I got the following from Tom Welch (CTO of Lindows) shortly after emailing him:
***
Neil,
The full source will be made available shortly. We are running fast
and wanted to get it out as quickly as possible.
Tom
***
I emailed him back with the following:
***
Tom,
I appreciate the quick reply, and understand the hecticness of your situation. If you or a staffer can't get back to me for a couple of days, that's fine. However, I stil have my initial confusion about the license interaction involved with Nvu. As I'm sure you are aware, there are many people in F/OSS who view license compliance with a religious zealotry.
I am not accusing Lindows / Nvu in any way of not abiding by the licenses upon which they are building. I am simply stating that many in the community (myself included) are very confused because we are not as familiar with tri-licensing and/or the MPL / LGPL.
Breaking those licenses down, your rights and responsibilities under them, and how you are complying with them in your FAQ would be greatly appreciated.
Perhaps you could say "We are fully complying with both the spirit and letter of the Open Source licenses that we are building upon. For a technical breakdown of this, please click here." This would answer the question for non-technical users / people who don't care but still provide a resource for those of us who try to stay on top of the legal framework that F/OSS is built upon.
Thank you for your time and all your company is contributing to F/OSS, and I look forward to your reply.
I used to be a Vonage customer. I will detail my reasons for leaving at the end of this post.
As far as Vonage and Linux goes, Vonage will supply you with an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) that plugs into your existing network. Run a patch cable from your router / switch to the ATA, and a telephone cable from the ATA to a handset and you're good to go.
There is no interaction between the ATA and your desktop systems. It doesn't matter if you're running Windows / Linux / MacOS / Amiga / Whatever.
As for why I left Vonage, I was unimpressed with the call quality. I had Road Runner Business Class (I think 1.5M down, 768k up, although I might be mistaken) coming into my residence, and I would occasionally get static and dropped calls. Also, about 1 out of 10 calls the other party would not be able to hear me at all and hang up in frustration (assuming it was a crank caller or the like).
Two other problems I ran into were getting my assigned number and a "cancellation fee." When I signed up over Vonage's site, I was told that Vonage would automatically cancel my existing land-line service. However, my area code (513 - Cincinnati) was not offered, so I went with 614 (Columbus).
I found out later (when Cincinnati Bell kept billing me) that since I didn't transfer a number Vonage didn't cancel my existing service. The wording on Vonage's site did not lead me to believe that this was the case. To Vonage's credit, after I complained about this they credited my account for what I had to pay Cincinnati Bell.
I was disappointed when I eventually cancelled my Vonage account (to move back to Columbus and just use my cell phone as my only number) that Vonage charged me $41.19 as a "cancellation fee." They refunded this upon me shipping their hardware back, but I was very put off by being hit with that. I told Vonage that they should reword that as a hardware deposit or something more palatable.
I'm not angry with Vonage for my experiences, but I'm not falling out of my chair to recommend them. I want to see VoIP continue to mature and eventually become ubiquitous. Whether it's ready now or not is up for discussion.
I don't normally respond to AC's, but you raise a point worth responding to.
You'll notice that I open and close this letter with sincere positives. I'm glad Lindows is bankrolling this, and although I'm not a Lindows customer, I look forward to working with them as an intelligent bug-submitting end-user to help them polish the product.
With my questions about the license, I admit some ignorance and ask them for clarification. I toned down the initial language that I had in order to try to make this more professional.
Nowhere did I threaten them or try to sound confrontational. I was simply confused about how they are ensuring license compliance, and asked for some additional information.
If they were building on solely GPL'd software (which they are not), then Lindows / Nvu would have no legal right whatsoever to offer us "a peek" (as you put it). This is not the case, as Mozilla Composer is tri-licensed under the GPL / MPL / LGPL. My letter asked for clarification on what their rights are, as that question has been raised by others.
I hardly see how asking politely and professionally to ensure that the legal rights of a community I am a part of are respected is "biting off my nose to spite my face."
I just sent this to 'feedback at nvu dot com', and will post whatever response I get to this thread.
*************
I recently learned of your project through a link from Slashdot.org.
Link to Slashdot story: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/0 2/04/0050215&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=154&tid=156&t id=95
It appears that you are definitely filling a need within the F/OSS community, and I applaud your group and Lindows, your sponsor, for that.
There appears to be some concern from the Slashdot community about the availability of source for Nvu. Although I am not a programmer of any real skill (and cannot fully judge if the tar.gz I downloaded contains human-readable source), others have complained that the full source is NOT included.
