except for the additional step (they should use a daemon to get rid of it, too) of sucking the changes into netinfo you can even change things by using vi on the text files as God Intended. Yet grandma can just pick it right up and it Just Works so she can browse for recipes and do her taxes and make DVDs about her grandkids from videos she shot with the included camera, hook the puter up to the TV and use the included remote to watch them, etc. In other words rather than being simply a vehicle for pushing an agenda and a cudgel for punishing the user for daring to want to use their computer as Linux and Windows seem to be, Macs seem to be more about empowering the user to do more with their computer than they might have thought they could, which is what PCs are for. The main thing that worked as an obstacle in the past for Macs getting into the office space is that they're too damn much fun to use to be productive in some people's eyes and they don't have the word "business" in the title like the other guys do.
Nothing is stopping Linux from becoming every bit as cool except the will to make it so. Most of the stuff that gets in people's way could be easily fixed; it's just that what is not easily fixed is the attitude of Open Source developers that they don't care about [l]users. As long as that does not change the best we can hope for is some entity that is willing to clean up the mess and do as good a job as Apple, which does not look like it is going to happen anytime soon. Look at the long list of failures the author of the 30 days article puts out there.
I will say that it is too bad that the transgaming tech is as bad as it seems to be. Who wants to pay for something that flat does not work even on its best titles? I've been hoping for a long time that it would become something useful and decent as it is the main hope for Linux as a home system that can play games. Maybe if they were helping wine more it would be better; maybe they have run out of
I only wish Dvorak were right... it would mean WiFi is a viable threat to cellphone companies. I hate US cell service to the point that I don't have a cellphone. They seem diametrically opposed to the very idea of the Internet - provide a data link and the applications will follow. For some reason people who would never think of paying per email happily pay per SMS (which is email), and pay several dollars for a ringtone. And since cellphones are so useful and therefore profitable, the current companies and their crappy policies will never get out of the way for better ones.
That's like saying people happily pay hundreds of dollars a copy for MSOffice or happily go through hours of bullshit negotiation to overpay for a car. The fact of the matter is that there is no choice here. There are very few cell phone companies and the number is rapidly approaching one as companies merge. The only way any of this is going to change is if one company breaks ranks and changes their pricing. That's how we got free nights and weekends and blocks of "anytime minutes." It's also why these mergers are happening; cell phone companies don't like having to change their price structures ad it is easier to buy your competitor than to compete with them.
The point is that people only pay what they have to and they have to pay what every company charges. It sucks for now, and only competition makes it better.
You mean like a legislation that passed in the French Parliament back in October 2006 that made it a crime punishable by fines and jail to write anything contrary to the "so-called Armenian Genocide"? I don't remember if the law actually passed the higher house.
Turkey has laws that prevent one from discussing the idea that this happened, or even mentioning the Armenians who did die, which is not great either. In the US, as in Europe, the version we learn in contravention to that which the Turks are allowed to be taught, is that there was an Armenian genocide which the Turkish government continues to deny despite the facts. We don't make it illegal to argue the opposite, but it would seem the former argument is favoured by historians even in Turkey where a historian was jailed for daring to suggest that the idea should be discussed.
Nevertheless despite the fact I disagree with you on your denial that Armenians were killed in Turkey (or perhaps, to be fair, that it was a genocidal act) I do agree that it is unfortunate that France has this position with respect to free speech. What is interesting to me is that whereas Turks might say that Americans would have a preexisting bias in this case, it is also not illegal to describe (and even teach the idea in schools) the treatment of Native Americans and even Vietnamese and Japanese as genocide, despite the fact that in the latter case it's a pretty unpopular view and in the former the word genocide is not popularly favoured despite the evidence. As pissed off as people get, calling the wars of the US genocide or denying one happened elsewhere (see the Holocaust) is legal in the US and not in many other places. It's too bad that even democracies tend to allow laws that restrict views that piss off the majority.
[quote]Just because something is worse somewhere else doesn't make the less bad any good. [/quote]
Be that as it may, GP compared Europe to a dictatorship because of hate speech laws. And although these hate speech laws might be an impediment to absolute free speech, calling Europe a dictatorship because of them simply makes no sense.
No one compared Europe to a dictatorship. Turkey is a parliamentary democracy in which some bad policy decisions have been made as well as some especially draconian laws. No one called Europe a dictatorship, either. A dictatorship has one ruler who dictates all the decisions and laws. We haven't had that in Europe for awhile, but I'll give you a few more years to get there from the EU. In any case, the question of whether a nation or area has a dictator or not has little to do with whether its laws/actions are unfair, onereous, draconian, or otherwise a plain violation of basic human rights. The United States is a democracy and we seem to do pretty well on that count. The first president of the US had to put down a couple of rebellions fueled by unfair tax laws and land practices and the second president wiped his ass with the First Amendment and suspended habeus corpus. That does not make either a dictator but at least in the second case it was a pretty bad thing to do and a blatant abuse of power/the system.
Part of the reason the US Constitution is designed the way it is is to avoid the "tyranny of the majority" where the majority will pass legislation designed specifically to oppress the minority. Human nature and history shows that this will tend to happen, and when safeguards are ignored (as they have been recently) it will happen in any case, but at least the idea is there. Europe is composed of democratic nations as well, but it would seem they don't even support some of the basic concepts of liberty that the US has. Even the Christian Coalition would, we can only hope, be appalled by the fact that tithes are compulsary in many European nations and collected by the government. The previously mentioned laws violate the entire concept of free speech. The US needs to fix this as well, but it's basically Freedom 101 that once you have decided there are certain ideas that are illegal to even discuss you can no longer claim to have freedom of speech. And no, if your constitution says, as it does in Canada, that it is alright for the government to restrict speech as long as the restrictions make sense, it's not protecting free speech. Unfortunately even though the US constitution is absolute on this point (Congress shall make NO LAW) our enforcement of such freedom seems to be as if our constitution was like Canada's. So maybe they are just more honest about it.
It is a bad idea to restrict the free flow of ideas, even bad ones. It is important to counter the bad with the good, but unless the bad is expressed it cannot be refuted. I thought it was a bad idea that Ahmadinejad's holocaust denier group were denied access to Auschwitz and other sites. I think they should have been treated exactly the opposite. Let them make their claims, and then show them to be false. Prove to the deniers what is obvious to the rest of us. It's difficult to show people who have been taught that the Holocaust was a myth from a young age, in some cases from history books in their classrooms, that it is in fact something which undeniably occurred without engaging them. The evidence is there so they should be made to see it for themsleves. Maybe when people express holocaust denial they should be given tours of the camps and made to see the souveniers and films from the Holocaust until they become physically ill and then made to do it again until the weight of the evidence literally overwhelms them. Maybe people who express racist ideas should be made to interact with people who are different from them until familiarity leads them to understanding the flaws in their reasoning. Some, including me, would argue that this is in fact
A lot of terorism would melt away if US and other oil and natural gas hungry countries stop wageging wars in Middle East and other resourcefull areas.
Wars have been fought in the Middle East for perhaps 100,000 years. At least within the context of the much smaller time period recorded by history, the wars have been about access and resources. It's been about access to land, spices, holy sites, oil, and a few other things. In fact to a lesser extent oil was a factor in ancient warfare there as well since naptha was a much-sought-after commodity and it could be found there.
