..was created to encourage science and progress [at least as drafted in the US Constitution] and provides protection for people who publish their works.
I think a corollary to the copright law should be that if you deny access [through encryption or other technological measures] to your works you are not protected by copyright. After all patents are granted for people publishing their ideas in the open, so why should copyright not operate the same way?
This does not mean, however, that those interested in truely keeping the balance of copyright in a sane manner can just be apathetic. My comments are registered on the department's site and I'm probably going to one of the meetings (either in Toronto or Ottawa).
I think that the days of apathy must be declared well and truly over. A large degree of paranoia and activism over any changes to copyright law is rquired, as it appears that business has quietly been trying to reduce our rights for decades and we should make it clear that we regard enough as enough, and that we feel some rolling back of copyright law is essential to avoid monopoly and technological advance.
but English is a very difficult language to learn because it is informal and breaks the rules almost as often as it follows them; Latin on the other hand is much more structured [in general]. English is made difficult by the fact it has assimilated words from just about every other language to give it flexibility and is possibly the most complicated modern language there is in terms of concepts. Other modern languages have some degree of complexity but are far less tainted and more formalised than English is.
Latin on the other hand, is much more structured and formal, especially in classic prose such as Virgil. Computer geeks probably would have no difficulty picking up Latin because: * despite being an old language it has our alphabet (almost) * it has a set of rules which it does obey - see John Cleese in Life of Brian for the perfect example!
I only did it to high school level and can make a laborious stab at translating most Latin documents, especially if I have a Latin->English dictionary at hand. Latin cases/ tenses are fairly structured and the vocabulary is far more limited than say English.
I don't believe that the BBC Micro is the problem - I may even have one somewhere (a 'B', not a Master system). For the time it was a great machine for the price and because it had lots of expansion ports it was easy for electronics engineers to bold all sorts of stuff to it.
The BBC micro was the machine that Sinclair ZX81/ Spectrum owners really aspired to.
PASCALL was the leading choice of language at university, and for good reason. Back when it was the leading teaching language, it was the most structured language around and forced good programming techniques. University education is to teach about the theory and good practice, not (hopefully) to tie you down to one system or language.
Now I suspect Universities use Java (and just maybe C++ for the sdame reason)
Whilst the thought of seeing Microsoft taken to the cleaners for product liability would fill me with a certain amount of malicious glee, I do not believe that software companies should be liable for the security of their products.
As others have pointed out, if someone breaks into your car, then you cannot sue the car manufacturer (at least it is difficult to do so successfully!) for the theft of your vehicle. Similarly if someone steals your hi-fi from your house, you do not sue the manufacturer of your locks and windows, or even the hi-fi maker.
I do believe that software should be reliable and perhaps there is a case for liability if the operation of the software causes a major disaster without malicious outside interference. The problem with that, however, is we're all to aware of what will be the result; software prices will skyrocket to cover the immense legal costs that will result defending and settling these claims.
The only people who would benefit from this will not be the software developers, regardless as to whether it's Micorsoft of open source developers; it would be the legal profession aiming to take 10-50% of your damages award when you did settle.
..there have been any number of killer virus stories on TV and none of them have been any good. Lets hope Strazynscki (sp?) doesn't end up falling from his divine pedestal like when Gerry Anderson did Space Precinct.
Well thats the joys of GPL for you. Although ti does rais ethe intersting question that if the book contains slashcode quotes which is GPL [IIRC], does this mean the book is itself GPL ?
In actual fact, unless this book sells millions of copies, he's unlikely to be making truckloads of money out of it.
A co worker wrote a Linux book which sells reasonably well, but his income from it is about £5000 ($7000) per year, which is fair renumeration but won't buy a palace or a 200' yacht.
..'cos I think if you filtered it and thoyght about it you could make quite a good case as to why Linux on a mainframe such as this is probably not the best idea in the world at the moment and has some way to go before it becomes a really good OS for such a machine.
Instead the author seems to have got rooted into the idea that Linux is only for Intel processors really and can't handle things like big/little endian swaps.
