Sounds perverse, but I'm inclined to believe that the Napster decision is a Good Thing (TM), and a classic case of the RIAA shooting themselves in the foot (and in the head).
If the injunction stays then it will force everyone looking for music onto systems which are much more in keeping with Open Source/ GNU philosophy, such as GnuTella. In addition such distributed systems are going to be almost impossible to shutdown - it looks like its going to be DeCSS 'whack a mole' all over again:-).
I believe France has recently 'lightened up' on the use of encryption, just as us Brits are clamping down and (trying to) regulate it.
However, I understand that the French were placing bribes to back up their contracts so in this case I'd say 'score one for Echelon'!! If more general use of Echelon were proved, i.e passing commercial secrets where no wrongdoing is taking place, then I think they would have a legitimate case.
Whilst employment contracts are written by employers, they are certainly negotiable - the initial one you see simply establishes a baseline for negotiations.
I'm a contract engineer, and since I have to sign a new contract every 6-12 months, there are often a couple of clauses which I want to amend [typical problems are clauses relating to private work, payment schedules, holidays etc].
Money does not necessarily equal power; it simply means that you may have more [in terms of amount, not proportion] to lose when you go to court.
It is perhaps important to note that the Corel Linux distribution seemed to have garnered a lot of praise for the ease of installation of their release of Linux - if they submit a whole series of GUI related 'bugs' to KDE then they should at least get a hearing, even if a number of the bug reports are trivial.
One of Corels objectives is obviously to ensure that KDE turns into a GUI that more people can use, and thus increasing the number of people who might buy Linux from Corel.
Developers of software products tend to be very insensitive to GUI related issues concerning their products, and the most trivial of problems at the User Interface can prevent normal, non-savvy users from using KDE. If KDE (and other Desktop Environments, for that matter) wish to seriously give Windows the kicking it deserves, then attention has to be paid to these issues.
The writer of the article suggested that Corel wanted to 'dumb-down' KDE in some areas. Even this should be possible provided power users have access to the full might of all KDE features if they wish.
Best advert for Linux yet...
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
All Linux distributors need to do now is place a newspaper ad saying "What rights do you have if you install... a) Linux b) Windows
..and then put their respective rights in two columns. The second column looks as though it is going to be blank.
CHOICE is what Linux is all about! Yes, choice of a wide variety of software, not choice of reading through the small print of 500 different licenses just to see if you can operate it legally...
I'm under the impression that Motif has well and truly 'missed the Linux bus' and that few people could really care about it, except for compatibility with some old packages which could do with a rewrite to operate in KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment (delete all non applicable Windowing environments). I think we have a lot to thank Motif for - if they'd Open Sourced it a few years ago KDE and Gnome may never have started.
I have to confess that one thing I would really like to kill in Linux is the sheer profusion of licences. I never can be bothered to read the things anyway. Maybe we could do with a license rating system with (100% = GPL, 0% = Microsoft Shrink wrap licence).
Nothing to do with debian, licensing or KDE (but it managed to mention Gnomes); but it was on topic in the sense it was a joke about offering rewards (involving Linux).
IIRC, Sig11 has not posted this joke before, or posted it multiple times; he's hardly going to break the karma system over this. Anyway, if he has got 500 odd karma points, the odd one or two gained or lost will hardly hurt.
a) Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry I forget to tick the 'No Score +1' box
b) One of the little known effects of posting at +2 is that it means that if you have written something which gets moderated up is that you acquire less karma for the post. e.g article at +1 to +5 adds 4 points to your karma. article at +2 to +5 adds only 3 points to your karma.
c) If this had started at +1, it would already be at +2 and thus above most peoples threshold setting anyway.
d) This is reasonably funny, more or less on topic and therefore IMO would qualify for a +1 funny if I was moderating instead of posting. Other people may disagree with me, but that's moderation for you.
e) Maybe Slashdot should allow you to do your own moderating - for those with a sense of humor failure it should have a checkbox to block out humourous posts.
Whilst KDE released from the KDE ftp site install in/opt, RedHat sourced RPMs install in more common locations; IIRC, there are flags which you can use from the command line to tell any.deb or.rpm package where to install.
Personally I wish more packages would by default install into separate directories in/opt myself, it would to make maintenance a little easier.
Without meaning to troll here, it does seem as though KDE has started to become ascendant in the desktop 'war' and GNOME has become a bit more of a backwater recently; I think the earlier QT licence changes seem to have taken a lot of the impetus out of creating GNOME.