In any case, wars will continue as long as the Middle East is between us and what we want, or has something we want that we feel other people are an obstacle to our access. This can go anywhere from simple refusal to trade or instability leading to the blockage of trade, to "unfair" prices. The "we" in that sentence is as variable as the "they," but the simple fact of the matter is that geography, history, and geology have come together to make the Middle East the most volatile region on Earth. It may even be the original source of the idea of war, and certainly is the stage for the earliest recorded wars in the sense in which we know them. War will never end, and the problem of peacably resolving human conflict cannot be said to have been itself resolved, until these things are accomplished in the Middle East.
There are some people who think that when Europe and the US no longer require fossil fuels from the Middle East they can safely ignore it. After all, we don't necessarily need to use overland trade routes which involve these countries anymore. I would submit that the problem may not be so easily laid to rest as it would seem that ignoring the Middle East and allowing countries there to lag behind the entire rest of the world including other third-world nations in terms of technology, economy, civilization, education, etc has already cost us and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here. It's not a problem of intervening so much as intervening in the wrong way (setting up oppressive governments that discriminate against the most predominant religion, for instance). If we continue to ignore the plight of people who are desperately begging for relief from their suffering they will continue to feel the need to get our attention, and, failing that, inflict a little suffering on us. It's not a question of whether they are right (they aren't) in their tactics, it is a question of whether we are right in allowing the problems there to ocntinue unabated.
there is no particular debate over the "status" of Confederate soldiers in the US Civil War. nobody seriously calls them terrorists. despite the modern Bushisms, "terrorist" does not simply mean "person we don't like". the Confederacy did not (on the whole) engage in terrorist activities. they were rebels, in the same way the Colonial Army were rebels; neither were terrorists. one set won, the other lost.
You're right. They were "unlawful combatants.":D.
Actually, some of the people fighting on both sides fit the definition of that term proferred in recent legislation in that they were irregular fighters without the established uniform. In some cases they wore modified uniforms, but in other cases they wore civilian clothes or something completely different. And of course there were terrorists, saboteurs and spies working for both sides, with varying levels of government support depending on the historian you ask.
there's plenty of debate still today over whether the Confederacy was justified in their actions (which is a really interesting topic, legally, constitutionally, and morally; shame they conflated the issue with slavery, which is such a despicable practice), but not about their "status" in your terms.
I think the issue of slavery was used intentionally for propaganda purposes by both sides. As you imply there were many reasons for the war as there are for all wars, the slavery issue was the most politically charged, easiest to understand, and most importantly most closely defines which states participated on what side. It's all well and good for merchants to get all hot and bothered about tariffs, and there were plenty of people upset with election outcomes and doing the math when it came to representation in Congress, but slavery is a no-brainer. In the South, I think it was politically expedient to hold on to slavery. The richest landowners would have owned slaves and there were serious economic and political repercussions from what Northern politicians were proposing. The possibility that Southern states might lose representation if slaves were not counted or money if slaves had to be paid was real, as well as the realization that the industrialized North would benefit at the agrarian South's expense from proposed policies on slavery and tariffs.
Lincoln clearly believed in slavery reform, and ultimately came to the conclusion of abolition if he had not before, but it was clearly helpful to the cause to give people a moral basis for the war in terms they could understand. Again, it's one thing to understand that the United States is stronger united than divided and that Europeans who were agitating to divide us (an often ignored point) were not our friends, but the vision of human beings doomed to torture and bondage is a graphic reminder, and I am sure this is the kind of picture Reagan and Bush are thinking of when they remind us of the moral cost of inaction in the face of certain human depredations. In any case giving people a unifying philosophy (we are dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, but they think it is right to own people and subject them to degradation and bondage for their own benefit and sadistic pleasure) was helpful for the North in restoring the Union, and it could not have hurt that they were then able to use former slaves in their army as well as the immigrants who were pouring mostly into the North.
In any case it is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. I think it is interesting, too, that we still have not finished reunifying this country after over 140 years, and may never erase the distinction between North and South any more than we can between East and West, or between the coasts and the middle. One does wonder what that means for countries like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Bush is struggling to remain relevant. I don't think he's got the political capital to go after YouTube.
YouTube is not in direct danger of being shut down by the government. It is, however, in indirect danger of being shut down by the government simply because it offends the Corporate Masters. Google has been heading this off by paying protection money (COMPLETELY UNWARRANTED) but that may not be enough. In the end YouTube poses a greater threat to media companies by virtue of the original content on YouTube. The pirate angle is a useful canard for now, but that's the only way YouTube damages these corporations; by being a part of the democratization of media which threatens their stranglehold on human thought, entertainment, and media in general.
When the corporations ask the government to put the kibosh on YouTube, it will if it follows historical precendent. It may be the courts, or the legislature, or some combination of the two. The only way the President would be involved is in the negotiation for how much that's going to cost them in terms of contributions to his party's coffers. The issue of whether the government should be subservient to corporations is one of many points on which both parties agree, so it's not fair blaming the Republicans or Bush (even though there were some egregious cases in the recent administration, slashdotters most hating the one involving Microsoft). Politicians seem to believe fervently in the bipartisan ideal that money, in the form of campaign contributions from corporations, has veto power over all other considerations which means that when corporations ask for something they will generally get it. The only reason the political parties have not put this fee structure on an ecommerce website to make the process more efficient is that making processes more efficient is antithetical to their purpose; this belief is another of the bipartisan ideals which drive the real business of government.
Believe it or not, its still cheaper to build a higher end PC yourself than to go with Dell and the like. Sure if you just want a cheap machine just for everyday stuff, they'll be just fine for you... but its when you want a decent gaming and media rig that the big boys just can't offer the same for less. In this case the only reason to end up with a Dell is for it to come with Windows and a 2 year service plan which you will very likely need due to cheap parts.
It will always be cheaper. However, what the poster was pointing out is that it is getting more difficult. There are more options these days and several disruptive technologies which have recently been added with little user-friendly data available. There are a lot more choices. There are things like multicore cpus of various flavours, the question of 64 bit, pci-e pci-x, sata-150 sata-300, etc. The readers of the site in question are power users familiar with all of this, hacking together their boxes and overclocking in a world of multiplier and/or clock locked chips/chipsets.
Linux, particularly the distribution being reviewed, is becoming more and more user-friendly whereas box-hacking and white-box building is becoming less and less friendly by virtue of becoming more difficult. The point of the poster, which eluded you, is that this juxtaposition leads one to the conclusion that perhaps the system-savvy writers and readers of the page where TFA was hosted are not necessarily the best judges of how easy Linux has become, and are not likely to need the level of ease required for mere mortals ( and dare I say Joe Sixpack's grandmother ) to make the proposed leap to Linux.
There is a real need for smaller computers, but is there a real need for mass-produced mass spectrometers?
That statement reminds me of the execs from HP who exclaimed "what would an ordinary person want with a computer?" And the DEC exec who said that there was only a market for about 6 computers in the whole world.
