The problem with "free market proponents" is that they tend to privatise profits and socialize costs. The big bank bailouts and other bailouts of GM and other too-big-to-fail companies are one example. On the one hand the cooperations always tell "don't tax the employers" but then they want tax money to bail them out.
The other problem are hidden costs. Garbage disposal for example. You can throw your garbage in the woods, but then maybe after 10 years you have all kind of stuff in the ground water that harms all (like heavy metals). This cost is hidden, because the cooperation that dumps the garbage in the woods does not need to pay. Here comes taxes and collect this hidden costs.
And the other is regulation. This is a public safety issue. Self-control and self-regulation do not work and it cannot work. It's just a simple conflict of interests. Fresh water, fresh air, salmonella in the food, anti-biotics in the food, etc. pp. Also regulation helps to cut down on the hidden costs. If 10,000 people gets sick because of salmonella in the food that are hidden costs. The sick can't work, need to go to doctor, that are costs. But the food processing plant is not paying this costs.
Furthermore, public services. Hospitals, police, fire, health care, schools needs to be public. Profit making and public services do not work. You can argue about "free loaders" and "law-of-jungle" and some other crap. But we are social people and not some animals. There are many reasons why someone becomes dependent. Be it sickness, accidents, crime. If you really believe in "law-of-jungle" go to Somalia or some other third-world country with no functional government.
At last, there is infrastructure. IMHO Internet lines should be public infrastructure like roads. And invenstition to technology. Of course that is just a short list and very basic, I don't have the time to write a whole thesis. This all must be done of course with minimal waste, efficient and minimal corruption.
Do you mean sugar drinks or fast food? That is hidden costs. Of course it shouldn't be forbidden, but it should be regulated and taxed like any other dangerous substance.
And about your 12% month. Do you have to participate? Stay at home, stay at work, watch TV. What do you care what some people do? Tells a lot about your character that you can't just be happy for your fellow citizens, that are not bothering you in any way.
So you are for regulations where they are successful and making a net positive impact and against regulations where they are useless or hurting without net positive impact? Is that you call "libertarians"? I call it "common sense".
TFA compared Bank Of America with EA. Of course EA will get the price, because they did some bad with games, whereas BofA foreclosing houses, screwing up a homeowner’s loan, has been sued by investors, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and the U.S. government and probably had a lot to do with the last economical crisis.
Just wonder what BofA have to do to outmatch the busted lunch of Simcity 5.
If Microsoft would just offer Windows for a "few dollars", i.e. for a "low enough cost that there was no advantage looking for other competitors to get a better deal" like you say, there wouldn't by any problems.
The problems arises from the facts that a) Microsoft demanded higher prices for a Windows license if the OEMs sold PCs without Windows and b) Microsoft gets money from OEMs on PCs sold that do not included Windows at all. See Wikipedia for references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
The Findings of Fact in the United States Microsoft antitrust case of 1998 established that "One of the ways Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating system pre-installed. In 1998, all major OEMs agreed to this restriction."[5] Microsoft also once assessed license fees based on the number of computers an OEM sold, regardless of whether a Windows license was included; Microsoft was forced to end this practice due to a consent decree.[9] The decree, entered into in 1994, barred Microsoft from conditioning the availability of Windows licenses or varying their prices based on whether OEMs distributed other operating systems; author Wendy Goldman Rohm said that the decree was effective in allowing Dell and HP to offer Linux computers.[11]
Btw, Windows 8 costs them between 50$ and 100$. Windows 7 costs them between 100$ and 175$.
Oh please they all know that. I'm not some kind of genius and the people in EA (for example) that working every day on the same problem, they all know that. DRM is not about piracy, copyright is not about authors.
DRM and copyright is about control. The biggest fear of all is the loss of control about art, culture, information, products. If we didn't had such strict copyright (150 years or whatever) then we all would live in a very different world. There would be no big studios possible, there would be literally 1000ths of small studios all competing. No control would be possible. FOX News, Murdoch empire, all the big studios, would not be possible with a 14 years copyright on only registered works (like it was when copyright law was first written). DRM is just the extension of copyright laws to invade the privacy of every day citizens.
It's not even that (children snitching candy). If a kid steals a candy bar, that candy bar is gone. It is a loss to the shop. If a kid downloads a game it is not stealing, there is no measurable loss. Any "loss" is hypothetical and the kid downloading the game from TPB can have multiple reasons: a) kid have no money b) kid can't buy the game (stupid ratings) c) the game is not available in stores d) kid is lazy and don't like to go downtown to the store e) it's Sunday and the store is closed, and so on.