Link to relevant Slashdot comment: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments. pl?sid=954 28&cid=8176411
Although your site states that this is a Beta release, you also claim to build off of Mozilla Composer, which is available under the GPL (and two other licenses). If Mozilla Composer was distributed only under the GPL, it would require you to make full source available to those you re-distribute to.
However, I have noticed that Composer is available under the GPL / MPL / LGPL. I would greatly appreciate clarification of how your obligations differ under these licenses, as I am significantly less familiar with them. You may also wish to update your FAQ with this information, as I am sure I am not the only one with these questions.
I look forward to your reply, and the clearing up of any confusion that may exist in regards to this. Additionaly, I anticipate using Nvu and providing feedback to make this a great product for Lindows and all other users of F/OSS.
My problem was not that the price jumped, but that it jumped that much. They said in the news.com.com article that they would use a floor of 50-75 cents a song, but I saw NOTHING that was at that price immediately following the end of the promotion. Everything was.90 or more. To my knowledge this is still the case.
Obligatory disclaimer: I have no connection to musicrebellion.com. I just bought a dozen albums from them during their.10 / track promotion.
The basic idea is that popular songs will rise in price, while less popular songs will decrease in price. To start things off they had a promotion where all tracks were.10 (albeit almost all songs are in crippled WMA format with limited burning capabilities). News.com.com story here.
The thing that bugged me about Music Rebellion is that after the promotion ended everything immediately jumped to 90-odd cents.
I disagree strongly with that, as they have now given me little incentive to use them over iTunes. I'm willing to give them my business for some of the obscure Christian music I listen to if it's dynamically priced at 20-35 cents per track. Otherwise I'll save the WMA hassle and go iTunes. Unfortunately, the news.com article listed a floor of 50-75 cents per song (citing wholesale cost).
What I did like about them is that their customer service was responsive (some licenses didn't download correctly), and their selection was comparable to Apple's. They also seem to have some indie music promotion.
However, iTunes is so well designed (not relying on MSIE for downloads or WMP for burning) that I haven't had to use their customer service.
Initial Disclaimer: I hate Disney as a company as much as anyone here thanks to their political and legal activities.
Less than a month ago, I spent a week in Disney World with my disabled mother. (Don't knock the situation: I got to stay in the Grand Floridian, eat lobster for every meal, go parasailing, etc. for FREE)
The one thing that really struck me about the park / resort is that they sell an experience. Every last employee (they call themselves "cast members") from the ticket taker to Security to register operators is SINCERELY dedicated to serving you and ensuring that you are having the time of your life.
Since we were staying at the Grand Floridian, we didn't go past the front gate (and back into Orlando) the entire time. It was culture shock once we returned to The Real World, just because of the level of apathy in customer service shown to us at the airport, restaraunts, etc..
I was honestly saddened that it is not possible for me to spend my own money on a future time at Disney World without being morally inconsistent. The Disney World experience that they sell is incredible, and although I did notice these dolls in the stores, I didn't realize the full potential of them. I'm not surprised though, as you can tell how the "personalized" attention it would give a youngster would be near-magical.
On an aside, I'm an outspoken Evangelical Christian, and whenever I talk to people about the trip and my hatred of Disney as a corporation, their reaction is always "Is it because of Disney's embracing of homosexuality?"
My respone is that I could care less about that, and inform them of copyright extension, bought legislation, etc.
My point here is that I've seen passion on these boards that can rival and often surpass those of many Evangelicals I know. Why are we not mobilizing to inform the public at large and/or get things changed? Even if we're scoffed at as idiots (as many on Slashdot would at a Christian boycotting Disney for the above reason) at least the public WOULD BE AWARE of the issue.
I contacted the EFF as soon as I got back to find out about volunteering a consistent 5-10 hours a week, but was told that since I'm in Ohio they don't have the resources to administer remote volunteers.
Pre-emptive note to mods: Someone calmly and logically expressing their viewpoint in an on-topic way is NOT flamebait. Modding someone down solely because they are expressing an unpopular opinion / worldview is intolerant to the extreme.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Reality occasionally interferes with having the time to read Slashdot:).
Chronicles focuses on the male line because the geneaology traces from King David to Joseph, the legal father of Jesus. The Messiah was to be a descendant of King David, and since David was of the line of Judah, Jesus is often called "The Lion of Judah."
In regards to Jewish culture, little is more important in the religion of Judaism than the coming of the Messiah, hence Chronicles focusing on the male line. (Obviously Christianity and Judaism disagree on whether that Messiah has already arrived.)
Satan is referenced all over the place in the Bible. As far as being a character "on-stage," Satan figures prominently into early Genesis, Job, Matthew, Luke, and Revelation. I haven't read the Apocrypha, so I don't know how often he pops up there.
