It will be time to ditch it when...
on
Gnome 2.0 RC1
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
...more than just niche companies are writing desktop applications for it. Your video games comment illustrated the point nicely. I personally believe that KDE3 is superior to windows, and with any luck GNOME2 will be as well (downloading it now). Yet I still run a system with windows 2000 on it so I can play video games.
I have, through my years of computer experience felt the pain of using the better product despite it's lack of broad acceptance. I started off with an Atari 800, and then later worked on an Atari 1040ST. For their respective times both of these computers offered exceptional value over what else existed. The only problem was the market share problem; not enough people writing software to make them worth using.
So, expect to be paying the Microsoft tax for some time to come to use certain pieces of software...
Corporations, in theory, are supposed to be all about maximizing shareholder value. Whether they are or not, I'm not going to get into. But is this really the best thing for our society, that's what i'm asking? I'm not questioning how things are, but rather, how is it best for them to be?
I ask this question because frankly I'm not convinced about the correct answer, but is it really better to have business relationships that are not personal? It seems that this is one thing that distinguishes american business from the vast majority of the rest of the world. That may be why we are by far the richest and most powerful country in the world, but I wonder at what price?
How many corporations do layoffs in the interests of boosting stock value? That is the ultimate in tossing away personal relationships in the interest of the business. Surely sometimes a business has to cut staff to save the business but there are countless times where a profitable company cuts employees in the interests of increasing shareholder value.
It just seems to me that this immense detachment from personal relationships in business might really be doing us a lot of harm in the long run.
I got into role playing in middle school, and let me tell you:
YOUR MOM WAS RIGHT!
It was such a nautral progression to go from fighting dragons with my ranger to sacrificing virgins to the great dark lord. I don't play as much anymore, but every so often when I get bored with smoking crack and drinking the blood of the unworthy, I'll get some people together for a game. It's a great game and I highly recommend giving it a try sometime.
The big problem I have with either of these options is the fact that my taste in music isn't quite covered by them. Personally I like to listen to industrial, EBM, dancy sort of stuff. They each have four dance channels and look like at least one might play the occasional thing I like. Still it looks like my taste would be hit and miss. I'm not about to pay a monthly fee for something I only like occasionally.
When I listen to the radio now, I listen to NPR 90% of the time because they have news programs superior to anything else out there. When I do listen to music, I have to bring my own because there's nobody who broadcasts what I like.
I suppose if these radio stations broadcast something I would like more consistently I might consider it.
Using that same logic, the key to a house costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. You aren't buying the house, but rather the key to the lock on the house. Or perhaps a better comparison is that of a car (since the locks on a house can be changed or might not exist at all). $20,000 for a little piece of metal? Wow!
The problem is that if you have specified clean copies, then it makes it real easy to filter them. On the other hand, if you were to specify a black list of known sources of bad files and specific CRC's of known bad files, it would clean up the noise a bit.
Though I have to say, it is nice to see the RIAA taking an intelligent approach to this. Much better than trying to sue everybody and shut down all the P2P networks. There's nothing wrong with P2P sharing, only sharing of pirated music. In that case, the RIAA simply makes it next to impossible to find legitimate copies of music on the system.
See the thing is that the GPL says that if I give you a piece of software then I must provide soure code with it. So, the code that the governmnet adds does not need to become a matter of public knowledge unless the software is being given to the public.
As I understand it, if the FBI got a copy of Linux, they could modify the source code and distribute as they wanted to within the FBI and never be compelled to give that source code to anybody else. It's only if the FBI started taking that code and giving it out to other organiaztions that it might be at issue.
What I'd like explained to me is how the GPL could be considered somehow worse than other open source licenses for the purposes of national security. The apparent concern in using GPL software is that the source code is out there and available for hackers to look at. Even if you accept the logic that having that source code publicly available is more dangerous, I don't see how that would be different with a BSD style license.
I could, as a proprietary vendor, take a BSD style license product, and close it up and sell it to the government. At that point though, until I start adding modifications, there is no reduction in the risk of some outside source finding a bug in the code. Once I do make modifications, there's the risk of complacency. Perhaps the government doesn't realize that the code I sold them is based on a buggy open source implementation and is thus vulnerable to a potential security breach.
This just wreaks of having been written by Microsoft's PR department.