--to see which opensource Diablo lookalike is furthest along and offer your support towards its development.
If you want a real laugh, make it use the bnetd as its server [bnetd is GPL after all], so bnetd server can no longer be primarily regarded as a piracy tool [if it ever was]
Game development takes a long time and several years of effort, so a complete start from scratch to produce something that operates in a similar fashion to Diablo is probably not a good idea, but if you can assist on something that runs on both Linux and Windows you'll rip a lot of their profit base from under their feet. What better way to be avenged ? I suggest the bnetd developers have a look around for a suitable project!
I've never used Be, but I'm under the impression that Be competitors were really Apple and Linux/ Unix based systems rather than Windows. Linux is slowly becoming the only game in town as far as rivals to Microsofts operating system is concerned and I suspect Be was one of the early casualties of this fact.
I would like to offer my congratulations to Lawrence Lessig and the contributors to OpenLaw for even getting this far; the Supreme Court does not agree to hear every case that is submitted to it, and therefore it is probably felt that there is at least a cogent argument that the time period of copyright is unacceptable. Whether he wins or loses, to continue thus far is a great achievement, although I for one would be grateful if copyright were weakened.
That there should be a period of copyright is not in doubt; there is no argument that a period of protection should exist for which authors are compensated for their work. However media is the only product which a craftsman can make, where the design can be protected for 95 years. Everything else you are free to make an (almost) exact copy if you have the materials to do so and provided it is not protected by patents (15-20 years) and trademark (which just prevents you naming your copy the same as the original).
I am unfortunately an EU citizen (and a UK subject), and the change in the US law was designed to match European law (amongst other reasons). I hope that a change in US law will bring about a similar rolling back of copyright in the EU.
Am I the only one here who doesn't want KDE and GNOME merged into an uber-desktop? There are many reasons for not doing so, in my humble opinion.
GNOME essentially arose becuase KDE used QT as its base toolkit, which was non GPL. Thanks possibly due to the spectre of rivalry from GNOME, QT went GPL.
I think that KDE and GNOME do benefit from a little rivalry and sniping; I'm hoping that application competition will result in survival of the fittest
I am however not against application interoperability; I do think that the KDe and GNOME people should knock some heads together to ensure that their respective apps can pass data to and from each other and even operate on the 'enemy' desktop.
I was under the impression that the centre of our galaxy contained a large black hole or similar object. Can't see it on this one, unless its that big glowy object they've false coloured about 2/3rds of the way down the piccie.
Anyone care to post a modified picture with a big arrow pointing to it??
If transparent concrete becomes a reality...
on
Transparent Concrete
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
..the mafia will have to find other places to bury people like Jimmy Hoffa!
Whilst it is sad to see the demise of a company which was helping Linux in one of its weak areas, it has to be said that they were aiming at the wrong target.
I think Linux could do with a killer *NEW* game, with leading edge features, which would be a reason for the gamers to at least make their machines dual boot. The need for new games is obviated by the fact that games date extremely quickly and look tired after a relatively short period. Unless a game is fairly bleeding edge it is unlikely to attract a lot of custom.
Unfortunately bleeding edge games now cost real money to develop, and the first few such games to enter the Linux market are likely to lose money; how much depending on whether Linux users are finally prepared to put their money where their mouths are and actually fork out for something decent and up to date that runs on their system.
They dont sue Win Linux, or WinAmp, or WinZip, or even Windows
Actually I'm surprised he doesn't swap which syllables he's using round and call his company WinUx, although it wouldn't surprise me if thats been used already. (I notice WinUx.com/.net are already assigned).
I have this idea for a Linux commercial for any distributor who wants to run it...
Scene: People working at PCs in Office
Suddenly the door bursts open and in come a group of lawyers accompanied by Federal Marshals
Lawyer: "Business Software Alliance! We're here to check all your software licences. If you are running illegal software you may be fined thousands of ponds and go to jail for 5 years. Here's our search warrant"
Manager: (smug grin) "Go ahead - we're all running Linux!"