All of those reasons would not have resulted in an extra sale if piracy would not be possible. Thus there was no loss. But what is better: kid wasting time to play your game or kid is wasting time to do something else, like going outside or watch TV? I highly think that it's it in your best interest that the kid is wasting the time with your game. As you see, DRM is not only a big fuck you to your customer, but it will not and cannot increase your sales.
Instead you should look at why the kid is downloading your game for free instead of paying for it. Instead of increasing investment in DRM, you should invest in making your game as easy available as possible.
I live in my own apartment with my wife and baby. My wife is using KDE Fedora/Linux just fine, too. As I say, modern Linux is just like Windows, IMHO is KDE/Linux way easier to use then any Windows.
KDE Looks like Windows or MacOS. You just click on the big Firefox Icon and be done with it. My mother is using my KDE/Fedora Linux laptop just fine. She is using Firefox, Office and Skype. My mother does not know anything about a computer, except how to type and how to use the mouse (and even then she confuse sometimes the mouse buttons).
Even if they do not using it directly they are sure using it indirectly or profiting from it. How did they get the helicopter to the airport? How did they get the fuel? How did the pilot arrived, by another helicopter? How did their food arrived? etc. They _are_ using public roads.
Do they want the million of kids in public schools or they want the million of kids on the streets, robbing them or make fires? Even if their kids don't using public schools, how about the service maid, the butler, their cooks, their hair cutter, they all used or using (their kids) public schools.
Nobody lives for him or herself. We are a society, with a hierarchy. The rich would not be rich without the not so wealthy, and so on. The wealthy profited from public services as much as the not so wealthy.
But I know it's common in the USA to socialize loss and to privatize profits. See the bailouts of the big banks.
Eh what? I'm using "commercial quality Open Source products" all the time. GIMP, Inkscape, Eclipse, Fedora Linux, Apache, Archiva, Maven, gcc, VLC, LibreOffice, XBMC, ArgoUML, Avidemux, Latex, Kile, KDE, Amarok, (that was a very short list of a much bigger list of software that I think are "commercial quality" and I'm using every day). The documentation is also very well.
"it's even rarer that you see actual documentation apart from "read the source" Eh what again? For example: Fedora Docu, GIMP Docu, Maven Docu, Inkscape Docu. "read the source" my ass.
What have the development method (open source) to do with quality anyway? I think you wanted to say: " It's rare that you see commercial quality hobby and in free time developed products".
The next step will be HTML6 that can be downloaded and can run offline like a normal application. Then someone will start build a web browser in HTML6, and try to sell it as something "new" and in the "cloud". That will be a HTML6 extension HTML7.
No really, WTF? Finally we reached the technology that any mobile phone can be faster then anything 20 years ego. But noooo, now we need to put everything on the web. So it will run 100x slower, tied to a browser, and if the Internet connection goes down, so go your data and your app.
Of course Apple, MS and Google are very happy of this development. So are Hollywood studios and music publishers. So they can exercise tight control over the apps and the content and Google can get all your stuff what you do on the computer/device and data mining it for ads.
I was/really/ impressed with WebGL. http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html It runs with about 20 fps and uses up 15% of my CPU. I'm/really/ impressed. You know I can run the same demo with 400fps and 1% CPU usage? Yes it runs in the web browser, so what? Just let me download the app and I can run it too. With Java and JOGL you had the option 10 years ego. But whatever.
I think you don't understand my opinion. I'm lamenting the current legal situation in the US and the stuff that the USA is try to push to other countries (I'm not US citizen and I couldn't care less what the legal situation is in the USA, if the US wouldn't push their laws to Europe and of course if Europe wouldn't try to please the US).
I'm lamenting that the current copyright laws are trying to enforce perpetual copyright protection, and try to eliminate the public domain. I'm lamenting that the laws are lack moral, remove rights and shifting in the private room of citizens.
My opinion would be: reduce the copyright terms back to 14 years plus 14 years extension, and limit them to registered works. Put in law that a work will lose any copyright protection if the publisher chooses to use DRM for that work.
The copyright terms should be step by step reduced because of technological innovations. Because the publisher have shorter and shorter time to market and can make up profits faster. Thus the terms should be shorter to limit the damage to the public.