Oh, and one more comment. The notion that the GPL is somehow one of the most restricitve licenses is complete hogwash. Does microsoft let you incorporate the windows source code into your product under ANY circumstances? Hell they don't even let you see the source code in the first place (and thank god since it's apparently riddled with big security holes). So how is that MORE restrictive?
MMMMMM a big steaming pile of FUD!
Lies, damn lies and the rich america article
on
The Almighty Buck
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
From the article: Americans in 2000 spent less than they did 10 years earlier on steaks, martinis, cigars, jewelry, watches, furniture, toys and sound equipment. They spent less on entertainment and more on education, housing, transportation and computers.
Okay, steaks corresponds with the mentioned trend about people eating more fresh vegetables. That would seem to correlate with trying to eat healthier. Martinis? Okay, perhaps people are drinking more malt beverages?
As for the education, housing, transportation, if you look, housing prices, education prices and transporation prices have all been going up. That has nothing to do with any earnest desire by Americans to do something wholesome with their money. It's indicative of the fact that we are running our of spaces to expand to.
Computers? 10 years ago was 1992. Computers were hardly ubiquitous then and the top of the line was a 486. Now computers have become a much more essential part of every home and the internet has driven a lot of buying. To suggest that somehow we are doing something good because we buy an Athlon to surf pr0n is a crock.
Americans spent 10 percent less on food in general (though baby boomers spent 15 percent more on fresh vegetables). Americans spent 14 percent less on clothing, the largest decline in any category, though they did spend 12 percent more on shoes.
Food in general? Okay, lets get back to that steak. How much does it cost you for the ingredients for that steak vs a salad? Furthermore, the price of food, realtive to the value of a dollar has been decreasing. The reason clothing prices are going down is because of globalization and cheap international production of textiles. That has nothing to do with buying less clothes.
So, whatever, if you believe America has escaped some trend of history. If you think that this will go on forever, I just have three words for you:
THE NEW ECONOMY
Yup, remember that crock. Oh, record employment, growing wealth, with no looking back. The old rules are done. YEAH RIGHT. This country has done well over the years, granted but we've got a lot of bumps in the road to deal with ahead. A massive generation of retirees. The increasing gap between rich and poor. We haven't solved some magical formula folks, we've been blessed by history and it may continue that way for a while, but as any dot com CEO will tell you, all good things must come to an end.
The closing comment of the article says: And best of all, our children -- all right, our grandchildren -- won't want to become rock stars.
This leads me to ask the natural question, "so what's next?" I mean, our culture seems to demand creating these icons of rebellion. People who do something that most of us cannot do and most of us wish we could do. So what's next?
Does this trend move into the film industry? That seems to be suffering the same problems as the music industry though. Too many people producing too much product and drowning out the chance to distinguish ones self.
Celebrity Hackers perhaps? I think that's more of my own little geek fantasy that somehow people like Linus Torvalds could have popular celebrity. Though as computer technology becoems more a part of everybody's lives, maybe there's a possibility there.
I wonder what happens if maybe we are just out of realms to spawn these cultural icons. When teenagers want to rebel, what's left for them to do?
The thing that's amusing about the existence of this site is that it points out the tremendous idiocy of the MPAA. That is to say, that despite all of their efforts to shut down things like this, they pop up anyhow. They just show up in another jurisdiction and suddenly all the dumb laws and flawed technical protections are totally worthless.
If instead they were offering this service, right now, the operation in Iran would exist, and the MPAA would be making this money. I'm not going to sit here and suggest for a moment that this is somehow morally right, or justifiable. But I think all of this does make the point that the MPAA should stop trying to hold back the ocean with their legal brooms and start providing the services people want.
So apple, deciding they cannot make money on it, does not realease anything for Linux. Then codeweavers releases the crossover plugin and does:). Anybody who says money can't be made selling to Linux users should take a look at how they are going about it.
I'll admit to the fact that one of the reasons I use Linux is because I dont have to pay for it. Having said that, I have paid for a copy of the crossover plugin, and I have also paid for RedHat's little subscription up2date service. The thing that's nice about Linux, is that to get into the game, you can do it for free. If you are willing to pay you can get enhancements, increased convenience, etc. I'm not forced into it like I would be if I ran Windows.
The thing is, the license is effectively for the software that's proprietary. With each piece of propreitary per-seat licensed software you are getting a bunch of GPL software that it happens to work with. You could rip out all that GPL stuff and do whatever you wanted with it, but you'd still have to pay per-seat for the rest of the software.