The fact that the free QT licence met all of RedHat's objections seems to have allowed KDE to almost become the defacto Linux desktop, and perhaps qualifying for Debian release is the last hurdle to overcome.
some people obviously didn't read the or something similar if that has already gone bit:-)
Maybe Sealand should go for.sea as their TLD (there's a certain 'je ne sais crois' about having your domain on something that moves around a lot). Or is this reserved for oil rigs, boats, ships and other maritime installations?
Here in the UK we have, or used to have, types of offences called 'going equipped to...' and 'intent to....' . I'd be surprised if similar offences didn't exist in the US; they're sort of catchall offences for when the policeman was fortunate or unfortunate enough to catch the criminal before the crime was committed.
As a separate nation, Sealand is in a good position to qualify for its own top level domain in the same way that many other nations, both small and large, have. The owner of Sealand should contact Network Solutions and then he would have no more problems about forged sites, since his government could control a '.se' national domain or something similar if that has already gone.
The fact that the US does not recognise Sealand shouldn't be a problem, after all I believe Cuba and Taiwan have their own domains...
For all those doubters out there, Sealand does exist - stories about it have been in the UK press for ages. I personally would not trust my data, website or anything else to anything out there though, since it seems a lot of shady and dubious dealings go around in its name, not to mention your data may not be very secure with the threat of coup d'etat, kidnappings, invasion etc.
Dunno why, but I still think Doom is spookier and more enthralling than Quake and its sequels. Somehow, there's a greater feeling of fear when going round the corner knowing there could be a whole horde of bad guys, instead of just one or two, and I think the lower quality music, which reminds me of John Carpenter movies for some reason, paradoxically added to the aura the game just radiates.
Problem I can see is, how would Doom 3 build on the earlier Doom games ? I suspect better resolution bad guys may paradoxically lower the creepiness factor.
For fun and sillyness, I think cooperative multiplayer Nightmare Doom, with monsters, has a lot to recommend it. Seems to get to the point where all the monsters are congregating round the resurrection points and you can't get anywhere....
A poster writes "The worlds largest fossil nest", believed to be that of a microsoftosaur, was discovered by archeologists near a place which used to be called Redmond. Its 3000 feet across and about 40 ft high, and some have estimated the nest could have contained tens of thousands of employees. Disputes over how the monster could have supported its own ponderous weight is the source of "interesting" theories of dinosaur evolution."
IIRC, railways are often used as routes for fibre optic cabling, (at least here in England they are), probably because there is little difficulty in securing planning permission and having only one authority (Railtrack) to deal with when it comes to digging holes and or layoing out cabling on the surface.
I would have thought it would be more natural for India to route their signalling traffic through some nice spiffy fibre optic cable which they just lay along the track routes. Presto - one third world country joins the first world.
OK I know this costs money, but it's got to cost less than their ongoing skirmish with Pakistan....
AFAIK, even Larry Wall doesn't recommend you write something like this. One can write readable Perl and unreadable Perl, just as you can write readable C++ and unreadable C++.
Anyway, wot's wrong with ++@_[0] ? (IIRC, preincrement the first argument).
That said, Perl does offer more opportunities to make your code unreadable; perhaps this is a downside of TMTOWTDI (There's More Than One Way To Do It). Another is that TMTOWTDI leads often to WFWSIDI (Which Fsking Way Should I Do It ?). From the sound of the review though, I'll stick with the good 'ol Camel book from O'Reilly.
I think it's time for a Slashdot poll. I believe Jon is way off beam on this one.
Personally, I don't care for Metallica's music, but I believe they are in the right in terms of this action against Napster users, as copyright law stands today. The legal team of Metallica seem to be trying to call Napster's bluff and are probably waiting to see if Napster act on the information they have provided. I do not think they are in the right in terms of total warfare against all forms of digital copying, provided the user has bought a legitimate copy (or license) to play the music.
Napster et al are probably not a legitimate form of fair use of copyrighted material as copyright law stands. Since setting up Napster appears to be an invitation for other people to 'share' (make copies) of your personal music collection you are at the very least aiding and abetting copying of music by numerous others. It is obviously fine if all the music in your collection is distributed freely, but most peoples MP3 collection probably consists of copies of CDs they have bought.
I *do* have more sympathy for mp3.com, since their system at least attempts to ensure that you are only allowed to use MP3 files if you already have bought a legitimate copy of the music already.
IMO, legislators should wake up and respond to the needs of the digital age by dramatically shortening the copyright period; probably to about the duration of patents (about 15 yrs) or less. I doubt this will happen though, because you would hear the screams of anguish from real publishers, artists and Disney from off-planet if such a thing were to be proposed. Copyrights, like patents, should encourage the pushing of ideas into the public domain.
