Microsoft's part in the contract was to provide them a new version of Windows by 2003 or free XP support till the hardware dies. But that did not happen. Instead, Microsoft screwed them over and kept releasing service packs for XP instead. They never got a free upgrade to a new OS.
You're shifting goalposts here. In lieu of a new OS in 2003, MS provided XP support (including service packs, which were free) long past the service life of the 2001-era hardware we're talking about. Sounds like they complied with the second part of the contract, which I bolded above.
Of note, "must carry" is the broacaster's option. The broadcaster can demand a cable operator carry a broadcast network, OR the broadcaster can waive that right and ask for payment/consideration.
Disney invented the practice of waiving must carry. Every ABC station in the country waives must carry, but will give a cable company the signal for free if they put the whole ESPN thing on basic cable.
It will be trivial to connect this with the earlier this week lunacy about [Microsoft's] Apple wannabe "Device Guard" which will require all your software be purchased from the Microsoft store (or other "authorized" vendors, which won't include open source).
Microsoft plans to distribute a key generator for Device Guard. You can take a binary of a commercial (or open source) program and SIGN IT YOURSELF and it will work with Device Guard. (Also, Device Guard is intended for Enterprise situations, where the IT department is blocking unapproved software based on their corporation's policy. This isn't a consumer thing anyway.)
Also [Blu-Ray players] didn't drop in price like DVD and CD Drives, I suspect that's because of a shit-load of DRM patents.
It's not. CDs and DVDs won their wars and became universal formats. You still see more DVDs sold than Blu-Rays, and realistically, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both lost out to direct streaming (Netflix et al.)
I'm not American, but as I understand somehow cities are run by one ISP only or something like that? Wouldn't a better approach for them "to bring our great products to new cities" be to lobby and break this system so that they can enter new cities alongside their competitors?
Well, keep in mind, the government just threw up dumb roadblocks to something that Comcast wanted to do because Comcast didn't pay the Leftist executive branch regulators a big enough bribe. Comcast's last big entry into politics was Net Neutrality*, where the institutional Left demagogued against Comcast, despite the fact that like the institutional left, Comcast was supporting the so-called Net Neutrality plan. A plan based on "Comcast will lobby the government to do the right thing" is obviously not going to work at the moment.
*Also, once the government pretended to unveil the "Net Neutrality" rules and word started leaking out that the government's plan wasn't really Net Neutrality, but wholesale regulation of the ISP based on ex post facto rulings (see: Future Conduct Standard) the conventional wisdom on Slashdot switched to "ISPs have to be a monopoly because they're a natural monopoly."
The government should continue investigating as a follow up, to see if Comcast has fully followed through with the promises/requirements of the NBC Universal purchase.
Well, MSNBC is still on the air despite not making any money, so I'd say the executive branch regulators who they made the promises to are pretty happy with them.
Apparently a lot of states have a division of their state police that provides police services at state schools. Being the state police, they're sworn law enforcement officers (a.k.a. real cops.) But they're only at state schools, not private schools in the state. (My buddy went to a SUNY school, and the police were NY state troopers. I went to a private school upstate, and we had "Campus Safety" (pretend cops) but if you needed a real cop, you called the local police department (county sherrifs, because the town is too small for a dedicated police department.)
The school encouraged everyone to go through Campus Safety rather than the cops, which is bullshit and should be illegal, but if the school had real cops, people would presumably call the real cops.
I don't get what you're saying at all. The government shouldn't be forcing anyone to participate in any event, regardless of whether you personally see anything wrong with the event.
so if I'm a county clerk whose job requires me to issue marriage licenses, can I be burdened because there's no way to avoid issuing a license to a gay couple if the state allows it?
If you're a county clerk* then you're acting on behalf of the government. MAYBE you could get yourself assigned to a different job with different duties than issuing out marriage licenses, but what you'd be asking for is for THE GOVERNMENT to be able to refuse someone service. BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT IS A MONOPOLY, they shouldn't be able to do that.
Forget cakes and wedding pizza--this has always seemed the point to me: it's a way to stop gay marriage regardless of the will of the people.
Indiana just passed law legalizing gay marriage. The RFRA doesn't overturn that law. It just protects PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS from dopey activists looking for paydays on bogus discrimination claims.
*I actually think it's a town clerk in most states. I got my marriage license from a town, not a county, in New York, and New Jersey has towns issue marriage licenses as well.