Find a rifle, shoot yourself in the foot. Then find a shotgun and do the same. Which was worse?
This argument isn't a valid comparison; a modern rifle stands a good chance of killing you no matter where it hits because of hydrostatic shock effect, whereas a shotgun will just blow your foot off, and you'll live - providing blood loss is stopped fast enough!
But back to the breaking up asteroid comments - if you can break up an asteroid into a lot of small pellets each of these pellets is likely to either burn up on entry to the earths atmosphere and in addition is unlikely to cause a massive crater like the big single one would do. In addition other effects of a large single strike can involve:
a) throwing up masses of debris into the earths atmosphere
b) setting up a pressure wave in the earths central core - this is not good. (Hydrostatic shock effect on a big scale)
c) triggering off volcanic eruptions both near to the impact and on the opposite side of the world to the impact.
None of these effects would be generated by the smaller shotgun pellet asteroids.
Get a Computer Science Batchelors (BSc) and then follow up with an Master in Business Administration (MBA). Proves you are a techhead with a serious side, which provides a managerial route once you've got too old to be a techie anymore (somewhere between 30 and 45, depending on who you speak to)
We only get about a months notice of such close passes anyway and there is no way we're going to be able to get a 'Bruce Willis and mates' crew up into orbit in 30 days. A proper asteroid defence system is likely to be at least a decade away, as it is likely to require a number of hefty nukes to persuade an oncoming 300m+ asteroid that it doesn't have right of way.
Besides, I'd feel distinctly nervous about having a space based system loaded with a several very big nukes right above our heads; just imagine what could happen if a very small object hit the system and destroyed it, knocking the bits back into earths gravity......whilst I know you wouldn't get a nuclear explosion, what chances fallout in a similar manner to a "dirty" sub-nuclear weapon ?
Slashdot Mirror
..was created to encourage science and progress [at least as drafted in the US Constitution] and provides protection for people who publish their works.
I think a corollary to the copright law should be that if you deny access [through encryption or other technological measures] to your works you are not protected by copyright. After all patents are granted for people publishing their ideas in the open, so why should copyright not operate the same way?
This does not mean, however, that those interested in truely keeping the balance of copyright in a sane manner can just be apathetic. My comments are registered on the department's site and I'm probably going to one of the meetings (either in Toronto or Ottawa).
I think that the days of apathy must be declared well and truly over. A large degree of paranoia and activism over any changes to copyright law is rquired, as it appears that business has quietly been trying to reduce our rights for decades and we should make it clear that we regard enough as enough, and that we feel some rolling back of copyright law is essential to avoid monopoly and technological advance.
but English is a very difficult language to learn because it is informal and breaks the rules almost as often as it follows them; Latin on the other hand is much more structured [in general]. English is made difficult by the fact it has assimilated words from just about every other language to give it flexibility and is possibly the most complicated modern language there is in terms of concepts. Other modern languages have some degree of complexity but are far less tainted and more formalised than English is.
Latin on the other hand, is much more structured and formal, especially in classic prose such as Virgil. Computer geeks probably would have no difficulty picking up Latin because:
* despite being an old language it has our alphabet (almost)
* it has a set of rules which it does obey - see John Cleese in Life of Brian for the perfect example!
</offtopic>
What makes you think Latin is difficult ?
I only did it to high school level and can make a laborious stab at translating most Latin documents, especially if I have a Latin->English dictionary at hand. Latin cases/ tenses are fairly structured and the vocabulary is far more limited than say English.
I don't believe that the BBC Micro is the problem - I may even have one somewhere (a 'B', not a Master system). For the time it was a great machine for the price and because it had lots of expansion ports it was easy for electronics engineers to bold all sorts of stuff to it.
The BBC micro was the machine that Sinclair ZX81/ Spectrum owners really aspired to.
PASCALL was the leading choice of language at university, and for good reason. Back when it was the leading teaching language, it was the most structured language around and forced good programming techniques. University education is to teach about the theory and good practice, not (hopefully) to tie you down to one system or language.