There are a variety of uses for such a device in the home which spring to mind immediately, and, like the computer, more will be found as people gain access to the devices. It wasn't long ago that people would never have thought CO detectors and other similar devices would be useful in homes, now many homes come with them out of the box. Tech tools solve problems we don't know we have and improve life in ways we would not imagine without them. Refrigeration might have been considered a luxury back in the middle ages, now we know that refirgeration and air conditioning save lives and increase the number of humans we can sustain on the planet. This will be no different.
Dell is paying consumers to use Windows! The exact same Dell Latitude D520 Notebook costs $48 MORE if it comes with no operating system than if it comes with Windows. Here are the specs and links to Dell's online shop
This has always been true, and when Dell trumpeted their previous Linux initiative the costs were even more disproportionate even though RedHat was providing OS support for Linux on Dells and Dell was providing (as required by their agreement with Microsoft) OS support for Windows. It is one of many reason the numbers for Linux installations are negatively skewed; in fact support for Linux on desktops and laptops was dropped specifically because not enough were sold at the disadvantageous price. Clearly, although it is probably the case that Linux is still in the minority, more customers that would like to run Linus will buy the system with Windows at the lower price and then defenestrate when they get it.
By the way, part of the reason the Linux systems cost more is the fact that even on systems with no OS or a non-Windows OS, Dell (and pretty much every other manufacturer) pays Microsoft for a Windows license. For all we know Microsoft charges extra when the system has no OS with the claim that this system will have a pirated Windows installation put on it (even though the customer is basically paying for a Windows licese they never receive). In 1994 Microsoft promised the DOJ they would stop this practice. In the later trial this chestnut was revived, and only the Bush administration putting the kibosh on the trial stopped Microsoft from having to comply with court orders along similar lines. It's one more reason that, as poorly conceived as the original opening of the 1998 trial was (browsers were the least of Microsoft's sins if you even call it that) it did have ample justification and would have made some important differences in the way Microsoft does business. I contend, too, that many of the changes mandated by the court would actually have helped Microsoft, especially in the PR department. Clearly, they disagree.
I only supplied a copy of Windows to a replicator one time (to make 1,000,000 copies) and it wasn't in usable form anyway. After all, until you run the installer Windows on a disk does nothing, and even after that it's not usable (there are a lot of programs you need to install just to get basic OS functions that any other OS already has; this is quite apart from the argument that Windows is unusable in any form).
They sure got bent out of shape over the theft of source in the past, both in terms of copyright infringement (Whistler source) and patent infringement (the source they released telling how to connect to Active Directory with a license that said you could not work on FOSS if you read it). Still it is nice to see Microsoft on our side here. Maybe they have the clout to effect de facto patent reform through judicial action; they certainly have been hit by a lot of patent lawsuits recently that even the most ardent MS haters (I among them) must agree were grossly unfair and representative of the very abuses we decry. Their arguments in this case reflect those made by advocates of patent reform, so if they are successful they will go a long way to improving matters for all even though they will also cripple Microsoft's own Sinister Plans regarding FOSS.
I think Microsoft realizes that the danger posed to them from FOSS is nothing to the danger posed to all from poorly applied software patents. This is an important realization and one for which they deserve applause. Go Microsoft!
"I've never released the firewall scripts I tweaked up, or even told anybody upstream of a couple of bugs I've fixed for myself. Tivo, and for that matter, IBM, HP or Novell all have the same rights that I do." I take it you arent selling or distributing your firewall scripts or updated router software, so you dont need to release anything. TIVO and the others are all selling their software, or otherwise distributing it, which means they do have to release the code of what they do.
Despite popular belief (which is really causing problems for acceptance of FOSS in business), writing software on Linux does not reauire a GPL license any more than writing software on Windows requires a closed source one. If the poster wrote the scripts they determine the license. They can use the penis bird/bugroff licene, the MPL, SCSL, GPL, or whatever damn license pleases them. If he wants to he can distribute the damn scripts in encrypted perl and charge a million dollars without providing line one of source or docs for that matter. It's his software.
What he cannot do is modify and distribut software GPL licensed by another without providing source to the customer for that particular software.
You said you had fixed bugs that you didn't tell upstream about.
And he doesn't have to tell the upstream a damn thing. He does not even have to tell the people he downloaded the software from he is using it. The GPL only requires that the original source received plus any changes made be made available to anyone to whom he distributes the software. It only flows downstream. Sending a message upstream is just a nicety (and usually does not result in anything since the patch may not be accepted and the kudos just fly to/dev/null). It is NOT required.
But who knows, maybe the GNU crowd'll achieve a new level of hubris^H^H^H^H^H^HEnlightenment, and include clauses retroactive to GPL2 code.
Actually that is already covered. In GPLv2 at some point it included a phrase saying that the code licensed under that version of the license would be subject to the terms of later versions of the license. There was a version of GPLv2 that did not include this clause and a lot of wary developers/maintainers used that citing fears that a new version of the GPL might introduce some kind of onereous clause to which they did not intend their software to be subjected. Lo and behold, after much protesting on the part of the FSF that they planned nothing of the sort, we have GPLv3 which has generally been considered anathema by even the most zealous supporters of FOSS other than RMS. It's exactly the reason why "or later" was a bad plan. Only credit card companies have ever gotten away with changing the contract on the fly without consent of the customer, but in this case the FSF has managed to engineer a method for changing the contract on the fly without consent of the manufacturer/guarantor and the customer they serve simultaneously. In other words, if I wrote my own program and was the only person who contributed to it, but I was dumb enough to license it under "GPLv2 or later" all of a sudden my software has a different license now because FSF says so. They should apply for a patent or something.
"Or they could you know....continue on using the GPLv2"
And miss out on defect fixes and functionality enhancements to glibc, GNU Coreutils, and Bash.
Wah. Why should they even care about that? It's a VCR for crying out loud! It works fine. It doesn't have to be script kiddie proof or anything, and they control the hardware besides. I don't see any reason they can't just keep on using the version of software they initially got basically forever. They are also free to work in whatever fixes and changes that are useful to them as long as they aren't snagging patches that were licensed by the *patch writer* as GPLv3 (and under some circumstances even that might fly). But they can write stuff for themselves; after all I hear they have some decent developers working for them. After all, they got decent video play on Linux in addition to a humane user interface and the ability to properly interface with consumer electronics. That basically puts them head and shoulders above the whole damn community.
Yup I think we have our priorities just about right - Siberia or worse for being in recipt of stolen software and a pat on the head for walking around the streets with a loaded illegal handgun.
What's draconian about asking people who want to use your software that they pay for it?
Nothing. But that's not the case anyway. The point of "licensing" is you never get to own the software after you have paid for it. That means if the manufacturer says it's no longer valid, you are a thief. It's even worse when you consider that perfectly valid licenses are routinely ignored by this particular manufacturer, even in view of the fact that they have gotten away with levying a tax on all personal computers. That is, you might find that even though you bought your system and paid your tax, the taxman says you aren't genuine anyway. That's quite apart from the fact that they consistently insist that any customer who does not regularly buy more of their products in ever greater quantities is also a thief. It begs the question of who is stealing from who.
And you already got a good answer on the main reason these laws are draconian; that is, the inappropriate punishment. How would you like being sent to the gulag for buying a copy of Windows just because Microsoft said you didn't buy it? Do you even have any idea what that's like? They're work camps pretty much like concentration camps minus the gas chambers, which basically means a swift death is not on the menu.
