Why are we monitoring the people who read evil books anyway? Wouldn't it be easier to simply gather them up and burn them? (the books, not the people who read them... although that is another thought...)
This may be self-regulating. Consider the Skinner box; if something is capable of perfectly emulating recognition of Chinese, then it can be said to recognize Chinese. Likewise, if a spammer becomes sufficiently skilled at writing undetectable prose, he or she will have reached a skill level at which he or she can pursue more profitable writing ventures. The margins in spam are pretty small. Those spams are being written by morons because morons are cheap.
E. Starting three months after the entry of this Final Judgment to the Court, Microsoft shall
make available for use by third parties, for the sole purpose of interoperating or
communicating with a Windows Operating System Product, on reasonable and
non-discriminatory terms (consistent with Section III.I), any Communications Protocol
that is, on or after the date this Final Judgment is submitted to the Court, (i) implemented
in a Windows Operating System Product installed on a client computer, and (ii) used to
interoperate, or communicate, natively (i.e., without the addition of software code to the
client operating system product) with a Microsoft server operating system product.
I assume this to mean that the Samba guys will get legal access to the SMB protocol specs and other related stuff. Likely could include the native Exchange server protocols too, since Outlook Express talks that protocol and has shipped integrated with the OS.
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
"J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall: 1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties: (a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or (b) any API, interface or other information related to any Microsoft product if lawfully directed not to do so by a governmental agency of competent jurisdiction."
Any thoughts on whether MS will publish MAPI (the Exchange API)? I'm thinking they'll say it's a security issue. What's the worst that can happen to MS? Another 5 year trial with another wrist slap at the end? They'd be retarded *not* to keep fucking us.
I use the GPL on my projects. However, the GPL is not intended to benefit everyone equally. It is intented to give an edge to free software developers. I believe this is a good thing for developers and companies to do of their own free will. I do not, however, think that it is right for our government to exclude proprietary software developers from public works.
Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.
Again, let me stress that I use the GPL, I like the GPL, I think more developers should use the GPL. But our government should not provide preferential treatment for one group of software developers over another. We don't like it when congress gives preferential treatment to Disney, and it is not appropriate for us to request preferential treatment over Adobe.
[Steve Ballmer] added it may be necessary to "weed out" employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.
Manager: Have you added any gaping holes in security? Peon: No. Manager: Have you lied to our customers? Peon: No. Manager: Have you disobeyed any Federal court orders? Peon: No. Manager: You're fired.
From what I've been able to deduce, basically there was a bill in congress, HR 5469. It was a very short bill which put off CARP for six months. Webcasters were universally calling on their listeners to support the bill. Just before the bill went to the floor for a vote, the RIAA tacked on thirty pages of ammendments. With all the public and industry support, it passed easily, despite the fact that the public support was for the unammended version.
The most significant part of the ammendments is that they create a decreasing royalty system. The more you broadcast, the less you pay per song. This ensures that something like Clearcast will exist in netradio. This makes it much easier for the RIAA to control what's played the same way they do with Clearcast.
The decreasing scale kicks in at a low enough level that all of today's popular webcasting sites will see a reduction in the royalties they are responsible to pay relative to the current law--so they all blindly support it. What they are failing to realize is that there are no really big webcasters yet, and that this law guarantees that those big webcasters will come into existence. All of the current stations will be undercut by the megacasters who will be paying lower royalties. They will either; have to put on more commercials than the megas and lose their listeners, keep their commercial level low enough to keep their listener base and operate in the red, or sell out at fire sale prices.
This bill will eliminate independent webcasting (for better or worse). As for you Rusty, you're an idiot. You're a big fish in a small pond now. Wait till you meet a killer whale--you won't even know what hit you.
From the article: The basic filing fee will be lower, to compensate for the transfer of prior-art searches to private companies that will impose their own fees.
Far from investing the additional money in better prior art searchs - they are admitting defeat and giving up on them altogether. You will have to go hire a private firm to do the prior art search.
Which could be a good plan - instead of the ineptitude of the USPTO, we'll have the lack of ethics of private business (I'm not suggesting that capitalist enterprises should or should not be ethical - merely observing that they are not).
The technology needed to implement Palladium is patented by Microsoft. The BSD license does not prevent the copyright holder from charging a patent license fee nor does it prevent the copyright holder from suing unlicensed implementors into oblivion.