I guess my thinking here is that the GPL should protect the GPL'd software just fine. If you get a copy of United Linux and want the GPL'd parts of it, you can just pull out those parts. You can get the source code if you like and do what you want with it. If they want to release proprietary parts of the system, that's their business decision to make.
If it is true that open source software is a better way of doing things, that it is more compelling, then this is a perfect test case for it. What will companies think about paying per-seat licensing and having to manage all the licensing nightmares associated with it when most of what they are buying is under the GPL? Will they look to a more open alternative? Will they even care?
RMS seems to be fundamentally afraid that all his claims about open source software are wrong. If it's as good as he claims, then why is he worrying about this. United Linux should get steam rolled by higher quality and cost-efficient software from other places.
I suspected that Caldera bought SCO just to kill SCO Unix, even though they denied it at the time.
Actually that would be silly for them to do since SCO was already dieing. What they did was buy a company that gave them a base of customers who wanted to run Unix on x86. Furthermore they got access to any technology that SCO had developed. So to suggest they were just trying to off them seems simplistic. If they wanted to get rid of them, why would they still be offering upgrades?
The thing is that right now, any shmoe can rip and distribute songs en masse at high quality with only minimal computer skills. It takes no effort, no skill and costs nothing. Now, true, you could set up a high quality microphone, and listen to your nice speakers, and probably get a DECENT recording out of it. It would take you upwards of an hour (depending on CD length) to make this copy because you'd have to play it at regular speed.
So, are you really going to bother? I'm sure a few people will, just to be annoying, but most people won't. The Internet sharing networks will be filled with half-ass attempts at this process using a crappy speakers and a crappy microphone. So they don't really need to control everything, they just need to make it inconvenient for people to do it.
It's just like computer security. No system is 100% secure, but there are systems where the resource expense and risk of getting into it are so overwhelming that it's not worth it. If they can push it far enough, the only people that'll be pirating will be... pirates:). Just like they always did.
Does the average consumer notice the difference between the current fidelity of a CD versus say a 192Kbps MP3? No. Most don't notice the difference between the CD and 128Kbps MP3's. So does it really make sense to develop a higher fidelity audio format? I mean, sure, audophiles will enjoy it, I'm sure, but as a mass market item for consumers, what's the point?
The point, of course, is to make up some excuse for a new format that the recording companies can lock down and make "secure". The one problem they face is that nobody's going to invest in these new players except for the high-end audiophiles. So, unless they are going to try to push players by releasing big name performers exclusively on this new format, this is not going to last long. I don't know about you, but if I was Britney Spears or N'Sync or some other big name performer, there's no way I'd risk my sales to some corporate power play (assuming I still had the rights to my own musical performances).
The only way a new audio format is going to come to be is if the recording industry can figure out a way to make a substantial difference in the listening experience for the new media. It has to provide noticeable differences to the average consumer or it's not going to get past being a niche product for audio geeks.
The DMCA doesn't care if DeCSS is a secret or not. They can be sued by offering a device that circumvents access control measures on the DVD's. In fact, since they'd be making money from the sale, they could actually face prison terms for releasing such a system.
Here folks is a big argument for shorter term copyrights. George Lucas can now go back and alter the original Start Wars to include a major nude scene with Jar Jar, and then cease distribution of the older untouched edition. Eventually that original version will cease to be with no efforts to maintain it and archive it properly.
If copyright was for a shorter period, the original star wars could be restored from existing copies and maintained. As it is now, large pieces of our cultural history can be easily left to decay on the cutting room floor because of the whims of the copyright owner, who in many cases is no longer the person that actually produced the work.
Okay well that's all well and good, but are they going to be able to support CSS decryption? Seems to me that their ability to play DVD's is almost useless if they can't decrypt CSS, seeing as most discs require it. So they still end up having to pay royalties and having to enforce region encoding.
Is it just me or does this scream out the fact that there's clearly not enough competition in the broadband market these days? I mean AT&T suddenly decides to start charging people an extra $7/month to people who went through the trouble and expense of buying their own hardware. Sounds like a good motivation to get service from a different provider, but then what are your choices really?
What I was getting at is that in this instance, Microsoft intends to comply with the ruling because they operate in Germany and thus can't get away with ignoring it. What I was getting at is what happens when a country like Germany makes a ruling like this and the defendant in the case just ignores them. Essentially I was envisioning this exact same court case but with Microsoft telling the German government to get bent because there's nothing they can do about it.