AFAIK, your GPS receiver shouldn't get more accurate at speed. However, you may get a better fix for your present position if there is some way of telling your GPS receiver that you are stationary, since you are fixing some of the variables (velocity & acceleration) that your unit is trying to determine.
Your basic accuracy depends on where the satellites you are getting a fix off are located, with the ideal being 3 satellites at 5 degrees above the horizon, and a 4th directly overhead. Vertical accuracy is less accurate than horizontal accuracy, due to the fact the entire constellation is normally 'above' you.
For years, SCO has been giving reasons why one should not buy/use Linux. Why should we buy a distribution/ Linux products from a company that is apparently carpetbagging into an area that has been faithfully supported by RedHat Debian etc ? Indeed, should we trust in Linux support from a company that has not exactly had kind words to say about Linux in the past ?
P.S.This is meant to be a serious question, not Flamebait, however it may appear. If this appears a little too inflammatory, can someone phrase this more diplomatically ?
My favorite possession is a copy of Quake, but I still own a car and a house! Does that make me under 13 ? On second thoughts don't answer that
Actually, as a 36 year old adult, I habitually lie to market segment polls i.e over/under state my income, lie about my age, put the wrong address (where possible) etc.
I do pity the poor 120 year old earning $200K per year living in Swaziland who is getting my junk mail tho':-).
The obvious answer is to reply with the list of products made by your company for which no support exists once you have "end-of-life'd" it. Similarly, state that if you buy 'closed source' versions of any product you still have no guarentee that anyone is going to be around to support it if the supplier/manuafacturer goes out of business or "end of life's it".
With Open Source products, the situation is slightly different; there are a number of people apart from the primary distributor who you can reach out to and ask for help and assistance.This effectively means you have a second safety net. Your support with Open Source products has multiple redundancy, and thus is better than a "closed" source product.
You can normally purchase support for an Open Source product as with any other - e.g. I'm sure Red Hat, Caldera et al. would be delighted to offer support for Linux and will tell you how much they charge for the service.
Simply be honest and say that if you insist on having "someone to blame" support, you pay for it like everyone else. However most people using Open Source products find they can post a question on UseNet and have a free solution within 24 hours. And if noone does know the solution to your problem, you can try and fix it yourself; something you almost certainly have no chance of doing with a closed product.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds perverse, but I'm inclined to believe that the Napster decision is a Good Thing (TM), and a classic case of the RIAA shooting themselves in the foot (and in the head).
:-).
If the injunction stays then it will force everyone looking for music onto systems which are much more in keeping with Open Source/ GNU philosophy, such as GnuTella. In addition such distributed systems are going to be almost impossible to shutdown - it looks like its going to be DeCSS 'whack a mole' all over again
Let the good times roll!
I believe France has recently 'lightened up' on the use of encryption, just as us Brits are clamping down and (trying to) regulate it.
However, I understand that the French were placing bribes to back up their contracts so in this case I'd say 'score one for Echelon'!! If more general use of Echelon were proved, i.e passing commercial secrets where no wrongdoing is taking place, then I think they would have a legitimate case.
Whilst employment contracts are written by employers, they are certainly negotiable - the initial one you see simply establishes a baseline for negotiations.
I'm a contract engineer, and since I have to sign a new contract every 6-12 months, there are often a couple of clauses which I want to amend [typical problems are clauses relating to private work, payment schedules, holidays etc].
Money does not necessarily equal power; it simply means that you may have more [in terms of amount, not proportion] to lose when you go to court.
It is perhaps important to note that the Corel Linux distribution seemed to have garnered a lot of praise for the ease of installation of their release of Linux - if they submit a whole series of GUI related 'bugs' to KDE then they should at least get a hearing, even if a number of the bug reports are trivial.
One of Corels objectives is obviously to ensure that KDE turns into a GUI that more people can use, and thus increasing the number of people who might buy Linux from Corel.
Developers of software products tend to be very insensitive to GUI related issues concerning their products, and the most trivial of problems at the User Interface can prevent normal, non-savvy users from using KDE. If KDE (and other Desktop Environments, for that matter) wish to seriously give Windows the kicking it deserves, then attention has to be paid to these issues.
The writer of the article suggested that Corel wanted to 'dumb-down' KDE in some areas. Even this should be possible provided power users have access to the full might of all KDE features if they wish.
All Linux distributors need to do now is place a newspaper ad saying "What rights do you have if you install...
a) Linux
b) Windows
..and then put their respective rights in two columns. The second column looks as though it is going to be blank.
CHOICE is what Linux is all about!
Yes, choice of a wide variety of software, not choice of reading through the small print of 500 different licenses just to see if you can operate it legally...