You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of the.NET Framework component of the OS Components to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval.
Ximian Connector's license does this too. I asked the regional sales rep to remove it. He referred me to a VP who did not respond to my email.
Anyone placing wagers on whether Clause 2 will ever get invoked the way HP just used the DMCA to quash the Tru64 crack?
Clause 2: Possession or supply of anything for re-programming purposes
10. This clause creates a number of offences ancillary to the offence created by clause 1. These linked offences are having custody or control of the equipment for the purpose of unauthorised re-programming (subsection 1), and supplying (subsection 2) or offering to supply (subsection 3) the equipment to someone for that purpose.
11. The equipment required to reprogramme the IMEI number may also be used for other legitimate purposes. The clause makes it clear that the offences are committed only if the person intends to use the equipment or allow it to be used for the purposes of making an unauthorised change to the IMEI number, or knows that the person to whom he supplies it or offers to supply it intends to use it or allow it to be used for that purpose.
12. The effect of subsection (5) is that possession by, supply to, or the offer to supply to the manufacturer of a mobile telephone, or someone with his written consent, does not amount to an offence under subsections (1), (2) and (3).
13. Unique device identifier has the same definition as in clause 1. The penalties for each of these offences are the same as for the offence created by clause 1.
First, what do I do when someone submits a patch that violates my 'mission'?
Step 1 is to reconsider your mission. When person A and person B disagree, person A is only right 50% of the time on average. Think carefully whether the patch can contribute to the mission, and whether it is possible that the mission itself should be patched. There's nothing wrong with vetoing or delaying an inappropriate patch, just be sure to understand and appreciate the patch before denying it.
Should I try to be democratic about it and try to add it?
If it is truly going to side-track or derail the project, you should table it, at least for the time being. Part of your job as steward is to make those decisions - and to make everyone feel good about them. Make sure the contributor understands that you appreciate the contribution, and will keep it in the list of suggestions.
Sourceforge lets you publish patches along with the project. That way you don't have to alter the trunk, and you can still publish the contribution.
Should I ignore it?
No. Graciously acknowledging people who are trying to help is good policy, even if you decide to veto or delay the patch.
What should I say to the contributor?
Start with, "Thank you for your submission!" Then briefly address your decision on including the patch, or ask questions if you don't understand. End with, "Thank you again for taking the time to submit!"
What if I get a patch that I don't understand?
Ask the contributor to explain it. Open Source hackers love to talk about their code. It's like a motorhead's '67 Camaro. There's no such thing as asking too many questions.
Perhaps it is over my head
This is the best part of Open Source development. Learning from people who have had different experiences than you (not necessarily more or better experiences, just different) is extremely valuable. I have learned a lot from books, but far more from friends.
What if someone gets angry and decides to fork the project?
If you are genuinely appreciative of those who offer to help, and make all reasonable efforts to include them in the process and understand what they have to offer, this will not happen.
In the extremely unlikely event that you find a person who is completely unreasonable, he or she will not be able to maintain a successful fork - all the other contributors will be working with you.
My one released open source project GTerm went fine
Your next one will be even better. If you are a sincere and appreciative steward, you have nothing to fear. Have faith, take a chance on your fellow geeks - the rewards will more than justify the risk.
What is Fair Use? Did God intend for us to have Fair Use rights? Do animals have Fair Use rights?
Neither is copyright a natural law. There is no scarcity in information - hence, copyright is a balance between content creators (copyright) and content consumers (fair use). You can't remove one and have a system that maximizes economic benefit.
What is the free equivalent to this? I propose the following:
Microsoft is banking on the fact that companies will trust it to authenticate good software because they trust the Microsoft reputation. Historically, Open Source has developed its trustworthy reputation by banking on actual users who state that the software is trustworthy.
So here is a Free alternative to Palladium - a public trust clearinghouse. Much as DCC authenticates spam, and the GPG repositories authenticate public keys, a public trust clearinghouse could be an expression of the corporate trust of software.
As an example, imagine giving each member of the Wilshire 5000 a number of votes equal to 10000 minus their position in the Wilshire 5000 (IE, the biggest company gets the most votes). Each can submit any mix of those votes to the "trust this software" and "don't trust this software" bins, and can move them as the wish. New software would have very few votes. Established software would have many votes. The decision to trust could be based on both the number of votes and the percentage of positive votes.