It can not be the rule of law that any work have much more protection then a patent. A patent can change the society, create new markets, save lives, etc. But it have only 20 years protection and you have to disclose the innovation. But if I write this text, I have more protection then a real innovation. Or if I just make a picture that picture is protected for 120 years. Thus copyright should only be applied to registered works, like patents. Also the problem where the author of a work can't be found. Not all works are of importance to allow monopole protection.
With copyright you have not only privileges, but you give rights to your work, too. The right to the public to use your work (public domain), the right to make backups, the right for format shifting, re-sale right. But with DRM you choose to take away those rights. Thus you shouldn't have any privileges, too.
+5 Informative with no information at all just some stupid rant. Oracle is just a symptom of the broken patent and copyright system in the US. If the patents and copyright law were sane, like it used to be 50 years ego, than those lawsuits like Oracle vs. Google wouldn't be possible at all.
Like copyright only for registered works, and limited for 14 years, plus 14 years extension. Like patents only for real inventions and not for everything under the sun like processes, maths and algorithms. You should thank your representatives, the Senate and Congress to pass one extension after another to please the big companies like Disney and Sony.
If you really think you shouldn't touch anything "toxic" then you should search a new field of profession, like hunting or fishing. In the US you can't write a Hello-World software and not violate some ones patents.
On the other hand maybe you should be thankful to Oracle to test that APIs are not copyright protected. Also thankful to SCO that Linux do not violets any Unix related copyrights. That is the environment you chose to live in, full of patent trolls and big companies whom think that they own copyrights on anything. You don't read news of German patent trolls or German companies suing one another.
"Apple DRM lets you play things on approved devices even offline" Oh that is really nice of Apple. Was the brainwashing campaign really so successfully? How about: I don't need any approving to play my music on my devices, which I legally bought and own?
"And if the DRM offends you so much, remove it." It is illegal to remove any DRM, even for legal purposes like backup, format and time shifting.
I get your point. You compared rape with copyright violation and then say: it's the victims fault. It's the classical line of "argument" from politicians and publish studios for harder copyright enforcement.
My personal opinion on copyrights is that the copyright holder lost any morality left at least since the Copyright Term Extension Act 1998
Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution.... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.
But it encourage the shit DRM and lock-in in Apple. I would rather just pirate the movies or not watch at all. If you just pirate the movie maybe HBO and others gets the message that DRM is bad for them. Of course not watching it it's a better message. But you can't not watch it and get the message why you not watching it.
Oh way to go to include the "lets compare piracy to a real crime where a person is actually hurt". That argument is no better then "think of the children" "argument". You can't compare a crime where real people are hurt to a crime where it's just a copyright violation. It's not even theft, it's a copyright violation, a civil offense. With a copyright violation at minimum nobody is hurt and at maximum the studio is losing a few bucks. And you compare that to rape.
With the DRM enabled you can't obtain the video in markets where the studios haven't enabled it. Without DRM I could just get it from their website or whatever and watch how I like. In this case DRM is not preventing any piracy, but encouraging it.
This is what I like in Java in comparison to other languages: the language moves slow, the JDK moves slow, but you have for everything open source libraries and tools. Unlike C or C++ I can mix those libraries without any hindrance, because the basic types are fixed in the Java language: String, primitives, etc.
Call me old-fashion, but I like that the language is evolving slow. In Java I can use Groovy, Scala, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc. if I want "modern" features, like closures, lambdas, etc. Plus I have like 391,000 open source libraries* to enhance Java. I have enterprise ready tools and IDEs, all free.
Will I benefit from Java 8 features? Maybe. Is it important: No, not at all. Oracle could have Java 6 for another 10 years. The core language is fine.
My wish list would be: more polish for Swing, new widgets in Swing, faster JVM, smaller JVM, better modularization support (like OSGi). I wish Oracle would offer an official GTK+ theme for Swing, and Oxygen theme for Swing on KDE.
I'm using LUKS encryption and LVM2 on my Linux Desktop and there are no problems.
I don't see the point to encrypt the system partition because there is no private data on it. I just encrypt my home partition. Backup and restore I have multiple possibilities: just use dd and copy the whole partition, use rsync or rsync-backup to backup the files. To store my backups I have created a cheap software RAID10 with external USB hard disks: https://www.anr-institute.com/projects/projects/raid-10-usb-2-5zoll-extern/wiki With the RAID I have some security of the data in case of driver failure and I can just add more disks if I need more space.