..that Motif doesn't stink.
I'm under the impression that Motif has well and truly 'missed the Linux bus' and that few people could really care about it, except for compatibility with some old packages which could do with a rewrite to operate in KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment (delete all non applicable Windowing environments). I think we have a lot to thank Motif for - if they'd Open Sourced it a few years ago KDE and Gnome may never have started.
I have to confess that one thing I would really like to kill in Linux is the sheer profusion of licences. I never can be bothered to read the things anyway. Maybe we could do with a license rating system with (100% = GPL, 0% = Microsoft Shrink wrap licence).
Nothing to do with debian, licensing or KDE (but it managed to mention Gnomes); but it was on topic in the sense it was a joke about offering rewards (involving Linux).
IIRC, Sig11 has not posted this joke before, or posted it multiple times; he's hardly going to break the karma system over this. Anyway, if he has got 500 odd karma points, the odd one or two gained or lost will hardly hurt.
a) Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry I forget to tick the 'No Score +1' box
b) One of the little known effects of posting at +2 is that it means that if you have written something which gets moderated up is that you acquire less karma for the post.
e.g
article at +1 to +5 adds 4 points to your karma.
article at +2 to +5 adds only 3 points to your karma.
c) If this had started at +1, it would already be at +2 and thus above most peoples threshold setting anyway.
d) This is reasonably funny, more or less on topic and therefore IMO would qualify for a +1 funny if I was moderating instead of posting. Other people may disagree with me, but that's moderation for you.
e) Maybe Slashdot should allow you to do your own moderating - for those with a sense of humor failure it should have a checkbox to block out humourous posts.
Whilst KDE released from the KDE ftp site install in /opt, RedHat sourced RPMs install in more common locations; IIRC, there are flags which you can use from the command line to tell any .deb or .rpm package where to install.
/opt myself, it would to make maintenance a little easier.
Personally I wish more packages would by default install into separate directories in
Without meaning to troll here, it does seem as though KDE has started to become ascendant in the desktop 'war' and GNOME has become a bit more of a backwater recently; I think the earlier QT licence changes seem to have taken a lot of the impetus out of creating GNOME.
The fact that the free QT licence met all of RedHat's objections seems to have allowed KDE to almost become the defacto Linux desktop, and perhaps qualifying for Debian release is the last hurdle to overcome.
some people obviously didn't read the or something similar if that has already gone bit :-)
.sea as their TLD (there's a certain 'je ne sais crois' about having your domain on something that moves around a lot).
Maybe Sealand should go for
Or is this reserved for oil rigs, boats, ships and other maritime installations?
I thought libel was a civil offence, not a criminal one.
Here in the UK we have, or used to have, types of offences called 'going equipped to...' and 'intent to....' . I'd be surprised if similar offences didn't exist in the US; they're sort of catchall offences for when the policeman was fortunate or unfortunate enough to catch the criminal before the crime was committed.
As a separate nation, Sealand is in a good position to qualify for its own top level domain in the same way that many other nations, both small and large, have. The owner of Sealand should contact Network Solutions and then he would have no more problems about forged sites, since his government could control a '.se' national domain or something similar if that has already gone.
The fact that the US does not recognise Sealand shouldn't be a problem, after all I believe Cuba and Taiwan have their own domains...
For all those doubters out there, Sealand does exist - stories about it have been in the UK press for ages. I personally would not trust my data, website or anything else to anything out there though, since it seems a lot of shady and dubious dealings go around in its name, not to mention your data may not be very secure with the threat of coup d'etat, kidnappings, invasion etc.
Dunno why, but I still think Doom is spookier and more enthralling than Quake and its sequels. Somehow, there's a greater feeling of fear when going round the corner knowing there could be a whole horde of bad guys, instead of just one or two, and I think the lower quality music, which reminds me of John Carpenter movies for some reason, paradoxically added to the aura the game just radiates.
Problem I can see is, how would Doom 3 build on the earlier Doom games ? I suspect better resolution bad guys may paradoxically lower the creepiness factor.
For fun and sillyness, I think cooperative multiplayer Nightmare Doom, with monsters, has a lot to recommend it. Seems to get to the point where all the monsters are congregating round the resurrection points and you can't get anywhere....
A poster writes "The worlds largest fossil nest", believed to be that of a microsoftosaur, was discovered by archeologists near a place which used to be called Redmond. Its 3000 feet across and about 40 ft high, and some have estimated the nest could have contained tens of thousands of employees. Disputes over how the monster could have supported its own ponderous weight is the source of "interesting" theories of dinosaur evolution."