'They are the ones who "innovated" the idea that this was stealing and started this whole business of software not being owned and requiring a license instantly revocable without cause from the manufacturer'
All very interesting, but totally irrelevant in this case. The software in question here was never 'owned', not was it 'revoked'. It was pirated, without payment. Clear and simple. The only question that seems to remain is who was responsible and how seriously it should be treated. Neither of these are matters for Microsoft to determine.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. This software was purchased. Further, there is no way it could not have been genuinely purchased. Copies of microsoft's software which they require to be installed on every computer manufactured. Even if for some reason the computer maker missed paying the MS taxman, the fact remains that that guy isn't the one with his head in the noose. The guy who bought computers which came with microsoft software installed is. The software was bought and paid for; Microsoft just happened to find some reason they did not want to honour the license.
As for the question of who was responsible and how seriously it should be treated you are wrong again. In both cases it is Microsoft who decides this and it was Microsoft who decided those things here. They are the ones who decided that it was the educator and not the computer shop that wronged them and pressed the case in the first place. Their claim of damages is what made criminal prosecution possible in the first place. And their inflated claim (another onereous aspect fo this sort of legislation -- copyright holders being able to set outrageous unsubstantiated damages that would never fly if anyone else claimed them) is what makes this crime worthy of the gulag. When they were begged to hold off on their claims in the face of the facts of the case and the consequences of their actions they refused. If they had said the licenses were valid or reduced their damages this case would not have even happened. In the event a judge had to stand up and say that Microsoft's damage claim was ridiculous and the actual damages were not worth the trouble. That's a lucky break for a guy whose only crime was being stupid enough to think buying Microsoft software was a good idea. You should pray Microsoft does not come after you the same way.
People are free to tell you whatever they want to. You are free to listen or not. Speech is not capable of "pounding you into the ground." As far as I can tell, there is still much debate over GPLv3 and the "RMS-is-GOD-and-can-do-no-wrong crowd" are a very small minority of open source supporters. In any case, you can always use the GPLv2 version and update it yourself under v2. Just because someone happens to think RMS is god is no reason for you to steal their work. And if there is one thing I know about the RMSIGACDNW crowd, it is that they don't give a rat's ass if you use their software or not.
True.
What "business" are you giving that crowd, anyway? How much are you paying them? Nothing? You mean you're just a whining leach who doesn't want to contribute but wants to dictate how others contribute? Gotcha.
Wow. I didn't know that/. considered LINUS TORVALDS to be a whining leach. Because, you know, he's not so keen on this GPLV3 thing, either. That's gratitude for you. So RMS=God and Linus=Devil. Even RMS would say that was silly, especially since he is a devout, proselytising atheist in addition to a zealot/revolutionary for Free Software.
This is all a bunch of slashdot monkeys throwing shit from the peanut gallery anyhow. The GPL only applies to developers who actually use, extend, and redistribute code previously released under that license. That probably describes less than 1% of slashdot.
Gorbachev just showed that he has no freakin' clue what's the difference between a criminal case and Bill Gates persecuting a poor teacher.
Bottom line: If Microsoft had declared his license valid, or said that he did not cause financial damage, there would have been no cause for prosecution in the first place. As it is, the judge decided that regardless of the fact Microsoft clearly did feel threatened and required their pound of flesh and pint of blood to wash it down, they had not been damaged here, at least not enough to merit a criminal case.
5: Putin came out in defense of the administrator. What he says, goes.
So a guy who gasses his own people, murders journalists, fixes elections and tries to kill the guy who won when it didn't work... is more merciful, reasonable, and just than Bill Gates. Damn. You would think this would be a wake up call for Bill Gates.
Some are suggesting here that Microsoft could have prevented the prosecution, or turned the publicity to their benefit. Perhaps there are other Russian legal matters that they think American corporations should be encouraged to stick their oar in on? The word "AllofMP3" ring any bells?
If Microsoft had not stuck their oar in in the first place there would have been no prosecution at all. The only reason countries are passing draconian laws regarding copyright is because of direct interference/pressure/threats by US corporations and the US government. Microsoft has been at the forefront of this from the beginning. They are the ones who "innovated" the idea that this was stealing and started this whole business of software not being owned and requiring a license instantly revocable without cause from the manufacturer, the violation of which (or continued use if revoked) being treated as theft. They stuck their dick out in the first place trying to fuck this teacher and send him to the gulag, they could sure as hell pull it back out again and let him be.
I don't think so. If I'd just narrowly avoided going to a Siberian prison for a decade, I'd be pretty careful of anything I did in the future.
If he's smart, he'll switch to Linux. It is unconscionable that an educator teach children to use software from a vendor who thanks you by deciding you deserve to be tortured then freeze and starve to death. That is worse than being a slave. I think Gates just burned all the karma he saved up from his foundation in one fell swoop by refusing mercy to a teacher whose only crime was buying his product and encouraging others to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
The whole "Linux is a kernel" argument is weak. 99% of the Linux fanboys go around talking about how Linux does this better than Windows and Linux does that better than Windows; then when it is pointed out how Windows handles something far better, then Linux is conveniently "just a Kernel." Idiotic.
Linux is a bunch of pipes! It's not a truck!
" I would submit that the problem may not be so easily laid to rest as it would seem that ignoring the Middle East and allowing countries there to lag behind the entire rest of the world including other third-world nations in terms of technology, economy, civilization, education, etc has already cost us and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here."
How are we responsible for that, and how are we going to improve the technology, economy, civilization and education of nations that don't want our help and will in fact violently resist any such help?
Ultimately the responsibility lies with them, but the world seems to think it does with us. We *are* responsible for the actions our nations have taken which make things worse, and it would seem that when we ignore what is going on in countries the people in those countries will try to get our attention. Sometimes they get our attention by blowing shit up. If we do not like that ignoring them will not make it stop.
" and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here."
The root of the problems in the Middle-East is Islam.
The problems of the Middle East far predate Islam. Islam is just part of the flavour of the current witches' brew but it is not the problem in itself. Islam has been with us for less than 1400 years but European adventures into the Middle East (and problems when they fail to adventure there) have been a part of life for many times that number of years. I said 100,000 because about that time conflicts between Cro Magnon and Neanderthal ranged through the area but it's just as significant to consider the wars of Egypt, Persia, etc which are as old as civilization as we know it. 1000 years before Islam the Persian Empire threatened Europe and vice versa; 600 years before that we have the Trojan war and the people of Philistia who might well have included some Europeans. In any case war has been going on in the Middle East for longer than Man remembers and Europe/the West has been involved roughly (or at least almost) as long as people have recorded history.
Islam is not the problem so much as the misunderstanding between people of Islam and people who worship differently (or not at all) and the rise of fundamentalism. That is a problem in all religions not at all unique to Islam. Even during the Crusades, when people lived together in the Middle East they often learned to better understand and respect one another. There were times in that same period when Jews, Christians, and Muslims all prayed together on the Temple Mount. We've actually managed to deteriorate from that point and instead of learning to come together we have Muslims blaming Christians for the problem and Christians blaming Muslims, and atheists saying "let's call the whole thing off."
" It's not a problem of intervening so much as intervening in the wrong way (setting up oppressive governments that discriminate against the most predominant religion, for instance"
What? Oppressive Islamic governments oppress Muslims? Since when? They oppress mainly Christians, Jews and other religious minorities.