If I have a new computer I can just install a new os (takes about 20 minutes) and copy the home partition.
That is a good thing (keep Flash and Silverlight). Because right now DRM is limited to Flash and Silverlight so the publisher need to be forced to give something up to use DRM. The alternative is not to have a HTML DRM standard, the alternative is for the publisher to stop using DRM.
Why is anybody care what a few publisher (Google, Apple and BBC) wants? We didn't care the 20 years before, why do we care now all of a sudden? Only because one company (Apple) decided to abandon Flash in their products, everybody else must now implement DRM in their personal computers?
Fuck Apple, fuck Google, fuck BBC. If they want to still use DRM, they should go through all kind of hoops and implement their shit in Flash or Silverlight. If that means that they close a big chunk of their potential market (Android, iPhone, Linux, etc.) then it is their choice.
The EME CDM is not limited to just video and could well implement an entire HTML engine defeating the good work of many to allow users to customize the presentation of HTML. I suggest there is not way to achieve such a restriction within the space of solutions acceptable to the proponents.
Did you even looked at the Article or read it? The EME proposal will not eliminate proprietary plugins. All EME is do is to standardize an interface to access those proprietary plugins. Look at the graphic: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html Do you see the big block "Content Decryption Module (CDM)"? That is the proprietary plugin.
No DRM can work without a proprietary plugin. Right now it's Flash or Silverlight and you can download it if you want to use Netflix or other services. In the future your operating system have a CDM installed and is tied to some sort of TPM chip.
As a bonus, because DRM is now a web standard, it will be used for everything. Want to print that web site? Sorry no can do. Want to skip that ad? No can do. Want to save that Youtube video? No can do. etc, pp.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with "free market proponents" is that they tend to privatise profits and socialize costs. The big bank bailouts and other bailouts of GM and other too-big-to-fail companies are one example. On the one hand the cooperations always tell "don't tax the employers" but then they want tax money to bail them out.
The other problem are hidden costs. Garbage disposal for example. You can throw your garbage in the woods, but then maybe after 10 years you have all kind of stuff in the ground water that harms all (like heavy metals). This cost is hidden, because the cooperation that dumps the garbage in the woods does not need to pay. Here comes taxes and collect this hidden costs.
And the other is regulation. This is a public safety issue. Self-control and self-regulation do not work and it cannot work. It's just a simple conflict of interests. Fresh water, fresh air, salmonella in the food, anti-biotics in the food, etc. pp. Also regulation helps to cut down on the hidden costs. If 10,000 people gets sick because of salmonella in the food that are hidden costs. The sick can't work, need to go to doctor, that are costs. But the food processing plant is not paying this costs.
Furthermore, public services. Hospitals, police, fire, health care, schools needs to be public. Profit making and public services do not work. You can argue about "free loaders" and "law-of-jungle" and some other crap. But we are social people and not some animals. There are many reasons why someone becomes dependent. Be it sickness, accidents, crime. If you really believe in "law-of-jungle" go to Somalia or some other third-world country with no functional government.
At last, there is infrastructure. IMHO Internet lines should be public infrastructure like roads. And invenstition to technology. Of course that is just a short list and very basic, I don't have the time to write a whole thesis. This all must be done of course with minimal waste, efficient and minimal corruption.
Do you mean sugar drinks or fast food? That is hidden costs. Of course it shouldn't be forbidden, but it should be regulated and taxed like any other dangerous substance.
And about your 12% month. Do you have to participate? Stay at home, stay at work, watch TV. What do you care what some people do? Tells a lot about your character that you can't just be happy for your fellow citizens, that are not bothering you in any way.
So you are for regulations where they are successful and making a net positive impact and against regulations where they are useless or hurting without net positive impact? Is that you call "libertarians"? I call it "common sense".
TFA compared Bank Of America with EA. Of course EA will get the price, because they did some bad with games, whereas BofA foreclosing houses, screwing up a homeowner’s loan, has been sued by investors, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and the U.S. government and probably had a lot to do with the last economical crisis.
Just wonder what BofA have to do to outmatch the busted lunch of Simcity 5.
If Microsoft would just offer Windows for a "few dollars", i.e. for a "low enough cost that there was no advantage looking for other competitors to get a better deal" like you say, there wouldn't by any problems.