I must have missed the shellfish / homosexuality passage, or perhaps misread it. Give me the location and I'll study it ASAP. I believe homosexuality to be contrary to God's will, but to call people names, discriminate against them, etc. is counterproductive and quite frankly, sick. Although it's difficult, it is possible to sincerely love someone although you do not approve of their behavior. I would welcome evidence showing that homosexuality is not contrary to God's will.
In regards to tolerance, I agree that many Christians are hypocritcal in showing love. However, the world tends to have a different definition of "tolerance." The world seems to define tolerance as "being willing to accept something as true on the basis of someone else sincerely believing it." I define tolerance as "being willing to accept someone's right of free will to believe whatever they want, regardless of whether I believe them to be right."
As an example, I believe Hinduism espouses a worldview that is contrary to how reality exists, or "the way things are," for lack of a better phrase. I will defend to the literal death someone's right to freely believe whatever they want (as Christianity requires acceptance through free will). However, that doesn't mean that I have to believe that they are right.
I knew you were being facetious in your Latin version comment. I just wanted to throw out a tidbit that might be informative.
I'll post this without my karma bonus in an attempt to avoid the oft-abused "overrated" moderation:).
I know a significant part of the 99 cents a song goes to process the credit card transaction. Why doesn't Apple offer people a discount to prepay larger amounts? Say, pay $50 at once, and get to download 60 songs at your leisure?
For example, let's say that it costs Apple $.20 + 3% of the transaction for each purchase (I'm sure someone can correct me with more exact figures.) So, if I download sixty individual songs, Apple has paid $13.80 in credit card fees on $59.40 in revenue. They now have $45.60 to put towards licensing, other expenses, etc for those sixty downloads.
Now let's see if I paid $50 upfront and got to download sixty songs. Apple only pays $1.70 in credit card charges, and has $48.30 to put towards the other expenses for those sixty downloads. In addition to saving $2.70, Apple also just generated some goodwill on my end because I appreciate getting ten extra songs on the deal.
Multiply that relatively significant savings by the huge volume that iTunes generates (even more when it's released for Windows [and hopefully Linux]), and Apple could definitely help pad that margin a little.
I know you're being funny, and your comment did make me laugh, but a few clarifications you might find interesting / informative...
1 and 2 Chronicles were accepted as holy scripture by the Jewish community relatively soon after their writing in the 5th century B.C. As such, it's part of the Old Testament of the "real Bible" that was subsequently accepted by Christianity.
I agree that Chronicles is pretty dry and boring. It is important however, as it presents specific lineages. Since much of Judaism and Christianity rely on prophecy (i.e. the Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah), it is paramount to show proof that a specific individual is in fact descended from that tribe!
Regarding the Apocrypha, that is a collection of writings that the Roman Catholic Church added to the "real Bible" in 1545 A.D. This was in direct retaliation to Martin Luther bringing the Vatican to task for its many abuses and doctrines that were directly contrary to the teachings of Christ and those who had apostolic authority (such as Paul). To counter this, the Vatican "blessed" additional predominantly secular writings that gave their practices an air of legitimacy.
In regards to Leviticus, that entire book (which I just finished re-studying this morning actually) is a list of rules and regulations, delivered by Moses, for the priests of Israel. The title derives itself from the tribe of Levi, which you had to be a member of in order to be a Jewish priest.
In regards to Christianity, the vast majority of Leviticus has been superseded by the new priesthood of Christ. For example, instead of sacrificing livestock on a regular basis to atone for our sin, we are able to offer the divine "Lamb of God" on our behalf. Additionaly, access to God is granted directly to those who petition on behalf of Christ, as opposed to those who must use a human intermediary (i.e. the Jewish priest).
In regards to the "Latin version," I do believe that it's important to use as early a translation as possible for serious study. However, most people (myself included) don't know Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, and as such use a recent English translation. Differences in versions (such as between the NIV and the KJV) usually come about due to whether the translators tried to convey a word-for-word translation or a thought-for-thought translation. That needs to be taken into account when trying to understand extremely difficult passages.
This post is meant to be informative and hopefully a little interesting, as well as replying to a specific post. If it sparks intelligent debate and discussion, great. Those who choose to descend to name-calling and flames will be ignored.
I recommend half.com. Yeah, it's owned by eBay, but you can get plenty of discs (used) really cheaply. I average paying four or five bucks a disc, which includes the $2.49 shipping charge. From one of my earlier posts...