Well, first off, that's neither what I said nor what the law says. Your dopey anti-redheads example would go before a judge who would rule on it, but he would have to consider your religious beliefs in the ruling. That's all the law says. The government wins RFRA cases sometimes.
I then predicted how the case would turn out. Since anti-discrimination laws protect PEOPLE but not EVENTS, someone who will serve gay people, but not participate in gay events, would probably do OK in court.
I do trust in God, but if we took "In God We Trust" off the money, it wouldn't bother me.
In fact, we should do what it says in Matthew 22:21 and instead of putting "In God We Trust," we should a picture of the current President (so Obama for another year and a half, then the next guy) standing in front of the IRS Building.
The law in question did not do what you claim it does. Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, such as the Indiana law and the federal RFRA, allow people to claim that a specific law or tort "substantially burdens" their ability to practice their religion.
In a defense under the RFRA, the person claiming discrimination and the government will make their case before a judge on how necessary the law/tort is to achieve the legitimate purposes of government and how substantially the person being discriminated against is burdened.
In practice, this means that under the RFRA, a business that refused all service to gays would probably lose, but a business that refused to participate in gay weddings would probably win.
The reason you heard differently is because the people who hate religious people lied to you.
For example, "the car needs washed." Whatever this is, it's not English. The two correct options, of course, are "the car needs washing" (gerund) or "the car needs to be washed". Again, I'm almost embarrased myself.
I'm not saying this is right, but this isn't as recent a trend as you'd think. This construction has been part of the western PA dialect for a decent amount of time. Source: I'm from NJ and work with a lot of Pennsylvanians.
Microsoft has not contributed any useful code to the Linux kernel. Their "contribution" was drivers so that Linux could work on their hypervisor.
If you don't find the code useful, that's your business. But if Microsoft's view was that Open Source is a cancer that MS should be trying to kill, they wouldn't have contributed anything to the Linux kernel.
I was on a phone when I posted that. This is the Stallman essay I had in mind when I posted. And while I disagree with him, I think I represented his points fairly.
Also, I don't see how:
There's also a distinction between Free Software principles and Free Software tactics. rms is in principle in favor of all Free software, but would much rather that the main stuff was GPLed, and considers llvm and clang to be a loss to the movement.
is different from
Distributing source code under BSD licenses is bad for the GPL. That's wildly different from bad for Free as in Speech distribution of source code.
Now that I'm in front of a keyboard, this is the Stallman essay I was referring to. It's titled "Why Open Source Misses the Point," and it's on the differences between BSD-style licensing and why he believes GPL-style licensing is better.
The actual BSD licenses being GPL compatible is a red herring. The reason they are GPL-compatible is because you can take that code and release it under a different license with different terms... such as the GPL. Contributions to the GPL version of the project then can't be licensed back into the original project. (Later BSD-style licenses have protections against this.)
One's right to life, liberty, property, speech, press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote
So you know, there's a very good reason that the Constitution codifies that the government may not make laws "establishing an official religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Those two rights are much broader than "freedom to worship."
Yeah, the FSF is in favor of what they call "free software." That doesn't include GPL-incompatible Open Source Software, such as Mono, so they're against Mono. The Mono developers picked a license that allows commercial enterprises to use Mono to produce software and then not distribute the source code. That might be dangerous for the GPL and the FSF, but it's not dangerous for developers at large.
You sir, are a great astroturfer and deserve a raise from MS.
Well, just recently a very interesting article covering Microsoft "open source.NET" license, you should read up on that, especially MS requiring a license to the patents in the code you contribute, but refusing to grant you license for their code, instead, providing a promise not to sue.
Um... Mono is released under an MIT license, which is less restrictive than the Microsoft Public License. But here, take a look what Microsoft's Open Source license says in terms of them licensing you their patents on their code:
2. Grant of Rights
(A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create.
(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.
I'm not going to reproduce Section 3, but the restrictions are: You don't get a trademark license or a warranty, you're not allowed to sue other licensees over your patents, you have to retain copyright notices that appear in source code, and you can't re-license MSPL code under viral licenses (e.g. the GPL).
If you want to see the full license, check out the OSI's site on the MS-PL
Now they seem to promise cross platform development again, but for how long? It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft changes strategy.
Well, Mono has been around for almost a decade now, and they AREN'T Microsoft. Microsoft submitted.NET for ECMA standardization, and Mono is an alternate, non-Microsoft implementation. Microsoft engineers and Mono engineers have worked closely in the past, but this is the first time that Microsoft developers have contributed code to Mono.