The problems arises from the facts that a) Microsoft demanded higher prices for a Windows license if the OEMs sold PCs without Windows and b) Microsoft gets money from OEMs on PCs sold that do not included Windows at all. See Wikipedia for references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
The Findings of Fact in the United States Microsoft antitrust case of 1998 established that "One of the ways Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating system pre-installed. In 1998, all major OEMs agreed to this restriction."[5] Microsoft also once assessed license fees based on the number of computers an OEM sold, regardless of whether a Windows license was included; Microsoft was forced to end this practice due to a consent decree.[9] The decree, entered into in 1994, barred Microsoft from conditioning the availability of Windows licenses or varying their prices based on whether OEMs distributed other operating systems; author Wendy Goldman Rohm said that the decree was effective in allowing Dell and HP to offer Linux computers.[11]
Btw, Windows 8 costs them between 50$ and 100$. Windows 7 costs them between 100$ and 175$.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-RT-Windows-8-Licensing-Supply-Chain-OEM,16267.html
For each x86-based machine, OEMs will have to shell out $80 to $100 USD for using both Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013. For devices packing an ARM-based chip, OEMs will be required to pay between $50 and $65 USD for using Windows RT and Office 13 on each device.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/windows-7-oem-pricing-revealed-by-newegg/
Oh please they all know that. I'm not some kind of genius and the people in EA (for example) that working every day on the same problem, they all know that. DRM is not about piracy, copyright is not about authors.
DRM and copyright is about control. The biggest fear of all is the loss of control about art, culture, information, products. If we didn't had such strict copyright (150 years or whatever) then we all would live in a very different world. There would be no big studios possible, there would be literally 1000ths of small studios all competing. No control would be possible. FOX News, Murdoch empire, all the big studios, would not be possible with a 14 years copyright on only registered works (like it was when copyright law was first written). DRM is just the extension of copyright laws to invade the privacy of every day citizens.
For reference I recommend the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated
It's not even that (children snitching candy). If a kid steals a candy bar, that candy bar is gone. It is a loss to the shop. If a kid downloads a game it is not stealing, there is no measurable loss. Any "loss" is hypothetical and the kid downloading the game from TPB can have multiple reasons: a) kid have no money b) kid can't buy the game (stupid ratings) c) the game is not available in stores d) kid is lazy and don't like to go downtown to the store e) it's Sunday and the store is closed, and so on.
All of those reasons would not have resulted in an extra sale if piracy would not be possible. Thus there was no loss. But what is better: kid wasting time to play your game or kid is wasting time to do something else, like going outside or watch TV? I highly think that it's it in your best interest that the kid is wasting the time with your game. As you see, DRM is not only a big fuck you to your customer, but it will not and cannot increase your sales.
Instead you should look at why the kid is downloading your game for free instead of paying for it. Instead of increasing investment in DRM, you should invest in making your game as easy available as possible.
I live in my own apartment with my wife and baby. My wife is using KDE Fedora/Linux just fine, too.
As I say, modern Linux is just like Windows, IMHO is KDE/Linux way easier to use then any Windows.
KDE Looks like Windows or MacOS. You just click on the big Firefox Icon and be done with it. My mother is using my KDE/Fedora Linux laptop just fine. She is using Firefox, Office and Skype. My mother does not know anything about a computer, except how to type and how to use the mouse (and even then she confuse sometimes the mouse buttons).
See here for an example: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.3/
Even if they do not using it directly they are sure using it indirectly or profiting from it.
How did they get the helicopter to the airport? How did they get the fuel? How did the pilot arrived, by another helicopter? How did their food arrived? etc. They _are_ using public roads.
Do they want the million of kids in public schools or they want the million of kids on the streets, robbing them or make fires? Even if their kids don't using public schools, how about the service maid, the butler, their cooks, their hair cutter, they all used or using (their kids) public schools.
Nobody lives for him or herself. We are a society, with a hierarchy. The rich would not be rich without the not so wealthy, and so on. The wealthy profited from public services as much as the not so wealthy.
But I know it's common in the USA to socialize loss and to privatize profits. See the bailouts of the big banks.
Eh what? I'm using "commercial quality Open Source products" all the time. GIMP, Inkscape, Eclipse, Fedora Linux, Apache, Archiva, Maven, gcc, VLC, LibreOffice, XBMC, ArgoUML, Avidemux, Latex, Kile, KDE, Amarok, (that was a very short list of a much bigger list of software that I think are "commercial quality" and I'm using every day). The documentation is also very well.