Slashdot Mirror
...more than just niche companies are writing desktop applications for it. Your video games comment illustrated the point nicely. I personally believe that KDE3 is superior to windows, and with any luck GNOME2 will be as well (downloading it now). Yet I still run a system with windows 2000 on it so I can play video games.
I have, through my years of computer experience felt the pain of using the better product despite it's lack of broad acceptance. I started off with an Atari 800, and then later worked on an Atari 1040ST. For their respective times both of these computers offered exceptional value over what else existed. The only problem was the market share problem; not enough people writing software to make them worth using.
So, expect to be paying the Microsoft tax for some time to come to use certain pieces of software...
Corporations, in theory, are supposed to be all about maximizing shareholder value. Whether they are or not, I'm not going to get into. But is this really the best thing for our society, that's what i'm asking? I'm not questioning how things are, but rather, how is it best for them to be?
I ask this question because frankly I'm not convinced about the correct answer, but is it really better to have business relationships that are not personal? It seems that this is one thing that distinguishes american business from the vast majority of the rest of the world. That may be why we are by far the richest and most powerful country in the world, but I wonder at what price?
How many corporations do layoffs in the interests of boosting stock value? That is the ultimate in tossing away personal relationships in the interest of the business. Surely sometimes a business has to cut staff to save the business but there are countless times where a profitable company cuts employees in the interests of increasing shareholder value.
It just seems to me that this immense detachment from personal relationships in business might really be doing us a lot of harm in the long run.
I got into role playing in middle school, and let me tell you:
YOUR MOM WAS RIGHT!
It was such a nautral progression to go from fighting dragons with my ranger to sacrificing virgins to the great dark lord. I don't play as much anymore, but every so often when I get bored with smoking crack and drinking the blood of the unworthy, I'll get some people together for a game. It's a great game and I highly recommend giving it a try sometime.
The big problem I have with either of these options is the fact that my taste in music isn't quite covered by them. Personally I like to listen to industrial, EBM, dancy sort of stuff. They each have four dance channels and look like at least one might play the occasional thing I like. Still it looks like my taste would be hit and miss. I'm not about to pay a monthly fee for something I only like occasionally.
When I listen to the radio now, I listen to NPR 90% of the time because they have news programs superior to anything else out there. When I do listen to music, I have to bring my own because there's nobody who broadcasts what I like.
I suppose if these radio stations broadcast something I would like more consistently I might consider it.
Using that same logic, the key to a house costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. You aren't buying the house, but rather the key to the lock on the house. Or perhaps a better comparison is that of a car (since the locks on a house can be changed or might not exist at all). $20,000 for a little piece of metal? Wow!
The problem is that if you have specified clean copies, then it makes it real easy to filter them. On the other hand, if you were to specify a black list of known sources of bad files and specific CRC's of known bad files, it would clean up the noise a bit.
Though I have to say, it is nice to see the RIAA taking an intelligent approach to this. Much better than trying to sue everybody and shut down all the P2P networks. There's nothing wrong with P2P sharing, only sharing of pirated music. In that case, the RIAA simply makes it next to impossible to find legitimate copies of music on the system.
See the thing is that the GPL says that if I give you a piece of software then I must provide soure code with it. So, the code that the governmnet adds does not need to become a matter of public knowledge unless the software is being given to the public.
As I understand it, if the FBI got a copy of Linux, they could modify the source code and distribute as they wanted to within the FBI and never be compelled to give that source code to anybody else. It's only if the FBI started taking that code and giving it out to other organiaztions that it might be at issue.
What I'd like explained to me is how the GPL could be considered somehow worse than other open source licenses for the purposes of national security. The apparent concern in using GPL software is that the source code is out there and available for hackers to look at. Even if you accept the logic that having that source code publicly available is more dangerous, I don't see how that would be different with a BSD style license.
I could, as a proprietary vendor, take a BSD style license product, and close it up and sell it to the government. At that point though, until I start adding modifications, there is no reduction in the risk of some outside source finding a bug in the code. Once I do make modifications, there's the risk of complacency. Perhaps the government doesn't realize that the code I sold them is based on a buggy open source implementation and is thus vulnerable to a potential security breach.
This just wreaks of having been written by Microsoft's PR department.
Oh, and one more comment. The notion that the GPL is somehow one of the most restricitve licenses is complete hogwash. Does microsoft let you incorporate the windows source code into your product under ANY circumstances? Hell they don't even let you see the source code in the first place (and thank god since it's apparently riddled with big security holes). So how is that MORE restrictive?