Not the governments set up by the US. Two good examples are Egypt and Iran (during the Shah's reign), both of which were responsible for gathering up, imprisoning, and torturing the hell out of Muslims. In the case of Egypt it was because they opposed the government and in the case of Iran it started out that way but ended up in a state where Islam was outlawed and people were punished for going to their mosques. This turned the Ayatollah Khomeini into a hero and made the 1979 revolution possible. In Egypt the Islamic Brotherhood and the teacher who made Ossama Bin Laden what he is (and taught him the basics of his Jihadist philosophy as well as how to start a movement in that regard) were basically created in the prisons of Egypt. Fundamentalism takes passion and nothing builds passion like a healthy dose of to
"(The article dismisses Linux desktops in the enterprise in a single bullet item.)" And how is this still considered a noteworthy article?
Insightful, my eye. The bullet in question, from TFA, was:
The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.
And that is different from this noteworthy article on using Linux on the desktop how? Because that is basically what I get from that article even though it is an article in which the author is actually *trying* to use Linux as a desktop OS.
If we are so blinded by our religion that we cannot see what is wrong with our chosen OS for a given application we are worse than Microsoft. The fact of the matter is that the bullet is valid and more than enough said for why the choice is between Mac and Windows as it has been for aeons. What's sad for Linux is that Apple has done basically what Linux should have done ages ago, especially since this is not the first time Apple has done it, that is, take UNIX and put an Apple-cool user-friendly face upon it (A/UX being the first attempt I know of, with a System 7 style interface as well as a command line).
This time they even used Open Source tech and shared back most of what they did. The GUI is not open source, but you'd think that it would not be hard to replicate or build something similar. Tech-wise it is no more challenging than what already exists in 5000 forms on Linux. The difference here is in design. Interface design has always been the worst part of software so it is no surprise that it would be especially bad in the FOSS community. It's just that you'd think people would eventually get with the program or that some company or group would have obfuscated the ugliness by now.
What I like best about Mac OS X is that like the mythical Linux distro that does not exist everything you can do in the GUI can be done in the command line, and except for the additional step (they should use a daemon to get rid of it, too) of sucking the changes into netinfo you can even change things by using vi on the text files as God Intended. Yet grandma can just pick it right up and it Just Works so she can browse for recipes and do her taxes and make DVDs about her grandkids from videos she shot with the included camera, hook the puter up to the TV and use the included remote to watch them, etc. In other words rather than being simply a vehicle for pushing an agenda and a cudgel for punishing the user for daring to want to use their computer as Linux and Windows seem to be, Macs seem to be more about empowering the user to do more with their computer than they might have thought they could, which is what PCs are for. The main thing that worked as an obstacle in the past for Macs getting into the office space is that they're too damn much fun to use to be productive in some people's eyes and they don't have the word "business" in the title like the other guys do.
Nothing is stopping Linux from becoming every bit as cool except the will to make it so. Most of the stuff that gets in people's way could be easily fixed; it's just that what is not easily fixed is the attitude of Open Source developers that they don't care about [l]users. As long as that does not change the best we can hope for is some entity that is willing to clean up the mess and do as good a job as Apple, which does not look like it is going to happen anytime soon. Look at the long list of failures the author of the 30 days article puts out there.
I will say that it is too bad that the transgaming tech is as bad as it seems to be. Who wants to pay for something that flat does not work even on its best titles? I've been hoping for a long time that it would become something useful and decent as it is the main hope for Linux as a home system that can play games. Maybe if they were helping wine more it would be better; maybe they have run out of
I only wish Dvorak were right... it would mean WiFi is a viable threat to cellphone companies. I hate US cell service to the point that I don't have a cellphone. They seem diametrically opposed to the very idea of the Internet - provide a data link and the applications will follow. For some reason people who would never think of paying per email happily pay per SMS (which is email), and pay several dollars for a ringtone. And since cellphones are so useful and therefore profitable, the current companies and their crappy policies will never get out of the way for better ones.
That's like saying people happily pay hundreds of dollars a copy for MSOffice or happily go through hours of bullshit negotiation to overpay for a car. The fact of the matter is that there is no choice here. There are very few cell phone companies and the number is rapidly approaching one as companies merge. The only way any of this is going to change is if one company breaks ranks and changes their pricing. That's how we got free nights and weekends and blocks of "anytime minutes." It's also why these mergers are happening; cell phone companies don't like having to change their price structures ad it is easier to buy your competitor than to compete with them.
The point is that people only pay what they have to and they have to pay what every company charges. It sucks for now, and only competition makes it better.
You mean like a legislation that passed in the French Parliament back in October 2006 that made it a crime punishable by fines and jail to write anything contrary to the "so-called Armenian Genocide"? I don't remember if the law actually passed the higher house.
Turkey has laws that prevent one from discussing the idea that this happened, or even mentioning the Armenians who did die, which is not great either. In the US, as in Europe, the version we learn in contravention to that which the Turks are allowed to be taught, is that there was an Armenian genocide which the Turkish government continues to deny despite the facts. We don't make it illegal to argue the opposite, but it would seem the former argument is favoured by historians even in Turkey where a historian was jailed for daring to suggest that the idea should be discussed.
Nevertheless despite the fact I disagree with you on your denial that Armenians were killed in Turkey (or perhaps, to be fair, that it was a genocidal act) I do agree that it is unfortunate that France has this position with respect to free speech. What is interesting to me is that whereas Turks might say that Americans would have a preexisting bias in this case, it is also not illegal to describe (and even teach the idea in schools) the treatment of Native Americans and even Vietnamese and Japanese as genocide, despite the fact that in the latter case it's a pretty unpopular view and in the former the word genocide is not popularly favoured despite the evidence. As pissed off as people get, calling the wars of the US genocide or denying one happened elsewhere (see the Holocaust) is legal in the US and not in many other places. It's too bad that even democracies tend to allow laws that restrict views that piss off the majority.
[quote]Just because something is worse somewhere else doesn't make the less bad any good. [/quote]
Be that as it may, GP compared Europe to a dictatorship because of hate speech laws. And although these hate speech laws might be an impediment to absolute free speech, calling Europe a dictatorship because of them simply makes no sense.
No one compared Europe to a dictatorship. Turkey is a parliamentary democracy in which some bad policy decisions have been made as well as some especially draconian laws. No one called Europe a dictatorship, either. A dictatorship has one ruler who dictates all the decisions and laws. We haven't had that in Europe for awhile, but I'll give you a few more years to get there from the EU. In any case, the question of whether a nation or area has a dictator or not has little to do with whether its laws/actions are unfair, onereous, draconian, or otherwise a plain violation of basic human rights. The United States is a democracy and we seem to do pretty well on that count. The first president of the US had to put down a couple of rebellions fueled by unfair tax laws and land practices and the second president wiped his ass with the First Amendment and suspended habeus corpus. That does not make either a dictator but at least in the second case it was a pretty bad thing to do and a blatant abuse of power/the system.