In the same way, Microsoft has contributed some code to the Linux kernel. It's not a majority of the code, so they can't argue that you should call it MS/Linux or something dumb like that, and they didn't change the license on the kernel, so they can't show up and shake you down or anything.
Their contribution to Mono was of a similar size and licensing scope. Microsoft isn't going to show up demanding money for this if you use it.
That's for the TECHNICAL PREVIEW version, dummy. The full release won't do that. (By the way, OF COURSE the technical preview version phones home with diagnostic information. That's the whole point.)
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's part in the contract was to provide them a new version of Windows by 2003 or free XP support till the hardware dies. But that did not happen. Instead, Microsoft screwed them over and kept releasing service packs for XP instead. They never got a free upgrade to a new OS.
You're shifting goalposts here. In lieu of a new OS in 2003, MS provided XP support (including service packs, which were free) long past the service life of the 2001-era hardware we're talking about. Sounds like they complied with the second part of the contract, which I bolded above.
Yelling at each other over dumb shit is a popular topic on Slashdot.
The Super Bowl isn't on cable.
Disney invented the practice of waiving must carry. Every ABC station in the country waives must carry, but will give a cable company the signal for free if they put the whole ESPN thing on basic cable.
It will be trivial to connect this with the earlier this week lunacy about [Microsoft's] Apple wannabe "Device Guard" which will require all your software be purchased from the Microsoft store (or other "authorized" vendors, which won't include open source).
Microsoft plans to distribute a key generator for Device Guard. You can take a binary of a commercial (or open source) program and SIGN IT YOURSELF and it will work with Device Guard. (Also, Device Guard is intended for Enterprise situations, where the IT department is blocking unapproved software based on their corporation's policy. This isn't a consumer thing anyway.)
Also [Blu-Ray players] didn't drop in price like DVD and CD Drives, I suspect that's because of a shit-load of DRM patents.
It's not. CDs and DVDs won their wars and became universal formats. You still see more DVDs sold than Blu-Rays, and realistically, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both lost out to direct streaming (Netflix et al.)
I'm not American, but as I understand somehow cities are run by one ISP only or something like that? Wouldn't a better approach for them "to bring our great products to new cities" be to lobby and break this system so that they can enter new cities alongside their competitors?
Well, keep in mind, the government just threw up dumb roadblocks to something that Comcast wanted to do because Comcast didn't pay the Leftist executive branch regulators a big enough bribe. Comcast's last big entry into politics was Net Neutrality*, where the institutional Left demagogued against Comcast, despite the fact that like the institutional left, Comcast was supporting the so-called Net Neutrality plan. A plan based on "Comcast will lobby the government to do the right thing" is obviously not going to work at the moment.
*Also, once the government pretended to unveil the "Net Neutrality" rules and word started leaking out that the government's plan wasn't really Net Neutrality, but wholesale regulation of the ISP based on ex post facto rulings (see: Future Conduct Standard) the conventional wisdom on Slashdot switched to "ISPs have to be a monopoly because they're a natural monopoly."
The government should continue investigating as a follow up, to see if Comcast has fully followed through with the promises/requirements of the NBC Universal purchase.
Well, MSNBC is still on the air despite not making any money, so I'd say the executive branch regulators who they made the promises to are pretty happy with them.
The easiest way to keep corporations from buying laws is to keep governments from selling them.
The school encouraged everyone to go through Campus Safety rather than the cops, which is bullshit and should be illegal, but if the school had real cops, people would presumably call the real cops.
Tell me, how is that rational?
I don't get what you're saying at all. The government shouldn't be forcing anyone to participate in any event, regardless of whether you personally see anything wrong with the event.
so if I'm a county clerk whose job requires me to issue marriage licenses, can I be burdened because there's no way to avoid issuing a license to a gay couple if the state allows it?
If you're a county clerk* then you're acting on behalf of the government. MAYBE you could get yourself assigned to a different job with different duties than issuing out marriage licenses, but what you'd be asking for is for THE GOVERNMENT to be able to refuse someone service. BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT IS A MONOPOLY, they shouldn't be able to do that.
Forget cakes and wedding pizza--this has always seemed the point to me: it's a way to stop gay marriage regardless of the will of the people.
Indiana just passed law legalizing gay marriage. The RFRA doesn't overturn that law. It just protects PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS from dopey activists looking for paydays on bogus discrimination claims.
