so the parent corp can release the next version and demand relicensing
I wasn't aware that any demands were being made. True, products reach the end of their supported period, but that's all that that means - the original vendor no longer supports them. Depending on your exact needs, that may or may not be a problem. Certainly, I've not heard any reports of vendors demanding that you buy the latest version.
And people wonder why some people in other countries might possibly perceive Americans to be ignorant and opinionated. Sure, my fellow Europeans can be just as bad, but you don't see us making similar comments when the situation is reversed.
What's happening in these threads sounds to me like non-vegetarians somehow claiming the vegetarian foundation is foolishly restricting people's options because it won't link to restaurants that serve meat dishes, and no longer recommends a particular cookbook with good vegetarian recipes, because that cookbook also has meat dishes and there's now finally a comparably good cookbook which is 100% vegetarian.
RMS and the FSF are a little more strict than that, though - they'll recommend against something whether that comparably good alternative exists or not. That's all very well, and in a way I admire them for standing by their principles no matter what, but I'm rather more pragmatic. I'll use whatever tool is best suited to me and the task, Free or not.
Oh, and sold my soul? Please, a little less melodrama if you would.
I'm all for eye-candy, but the desk looks to be unsuitable for my needs (ymmv, of course). At work, I generally have a couple of books close to hand, printouts of specs, a project plan or two, etc. The paperless office is a nice idea, but I don't see it happening any time soon...
At home, my desk is a complete mess. CDs everywhere, a book or two, assorted junk that I really ought to put away but never quite get round to doing... There, a desk like this might actually make sense, as it would (hopefully!) force me to be a little tidier. For work, though, it's simply not practical.
You don't even need to guess what the login name is. (Windows is NO better in this respect.)
At the company where I work, one of the first things that is done to each new Windows install is to change the name of the admin account. Not create a new one, mind, but to change the name of the existing one. I'm not sure if that's possible under NT (been a looong time...), but certainly from 2k upwards it is.
What about SP1 deactivating xp installs with pirate serial numbers?
What about it? Apart from the fact that that's not what happens (it merely denies you access to windows update), we are talking about pirate copies here. Why the hell shouldn't Microsoft be allowed to do that sort of thing? If you're using a pirated serial number, then you have no legal right to be using the software.
The future of Free Software is contingent on the outcome of this allegation.
Even if the GPL is struck down in court (which isn't going to happen), there are still the other open source licences. Successfully challenging the GPL would set a *precedent* for invalidating them, but they would still each have to be challenged in court.
Even if that were to happen, there's still the public domain, for those who want to release truly free (as in do whatever you want with it) code.
In truth there is probably little basis for treating downloading of child porn as "criminal behaviour", although the making and selling of it is most definitely so.
No demand, no supply. Legalise the demand, and the supply will surely follow, legal or not. True, making the demand illegal doesn't kill the supply, but what you're saying is tantamount to saying "Well, we couldn't prevent these images/videos from being produced, but no more, okay guys?"
it does create grief for many people who have done little more than click on the wrong button.
Fine, then have a minimum actionable amount. I can accept browsers caching image from pages reached by mistyped URLs or links in emails, but that should explain no more than a few dozen such images. If a person has hundreds, and/or they're not in a browser cache (and no, c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Pictures is not a browser cache directory...), then it starts getting hard to accept that they just "hit the wrong button". Then it's looking to be purposeful on someone's part, and it switches to determining whose part that is, the PC user or an external force.
If MySQL would seriously be a suitable replacement for Oracle, then you need to talk to your employers, because they're clearly throwing their money away paying for Oracle. MySQL isn't in the same league as Oracle, simple as that.
As for sqlplus, if you're not allergic to Java (and many here seem to be...), there's a very nice Java SQL client available from sourceforge called SquirellSQL. It supports accessing any database that has a JDBC-compliant set of drivers, which at last count, was all the major ones and aquite a few of the less well-known ones.
I bet it could come in handy in games, particularly the more recent fps games
If memory servers me correctly, you could lean left and right in the original System Shock. The copyright notice on my CD copy gives the year as 1994; leaning in games isn't exactly a new idea...
Or maybe it's because they're all primarily hardware companies, and realise that this Open Source thing is a pretty cool way to get lots of free software to run on their hardware...
Let's assume for a moment that what you say is true, and MS regularly steals codes from other companies. I don't believe it, but let's say it's true, for the sake of argument.