MMMMMM a big steaming pile of FUD!
From the article:
Americans in 2000 spent less than they did 10 years earlier on steaks, martinis, cigars, jewelry, watches, furniture, toys and sound equipment. They spent less on entertainment and more on education, housing, transportation and computers.
Okay, steaks corresponds with the mentioned trend about people eating more fresh vegetables. That would seem to correlate with trying to eat healthier. Martinis? Okay, perhaps people are drinking more malt beverages?
As for the education, housing, transportation, if you look, housing prices, education prices and transporation prices have all been going up. That has nothing to do with any earnest desire by Americans to do something wholesome with their money. It's indicative of the fact that we are running our of spaces to expand to.
Computers? 10 years ago was 1992. Computers were hardly ubiquitous then and the top of the line was a 486. Now computers have become a much more essential part of every home and the internet has driven a lot of buying. To suggest that somehow we are doing something good because we buy an Athlon to surf pr0n is a crock.
Americans spent 10 percent less on food in general (though baby boomers spent 15 percent more on fresh vegetables). Americans spent 14 percent less on clothing, the largest decline in any category, though they did spend 12 percent more on shoes.
Food in general? Okay, lets get back to that steak. How much does it cost you for the ingredients for that steak vs a salad? Furthermore, the price of food, realtive to the value of a dollar has been decreasing. The reason clothing prices are going down is because of globalization and cheap international production of textiles. That has nothing to do with buying less clothes.
So, whatever, if you believe America has escaped some trend of history. If you think that this will go on forever, I just have three words for you:
THE NEW ECONOMY
Yup, remember that crock. Oh, record employment, growing wealth, with no looking back. The old rules are done. YEAH RIGHT. This country has done well over the years, granted but we've got a lot of bumps in the road to deal with ahead. A massive generation of retirees. The increasing gap between rich and poor. We haven't solved some magical formula folks, we've been blessed by history and it may continue that way for a while, but as any dot com CEO will tell you, all good things must come to an end.
The closing comment of the article says:
And best of all, our children -- all right, our grandchildren -- won't want to become rock stars.
This leads me to ask the natural question, "so what's next?" I mean, our culture seems to demand creating these icons of rebellion. People who do something that most of us cannot do and most of us wish we could do. So what's next?
Does this trend move into the film industry? That seems to be suffering the same problems as the music industry though. Too many people producing too much product and drowning out the chance to distinguish ones self.
Celebrity Hackers perhaps? I think that's more of my own little geek fantasy that somehow people like Linus Torvalds could have popular celebrity. Though as computer technology becoems more a part of everybody's lives, maybe there's a possibility there.
I wonder what happens if maybe we are just out of realms to spawn these cultural icons. When teenagers want to rebel, what's left for them to do?
... some clever hacker has a T-1 hooked up to the wife's electronic pleasure toy? :)
The thing that's amusing about the existence of this site is that it points out the tremendous idiocy of the MPAA. That is to say, that despite all of their efforts to shut down things like this, they pop up anyhow. They just show up in another jurisdiction and suddenly all the dumb laws and flawed technical protections are totally worthless.
If instead they were offering this service, right now, the operation in Iran would exist, and the MPAA would be making this money. I'm not going to sit here and suggest for a moment that this is somehow morally right, or justifiable. But I think all of this does make the point that the MPAA should stop trying to hold back the ocean with their legal brooms and start providing the services people want.
If they don't, somebody else will.
So apple, deciding they cannot make money on it, does not realease anything for Linux. Then codeweavers releases the crossover plugin and does :). Anybody who says money can't be made selling to Linux users should take a look at how they are going about it.
I'll admit to the fact that one of the reasons I use Linux is because I dont have to pay for it. Having said that, I have paid for a copy of the crossover plugin, and I have also paid for RedHat's little subscription up2date service. The thing that's nice about Linux, is that to get into the game, you can do it for free. If you are willing to pay you can get enhancements, increased convenience, etc. I'm not forced into it like I would be if I ran Windows.
The thing is, the license is effectively for the software that's proprietary. With each piece of propreitary per-seat licensed software you are getting a bunch of GPL software that it happens to work with. You could rip out all that GPL stuff and do whatever you wanted with it, but you'd still have to pay per-seat for the rest of the software.
