His main point seems to be that trademarks can lead to forking, whether it be forced by the trademark holder or voluntary, and that these trademark forks can lead to confusion (Why are these forked version unofficial? Is it really the same product? Which is the 'best' version?), inefficiency (harder to share code between forks) and fragmentation of the open-source community. Moreover, the implicit threat of trademarks - play by our rules or lose the name - seems at odds with the ethos of freedom to make changes that at the core of the free software movement.
He ends with three main questions that Debian will have to resolve: * Why even have a trademark? What protections does it give that are useful for Debian? How do these protections different internationally, within dozens of different national jurisdictions?
* What is the approval process for using the Debian trademark? Should some groups get automatic approval, or should Debian leverage its trademark to compel vendors to contact Debian?
* Can we apply the Copyleft principle to trademark? That is, how can we turn trademark on its head and make it a tool to promote the open and free use of Debian and other projects instead of a device to restrict the rights of others?
Enough on this kid (who commited a crime and got what was deserved), let's talk about those annoying 'secret questions'. I've lost count of the number web sites that require you to answer one of these and don't even let you choose a decent question. Not just insignificant sites, like random forums, but important sites that pretain to things that matter in real life, like my college records or credit card information.
I'm not a celebrity like Paris Hilton, but it is not hard at all to find out what my mom's maiden name is, or the names of my pets, or where I went to high school. At least give me the option to choose my own question, or better yet, not use the question at all.
Er, so what? Your UPS won't help if the Telco goes down (DSL), or Cableco (cabelmodem). You can't surf the net if your provider is down, no matter who it is.
I wish Microsoft would fix their most fundamental user interface problem: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever steal my input directed to one window and start providing it to another.
Yes yes yes triple YEs! Probably my number one peeve. And most of the time, you have absolutely no means to figure out what that window that you never got a chance to read said, or even what application it belonged to. I don't think it would be that hard to fix either; simply wait $TIMEOUT milliseconds after last keyboard activity before switching focus.
Of course, in the long term we should probably be moving to a metaphor that doesn't involve throwing up tons of little very-important-read-me-now dialog boxes, or even ever switching focus automatically at all (except perhaps in extremely limited circumstances).
most air travellers now avoid checking baggage whenever possible.
You do realize that it's kind of hard to fit a pair of skis or a snowboard in the overhead bin? (Hint: a _lot_ of ski tourist traffic goes through Denver)
This attack shows us all once again that there is that the procedures for using cryptography are as important as the mathematical theories and proofs on which cryptography is based. People like to believe that it's just the algorithm that's important, and once you have such an algorithm it's equally applicable to messages of all sorts and formats. As this shows, it's clearly not the case.
You may believe it's common sense, but to the average user, encrypting a simple letter like the memos used in the article expressed as a Word document is no different than encrypting a simple text email. Heck, many of these users probably have no idea that much of the plain-looking email they send and recieve is actually HTML, which is capable of hiding beneath its rendered surface all sorts of additional information.
When's the last time you saw an email program that read in a Word document, extracted just the plain text content, signed or encrypted it and then repackaged it into some new format in a cryptographically sound way that would automatically be reconstituted as a Word document on the other side? Most just have a handy "Sign" or "Encrypt" button that will happy accept.ps or.doc just as readily as a simple text file.
Hell, if this is supposed to be a real viral meme contest, they shouldn't have the pages listed on the contest page at all until after the contest is over.
gnuplot is good all sorts of arbitrary graphs, but you will have to read up on its syntax to learn how to use it - no nice GUIs. But it will produce very nice postscript output that looks quite sharp when printed.
Although it's more a graphing tool, it's flexible enough to do charts, with a little work. Fortunately, there are scripts like Barchart that do most of the heavy lifting for you.
This is a press release! The descriptions are short and vague, and there aren't even pictures. And the game itself has been out online for months, even if it's just now going to show up in stores.
Hmm, I hadn't heard of this before, but it's apparently true; it is referred to as the "Brooks Brothers Riot", google for that and you'll see a number of stories about it.
I agree, I've thought the exact same thing. Not only is it annoying to be interrupted, but if you're in the middle of typing something, it's quite easy to end up dismissing the dialog box without even seeing what it is. Then you have to go look through all your open programs and try to deduce what it could have possibly been. Often there's no way to figure out what it was.
It wouldn't be too hard to solve this problem for most cases. Just check if the user has typed something or used the mouse in the last second or so (user adjustable). Then you can be relatively sure you're not interrupting something.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree,
... if you SIT ON THEM! So stop carrying it in your back pocket!
Thin electronic items just snap
Here's Project Leader Branden's Robinson's full (much longer) comments on the trademark issue.
His main point seems to be that trademarks can lead to forking, whether it be forced by the trademark holder or voluntary, and that these trademark forks can lead to confusion (Why are these forked version unofficial? Is it really the same product? Which is the 'best' version?), inefficiency (harder to share code between forks) and fragmentation of the open-source community. Moreover, the implicit threat of trademarks - play by our rules or lose the name - seems at odds with the ethos of freedom to make changes that at the core of the free software movement.
He ends with three main questions that Debian will have to resolve:
* Why even have a trademark? What protections does it give that are useful for Debian? How do these protections different internationally, within dozens of different national jurisdictions?