They still wouldn't steal GPL code.
Why not? Because there's no-one to buy out should they get caught. If they steal code from a company, and that company finds out and starts getting threatening, they can either bury them in the courts (just like everyone wants IBM to do to SCO), or buy them out to shut them up. No-one else is going to care (well, apart from all the bitching that would go on about it here, that is).
With GPLed code, that becomes a hell of a lot harder; there's a good chance that there'd be a grass-roots movement to defend the infringed IP, they might end up effectively taking on a fair proportion of OSS users and developers, etc. It's much harder to fight such a loosely-defined, nebulous enemy.
Explorer crashing generally isn't a big deal in XP (or 2k for that matter). 9 times out of 10 the OS notices and restarts it for you, and on the odd occassion when it doesn't, you can just launch it yourself from Task Manager.
That said, these days, XP crashes on me about as often as Linux does - ie not very often at all. And yes, I am talking about a machine that gets left on 24/7 - I do not switch my work machine off at all.
That's all the more reason to get yourself informed and vote, surely? The more people who do, the less influence the random voters have over the result.
That's not a reason to get cynical and lazy, it's a reason to get motivated.
I want to check every hour to see if a website has changed. No problem, three lines of shell script in a cron job.
You do realise that Windows has scripting capabilities and a cron-like task scheduler, don't you?
I've used both Linux and Windows for a good few years, and I've not found anything that was impossible in one and not the other. If I've not known how to do something, it's been because of a lack of knowledge on my part, not a lack of functionality on the part of the OS.
True, I'm no sysadmin, and can't remember the last time I wrote a shell script, but I'm no clueless newbie either.
Like it or not, if you want Linux on the desktop to start making inroads into the workplace, then it must interoperate correctly and completely with Windows, Office, etc. You can whine all you like about a lack of open standards, but that's not going to help.
You're not going to get a large organisation to change everyone to Linux overnight, so Windows and Linux are going to have to play nice together. That's especially true as pretty-much any business is going to conduct a small trial first - if that trial fails because of a lack of interoperability, then (to that business), Linux has failed.
That's not a very good analogy. The entire point of p2p software is to enable and facilitate sharing of files. By having files available in your shared folder, you are essentially saying to everyone and anyone "here you go, have whatever you want!".
If those files are copyrighted, and you do not have permission to distribute them, then you are at least contributing to the copyright infringement.
Extending your analogy, would you also argue that people who buy pirated software/movies/whatever should be prosecuted, and not the people selling them? It's the nearly same thing, after all - the discs were just there, on the market stall, no-one forced anyone to buy them.
That's all true, and it's because software houses are only now having to write software for proper OSes.
Sure, commercial stuff has had to run on NT & 2K for a few years, but most games and non-commercial apps haven't. Even Win2K was very rarely found on home desktops. Now that XP is the norm with new PCs, you'll see this situation improve.
Me, I've been using Linux for about 5 years, and run it and XP Pro at home, and I still run with an admin account under XP, for the reasons you state. Too much software requires admin rights. On the other hand, it's much harder to hose your machine as an admin under Windows, than as root under Linux. It's *extremely* unlikely that I'm going to delete the wrong folder, for example.
I think that the average consumer would be using IE, and so have no problem with the site in the first place.
I work as a programmer at a web agency, and if there's one thing that's taught me, it's that most people use IE. We still ensure compatibility with Netscape and Mozilla, but no client in a couple of years has actually *required* it.
...which is why the original poster said "and makes them available to others".
He has a point, though. If I create something, and allow others to freely distribute it, how does anyone know that someone two, three or more downloads removed from me actually has permission? Are they really going to follow the chain back all the way to me, so I can tell them that yes, that's fine, and could they please leave them alone?
Of course not, it would be far too labour-intensive.
That leaves two possiblities, to my mind:
1) Failure to be able to produce evidence of permission will be considered evidence of lack of permission (ie guilty until proven innocent); or 2) This bill is designed only to protect corporate IP interests, and anything created by "ordinary" people will be completely unprotected
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it does. Care to enlighten me, or are you just going to leave me assuming that you're talking crap that you can't back up with evidence? :-)
so the parent corp can release the next version and demand relicensing
I wasn't aware that any demands were being made. True, products reach the end of their supported period, but that's all that that means - the original vendor no longer supports them. Depending on your exact needs, that may or may not be a problem. Certainly, I've not heard any reports of vendors demanding that you buy the latest version.