Yes, I think using the Wilshire 5000 is a requirement, because corporations don't trust the general public with business decisions any more than you and I trust Joe Six-pack with firewall settings.
The question then is how to incentivize corporations to participate. Perhaps a license requiring that those 5000 companies submit a certain number of votes per month to be allowed to access the trust repository... just spitballing.
Regardless of how it is done, I think Microsoft has hit on a genuine chink in the O/S armour - it does not have any officially responsible party. Coming up with a way to state authoritatively to business that version 3.142 of SuperDaemon is trustworthy would go a long way to countering Palladium if it catches on. And frankly, I would be far more likely to trust 5000 parties who are objective on average than to trust the manufacturer of the software.
I have been thinking of a similar idea. What would be the potential for taking an HP like approach to Free patents. HP claims patents on some W3C technologies, and requires reciprocal royalty free licenses from all implementers, as mentioned in section 3.4 of the W3C Patent Policy. To what extent could this be used in a similar manner to what Ralph Levian is doing to break the back of software patents altogether?
In particular, I'm thinking of object oriented patterns, which are the building blocks of an enormous portion of modern software. A well documented pattern contains much of the same information as a patent application - motivation, solution, variations, etc. Suppose, for example, a patent on the facade pattern. Require reciprocal RF licenses on any software patent used in conjunction with an implementation of facade. A few dozen powerful patterns could affect an enormous portion of patent encumbered software.
Unworkable as Designed
on
DRM Helmet
·
· Score: 5, Funny
This device is using default accept. Anyone who knows anything about security knows that default deny is the only way to be sure. If he really wants this helmet to ensure that the market continues to provide the economic incentive necessary for a healthy culture manufacturing industry, he'll have to modify it slightly. It should remain fogged and silenced unless it can verify that all photons and sound waves within visible and audible range have been licensed by the user.
If the SEC had no case, would Microsoft have accepted the cease and desist? Don't you think Microsoft sees a lot of value right now in being granted carte blanche in a federal case? Wouldn't that provide Microsoft with some much needed ammunition for use in their "we're being oppressed" campaign?
I would submit that what actually occured is closer to your reason number 2, though tainted with reason number 3: Corruption (surely you don't deny that corruption does exist, at least in theory if not in this specific case). To wit:
The SEC sees that Microsoft will invest an enormous amount of money into it's defense. Therefore, the SEC will have to invest comparable resources to make the case. Instead they succumb to the siren song from the Bush administration: "Drop this thing, it's a no-win situation, the DoJ is already putting Microsoft in their place." The SEC weighs it's options: 1. Pursue the case at huge expense and disappoint the President - potentially winning nothing more than a cease and desist. 2. Put on the blinders and issue the cease and desist - keep repeating, "this time they'll play by the rules" to yourself until you believe it - or at least until you can get to sleep.
Bear in mind I'm not talking about corruption in the snidely whiplash twisting his mustache and handing over a satchel with a dollar sign on the side sense. That sort of corruption is far more rare than some/.ers would have us believe. I am talking about corruption of the type I just mentioned. The "what will George's reaction be next time if I don't do what he wants this time?" kind of corruption - the "if Microsoft isn't here to support me next time, will I have any friends at all?" kind of corruption. Bending with the wind so that you can save your strength for the next battle (and never reaching the battle that is worth fighting). Maybe this isn't even corruption so much as it is weakness, but it is clearly born of friendships and knowing which side your bread is buttered on, and it is surely not in the public interest.
The settlement does not involve any fine, with Microsoft agreeing to accept a cease and desist order.
This means it will not engage in unspecified accounting practices that the SEC had been investigating. The agreement does not involve an admission of wrongdoing by Microsoft.
Microsoft has repeatedly settled with the DoJ by agreeing to cease and desist it's anticompetitive practices, and subsequently continued to engage in the exact practices identified in past trials. Is the SEC stupid or corrupt?