* What is the approval process for using the Debian trademark? Should some groups get automatic approval, or should Debian leverage its trademark to compel vendors to contact Debian?
* Can we apply the Copyleft principle to trademark? That is, how can we turn trademark on its head and make it a tool to promote the open and free use of Debian and other projects instead of a device to restrict the rights of others?
Enough on this kid (who commited a crime and got what was deserved), let's talk about those annoying 'secret questions'. I've lost count of the number web sites that require you to answer one of these and don't even let you choose a decent question. Not just insignificant sites, like random forums, but important sites that pretain to things that matter in real life, like my college records or credit card information.
I'm not a celebrity like Paris Hilton, but it is not hard at all to find out what my mom's maiden name is, or the names of my pets, or where I went to high school. At least give me the option to choose my own question, or better yet, not use the question at all.
Since no one else asked, what does he mean by "cuddling" else statements?
Er, so what? Your UPS won't help if the Telco goes down (DSL), or Cableco (cabelmodem). You can't surf the net if your provider is down, no matter who it is.
:)
If anything, this saves you the cost of a UPS
I wish Microsoft would fix their most fundamental user interface problem: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever steal my input directed to one window and start providing it to another.
Yes yes yes triple YEs! Probably my number one peeve. And most of the time, you have absolutely no means to figure out what that window that you never got a chance to read said, or even what application it belonged to. I don't think it would be that hard to fix either; simply wait $TIMEOUT milliseconds after last keyboard activity before switching focus.
Of course, in the long term we should probably be moving to a metaphor that doesn't involve throwing up tons of little very-important-read-me-now dialog boxes, or even ever switching focus automatically at all (except perhaps in extremely limited circumstances).
most air travellers now avoid checking baggage whenever possible.
You do realize that it's kind of hard to fit a pair of skis or a snowboard in the overhead bin? (Hint: a _lot_ of ski tourist traffic goes through Denver)
I never thought there was anything wrong with the art, but Wikipedia has a picture of the cover for you to judge for yourself.
Got some leads? I'd love to work in Australia...
... you read about the closing/failure/cancellation/discontinuing of something "universally acclaimed" that you've never heard of?
This attack shows us all once again that there is that the procedures for using cryptography are as important as the mathematical theories and proofs on which cryptography is based. People like to believe that it's just the algorithm that's important, and once you have such an algorithm it's equally applicable to messages of all sorts and formats. As this shows, it's clearly not the case.
.ps or .doc just as readily as a simple text file.
You may believe it's common sense, but to the average user, encrypting a simple letter like the memos used in the article expressed as a Word document is no different than encrypting a simple text email. Heck, many of these users probably have no idea that much of the plain-looking email they send and recieve is actually HTML, which is capable of hiding beneath its rendered surface all sorts of additional information.
When's the last time you saw an email program that read in a Word document, extracted just the plain text content, signed or encrypted it and then repackaged it into some new format in a cryptographically sound way that would automatically be reconstituted as a Word document on the other side? Most just have a handy "Sign" or "Encrypt" button that will happy accept
Could you explain how the litter robot works? The web site seems to be very light on technical information.
Hell, if this is supposed to be a real viral meme contest, they shouldn't have the pages listed on the contest page at all until after the contest is over.
If a blog said it, it must be true!
Then again, they did get us to all start using that idiotic term "blog" in the first place...
Ah, neat. I've never actually used iTunes, I just sometimes download from people who do :)
gnuplot is good all sorts of arbitrary graphs, but you will have to read up on its syntax to learn how to use it - no nice GUIs. But it will produce very nice postscript output that looks quite sharp when printed.
Although it's more a graphing tool, it's flexible enough to do charts, with a little work. Fortunately, there are scripts like Barchart that do most of the heavy lifting for you.
It's also annoying when you're sharing compilation albums. Instead of having all track tracks together in /music/Cool Movie Soundtrack
/music/Foo/Cool Movie Soundtrack /music/Bar/Cool Movie Soundtrack /music/Xyzzy/Cool Movie Soundtrack
you have them all scattered about in
etc...
Very annoying.
Ah, I see. The previous poster referred to it as both Planescape and Planeshift. Thanks for clearing that up.
You're being a bit vague; are you referring to Planescape: Torment? The Planescape setting in general? Some other Planescape game?
This is a press release! The descriptions are short and vague, and there aren't even pictures. And the game itself has been out online for months, even if it's just now going to show up in stores.
Hmm, I hadn't heard of this before, but it's apparently true; it is referred to as the "Brooks Brothers Riot", google for that and you'll see a number of stories about it.
And just yesterday I had mod points. Oh well. Planetfall was a great game.
Someone posted this in a thread awhile back, but I lost track of it and I couldn't remember who said it. I was afraid I wouldn't ever find it again...
I agree, I've thought the exact same thing. Not only is it annoying to be interrupted, but if you're in the middle of typing something, it's quite easy to end up dismissing the dialog box without even seeing what it is. Then you have to go look through all your open programs and try to deduce what it could have possibly been. Often there's no way to figure out what it was.
It wouldn't be too hard to solve this problem for most cases. Just check if the user has typed something or used the mouse in the last second or so (user adjustable). Then you can be relatively sure you're not interrupting something.
I hope the low number of reponses mean not many people have bothered to sign up... better chances for me to get picked!