Now I suspect Universities use Java (and just maybe C++ for the sdame reason)
Whilst the thought of seeing Microsoft taken to the cleaners for product liability would fill me with a certain amount of malicious glee, I do not believe that software companies should be liable for the security of their products.
As others have pointed out, if someone breaks into your car, then you cannot sue the car manufacturer (at least it is difficult to do so successfully!) for the theft of your vehicle. Similarly if someone steals your hi-fi from your house, you do not sue the manufacturer of your locks and windows, or even the hi-fi maker.
I do believe that software should be reliable and perhaps there is a case for liability if the operation of the software causes a major disaster without malicious outside interference. The problem with that, however, is we're all to aware of what will be the result; software prices will skyrocket to cover the immense legal costs that will result defending and settling these claims.
The only people who would benefit from this will not be the software developers, regardless as to whether it's Micorsoft of open source developers; it would be the legal profession aiming to take 10-50% of your damages award when you did settle.
..there have been any number of killer virus stories on TV and none of them have been any good. Lets hope Strazynscki (sp?) doesn't end up falling from his divine pedestal like when Gerry Anderson did Space Precinct.
Well thats the joys of GPL for you. Although ti does rais ethe intersting question that if the book contains slashcode quotes which is GPL [IIRC], does this mean the book is itself GPL ?
In actual fact, unless this book sells millions of copies, he's unlikely to be making truckloads of money out of it.
A co worker wrote a Linux book which sells reasonably well, but his income from it is about £5000 ($7000) per year, which is fair renumeration but won't buy a palace or a 200' yacht.
..'cos I think if you filtered it and thoyght about it you could make quite a good case as to why Linux on a mainframe such as this is probably not the best idea in the world at the moment and has some way to go before it becomes a really good OS for such a machine.
Instead the author seems to have got rooted into the idea that Linux is only for Intel processors really and can't handle things like big/little endian swaps.
--to see which opensource Diablo lookalike is furthest along and offer your support towards its development.
If you want a real laugh, make it use the bnetd as its server [bnetd is GPL after all], so bnetd server can no longer be primarily regarded as a piracy tool [if it ever was]
Game development takes a long time and several years of effort, so a complete start from scratch to produce something that operates in a similar fashion to Diablo is probably not a good idea, but if you can assist on something that runs on both Linux and Windows you'll rip a lot of their profit base from under their feet. What better way to be avenged ? I suggest the bnetd developers have a look around for a suitable project!
...rather than Microsoft.
I've never used Be, but I'm under the impression that Be competitors were really Apple and Linux/ Unix based systems rather than Windows. Linux is slowly becoming the only game in town as far as rivals to Microsofts operating system is concerned and I suspect Be was one of the early casualties of this fact.
Page banned by company policy
Reason: Cult/Occult
!!
I would like to offer my congratulations to Lawrence Lessig and the contributors to OpenLaw for even getting this far; the Supreme Court does not agree to hear every case that is submitted to it, and therefore it is probably felt that there is at least a cogent argument that the time period of copyright is unacceptable. Whether he wins or loses, to continue thus far is a great achievement, although I for one would be grateful if copyright were weakened.
That there should be a period of copyright is not in doubt; there is no argument that a period of protection should exist for which authors are compensated for their work. However media is the only product which a craftsman can make, where the design can be protected for 95 years. Everything else you are free to make an (almost) exact copy if you have the materials to do so and provided it is not protected by patents (15-20 years) and trademark (which just prevents you naming your copy the same as the original).
I am unfortunately an EU citizen (and a UK subject), and the change in the US law was designed to match European law (amongst other reasons). I hope that a change in US law will bring about a similar rolling back of copyright in the EU.
Am I the only one here who doesn't want KDE and GNOME merged into an uber-desktop? There are many reasons for not doing so, in my humble opinion.
GNOME essentially arose becuase KDE used QT as its base toolkit, which was non GPL. Thanks possibly due to the spectre of rivalry from GNOME, QT went GPL.