"It's the search for the perfect database on bad guys. What they might not realize is there is so much bad information out there." - IT Guy
"Before taking any action, they will dig deeper to be sure of a customer's identity and attempt to confirm any allegations and reports" - Bank Guy
Pardon my cynicism, but, YEAAAAH, RIIIIIGHT. I'm sure that when I attempt to open a new account with $5,000, and my name pops up as a terrorist, they're going to spend an extra $1000 of company resources to investigate further, just like they do now if my name tilts a TRW report. Never mind the fact that it means they will have spent more money acquiring my account than they hope to profit from it - as my brother (a banker) has explained to me, profits don't matter to banks, they just want to provide liquidity to markets and make their account holders happy. If they make some money along the way that's a happy side effect. It's not like profitability is their sole driving motivation. It's not as if it's a deep, almost spiritual, belief verified in each potential new employee above janitor.</sarcasm>
I'm assuming this is just a joke, but every joke hides a little insight right?
Slashdot and eWEEK are insider sites, information that is published here is not really published in the general / popular media sense. Likewise, you can get advanced info on the music industry from Spin magazine, or about the crazy people culture from the New York Post.
Say, that makes us the Linerati - does that give us cachet? Does this mean we can get behind the velvet rope and watch the losers who read Variety trying to chat up the bouncer? Alas, no more, but what fond memories from the late 90's.
I'll don't understand why people are lining up to pay Vivendi $1 for one lousy track. If you're going to pay a major label (VivendiUniversal bought emusic a while back) your hard-earned cash to support a business model based around unencumbered MP3's, emusic seems like a better deal.
It sounds like you are supporting a business model you like. Excellant! As for me, I don't want a subscription. I prefer impulse purchasing.
Heck, I think that's a significant portion of the beauty of online distribution that the dinosaurs are missing - lots of new opportunities for market differentiation. You buy a subscription, I buy on impulse - everyone buys the product in the way that is most agreeable to him or her.
And as a legitimate owner of this track, let me say that yes, if you like dance, it's worth a buck. About my only complaint is that now I have a single solitary MP3 mixed in with all the Ogg I've ripped from my dance CDs.
But "I think you'll be able to count the number of sales on one hand," he added. "As soon as one person gets it, it's all over the (peer-to-peer) networks for free."
OK - let's prove him wrong. I need five more people to go buy it. I just did, and if you like dance music, it's worth a buck.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are we monitoring the people who read evil books anyway? Wouldn't it be easier to simply gather them up and burn them? (the books, not the people who read them... although that is another thought...)
Ahh yes, thank you for the correction!
The PayPal Agreement is 373 paragraphs, 19,127 words, 119,761 characters.
This may be self-regulating. Consider the Skinner box; if something is capable of perfectly emulating recognition of Chinese, then it can be said to recognize Chinese. Likewise, if a spammer becomes sufficiently skilled at writing undetectable prose, he or she will have reached a skill level at which he or she can pursue more profitable writing ventures. The margins in spam are pretty small. Those spams are being written by morons because morons are cheap.
E. Starting three months after the entry of this Final Judgment to the Court, Microsoft shall
make available for use by third parties, for the sole purpose of interoperating or
communicating with a Windows Operating System Product, on reasonable and
non-discriminatory terms (consistent with Section III.I), any Communications Protocol
that is, on or after the date this Final Judgment is submitted to the Court, (i) implemented
in a Windows Operating System Product installed on a client computer, and (ii) used to
interoperate, or communicate, natively (i.e., without the addition of software code to the
client operating system product) with a Microsoft server operating system product.
I assume this to mean that the Samba guys will get legal access to the SMB protocol specs and other related stuff. Likely could include the native Exchange server protocols too, since Outlook Express talks that protocol and has shipped integrated with the OS.
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
"J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall:
1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties: (a) portions of
APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the
disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or
group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights
management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation,
keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or (b) any API, interface or
other information related to any Microsoft product if lawfully directed not to do
so by a governmental agency of competent jurisdiction."
Any thoughts on whether MS will publish MAPI (the Exchange API)? I'm thinking they'll say it's a security issue. What's the worst that can happen to MS? Another 5 year trial with another wrist slap at the end? They'd be retarded *not* to keep fucking us.
I use the GPL on my projects. However, the GPL is not intended to benefit everyone equally. It is intented to give an edge to free software developers. I believe this is a good thing for developers and companies to do of their own free will. I do not, however, think that it is right for our government to exclude proprietary software developers from public works.
The following is a quote from "Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library":
Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.
Again, let me stress that I use the GPL, I like the GPL, I think more developers should use the GPL. But our government should not provide preferential treatment for one group of software developers over another. We don't like it when congress gives preferential treatment to Disney, and it is not appropriate for us to request preferential treatment over Adobe.