"it's even rarer that you see actual documentation apart from "read the source" Eh what again? For example: Fedora Docu, GIMP Docu, Maven Docu, Inkscape Docu. "read the source" my ass.
What have the development method (open source) to do with quality anyway? I think you wanted to say: " It's rare that you see commercial quality hobby and in free time developed products".
The next step will be HTML6 that can be downloaded and can run offline like a normal application. Then someone will start build a web browser in HTML6, and try to sell it as something "new" and in the "cloud". That will be a HTML6 extension HTML7.
No really, WTF? Finally we reached the technology that any mobile phone can be faster then anything 20 years ego. But noooo, now we need to put everything on the web. So it will run 100x slower, tied to a browser, and if the Internet connection goes down, so go your data and your app.
Of course Apple, MS and Google are very happy of this development. So are Hollywood studios and music publishers. So they can exercise tight control over the apps and the content and Google can get all your stuff what you do on the computer/device and data mining it for ads.
I was /really/ impressed with WebGL. http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html /really/ impressed. You know I can run the same demo with 400fps and 1% CPU usage? Yes it runs in the web browser, so what? Just let me download the app and I can run it too. With Java and JOGL you had the option 10 years ego. But whatever.
It runs with about 20 fps and uses up 15% of my CPU. I'm
I think you don't understand my opinion. I'm lamenting the current legal situation in the US and the stuff that the USA is try to push to other countries (I'm not US citizen and I couldn't care less what the legal situation is in the USA, if the US wouldn't push their laws to Europe and of course if Europe wouldn't try to please the US).
I'm lamenting that the current copyright laws are trying to enforce perpetual copyright protection, and try to eliminate the public domain. I'm lamenting that the laws are lack moral, remove rights and shifting in the private room of citizens.
My opinion would be: reduce the copyright terms back to 14 years plus 14 years extension, and limit them to registered works. Put in law that a work will lose any copyright protection if the publisher chooses to use DRM for that work.
The copyright terms should be step by step reduced because of technological innovations. Because the publisher have shorter and shorter time to market and can make up profits faster. Thus the terms should be shorter to limit the damage to the public.
It can not be the rule of law that any work have much more protection then a patent. A patent can change the society, create new markets, save lives, etc. But it have only 20 years protection and you have to disclose the innovation. But if I write this text, I have more protection then a real innovation. Or if I just make a picture that picture is protected for 120 years. Thus copyright should only be applied to registered works, like patents. Also the problem where the author of a work can't be found. Not all works are of importance to allow monopole protection.
With copyright you have not only privileges, but you give rights to your work, too. The right to the public to use your work (public domain), the right to make backups, the right for format shifting, re-sale right. But with DRM you choose to take away those rights. Thus you shouldn't have any privileges, too.
+5 Informative with no information at all just some stupid rant.
Oracle is just a symptom of the broken patent and copyright system in the US. If the patents and copyright law were sane, like it used to be 50 years ego, than those lawsuits like Oracle vs. Google wouldn't be possible at all.
Like copyright only for registered works, and limited for 14 years, plus 14 years extension. Like patents only for real inventions and not for everything under the sun like processes, maths and algorithms. You should thank your representatives, the Senate and Congress to pass one extension after another to please the big companies like Disney and Sony.
If you really think you shouldn't touch anything "toxic" then you should search a new field of profession, like hunting or fishing. In the US you can't write a Hello-World software and not violate some ones patents.
On the other hand maybe you should be thankful to Oracle to test that APIs are not copyright protected. Also thankful to SCO that Linux do not violets any Unix related copyrights. That is the environment you chose to live in, full of patent trolls and big companies whom think that they own copyrights on anything. You don't read news of German patent trolls or German companies suing one another.
"Apple DRM lets you play things on approved devices even offline" Oh that is really nice of Apple.
Was the brainwashing campaign really so successfully? How about: I don't need any approving to play my music on my devices, which I legally bought and own?
"And if the DRM offends you so much, remove it."
It is illegal to remove any DRM, even for legal purposes like backup, format and time shifting.
Apropos misinformation. The reference implementation of Java 7 is now OpenJDK:
https://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/moving_to_openjdk_as_the
OpenJDK is under the GPLv2. So I don't know how Orcale "own[s]" the reference implementation of the JVM.