I recently got into Tori Amos. (Regardless of how you feel about her music, you do have to admit she's talented and original.) I picked up her latest CD a few months ago because it had 70 minutes of music and it cost me $10 new. I found myself really liking it, and willing to look at her other work.
Now, I could go to Best Buy and drop over $100 picking up the major discs of her backcatalog (5 discs plus a 2 CD-set), or I could go to half.com and get the same discs (albeit used) shipped to me for a grand total less than $30. As long as I can get a decent rip off the used discs, I don't care about their condition.
18 bucks a month for a gig of space, 34 bucks a month for 5 gig, and all sorts of other plans. You also get unlimited MySQL databases. Although they don't offer telephone tech support (they're based in the UK, and most of their clients are in the US) their support has been great! They have fast turnaround time on their ticket system, and are quite responsive through IM clients.
I've been so impressed, I even advertise them for free on my company's site.
If you want the IM name of one of their owners (who I talked with pre-sale and who has personally handled some of my tech support issues), just email me at userid:neil domain:wehneman.com and I'll pass it along to you (with his permission of course).
United Hosting is also pretty much an exclusively Linux shop, for those added brownie points.
I contacted SuSE and you are quite correct. I have just purchased the appropriate 8.2 Professional discs directly from them, and am in contact with my reseller to ensure that he is aware of the license. I thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Even with the additional outlay of cash, I believe SuSE 8.2 to be well worth it. Thank you again for showing me the relevant language.
Show me specific law where the software distributed on SuSE 8.2 is either not GPL (or similar) or under a free-beer license. As far as the cd layout being copyrighted, I'm not familiar with that. Again, please give me a specific case to back up your claim.
As far as morality goes, SuSE has used their right to build upon GPL'd software. This right comes with the responsibility to give their customers the rights of the GPL, which includes the right to resell it.
Don't call something "warez" when it's not.
And for the record, I paid $40 retail for boxed SuSE 8.1 Personal, and am yet to use my support incidents. The only reason I was looking to upgrade was to get native KDE 3.1 support. None of my local retailers carried any SuSE 8.2 products yet, and I stumbled upon a reseller through half.com.
I think SuSE makes a great product, and have no problem supporting them financially (as I have in the past). SuSE will be continue to get plenty of financial support from me and from my recommendations to clients.
You can get the CDs / DVD from sources other than SuSE. Burnt discs are being auctioned / sold all the time. I paid $30 (that includes fast shipping) to get my 8.2 Pro discs, and it was money very well spent.
I run a consulting business, and I have at least one client who is looking to migrate servers and desktops to Linux in 6 - 12 months. SuSE will be my distro of choice when that time comes.
OK, quick refresher on the GPL / SuSE / Lindows...
If you take software that is licensed under the GPL (such as the Linux kernel), and do anything to it that is not allowed under standard copyright law (such as modifying, redistributing, etc.), you MUST license the resulting code under the GPL as well.
The GPL requires that whoever you give binaries to (either through gift or sale), must also receive a written offer to procure the source from you for no more than the reasonable cost of distribution.
You do NOT have to make ISOs or binaries available for free to anyone off of the street, although many vendors choose to do this. SuSE is a notable exception. As a service to customers, and not because the GPL requires it, SuSE does allow people to download a "Live-ISO" that boots your computer and lets you run the SuSE distribution for that session.
I have purchased two SuSE cd-sets, one boxed at retail and another a set of burned discs from a reseller. In the second case the reseller purchased a boxed retail set, and then "invoked" the GPL to burn out and distribute a copy to me.
The GPL allows an exemption of sorts if you write code that merely links to GPL'd code, as opposed to being an integral part of the code itself. For example, YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) is what SuSE uses to handle package dependencies, hardware, etc. YaST is not GPL'd, although SuSE has made it free as in beer.
I believe Lindows links much of their code, as opposed to mingling it with the GPL'd base, which allows them to be a bit more proprietary than we would prefer.
Slashdot Mirror
I got the following from Tom Welch (CTO of Lindows) shortly after emailing him:
***
Neil,
The full source will be made available shortly. We are running fast
and wanted to get it out as quickly as possible.
Tom
***
I emailed him back with the following:
***
Tom,
I appreciate the quick reply, and understand the hecticness of your
situation. If you or a staffer can't get back to me for a couple of
days, that's fine. However, I stil have my initial confusion about the
license interaction involved with Nvu. As I'm sure you are aware, there
are many people in F/OSS who view license compliance with a religious
zealotry.
I am not accusing Lindows / Nvu in any way of not abiding by the
licenses upon which they are building. I am simply stating that many in
the community (myself included) are very confused because we are not as
familiar with tri-licensing and/or the MPL / LGPL.