"Eurotrash"?
And people wonder why some people in other countries might possibly perceive Americans to be ignorant and opinionated. Sure, my fellow Europeans can be just as bad, but you don't see us making similar comments when the situation is reversed.
A good analgoy, but sightly flawed:
What's happening in these threads sounds to me like non-vegetarians somehow claiming the vegetarian foundation is foolishly restricting people's options because it won't link to restaurants that serve meat dishes, and no longer recommends a particular cookbook with good vegetarian recipes, because that cookbook also has meat dishes and there's now finally a comparably good cookbook which is 100% vegetarian.
RMS and the FSF are a little more strict than that, though - they'll recommend against something whether that comparably good alternative exists or not. That's all very well, and in a way I admire them for standing by their principles no matter what, but I'm rather more pragmatic. I'll use whatever tool is best suited to me and the task, Free or not.
Oh, and sold my soul? Please, a little less melodrama if you would.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.
Overall, yes, it is, but not locally, and that's really what matters, unless you envisage sending out spacecraft to harvest it.
I'm all for eye-candy, but the desk looks to be unsuitable for my needs (ymmv, of course). At work, I generally have a couple of books close to hand, printouts of specs, a project plan or two, etc. The paperless office is a nice idea, but I don't see it happening any time soon...
At home, my desk is a complete mess. CDs everywhere, a book or two, assorted junk that I really ought to put away but never quite get round to doing... There, a desk like this might actually make sense, as it would (hopefully!) force me to be a little tidier. For work, though, it's simply not practical.
Looks utterly gorgeous, though.
...thinking that it was already called Ununnilium.
You don't even need to guess what the login name is. (Windows is NO better in this respect.)
At the company where I work, one of the first things that is done to each new Windows install is to change the name of the admin account. Not create a new one, mind, but to change the name of the existing one. I'm not sure if that's possible under NT (been a looong time...), but certainly from 2k upwards it is.
What about SP1 deactivating xp installs with pirate serial numbers?
What about it? Apart from the fact that that's not what happens (it merely denies you access to windows update), we are talking about pirate copies here. Why the hell shouldn't Microsoft be allowed to do that sort of thing? If you're using a pirated serial number, then you have no legal right to be using the software.
The future of Free Software is contingent on the outcome of this allegation.
Even if the GPL is struck down in court (which isn't going to happen), there are still the other open source licences. Successfully challenging the GPL would set a *precedent* for invalidating them, but they would still each have to be challenged in court.
Even if that were to happen, there's still the public domain, for those who want to release truly free (as in do whatever you want with it) code.
That'll almost certainly mean "for personal use", ie no making lots of copies and giving them to your friends.
Alternatively, perhaps the poster simply doesn't have an account here.
In truth there is probably little basis for treating downloading of child porn as "criminal behaviour", although the making and selling of it is most definitely so.
No demand, no supply. Legalise the demand, and the supply will surely follow, legal or not. True, making the demand illegal doesn't kill the supply, but what you're saying is tantamount to saying "Well, we couldn't prevent these images/videos from being produced, but no more, okay guys?"
it does create grief for many people who have done little more than click on the wrong button.
Fine, then have a minimum actionable amount. I can accept browsers caching image from pages reached by mistyped URLs or links in emails, but that should explain no more than a few dozen such images. If a person has hundreds, and/or they're not in a browser cache (and no, c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Pictures is not a browser cache directory...), then it starts getting hard to accept that they just "hit the wrong button". Then it's looking to be purposeful on someone's part, and it switches to determining whose part that is, the PC user or an external force.
Where's my MySQL when you need it?
If MySQL would seriously be a suitable replacement for Oracle, then you need to talk to your employers, because they're clearly throwing their money away paying for Oracle. MySQL isn't in the same league as Oracle, simple as that.
As for sqlplus, if you're not allergic to Java (and many here seem to be...), there's a very nice Java SQL client available from sourceforge called SquirellSQL. It supports accessing any database that has a JDBC-compliant set of drivers, which at last count, was all the major ones and aquite a few of the less well-known ones.
I bet it could come in handy in games, particularly the more recent fps games
If memory servers me correctly, you could lean left and right in the original System Shock. The copyright notice on my CD copy gives the year as 1994; leaning in games isn't exactly a new idea...