[Steve Ballmer] added it may be necessary to "weed out" employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.
Manager: Have you added any gaping holes in security?
Peon: No.
Manager: Have you lied to our customers?
Peon: No.
Manager: Have you disobeyed any Federal court orders?
Peon: No.
Manager: You're fired.
Correction: ClearChannel.
From what I've been able to deduce, basically there was a bill in congress, HR 5469. It was a very short bill which put off CARP for six months. Webcasters were universally calling on their listeners to support the bill. Just before the bill went to the floor for a vote, the RIAA tacked on thirty pages of ammendments. With all the public and industry support, it passed easily, despite the fact that the public support was for the unammended version.
The most significant part of the ammendments is that they create a decreasing royalty system. The more you broadcast, the less you pay per song. This ensures that something like Clearcast will exist in netradio. This makes it much easier for the RIAA to control what's played the same way they do with Clearcast.
The decreasing scale kicks in at a low enough level that all of today's popular webcasting sites will see a reduction in the royalties they are responsible to pay relative to the current law--so they all blindly support it. What they are failing to realize is that there are no really big webcasters yet, and that this law guarantees that those big webcasters will come into existence. All of the current stations will be undercut by the megacasters who will be paying lower royalties. They will either; have to put on more commercials than the megas and lose their listeners, keep their commercial level low enough to keep their listener base and operate in the red, or sell out at fire sale prices.
This bill will eliminate independent webcasting (for better or worse). As for you Rusty, you're an idiot. You're a big fish in a small pond now. Wait till you meet a killer whale--you won't even know what hit you.
From the article:
The basic filing fee will be lower, to compensate for the transfer of prior-art searches to private companies that will impose their own fees.
Far from investing the additional money in better prior art searchs - they are admitting defeat and giving up on them altogether. You will have to go hire a private firm to do the prior art search.
Which could be a good plan - instead of the ineptitude of the USPTO, we'll have the lack of ethics of private business (I'm not suggesting that capitalist enterprises should or should not be ethical - merely observing that they are not).
The technology needed to implement Palladium is patented by Microsoft. The BSD license does not prevent the copyright holder from charging a patent license fee nor does it prevent the copyright holder from suing unlicensed implementors into oblivion.
Berkeley License
You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Framework component of the OS Components to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval.
Ximian Connector's license does this too. I asked the regional sales rep to remove it. He referred me to a VP who did not respond to my email.
Anyone placing wagers on whether Clause 2 will ever get invoked the way HP just used the DMCA to quash the Tru64 crack?
Clause 2: Possession or supply of anything for re-programming purposes
10. This clause creates a number of offences ancillary to the offence created by clause 1. These linked offences are having custody or control of the equipment for the purpose of unauthorised re-programming (subsection 1), and supplying (subsection 2) or offering to supply (subsection 3) the equipment to someone for that purpose.
11. The equipment required to reprogramme the IMEI number may also be used for other legitimate purposes. The clause makes it clear that the offences are committed only if the person intends to use the equipment or allow it to be used for the purposes of making an unauthorised change to the IMEI number, or knows that the person to whom he supplies it or offers to supply it intends to use it or allow it to be used for that purpose.
12. The effect of subsection (5) is that possession by, supply to, or the offer to supply to the manufacturer of a mobile telephone, or someone with his written consent, does not amount to an offence under subsections (1), (2) and (3).
13. Unique device identifier has the same definition as in clause 1. The penalties for each of these offences are the same as for the offence created by clause 1.
First, what do I do when someone submits a patch that violates my 'mission'?
Step 1 is to reconsider your mission. When person A and person B disagree, person A is only right 50% of the time on average. Think carefully whether the patch can contribute to the mission, and whether it is possible that the mission itself should be patched. There's nothing wrong with vetoing or delaying an inappropriate patch, just be sure to understand and appreciate the patch before denying it.
Should I try to be democratic about it and try to add it?
If it is truly going to side-track or derail the project, you should table it, at least for the time being. Part of your job as steward is to make those decisions - and to make everyone feel good about them. Make sure the contributor understands that you appreciate the contribution, and will keep it in the list of suggestions.
Sourceforge lets you publish patches along with the project. That way you don't have to alter the trunk, and you can still publish the contribution.