I get your point. You compared rape with copyright violation and then say: it's the victims fault. It's the classical line of "argument" from politicians and publish studios for harder copyright enforcement.
My personal opinion on copyrights is that the copyright holder lost any morality left at least since the Copyright Term Extension Act 1998
Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.
But it encourage the shit DRM and lock-in in Apple. I would rather just pirate the movies or not watch at all.
If you just pirate the movie maybe HBO and others gets the message that DRM is bad for them. Of course not watching it it's a better message. But you can't not watch it and get the message why you not watching it.
Oh way to go to include the "lets compare piracy to a real crime where a person is actually hurt". That argument is no better then "think of the children" "argument". You can't compare a crime where real people are hurt to a crime where it's just a copyright violation. It's not even theft, it's a copyright violation, a civil offense. With a copyright violation at minimum nobody is hurt and at maximum the studio is losing a few bucks. And you compare that to rape.
With the DRM enabled you can't obtain the video in markets where the studios haven't enabled it. Without DRM I could just get it from their website or whatever and watch how I like. In this case DRM is not preventing any piracy, but encouraging it.
This is what I like in Java in comparison to other languages: the language moves slow, the JDK moves slow, but you have for everything open source libraries and tools. Unlike C or C++ I can mix those libraries without any hindrance, because the basic types are fixed in the Java language: String, primitives, etc.
Call me old-fashion, but I like that the language is evolving slow. In Java I can use Groovy, Scala, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc. if I want "modern" features, like closures, lambdas, etc. Plus I have like 391,000 open source libraries* to enhance Java. I have enterprise ready tools and IDEs, all free.
Will I benefit from Java 8 features? Maybe. Is it important: No, not at all. Oracle could have Java 6 for another 10 years. The core language is fine.
My wish list would be: more polish for Swing, new widgets in Swing, faster JVM, smaller JVM, better modularization support (like OSGi). I wish Oracle would offer an official GTK+ theme for Swing, and Oxygen theme for Swing on KDE.
[*] http://mvnrepository.com/
I beg your pardon? "far copies"?
I'm using LUKS encryption and LVM2 on my Linux Desktop and there are no problems.
I don't see the point to encrypt the system partition because there is no private data on it. I just encrypt my home partition.
Backup and restore I have multiple possibilities: just use dd and copy the whole partition, use rsync or rsync-backup to backup the files. To store my backups I have created a cheap software RAID10 with external USB hard disks: https://www.anr-institute.com/projects/projects/raid-10-usb-2-5zoll-extern/wiki
With the RAID I have some security of the data in case of driver failure and I can just add more disks if I need more space.
If I have a new computer I can just install a new os (takes about 20 minutes) and copy the home partition.
That is a good thing (keep Flash and Silverlight). Because right now DRM is limited to Flash and Silverlight so the publisher need to be forced to give something up to use DRM. The alternative is not to have a HTML DRM standard, the alternative is for the publisher to stop using DRM.
Why is anybody care what a few publisher (Google, Apple and BBC) wants? We didn't care the 20 years before, why do we care now all of a sudden? Only because one company (Apple) decided to abandon Flash in their products, everybody else must now implement DRM in their personal computers?
Fuck Apple, fuck Google, fuck BBC. If they want to still use DRM, they should go through all kind of hoops and implement their shit in Flash or Silverlight. If that means that they close a big chunk of their potential market (Android, iPhone, Linux, etc.) then it is their choice.
See the bug: EME is not limited to video.
The EME CDM is not limited to just video and could well implement an entire
HTML engine defeating the good work of many to allow users to customize the
presentation of HTML. I suggest there is not way to achieve such a restriction
within the space of solutions acceptable to the proponents.
Did you even looked at the Article or read it?
The EME proposal will not eliminate proprietary plugins. All EME is do is to standardize an interface to access those proprietary plugins. Look at the graphic: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html
Do you see the big block "Content Decryption Module (CDM)"? That is the proprietary plugin.
No DRM can work without a proprietary plugin. Right now it's Flash or Silverlight and you can download it if you want to use Netflix or other services. In the future your operating system have a CDM installed and is tied to some sort of TPM chip.
As a bonus, because DRM is now a web standard, it will be used for everything. Want to print that web site? Sorry no can do. Want to skip that ad? No can do. Want to save that Youtube video? No can do. etc, pp.
How is that EA's business model?
I'm not talking about online games. Just plain old offline and single player games.