Or maybe it's because they're all primarily hardware companies, and realise that this Open Source thing is a pretty cool way to get lots of free software to run on their hardware...
Let's assume for a moment that what you say is true, and MS regularly steals codes from other companies. I don't believe it, but let's say it's true, for the sake of argument.
They still wouldn't steal GPL code.
Why not? Because there's no-one to buy out should they get caught. If they steal code from a company, and that company finds out and starts getting threatening, they can either bury them in the courts (just like everyone wants IBM to do to SCO), or buy them out to shut them up. No-one else is going to care (well, apart from all the bitching that would go on about it here, that is).
With GPLed code, that becomes a hell of a lot harder; there's a good chance that there'd be a grass-roots movement to defend the infringed IP, they might end up effectively taking on a fair proportion of OSS users and developers, etc. It's much harder to fight such a loosely-defined, nebulous enemy.
Explorer crashing generally isn't a big deal in XP (or 2k for that matter). 9 times out of 10 the OS notices and restarts it for you, and on the odd occassion when it doesn't, you can just launch it yourself from Task Manager.
That said, these days, XP crashes on me about as often as Linux does - ie not very often at all. And yes, I am talking about a machine that gets left on 24/7 - I do not switch my work machine off at all.
That's all the more reason to get yourself informed and vote, surely? The more people who do, the less influence the random voters have over the result.
That's not a reason to get cynical and lazy, it's a reason to get motivated.
I want to check every hour to see if a website has changed. No problem, three lines of shell script in a cron job.
You do realise that Windows has scripting capabilities and a cron-like task scheduler, don't you?
I've used both Linux and Windows for a good few years, and I've not found anything that was impossible in one and not the other. If I've not known how to do something, it's been because of a lack of knowledge on my part, not a lack of functionality on the part of the OS.
True, I'm no sysadmin, and can't remember the last time I wrote a shell script, but I'm no clueless newbie either.
That's informative?
Like it or not, if you want Linux on the desktop to start making inroads into the workplace, then it must interoperate correctly and completely with Windows, Office, etc. You can whine all you like about a lack of open standards, but that's not going to help.
You're not going to get a large organisation to change everyone to Linux overnight, so Windows and Linux are going to have to play nice together. That's especially true as pretty-much any business is going to conduct a small trial first - if that trial fails because of a lack of interoperability, then (to that business), Linux has failed.
That's not a very good analogy. The entire point of p2p software is to enable and facilitate sharing of files. By having files available in your shared folder, you are essentially saying to everyone and anyone "here you go, have whatever you want!".
If those files are copyrighted, and you do not have permission to distribute them, then you are at least contributing to the copyright infringement.
Extending your analogy, would you also argue that people who buy pirated software/movies/whatever should be prosecuted, and not the people selling them? It's the nearly same thing, after all - the discs were just there, on the market stall, no-one forced anyone to buy them.
That's all true, and it's because software houses are only now having to write software for proper OSes.
Sure, commercial stuff has had to run on NT & 2K for a few years, but most games and non-commercial apps haven't. Even Win2K was very rarely found on home desktops. Now that XP is the norm with new PCs, you'll see this situation improve.
Me, I've been using Linux for about 5 years, and run it and XP Pro at home, and I still run with an admin account under XP, for the reasons you state. Too much software requires admin rights. On the other hand, it's much harder to hose your machine as an admin under Windows, than as root under Linux. It's *extremely* unlikely that I'm going to delete the wrong folder, for example.
I think that the average consumer would be using IE, and so have no problem with the site in the first place.
I work as a programmer at a web agency, and if there's one thing that's taught me, it's that most people use IE. We still ensure compatibility with Netscape and Mozilla, but no client in a couple of years has actually *required* it.
...which is why the original poster said "and makes them available to others".
He has a point, though. If I create something, and allow others to freely distribute it, how does anyone know that someone two, three or more downloads removed from me actually has permission? Are they really going to follow the chain back all the way to me, so I can tell them that yes, that's fine, and could they please leave them alone?
Of course not, it would be far too labour-intensive.
That leaves two possiblities, to my mind:
1) Failure to be able to produce evidence of permission will be considered evidence of lack of permission (ie guilty until proven innocent); or
2) This bill is designed only to protect corporate IP interests, and anything created by "ordinary" people will be completely unprotected