Part of the reason the US Constitution is designed the way it is is to avoid the "tyranny of the majority" where the majority will pass legislation designed specifically to oppress the minority. Human nature and history shows that this will tend to happen, and when safeguards are ignored (as they have been recently) it will happen in any case, but at least the idea is there. Europe is composed of democratic nations as well, but it would seem they don't even support some of the basic concepts of liberty that the US has. Even the Christian Coalition would, we can only hope, be appalled by the fact that tithes are compulsary in many European nations and collected by the government. The previously mentioned laws violate the entire concept of free speech. The US needs to fix this as well, but it's basically Freedom 101 that once you have decided there are certain ideas that are illegal to even discuss you can no longer claim to have freedom of speech. And no, if your constitution says, as it does in Canada, that it is alright for the government to restrict speech as long as the restrictions make sense, it's not protecting free speech. Unfortunately even though the US constitution is absolute on this point (Congress shall make NO LAW) our enforcement of such freedom seems to be as if our constitution was like Canada's. So maybe they are just more honest about it.
It is a bad idea to restrict the free flow of ideas, even bad ones. It is important to counter the bad with the good, but unless the bad is expressed it cannot be refuted. I thought it was a bad idea that Ahmadinejad's holocaust denier group were denied access to Auschwitz and other sites. I think they should have been treated exactly the opposite. Let them make their claims, and then show them to be false. Prove to the deniers what is obvious to the rest of us. It's difficult to show people who have been taught that the Holocaust was a myth from a young age, in some cases from history books in their classrooms, that it is in fact something which undeniably occurred without engaging them. The evidence is there so they should be made to see it for themsleves. Maybe when people express holocaust denial they should be given tours of the camps and made to see the souveniers and films from the Holocaust until they become physically ill and then made to do it again until the weight of the evidence literally overwhelms them. Maybe people who express racist ideas should be made to interact with people who are different from them until familiarity leads them to understanding the flaws in their reasoning. Some, including me, would argue that this is in fact
A lot of terorism would melt away if US and other oil and natural gas hungry countries stop wageging wars in Middle East and other resourcefull areas.
Wars have been fought in the Middle East for perhaps 100,000 years. At least within the context of the much smaller time period recorded by history, the wars have been about access and resources. It's been about access to land, spices, holy sites, oil, and a few other things. In fact to a lesser extent oil was a factor in ancient warfare there as well since naptha was a much-sought-after commodity and it could be found there.
In any case, wars will continue as long as the Middle East is between us and what we want, or has something we want that we feel other people are an obstacle to our access. This can go anywhere from simple refusal to trade or instability leading to the blockage of trade, to "unfair" prices. The "we" in that sentence is as variable as the "they," but the simple fact of the matter is that geography, history, and geology have come together to make the Middle East the most volatile region on Earth. It may even be the original source of the idea of war, and certainly is the stage for the earliest recorded wars in the sense in which we know them. War will never end, and the problem of peacably resolving human conflict cannot be said to have been itself resolved, until these things are accomplished in the Middle East.
There are some people who think that when Europe and the US no longer require fossil fuels from the Middle East they can safely ignore it. After all, we don't necessarily need to use overland trade routes which involve these countries anymore. I would submit that the problem may not be so easily laid to rest as it would seem that ignoring the Middle East and allowing countries there to lag behind the entire rest of the world including other third-world nations in terms of technology, economy, civilization, education, etc has already cost us and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here. It's not a problem of intervening so much as intervening in the wrong way (setting up oppressive governments that discriminate against the most predominant religion, for instance). If we continue to ignore the plight of people who are desperately begging for relief from their suffering they will continue to feel the need to get our attention, and, failing that, inflict a little suffering on us. It's not a question of whether they are right (they aren't) in their tactics, it is a question of whether we are right in allowing the problems there to ocntinue unabated.
there is no particular debate over the "status" of Confederate soldiers in the US Civil War. nobody seriously calls them terrorists. despite the modern Bushisms, "terrorist" does not simply mean "person we don't like". the Confederacy did not (on the whole) engage in terrorist activities. they were rebels, in the same way the Colonial Army were rebels; neither were terrorists. one set won, the other lost.
You're right. They were "unlawful combatants." :D.
Actually, some of the people fighting on both sides fit the definition of that term proferred in recent legislation in that they were irregular fighters without the established uniform. In some cases they wore modified uniforms, but in other cases they wore civilian clothes or something completely different. And of course there were terrorists, saboteurs and spies working for both sides, with varying levels of government support depending on the historian you ask.
there's plenty of debate still today over whether the Confederacy was justified in their actions (which is a really interesting topic, legally, constitutionally, and morally; shame they conflated the issue with slavery, which is such a despicable practice), but not about their "status" in your terms.
I think the issue of slavery was used intentionally for propaganda purposes by both sides. As you imply there were many reasons for the war as there are for all wars, the slavery issue was the most politically charged, easiest to understand, and most importantly most closely defines which states participated on what side. It's all well and good for merchants to get all hot and bothered about tariffs, and there were plenty of people upset with election outcomes and doing the math when it came to representation in Congress, but slavery is a no-brainer. In the South, I think it was politically expedient to hold on to slavery. The richest landowners would have owned slaves and there were serious economic and political repercussions from what Northern politicians were proposing. The possibility that Southern states might lose representation if slaves were not counted or money if slaves had to be paid was real, as well as the realization that the industrialized North would benefit at the agrarian South's expense from proposed policies on slavery and tariffs.
Lincoln clearly believed in slavery reform, and ultimately came to the conclusion of abolition if he had not before, but it was clearly helpful to the cause to give people a moral basis for the war in terms they could understand. Again, it's one thing to understand that the United States is stronger united than divided and that Europeans who were agitating to divide us (an often ignored point) were not our friends, but the vision of human beings doomed to torture and bondage is a graphic reminder, and I am sure this is the kind of picture Reagan and Bush are thinking of when they remind us of the moral cost of inaction in the face of certain human depredations. In any case giving people a unifying philosophy (we are dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, but they think it is right to own people and subject them to degradation and bondage for their own benefit and sadistic pleasure) was helpful for the North in restoring the Union, and it could not have hurt that they were then able to use former slaves in their army as well as the immigrants who were pouring mostly into the North.
In any case it is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. I think it is interesting, too, that we still have not finished reunifying this country after over 140 years, and may never erase the distinction between North and South any more than we can between East and West, or between the coasts and the middle. One does wonder what that means for countries like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Bush is struggling to remain relevant. I don't think he's got the political capital to go after YouTube.
YouTube is not in direct danger of being shut down by the government. It is, however, in indirect danger of being shut down by the government simply because it offends the Corporate Masters. Google has been heading this off by paying protection money (COMPLETELY UNWARRANTED) but that may not be enough. In the end YouTube poses a greater threat to media companies by virtue of the original content on YouTube. The pirate angle is a useful canard for now, but that's the only way YouTube damages these corporations; by being a part of the democratization of media which threatens their stranglehold on human thought, entertainment, and media in general.
When the corporations ask the government to put the kibosh on YouTube, it will if it follows historical precendent. It may be the courts, or the legislature, or some combination of the two. The only way the President would be involved is in the negotiation for how much that's going to cost them in terms of contributions to his party's coffers. The issue of whether the government should be subservient to corporations is one of many points on which both parties agree, so it's not fair blaming the Republicans or Bush (even though there were some egregious cases in the recent administration, slashdotters most hating the one involving Microsoft). Politicians seem to believe fervently in the bipartisan ideal that money, in the form of campaign contributions from corporations, has veto power over all other considerations which means that when corporations ask for something they will generally get it. The only reason the political parties have not put this fee structure on an ecommerce website to make the process more efficient is that making processes more efficient is antithetical to their purpose; this belief is another of the bipartisan ideals which drive the real business of government.