Breaking those licenses down, your rights and responsibilities under
them, and how you are complying with them in your FAQ would be greatly
appreciated.
Perhaps you could say "We are fully complying with both the spirit and
letter of the Open Source licenses that we are building upon. For a
technical breakdown of this, please click here." This would answer the
question for non-technical users / people who don't care but still
provide a resource for those of us who try to stay on top of the legal
framework that F/OSS is built upon.
Thank you for your time and all your company is contributing to F/OSS,
and I look forward to your reply.
- Neil Wehneman
***
I'll post anything else I get in reply.
- Neil Wehneman
I used to be a Vonage customer. I will detail my reasons for leaving at the end of this post.
As far as Vonage and Linux goes, Vonage will supply you with an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) that plugs into your existing network. Run a patch cable from your router / switch to the ATA, and a telephone cable from the ATA to a handset and you're good to go.
There is no interaction between the ATA and your desktop systems. It doesn't matter if you're running Windows / Linux / MacOS / Amiga / Whatever.
As for why I left Vonage, I was unimpressed with the call quality. I had Road Runner Business Class (I think 1.5M down, 768k up, although I might be mistaken) coming into my residence, and I would occasionally get static and dropped calls. Also, about 1 out of 10 calls the other party would not be able to hear me at all and hang up in frustration (assuming it was a crank caller or the like).
Two other problems I ran into were getting my assigned number and a "cancellation fee." When I signed up over Vonage's site, I was told that Vonage would automatically cancel my existing land-line service. However, my area code (513 - Cincinnati) was not offered, so I went with 614 (Columbus).
I found out later (when Cincinnati Bell kept billing me) that since I didn't transfer a number Vonage didn't cancel my existing service. The wording on Vonage's site did not lead me to believe that this was the case. To Vonage's credit, after I complained about this they credited my account for what I had to pay Cincinnati Bell.
I was disappointed when I eventually cancelled my Vonage account (to move back to Columbus and just use my cell phone as my only number) that Vonage charged me $41.19 as a "cancellation fee." They refunded this upon me shipping their hardware back, but I was very put off by being hit with that. I told Vonage that they should reword that as a hardware deposit or something more palatable.
I'm not angry with Vonage for my experiences, but I'm not falling out of my chair to recommend them. I want to see VoIP continue to mature and eventually become ubiquitous. Whether it's ready now or not is up for discussion.
Hope this was helpful!
- Neil Wehneman
I don't normally respond to AC's, but you raise a point worth responding to.
You'll notice that I open and close this letter with sincere positives. I'm glad Lindows is bankrolling this, and although I'm not a Lindows customer, I look forward to working with them as an intelligent bug-submitting end-user to help them polish the product.
With my questions about the license, I admit some ignorance and ask them for clarification. I toned down the initial language that I had in order to try to make this more professional.
Nowhere did I threaten them or try to sound confrontational. I was simply confused about how they are ensuring license compliance, and asked for some additional information.
If they were building on solely GPL'd software (which they are not), then Lindows / Nvu would have no legal right whatsoever to offer us "a peek" (as you put it). This is not the case, as Mozilla Composer is tri-licensed under the GPL / MPL / LGPL. My letter asked for clarification on what their rights are, as that question has been raised by others.
I hardly see how asking politely and professionally to ensure that the legal rights of a community I am a part of are respected is "biting off my nose to spite my face."
- Neil Wehneman
I just sent this to 'feedback at nvu dot com', and will post whatever response I get to this thread.
0 2/04/0050215&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=154&tid=156&t id=95
. pl?sid=954 28&cid=8176411
*************
I recently learned of your project through a link from Slashdot.org.
Link to Slashdot story: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/
It appears that you are definitely filling a need within the F/OSS community, and I applaud your group and Lindows, your sponsor, for that.
There appears to be some concern from the Slashdot community about the availability of source for Nvu. Although I am not a programmer of any real skill (and cannot fully judge if the tar.gz I downloaded contains human-readable source), others have complained that the full source is NOT included.
Link to relevant Slashdot comment:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments
Although your site states that this is a Beta release, you also claim to build off of Mozilla Composer, which is available under the GPL (and two other licenses). If Mozilla Composer was distributed only under the GPL, it would require you to make full source available to those you re-distribute to.
However, I have noticed that Composer is available under the GPL / MPL / LGPL. I would greatly appreciate clarification of how your obligations differ under these licenses, as I am significantly less familiar with them. You may also wish to update your FAQ with this information, as I am sure I am not the only one with these questions.