Should I ignore it?
No. Graciously acknowledging people who are trying to help is good policy, even if you decide to veto or delay the patch.
What should I say to the contributor?
Start with, "Thank you for your submission!" Then briefly address your decision on including the patch, or ask questions if you don't understand. End with, "Thank you again for taking the time to submit!"
What if I get a patch that I don't understand?
Ask the contributor to explain it. Open Source hackers love to talk about their code. It's like a motorhead's '67 Camaro. There's no such thing as asking too many questions.
Perhaps it is over my head
This is the best part of Open Source development. Learning from people who have had different experiences than you (not necessarily more or better experiences, just different) is extremely valuable. I have learned a lot from books, but far more from friends.
What if someone gets angry and decides to fork the project?
If you are genuinely appreciative of those who offer to help, and make all reasonable efforts to include them in the process and understand what they have to offer, this will not happen.
In the extremely unlikely event that you find a person who is completely unreasonable, he or she will not be able to maintain a successful fork - all the other contributors will be working with you.
My one released open source project GTerm went fine
Your next one will be even better. If you are a sincere and appreciative steward, you have nothing to fear. Have faith, take a chance on your fellow geeks - the rewards will more than justify the risk.
What is Fair Use? Did God intend for us to have Fair Use rights? Do animals have Fair Use rights?
Neither is copyright a natural law. There is no scarcity in information - hence, copyright is a balance between content creators (copyright) and content consumers (fair use). You can't remove one and have a system that maximizes economic benefit.
What is the free equivalent to this? I propose the following:
Microsoft is banking on the fact that companies will trust it to authenticate good software because they trust the Microsoft reputation. Historically, Open Source has developed its trustworthy reputation by banking on actual users who state that the software is trustworthy.
So here is a Free alternative to Palladium - a public trust clearinghouse. Much as DCC authenticates spam, and the GPG repositories authenticate public keys, a public trust clearinghouse could be an expression of the corporate trust of software.
As an example, imagine giving each member of the Wilshire 5000 a number of votes equal to 10000 minus their position in the Wilshire 5000 (IE, the biggest company gets the most votes). Each can submit any mix of those votes to the "trust this software" and "don't trust this software" bins, and can move them as the wish. New software would have very few votes. Established software would have many votes. The decision to trust could be based on both the number of votes and the percentage of positive votes.
Yes, I think using the Wilshire 5000 is a requirement, because corporations don't trust the general public with business decisions any more than you and I trust Joe Six-pack with firewall settings.
The question then is how to incentivize corporations to participate. Perhaps a license requiring that those 5000 companies submit a certain number of votes per month to be allowed to access the trust repository... just spitballing.
Regardless of how it is done, I think Microsoft has hit on a genuine chink in the O/S armour - it does not have any officially responsible party. Coming up with a way to state authoritatively to business that version 3.142 of SuperDaemon is trustworthy would go a long way to countering Palladium if it catches on. And frankly, I would be far more likely to trust 5000 parties who are objective on average than to trust the manufacturer of the software.
I have been thinking of a similar idea. What would be the potential for taking an HP like approach to Free patents. HP claims patents on some W3C technologies, and requires reciprocal royalty free licenses from all implementers, as mentioned in section 3.4 of the W3C Patent Policy. To what extent could this be used in a similar manner to what Ralph Levian is doing to break the back of software patents altogether?
In particular, I'm thinking of object oriented patterns, which are the building blocks of an enormous portion of modern software. A well documented pattern contains much of the same information as a patent application - motivation, solution, variations, etc. Suppose, for example, a patent on the facade pattern. Require reciprocal RF licenses on any software patent used in conjunction with an implementation of facade. A few dozen powerful patterns could affect an enormous portion of patent encumbered software.
This device is using default accept. Anyone who knows anything about security knows that default deny is the only way to be sure. If he really wants this helmet to ensure that the market continues to provide the economic incentive necessary for a healthy culture manufacturing industry, he'll have to modify it slightly. It should remain fogged and silenced unless it can verify that all photons and sound waves within visible and audible range have been licensed by the user.
If the SEC had no case, would Microsoft have accepted the cease and desist? Don't you think Microsoft sees a lot of value right now in being granted carte blanche in a federal case? Wouldn't that provide Microsoft with some much needed ammunition for use in their "we're being oppressed" campaign?