Believe it or not, its still cheaper to build a higher end PC yourself than to go with Dell and the like. Sure if you just want a cheap machine just for everyday stuff, they'll be just fine for you... but its when you want a decent gaming and media rig that the big boys just can't offer the same for less. In this case the only reason to end up with a Dell is for it to come with Windows and a 2 year service plan which you will very likely need due to cheap parts.
It will always be cheaper. However, what the poster was pointing out is that it is getting more difficult. There are more options these days and several disruptive technologies which have recently been added with little user-friendly data available. There are a lot more choices. There are things like multicore cpus of various flavours, the question of 64 bit, pci-e pci-x, sata-150 sata-300, etc. The readers of the site in question are power users familiar with all of this, hacking together their boxes and overclocking in a world of multiplier and/or clock locked chips/chipsets.
Linux, particularly the distribution being reviewed, is becoming more and more user-friendly whereas box-hacking and white-box building is becoming less and less friendly by virtue of becoming more difficult. The point of the poster, which eluded you, is that this juxtaposition leads one to the conclusion that perhaps the system-savvy writers and readers of the page where TFA was hosted are not necessarily the best judges of how easy Linux has become, and are not likely to need the level of ease required for mere mortals ( and dare I say Joe Sixpack's grandmother ) to make the proposed leap to Linux.
There is a real need for smaller computers, but is there a real need for mass-produced mass spectrometers?
That statement reminds me of the execs from HP who exclaimed "what would an ordinary person want with a computer?" And the DEC exec who said that there was only a market for about 6 computers in the whole world.
There are a variety of uses for such a device in the home which spring to mind immediately, and, like the computer, more will be found as people gain access to the devices. It wasn't long ago that people would never have thought CO detectors and other similar devices would be useful in homes, now many homes come with them out of the box. Tech tools solve problems we don't know we have and improve life in ways we would not imagine without them. Refrigeration might have been considered a luxury back in the middle ages, now we know that refirgeration and air conditioning save lives and increase the number of humans we can sustain on the planet. This will be no different.
Dell is paying consumers to use Windows! The exact same Dell Latitude D520 Notebook costs $48 MORE if it comes with no operating system than if it comes with Windows. Here are the specs and links to Dell's online shop
This has always been true, and when Dell trumpeted their previous Linux initiative the costs were even more disproportionate even though RedHat was providing OS support for Linux on Dells and Dell was providing (as required by their agreement with Microsoft) OS support for Windows. It is one of many reason the numbers for Linux installations are negatively skewed; in fact support for Linux on desktops and laptops was dropped specifically because not enough were sold at the disadvantageous price. Clearly, although it is probably the case that Linux is still in the minority, more customers that would like to run Linus will buy the system with Windows at the lower price and then defenestrate when they get it.
By the way, part of the reason the Linux systems cost more is the fact that even on systems with no OS or a non-Windows OS, Dell (and pretty much every other manufacturer) pays Microsoft for a Windows license. For all we know Microsoft charges extra when the system has no OS with the claim that this system will have a pirated Windows installation put on it (even though the customer is basically paying for a Windows licese they never receive). In 1994 Microsoft promised the DOJ they would stop this practice. In the later trial this chestnut was revived, and only the Bush administration putting the kibosh on the trial stopped Microsoft from having to comply with court orders along similar lines. It's one more reason that, as poorly conceived as the original opening of the 1998 trial was (browsers were the least of Microsoft's sins if you even call it that) it did have ample justification and would have made some important differences in the way Microsoft does business. I contend, too, that many of the changes mandated by the court would actually have helped Microsoft, especially in the PR department. Clearly, they disagree.
I only supplied a copy of Windows to a replicator one time (to make 1,000,000 copies) and it wasn't in usable form anyway. After all, until you run the installer Windows on a disk does nothing, and even after that it's not usable (there are a lot of programs you need to install just to get basic OS functions that any other OS already has; this is quite apart from the argument that Windows is unusable in any form).
They sure got bent out of shape over the theft of source in the past, both in terms of copyright infringement (Whistler source) and patent infringement (the source they released telling how to connect to Active Directory with a license that said you could not work on FOSS if you read it). Still it is nice to see Microsoft on our side here. Maybe they have the clout to effect de facto patent reform through judicial action; they certainly have been hit by a lot of patent lawsuits recently that even the most ardent MS haters (I among them) must agree were grossly unfair and representative of the very abuses we decry. Their arguments in this case reflect those made by advocates of patent reform, so if they are successful they will go a long way to improving matters for all even though they will also cripple Microsoft's own Sinister Plans regarding FOSS.
I think Microsoft realizes that the danger posed to them from FOSS is nothing to the danger posed to all from poorly applied software patents. This is an important realization and one for which they deserve applause. Go Microsoft!
"I've never released the firewall scripts I tweaked up, or even told anybody upstream of a couple of bugs I've fixed for myself. Tivo, and for that matter, IBM, HP or Novell all have the same rights that I do." I take it you arent selling or distributing your firewall scripts or updated router software, so you dont need to release anything. TIVO and the others are all selling their software, or otherwise distributing it, which means they do have to release the code of what they do.
Despite popular belief (which is really causing problems for acceptance of FOSS in business), writing software on Linux does not reauire a GPL license any more than writing software on Windows requires a closed source one. If the poster wrote the scripts they determine the license. They can use the penis bird/bugroff licene, the MPL, SCSL, GPL, or whatever damn license pleases them. If he wants to he can distribute the damn scripts in encrypted perl and charge a million dollars without providing line one of source or docs for that matter. It's his software.
What he cannot do is modify and distribut software GPL licensed by another without providing source to the customer for that particular software.
You said you had fixed bugs that you didn't tell upstream about.
And he doesn't have to tell the upstream a damn thing. He does not even have to tell the people he downloaded the software from he is using it. The GPL only requires that the original source received plus any changes made be made available to anyone to whom he distributes the software. It only flows downstream. Sending a message upstream is just a nicety (and usually does not result in anything since the patch may not be accepted and the kudos just fly to /dev/null). It is NOT required.
But who knows, maybe the GNU crowd'll achieve a new level of hubris^H^H^H^H^H^HEnlightenment, and include clauses retroactive to GPL2 code.
Actually that is already covered. In GPLv2 at some point it included a phrase saying that the code licensed under that version of the license would be subject to the terms of later versions of the license. There was a version of GPLv2 that did not include this clause and a lot of wary developers/maintainers used that citing fears that a new version of the GPL might introduce some kind of onereous clause to which they did not intend their software to be subjected. Lo and behold, after much protesting on the part of the FSF that they planned nothing of the sort, we have GPLv3 which has generally been considered anathema by even the most zealous supporters of FOSS other than RMS. It's exactly the reason why "or later" was a bad plan. Only credit card companies have ever gotten away with changing the contract on the fly without consent of the customer, but in this case the FSF has managed to engineer a method for changing the contract on the fly without consent of the manufacturer/guarantor and the customer they serve simultaneously. In other words, if I wrote my own program and was the only person who contributed to it, but I was dumb enough to license it under "GPLv2 or later" all of a sudden my software has a different license now because FSF says so. They should apply for a patent or something.