*I actually think it's a town clerk in most states. I got my marriage license from a town, not a county, in New York, and New Jersey has towns issue marriage licenses as well.
I then predicted how the case would turn out. Since anti-discrimination laws protect PEOPLE but not EVENTS, someone who will serve gay people, but not participate in gay events, would probably do OK in court.
In fact, we should do what it says in Matthew 22:21 and instead of putting "In God We Trust," we should a picture of the current President (so Obama for another year and a half, then the next guy) standing in front of the IRS Building.
Happy April 15th, everyone.
In a defense under the RFRA, the person claiming discrimination and the government will make their case before a judge on how necessary the law/tort is to achieve the legitimate purposes of government and how substantially the person being discriminated against is burdened.
In practice, this means that under the RFRA, a business that refused all service to gays would probably lose, but a business that refused to participate in gay weddings would probably win.
The reason you heard differently is because the people who hate religious people lied to you.
For example, "the car needs washed." Whatever this is, it's not English. The two correct options, of course, are "the car needs washing" (gerund) or "the car needs to be washed". Again, I'm almost embarrased myself.
I'm not saying this is right, but this isn't as recent a trend as you'd think. This construction has been part of the western PA dialect for a decent amount of time. Source: I'm from NJ and work with a lot of Pennsylvanians.
Exactly. But it's the MOST restrictive Open Source license MS has ever used, which is why I picked it.
Microsoft has not contributed any useful code to the Linux kernel. Their "contribution" was drivers so that Linux could work on their hypervisor.
If you don't find the code useful, that's your business. But if Microsoft's view was that Open Source is a cancer that MS should be trying to kill, they wouldn't have contributed anything to the Linux kernel.
Also, I don't see how:
There's also a distinction between Free Software principles and Free Software tactics. rms is in principle in favor of all Free software, but would much rather that the main stuff was GPLed, and considers llvm and clang to be a loss to the movement.
is different from
Distributing source code under BSD licenses is bad for the GPL. That's wildly different from bad for Free as in Speech distribution of source code.
The actual BSD licenses being GPL compatible is a red herring. The reason they are GPL-compatible is because you can take that code and release it under a different license with different terms... such as the GPL. Contributions to the GPL version of the project then can't be licensed back into the original project. (Later BSD-style licenses have protections against this.)
One's right to life, liberty, property, speech, press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote
So you know, there's a very good reason that the Constitution codifies that the government may not make laws "establishing an official religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Those two rights are much broader than "freedom to worship."
Yeah, the FSF is in favor of what they call "free software." That doesn't include GPL-incompatible Open Source Software, such as Mono, so they're against Mono. The Mono developers picked a license that allows commercial enterprises to use Mono to produce software and then not distribute the source code. That might be dangerous for the GPL and the FSF, but it's not dangerous for developers at large.
You sir, are a great astroturfer and deserve a raise from MS.
Well, just recently a very interesting article covering Microsoft "open source .NET" license, you should read up on that, especially MS requiring a license to the patents in the code you contribute, but refusing to grant you license for their code, instead, providing a promise not to sue.
Um... Mono is released under an MIT license, which is less restrictive than the Microsoft Public License. But here, take a look what Microsoft's Open Source license says in terms of them licensing you their patents on their code:
2. Grant of Rights (A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create.
(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.
I'm not going to reproduce Section 3, but the restrictions are: You don't get a trademark license or a warranty, you're not allowed to sue other licensees over your patents, you have to retain copyright notices that appear in source code, and you can't re-license MSPL code under viral licenses (e.g. the GPL).
If you want to see the full license, check out the OSI's site on the MS-PL
Now they seem to promise cross platform development again, but for how long? It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft changes strategy.
Well, Mono has been around for almost a decade now, and they AREN'T Microsoft. Microsoft submitted .NET for ECMA standardization, and Mono is an alternate, non-Microsoft implementation. Microsoft engineers and Mono engineers have worked closely in the past, but this is the first time that Microsoft developers have contributed code to Mono.
In the same way, Microsoft has contributed some code to the Linux kernel. It's not a majority of the code, so they can't argue that you should call it MS/Linux or something dumb like that, and they didn't change the license on the kernel, so they can't show up and shake you down or anything.
Their contribution to Mono was of a similar size and licensing scope. Microsoft isn't going to show up demanding money for this if you use it.
That's for the TECHNICAL PREVIEW version, dummy. The full release won't do that. (By the way, OF COURSE the technical preview version phones home with diagnostic information. That's the whole point.)