I look forward to your reply, and the clearing up of any confusion that may exist in regards to this. Additionaly, I anticipate using Nvu and providing feedback to make this a great product for Lindows and all other users of F/OSS.
Thank you for your time.
- Neil Wehneman
***************
This thread might need people to disclose "IANCABF":
I Am Not Currently A BoyFriend
(Any humor is pointed at myself as well, as IANCABF either)
- Neil Wehneman
My problem was not that the price jumped, but that it jumped that much. They said in the news.com.com article that they would use a floor of 50-75 cents a song, but I saw NOTHING that was at that price immediately following the end of the promotion. Everything was .90 or more. To my knowledge this is still the case.
- Neil
I know the article is on exchange rates, but there is a site doing (or claiming to do) dynamic pricing based on demand.
.10 / track promotion.
.10 (albeit almost all songs are in crippled WMA format with limited burning capabilities). News.com.com story here.
www.musicrebellion.com
Obligatory disclaimer: I have no connection to musicrebellion.com. I just bought a dozen albums from them during their
The basic idea is that popular songs will rise in price, while less popular songs will decrease in price. To start things off they had a promotion where all tracks were
The thing that bugged me about Music Rebellion is that after the promotion ended everything immediately jumped to 90-odd cents.
I disagree strongly with that, as they have now given me little incentive to use them over iTunes. I'm willing to give them my business for some of the obscure Christian music I listen to if it's dynamically priced at 20-35 cents per track. Otherwise I'll save the WMA hassle and go iTunes. Unfortunately, the news.com article listed a floor of 50-75 cents per song (citing wholesale cost).
What I did like about them is that their customer service was responsive (some licenses didn't download correctly), and their selection was comparable to Apple's. They also seem to have some indie music promotion.
However, iTunes is so well designed (not relying on MSIE for downloads or WMP for burning) that I haven't had to use their customer service.
- Neil Wehneman
Does it run on *BSD?
Slashdot Effect anyone?
Perhaps a link to our friends at Despair.com would be in order :).
- Neil Wehneman
Initial Disclaimer: I hate Disney as a company as much as anyone here thanks to their political and legal activities.
Less than a month ago, I spent a week in Disney World with my disabled mother. (Don't knock the situation: I got to stay in the Grand Floridian, eat lobster for every meal, go parasailing, etc. for FREE)
The one thing that really struck me about the park / resort is that they sell an experience. Every last employee (they call themselves "cast members") from the ticket taker to Security to register operators is SINCERELY dedicated to serving you and ensuring that you are having the time of your life.
Since we were staying at the Grand Floridian, we didn't go past the front gate (and back into Orlando) the entire time. It was culture shock once we returned to The Real World, just because of the level of apathy in customer service shown to us at the airport, restaraunts, etc..
I was honestly saddened that it is not possible for me to spend my own money on a future time at Disney World without being morally inconsistent. The Disney World experience that they sell is incredible, and although I did notice these dolls in the stores, I didn't realize the full potential of them. I'm not surprised though, as you can tell how the "personalized" attention it would give a youngster would be near-magical.
On an aside, I'm an outspoken Evangelical Christian, and whenever I talk to people about the trip and my hatred of Disney as a corporation, their reaction is always "Is it because of Disney's embracing of homosexuality?"
My respone is that I could care less about that, and inform them of copyright extension, bought legislation, etc.
My point here is that I've seen passion on these boards that can rival and often surpass those of many Evangelicals I know. Why are we not mobilizing to inform the public at large and/or get things changed? Even if we're scoffed at as idiots (as many on Slashdot would at a Christian boycotting Disney for the above reason) at least the public WOULD BE AWARE of the issue.
I contacted the EFF as soon as I got back to find out about volunteering a consistent 5-10 hours a week, but was told that since I'm in Ohio they don't have the resources to administer remote volunteers.
- Neil Wehneman
So instead of the Santa Cruz Operation we have the Santa Cruz Inquisition?
Oops, forgot to forgo my Karma on the above. *kicks self*
- Neil Wehneman
Pre-emptive note to mods: Someone calmly and logically expressing their viewpoint in an on-topic way is NOT flamebait. Modding someone down solely because they are expressing an unpopular opinion / worldview is intolerant to the extreme.
:).
:).
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Reality occasionally interferes with having the time to read Slashdot
Chronicles focuses on the male line because the geneaology traces from King David to Joseph, the legal father of Jesus. The Messiah was to be a descendant of King David, and since David was of the line of Judah, Jesus is often called "The Lion of Judah."