I guess my thinking here is that the GPL should protect the GPL'd software just fine. If you get a copy of United Linux and want the GPL'd parts of it, you can just pull out those parts. You can get the source code if you like and do what you want with it. If they want to release proprietary parts of the system, that's their business decision to make.
If it is true that open source software is a better way of doing things, that it is more compelling, then this is a perfect test case for it. What will companies think about paying per-seat licensing and having to manage all the licensing nightmares associated with it when most of what they are buying is under the GPL? Will they look to a more open alternative? Will they even care?
RMS seems to be fundamentally afraid that all his claims about open source software are wrong. If it's as good as he claims, then why is he worrying about this. United Linux should get steam rolled by higher quality and cost-efficient software from other places.
I suspected that Caldera bought SCO just to kill SCO Unix, even though they denied it at the time.
Actually that would be silly for them to do since SCO was already dieing. What they did was buy a company that gave them a base of customers who wanted to run Unix on x86. Furthermore they got access to any technology that SCO had developed. So to suggest they were just trying to off them seems simplistic. If they wanted to get rid of them, why would they still be offering upgrades?
The thing is that right now, any shmoe can rip and distribute songs en masse at high quality with only minimal computer skills. It takes no effort, no skill and costs nothing. Now, true, you could set up a high quality microphone, and listen to your nice speakers, and probably get a DECENT recording out of it. It would take you upwards of an hour (depending on CD length) to make this copy because you'd have to play it at regular speed.
:). Just like they always did.
So, are you really going to bother? I'm sure a few people will, just to be annoying, but most people won't. The Internet sharing networks will be filled with half-ass attempts at this process using a crappy speakers and a crappy microphone. So they don't really need to control everything, they just need to make it inconvenient for people to do it.
It's just like computer security. No system is 100% secure, but there are systems where the resource expense and risk of getting into it are so overwhelming that it's not worth it. If they can push it far enough, the only people that'll be pirating will be... pirates
Does the average consumer notice the difference between the current fidelity of a CD versus say a 192Kbps MP3? No. Most don't notice the difference between the CD and 128Kbps MP3's. So does it really make sense to develop a higher fidelity audio format? I mean, sure, audophiles will enjoy it, I'm sure, but as a mass market item for consumers, what's the point?
The point, of course, is to make up some excuse for a new format that the recording companies can lock down and make "secure". The one problem they face is that nobody's going to invest in these new players except for the high-end audiophiles. So, unless they are going to try to push players by releasing big name performers exclusively on this new format, this is not going to last long. I don't know about you, but if I was Britney Spears or N'Sync or some other big name performer, there's no way I'd risk my sales to some corporate power play (assuming I still had the rights to my own musical performances).
The only way a new audio format is going to come to be is if the recording industry can figure out a way to make a substantial difference in the listening experience for the new media. It has to provide noticeable differences to the average consumer or it's not going to get past being a niche product for audio geeks.
Well... nevermind then :)
The DMCA doesn't care if DeCSS is a secret or not. They can be sued by offering a device that circumvents access control measures on the DVD's. In fact, since they'd be making money from the sale, they could actually face prison terms for releasing such a system.
Here folks is a big argument for shorter term copyrights. George Lucas can now go back and alter the original Start Wars to include a major nude scene with Jar Jar, and then cease distribution of the older untouched edition. Eventually that original version will cease to be with no efforts to maintain it and archive it properly.
If copyright was for a shorter period, the original star wars could be restored from existing copies and maintained. As it is now, large pieces of our cultural history can be easily left to decay on the cutting room floor because of the whims of the copyright owner, who in many cases is no longer the person that actually produced the work.
Okay well that's all well and good, but are they going to be able to support CSS decryption? Seems to me that their ability to play DVD's is almost useless if they can't decrypt CSS, seeing as most discs require it. So they still end up having to pay royalties and having to enforce region encoding.
Is it just me or does this scream out the fact that there's clearly not enough competition in the broadband market these days? I mean AT&T suddenly decides to start charging people an extra $7/month to people who went through the trouble and expense of buying their own hardware. Sounds like a good motivation to get service from a different provider, but then what are your choices really?
What I was getting at is that in this instance, Microsoft intends to comply with the ruling because they operate in Germany and thus can't get away with ignoring it. What I was getting at is what happens when a country like Germany makes a ruling like this and the defendant in the case just ignores them. Essentially I was envisioning this exact same court case but with Microsoft telling the German government to get bent because there's nothing they can do about it.