IIRC, railways are often used as routes for fibre optic cabling, (at least here in England they are), probably because there is little difficulty in securing planning permission and having only one authority (Railtrack) to deal with when it comes to digging holes and or layoing out cabling on the surface.
I would have thought it would be more natural for India to route their signalling traffic through some nice spiffy fibre optic cable which they just lay along the track routes. Presto - one third world country joins the first world.
OK I know this costs money, but it's got to cost less than their ongoing skirmish with Pakistan....
AFAIK, even Larry Wall doesn't recommend you write something like this. One can write readable Perl and unreadable Perl, just as you can write readable C++ and unreadable C++.
Anyway, wot's wrong with ++@_[0] ?
(IIRC, preincrement the first argument).
That said, Perl does offer more opportunities to make your code unreadable; perhaps this is a downside of TMTOWTDI (There's More Than One Way To Do It). Another is that TMTOWTDI leads often to WFWSIDI (Which Fsking Way Should I Do It ?). From the sound of the review though, I'll stick with the good 'ol Camel book from O'Reilly.
I think it's time for a Slashdot poll. I believe Jon is way off beam on this one.
Personally, I don't care for Metallica's music, but I believe they are in the right in terms of this action against Napster users, as copyright law stands today. The legal team of Metallica seem to be trying to call Napster's bluff and are probably waiting to see if Napster act on the information they have provided. I do not think they are in the right in terms of total warfare against all forms of digital copying, provided the user has bought a legitimate copy (or license) to play the music.
Napster et al are probably not a legitimate form of fair use of copyrighted material as copyright law stands. Since setting up Napster appears to be an invitation for other people to 'share' (make copies) of your personal music collection you are at the very least aiding and abetting copying of music by numerous others. It is obviously fine if all the music in your collection is distributed freely, but most peoples MP3 collection probably consists of copies of CDs they have bought.
I *do* have more sympathy for mp3.com, since their system at least attempts to ensure that you are only allowed to use MP3 files if you already have bought a legitimate copy of the music already.
IMO, legislators should wake up and respond to the needs of the digital age by dramatically shortening the copyright period; probably to about the duration of patents (about 15 yrs) or less. I doubt this will happen though, because you would hear the screams of anguish from real publishers, artists and Disney from off-planet if such a thing were to be proposed. Copyrights, like patents, should encourage the pushing of ideas into the public domain.
AFAIK, your GPS receiver shouldn't get more accurate at speed. However, you may get a better fix for your present position if there is some way of telling your GPS receiver that you are stationary, since you are fixing some of the variables (velocity & acceleration) that your unit is trying to determine.
Your basic accuracy depends on where the satellites you are getting a fix off are located, with the ideal being 3 satellites at 5 degrees above the horizon, and a 4th directly overhead.
Vertical accuracy is less accurate than horizontal accuracy, due to the fact the entire constellation is normally 'above' you.
For years, SCO has been giving reasons why one should not buy/use Linux. Why should we buy a distribution/ Linux products from a company that is apparently carpetbagging into an area that has been faithfully supported by RedHat Debian etc ? Indeed, should we trust in Linux support from a company that has not exactly had kind words to say about Linux in the past ?
P.S.This is meant to be a serious question, not Flamebait, however it may appear. If this appears a little too inflammatory, can someone phrase this more diplomatically ?
My favorite possession is a copy of Quake, but I still own a car and a house! Does that make me under 13 ? On second thoughts don't answer that
:-).
Actually, as a 36 year old adult, I habitually lie to market segment polls i.e over/under state my income, lie about my age, put the wrong address (where possible) etc.
I do pity the poor 120 year old earning $200K per year living in Swaziland who is getting my junk mail tho'
:-)
The obvious answer is to reply with the list of products made by your company for which no support exists once you have "end-of-life'd" it. Similarly, state that if you buy 'closed source' versions of any product you still have no guarentee that anyone is going to be around to support it if the supplier/manuafacturer goes out of business or "end of life's it".
With Open Source products, the situation is slightly different; there are a number of people apart from the primary distributor who you can reach out to and ask for help and assistance.This effectively means you have a second safety net. Your support with Open Source products has multiple redundancy, and thus is better than a "closed" source product.
You can normally purchase support for an Open Source product as with any other - e.g. I'm sure Red Hat, Caldera et al. would be delighted to offer support for Linux and will tell you how much they charge for the service.
Simply be honest and say that if you insist on having "someone to blame" support, you pay for it like everyone else. However most people using Open Source products find they can post a question on UseNet and have a free solution within 24 hours. And if noone does know the solution to your problem, you can try and fix it yourself; something you almost certainly have no chance of doing with a closed product.