"Or they could you know....continue on using the GPLv2"
And miss out on defect fixes and functionality enhancements to glibc, GNU Coreutils, and Bash.
Wah. Why should they even care about that? It's a VCR for crying out loud! It works fine. It doesn't have to be script kiddie proof or anything, and they control the hardware besides. I don't see any reason they can't just keep on using the version of software they initially got basically forever. They are also free to work in whatever fixes and changes that are useful to them as long as they aren't snagging patches that were licensed by the *patch writer* as GPLv3 (and under some circumstances even that might fly). But they can write stuff for themselves; after all I hear they have some decent developers working for them. After all, they got decent video play on Linux in addition to a humane user interface and the ability to properly interface with consumer electronics. That basically puts them head and shoulders above the whole damn community.
What part of "userland" do you not understand? TiVo almost certainly uses more GPL software than just a kernel, you know!
What part of "kernel" do you not understand? The linux kernel is the only part that has to be digitally signed here.
Yup I think we have our priorities just about right - Siberia or worse for being in recipt of stolen software and a pat on the head for walking around the streets with a loaded illegal handgun.
It does serve to thin the herd, though :D.
What's draconian about asking people who want to use your software that they pay for it?
Nothing. But that's not the case anyway. The point of "licensing" is you never get to own the software after you have paid for it. That means if the manufacturer says it's no longer valid, you are a thief. It's even worse when you consider that perfectly valid licenses are routinely ignored by this particular manufacturer, even in view of the fact that they have gotten away with levying a tax on all personal computers. That is, you might find that even though you bought your system and paid your tax, the taxman says you aren't genuine anyway. That's quite apart from the fact that they consistently insist that any customer who does not regularly buy more of their products in ever greater quantities is also a thief. It begs the question of who is stealing from who.
And you already got a good answer on the main reason these laws are draconian; that is, the inappropriate punishment. How would you like being sent to the gulag for buying a copy of Windows just because Microsoft said you didn't buy it? Do you even have any idea what that's like? They're work camps pretty much like concentration camps minus the gas chambers, which basically means a swift death is not on the menu.
'They are the ones who "innovated" the idea that this was stealing and started this whole business of software not being owned and requiring a license instantly revocable without cause from the manufacturer'
All very interesting, but totally irrelevant in this case. The software in question here was never 'owned', not was it 'revoked'. It was pirated, without payment. Clear and simple. The only question that seems to remain is who was responsible and how seriously it should be treated. Neither of these are matters for Microsoft to determine.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. This software was purchased. Further, there is no way it could not have been genuinely purchased. Copies of microsoft's software which they require to be installed on every computer manufactured. Even if for some reason the computer maker missed paying the MS taxman, the fact remains that that guy isn't the one with his head in the noose. The guy who bought computers which came with microsoft software installed is. The software was bought and paid for; Microsoft just happened to find some reason they did not want to honour the license.
As for the question of who was responsible and how seriously it should be treated you are wrong again. In both cases it is Microsoft who decides this and it was Microsoft who decided those things here. They are the ones who decided that it was the educator and not the computer shop that wronged them and pressed the case in the first place. Their claim of damages is what made criminal prosecution possible in the first place. And their inflated claim (another onereous aspect fo this sort of legislation -- copyright holders being able to set outrageous unsubstantiated damages that would never fly if anyone else claimed them) is what makes this crime worthy of the gulag. When they were begged to hold off on their claims in the face of the facts of the case and the consequences of their actions they refused. If they had said the licenses were valid or reduced their damages this case would not have even happened. In the event a judge had to stand up and say that Microsoft's damage claim was ridiculous and the actual damages were not worth the trouble. That's a lucky break for a guy whose only crime was being stupid enough to think buying Microsoft software was a good idea. You should pray Microsoft does not come after you the same way.
People are free to tell you whatever they want to. You are free to listen or not. Speech is not capable of "pounding you into the ground." As far as I can tell, there is still much debate over GPLv3 and the "RMS-is-GOD-and-can-do-no-wrong crowd" are a very small minority of open source supporters. In any case, you can always use the GPLv2 version and update it yourself under v2. Just because someone happens to think RMS is god is no reason for you to steal their work. And if there is one thing I know about the RMSIGACDNW crowd, it is that they don't give a rat's ass if you use their software or not.
True.
What "business" are you giving that crowd, anyway? How much are you paying them? Nothing? You mean you're just a whining leach who doesn't want to contribute but wants to dictate how others contribute? Gotcha.
Wow. I didn't know that /. considered LINUS TORVALDS to be a whining leach. Because, you know, he's not so keen on this GPLV3 thing, either. That's gratitude for you. So RMS=God and Linus=Devil. Even RMS would say that was silly, especially since he is a devout, proselytising atheist in addition to a zealot/revolutionary for Free Software.
This is all a bunch of slashdot monkeys throwing shit from the peanut gallery anyhow. The GPL only applies to developers who actually use, extend, and redistribute code previously released under that license. That probably describes less than 1% of slashdot.
Gorbachev just showed that he has no freakin' clue what's the difference between a criminal case and Bill Gates persecuting a poor teacher.
Bottom line: If Microsoft had declared his license valid, or said that he did not cause financial damage, there would have been no cause for prosecution in the first place. As it is, the judge decided that regardless of the fact Microsoft clearly did feel threatened and required their pound of flesh and pint of blood to wash it down, they had not been damaged here, at least not enough to merit a criminal case.
5: Putin came out in defense of the administrator. What he says, goes.
So a guy who gasses his own people, murders journalists, fixes elections and tries to kill the guy who won when it didn't work ... is more merciful, reasonable, and just than Bill Gates. Damn. You would think this would be a wake up call for Bill Gates.
Some are suggesting here that Microsoft could have prevented the prosecution, or turned the publicity to their benefit. Perhaps there are other Russian legal matters that they think American corporations should be encouraged to stick their oar in on? The word "AllofMP3" ring any bells?
If Microsoft had not stuck their oar in in the first place there would have been no prosecution at all. The only reason countries are passing draconian laws regarding copyright is because of direct interference/pressure/threats by US corporations and the US government. Microsoft has been at the forefront of this from the beginning. They are the ones who "innovated" the idea that this was stealing and started this whole business of software not being owned and requiring a license instantly revocable without cause from the manufacturer, the violation of which (or continued use if revoked) being treated as theft. They stuck their dick out in the first place trying to fuck this teacher and send him to the gulag, they could sure as hell pull it back out again and let him be.
I don't think so. If I'd just narrowly avoided going to a Siberian prison for a decade, I'd be pretty careful of anything I did in the future.
If he's smart, he'll switch to Linux. It is unconscionable that an educator teach children to use software from a vendor who thanks you by deciding you deserve to be tortured then freeze and starve to death. That is worse than being a slave. I think Gates just burned all the karma he saved up from his foundation in one fell swoop by refusing mercy to a teacher whose only crime was buying his product and encouraging others to use it.