I think that KDE and GNOME do benefit from a little rivalry and sniping; I'm hoping that application competition will result in survival of the fittest
I am however not against application interoperability; I do think that the KDe and GNOME people should knock some heads together to ensure that their respective apps can pass data to and from each other and even operate on the 'enemy' desktop.
..they're not going to put all those people in Guantanamo (sp?) Bay up there to avoid questions about whether they are POWs or not!
I believe LILO is no longer subject to this limit; RH7.2 didn't complain when it booted from my 80GB Maxtor with the Linux main partition 60GB in!
I was under the impression that the centre of our galaxy contained a large black hole or similar object. Can't see it on this one, unless its that big glowy object they've false coloured about 2/3rds of the way down the piccie.
Anyone care to post a modified picture with a big arrow pointing to it??
..the mafia will have to find other places to bury people like Jimmy Hoffa!
Whilst it is sad to see the demise of a company which was helping Linux in one of its weak areas, it has to be said that they were aiming at the wrong target.
I think Linux could do with a killer *NEW* game, with leading edge features, which would be a reason for the gamers to at least make their machines dual boot. The need for new games is obviated by the fact that games date extremely quickly and look tired after a relatively short period. Unless a game is fairly bleeding edge it is unlikely to attract a lot of custom.
Unfortunately bleeding edge games now cost real money to develop, and the first few such games to enter the Linux market are likely to lose money; how much depending on whether Linux users are finally prepared to put their money where their mouths are and actually fork out for something decent and up to date that runs on their system.
They dont sue Win Linux, or WinAmp, or WinZip, or even Windows
Actually I'm surprised he doesn't swap which syllables he's using round and call his company WinUx, although it wouldn't surprise me if thats been used already. (I notice WinUx.com/.net are already assigned).
I have this idea for a Linux commercial for any distributor who wants to run it...
Scene: People working at PCs in Office
Suddenly the door bursts open and in come a group of lawyers accompanied by Federal Marshals
Lawyer: "Business Software Alliance! We're here to check all your software licences. If you are running illegal software you may be fined thousands of ponds and go to jail for 5 years. Here's our search warrant"
Manager: (smug grin) "Go ahead - we're all running Linux!"
Exit BSA....
Find a rifle, shoot yourself in the foot. Then find a shotgun and do the same. Which was worse?
This argument isn't a valid comparison; a modern rifle stands a good chance of killing you no matter where it hits because of hydrostatic shock effect, whereas a shotgun will just blow your foot off, and you'll live - providing blood loss is stopped fast enough!
But back to the breaking up asteroid comments - if you can break up an asteroid into a lot of small pellets each of these pellets is likely to either burn up on entry to the earths atmosphere and in addition is unlikely to cause a massive crater like the big single one would do. In addition other effects of a large single strike can involve:
a) throwing up masses of debris into the earths atmosphere
b) setting up a pressure wave in the earths central core - this is not good. (Hydrostatic shock effect on a big scale)
c) triggering off volcanic eruptions both near to the impact and on the opposite side of the world to the impact.
None of these effects would be generated by the smaller shotgun pellet asteroids.
Get a Computer Science Batchelors (BSc) and then follow up with an Master in Business Administration (MBA). Proves you are a techhead with a serious side, which provides a managerial route once you've got too old to be a techie anymore (somewhere between 30 and 45, depending on who you speak to)
..is tell us when we're all going to die.
We only get about a months notice of such close passes anyway and there is no way we're going to be able to get a 'Bruce Willis and mates' crew up into orbit in 30 days. A proper asteroid defence system is likely to be at least a decade away, as it is likely to require a number of hefty nukes to persuade an oncoming 300m+ asteroid that it doesn't have right of way.
Besides, I'd feel distinctly nervous about having a space based system loaded with a several very big nukes right above our heads; just imagine what could happen if a very small object hit the system and destroyed it, knocking the bits back into earths gravity......whilst I know you wouldn't get a nuclear explosion, what chances fallout in a similar manner to a "dirty" sub-nuclear weapon ?