In regards to Jewish culture, little is more important in the religion of Judaism than the coming of the Messiah, hence Chronicles focusing on the male line. (Obviously Christianity and Judaism disagree on whether that Messiah has already arrived.)
Satan is referenced all over the place in the Bible. As far as being a character "on-stage," Satan figures prominently into early Genesis, Job, Matthew, Luke, and Revelation. I haven't read the Apocrypha, so I don't know how often he pops up there.
I must have missed the shellfish / homosexuality passage, or perhaps misread it. Give me the location and I'll study it ASAP. I believe homosexuality to be contrary to God's will, but to call people names, discriminate against them, etc. is counterproductive and quite frankly, sick. Although it's difficult, it is possible to sincerely love someone although you do not approve of their behavior. I would welcome evidence showing that homosexuality is not contrary to God's will.
In regards to tolerance, I agree that many Christians are hypocritcal in showing love. However, the world tends to have a different definition of "tolerance." The world seems to define tolerance as "being willing to accept something as true on the basis of someone else sincerely believing it." I define tolerance as "being willing to accept someone's right of free will to believe whatever they want, regardless of whether I believe them to be right."
As an example, I believe Hinduism espouses a worldview that is contrary to how reality exists, or "the way things are," for lack of a better phrase. I will defend to the literal death someone's right to freely believe whatever they want (as Christianity requires acceptance through free will). However, that doesn't mean that I have to believe that they are right.
I knew you were being facetious in your Latin version comment. I just wanted to throw out a tidbit that might be informative.
I'll post this without my karma bonus in an attempt to avoid the oft-abused "overrated" moderation
- Neil Wehneman
I know a significant part of the 99 cents a song goes to process the credit card transaction. Why doesn't Apple offer people a discount to prepay larger amounts? Say, pay $50 at once, and get to download 60 songs at your leisure?
For example, let's say that it costs Apple $.20 + 3% of the transaction for each purchase (I'm sure someone can correct me with more exact figures.) So, if I download sixty individual songs, Apple has paid $13.80 in credit card fees on $59.40 in revenue. They now have $45.60 to put towards licensing, other expenses, etc for those sixty downloads.
Now let's see if I paid $50 upfront and got to download sixty songs. Apple only pays $1.70 in credit card charges, and has $48.30 to put towards the other expenses for those sixty downloads. In addition to saving $2.70, Apple also just generated some goodwill on my end because I appreciate getting ten extra songs on the deal.
Multiply that relatively significant savings by the huge volume that iTunes generates (even more when it's released for Windows [and hopefully Linux]), and Apple could definitely help pad that margin a little.
- Neil Wehneman
I know you're being funny, and your comment did make me laugh, but a few clarifications you might find interesting / informative...
1 and 2 Chronicles were accepted as holy scripture by the Jewish community relatively soon after their writing in the 5th century B.C. As such, it's part of the Old Testament of the "real Bible" that was subsequently accepted by Christianity.
I agree that Chronicles is pretty dry and boring. It is important however, as it presents specific lineages. Since much of Judaism and Christianity rely on prophecy (i.e. the Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah), it is paramount to show proof that a specific individual is in fact descended from that tribe!
Regarding the Apocrypha, that is a collection of writings that the Roman Catholic Church added to the "real Bible" in 1545 A.D. This was in direct retaliation to Martin Luther bringing the Vatican to task for its many abuses and doctrines that were directly contrary to the teachings of Christ and those who had apostolic authority (such as Paul). To counter this, the Vatican "blessed" additional predominantly secular writings that gave their practices an air of legitimacy.
In regards to Leviticus, that entire book (which I just finished re-studying this morning actually) is a list of rules and regulations, delivered by Moses, for the priests of Israel. The title derives itself from the tribe of Levi, which you had to be a member of in order to be a Jewish priest.
In regards to Christianity, the vast majority of Leviticus has been superseded by the new priesthood of Christ. For example, instead of sacrificing livestock on a regular basis to atone for our sin, we are able to offer the divine "Lamb of God" on our behalf. Additionaly, access to God is granted directly to those who petition on behalf of Christ, as opposed to those who must use a human intermediary (i.e. the Jewish priest).
In regards to the "Latin version," I do believe that it's important to use as early a translation as possible for serious study. However, most people (myself included) don't know Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, and as such use a recent English translation. Differences in versions (such as between the NIV and the KJV) usually come about due to whether the translators tried to convey a word-for-word translation or a thought-for-thought translation. That needs to be taken into account when trying to understand extremely difficult passages.
This post is meant to be informative and hopefully a little interesting, as well as replying to a specific post. If it sparks intelligent debate and discussion, great. Those who choose to descend to name-calling and flames will be ignored.