/.ers would have us believe. I am talking about corruption of the type I just mentioned. The "what will George's reaction be next time if I don't do what he wants this time?" kind of corruption - the "if Microsoft isn't here to support me next time, will I have any friends at all?" kind of corruption. Bending with the wind so that you can save your strength for the next battle (and never reaching the battle that is worth fighting). Maybe this isn't even corruption so much as it is weakness, but it is clearly born of friendships and knowing which side your bread is buttered on, and it is surely not in the public interest.
I would submit that what actually occured is closer to your reason number 2, though tainted with reason number 3: Corruption (surely you don't deny that corruption does exist, at least in theory if not in this specific case). To wit:
The SEC sees that Microsoft will invest an enormous amount of money into it's defense. Therefore, the SEC will have to invest comparable resources to make the case. Instead they succumb to the siren song from the Bush administration: "Drop this thing, it's a no-win situation, the DoJ is already putting Microsoft in their place." The SEC weighs it's options: 1. Pursue the case at huge expense and disappoint the President - potentially winning nothing more than a cease and desist. 2. Put on the blinders and issue the cease and desist - keep repeating, "this time they'll play by the rules" to yourself until you believe it - or at least until you can get to sleep.
Bear in mind I'm not talking about corruption in the snidely whiplash twisting his mustache and handing over a satchel with a dollar sign on the side sense. That sort of corruption is far more rare than some
The settlement does not involve any fine, with Microsoft agreeing to accept a cease and desist order.
This means it will not engage in unspecified accounting practices that the SEC had been investigating. The agreement does not involve an admission of wrongdoing by Microsoft.
Microsoft has repeatedly settled with the DoJ by agreeing to cease and desist it's anticompetitive practices, and subsequently continued to engage in the exact practices identified in past trials. Is the SEC stupid or corrupt?
"It's the search for the perfect database on bad guys. What they might not realize is there is so much bad information out there." - IT Guy
"Before taking any action, they will dig deeper to be sure of a customer's identity and attempt to confirm any allegations and reports" - Bank Guy
Pardon my cynicism, but, YEAAAAH, RIIIIIGHT. I'm sure that when I attempt to open a new account with $5,000, and my name pops up as a terrorist, they're going to spend an extra $1000 of company resources to investigate further, just like they do now if my name tilts a TRW report. Never mind the fact that it means they will have spent more money acquiring my account than they hope to profit from it - as my brother (a banker) has explained to me, profits don't matter to banks, they just want to provide liquidity to markets and make their account holders happy. If they make some money along the way that's a happy side effect. It's not like profitability is their sole driving motivation. It's not as if it's a deep, almost spiritual, belief verified in each potential new employee above janitor.</sarcasm>
I'm assuming this is just a joke, but every joke hides a little insight right?
Slashdot and eWEEK are insider sites, information that is published here is not really published in the general / popular media sense. Likewise, you can get advanced info on the music industry from Spin magazine, or about the crazy people culture from the New York Post.
Say, that makes us the Linerati - does that give us cachet? Does this mean we can get behind the velvet rope and watch the losers who read Variety trying to chat up the bouncer? Alas, no more, but what fond memories from the late 90's.
I'm not sure which word threw you, so here's links to the definition of each:
I don't want a subscription.
I'll don't understand why people are lining up to pay Vivendi $1 for one lousy track. If you're going to pay a major label (VivendiUniversal bought emusic a while back) your hard-earned cash to support a business model based around unencumbered MP3's, emusic seems like a better deal.
It sounds like you are supporting a business model you like. Excellant! As for me, I don't want a subscription. I prefer impulse purchasing.
Heck, I think that's a significant portion of the beauty of online distribution that the dinosaurs are missing - lots of new opportunities for market differentiation. You buy a subscription, I buy on impulse - everyone buys the product in the way that is most agreeable to him or her.
And as a legitimate owner of this track, let me say that yes, if you like dance, it's worth a buck. About my only complaint is that now I have a single solitary MP3 mixed in with all the Ogg I've ripped from my dance CDs.
But "I think you'll be able to count the number of sales on one hand," he added. "As soon as one person gets it, it's all over the (peer-to-peer) networks for free."
OK - let's prove him wrong. I need five more people to go buy it. I just did, and if you like dance music, it's worth a buck.