- Neil Wehneman
I recommend half.com. Yeah, it's owned by eBay, but you can get plenty of discs (used) really cheaply. I average paying four or five bucks a disc, which includes the $2.49 shipping charge. From one of my earlier posts...
I recently got into Tori Amos. (Regardless of how you feel about her music, you do have to admit she's talented and original.) I picked up her latest CD a few months ago because it had 70 minutes of music and it cost me $10 new. I found myself really liking it, and willing to look at her other work.
Now, I could go to Best Buy and drop over $100 picking up the major discs of her backcatalog (5 discs plus a 2 CD-set), or I could go to half.com and get the same discs (albeit used) shipped to me for a grand total less than $30. As long as I can get a decent rip off the used discs, I don't care about their condition.
I'm sure that everyone will be submitting their favorite hosts, so here's mine.
United Hosting
18 bucks a month for a gig of space, 34 bucks a month for 5 gig, and all sorts of other plans. You also get unlimited MySQL databases. Although they don't offer telephone tech support (they're based in the UK, and most of their clients are in the US) their support has been great! They have fast turnaround time on their ticket system, and are quite responsive through IM clients.
I've been so impressed, I even advertise them for free on my company's site.
If you want the IM name of one of their owners (who I talked with pre-sale and who has personally handled some of my tech support issues), just email me at userid:neil domain:wehneman.com and I'll pass it along to you (with his permission of course).
United Hosting is also pretty much an exclusively Linux shop, for those added brownie points.
I'm fully aware that they took it from space.
:).
I was trying to be humorous
Regarding "deep" photos, might a goatse link actually be on topic for once?
No, I'm not going to provide it...
I contacted SuSE and you are quite correct. I have just purchased the appropriate 8.2 Professional discs directly from them, and am in contact with my reseller to ensure that he is aware of the license. I thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Even with the additional outlay of cash, I believe SuSE 8.2 to be well worth it. Thank you again for showing me the relevant language.
Show me specific law where the software distributed on SuSE 8.2 is either not GPL (or similar) or under a free-beer license. As far as the cd layout being copyrighted, I'm not familiar with that. Again, please give me a specific case to back up your claim.
As far as morality goes, SuSE has used their right to build upon GPL'd software. This right comes with the responsibility to give their customers the rights of the GPL, which includes the right to resell it.
Don't call something "warez" when it's not.
And for the record, I paid $40 retail for boxed SuSE 8.1 Personal, and am yet to use my support incidents. The only reason I was looking to upgrade was to get native KDE 3.1 support. None of my local retailers carried any SuSE 8.2 products yet, and I stumbled upon a reseller through half.com.
I think SuSE makes a great product, and have no problem supporting them financially (as I have in the past). SuSE will be continue to get plenty of financial support from me and from my recommendations to clients.
You can get the CDs / DVD from sources other than SuSE. Burnt discs are being auctioned / sold all the time. I paid $30 (that includes fast shipping) to get my 8.2 Pro discs, and it was money very well spent.
I run a consulting business, and I have at least one client who is looking to migrate servers and desktops to Linux in 6 - 12 months. SuSE will be my distro of choice when that time comes.
OK, quick refresher on the GPL / SuSE / Lindows...
If you take software that is licensed under the GPL (such as the Linux kernel), and do anything to it that is not allowed under standard copyright law (such as modifying, redistributing, etc.), you MUST license the resulting code under the GPL as well.
The GPL requires that whoever you give binaries to (either through gift or sale), must also receive a written offer to procure the source from you for no more than the reasonable cost of distribution.
You do NOT have to make ISOs or binaries available for free to anyone off of the street, although many vendors choose to do this. SuSE is a notable exception. As a service to customers, and not because the GPL requires it, SuSE does allow people to download a "Live-ISO" that boots your computer and lets you run the SuSE distribution for that session.
I have purchased two SuSE cd-sets, one boxed at retail and another a set of burned discs from a reseller. In the second case the reseller purchased a boxed retail set, and then "invoked" the GPL to burn out and distribute a copy to me.
The GPL allows an exemption of sorts if you write code that merely links to GPL'd code, as opposed to being an integral part of the code itself. For example, YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) is what SuSE uses to handle package dependencies, hardware, etc. YaST is not GPL'd, although SuSE has made it free as in beer.
I believe Lindows links much of their code, as opposed to mingling it with the GPL'd base, which allows them to be a bit more proprietary than we would prefer.
Hope this makes some things a little clearer...
I thought emacs already had a browser built-in, along with the kitchen sink.