Adobe is also paying taxes...and thus they are also footing the bill.
Are you sure about this? Thanks to a number of loopholes in the corporate tax regulations, a lot of large corporations pay negligible, or even zero taxes.
Does anyone know where to go to find out if Adobe really does pay taxes?
Only on Slashdot can the government/justice system be the savior of humanity in one thread (when it is beating up on Microsoft) and the demon bane of all things good in another (the CDA of days gone by, the SS and SJG, the RIAA/MPAA rulings, etc).
I don't have time to respond to the rest of your drivel, but this paragraph deserves some attention.
No, this does not happen only on Slashdot. Almost anyone you talk to will praise certain government actions while condemning others, and you can see this reflected in the general media. The government is composed of such a large number of divisions and departments that it's bound to generate mixed opinions. Only a simpleton would think that government actions are all good or all bad.
IANAL, but I don't believe the people who make the "Gaim instant messenger client" can reasonably claim that their mark is distinct from AOL's "AIM instant messenger client." It doesn't do much to help any claim that they're distinct that the sourceforge page says, "Gaim is a clone of the AOL instant messenger client." I think an arguement could easily be made that the Gaim people have intentionally chosen a name similar to AIM, with a product that is functionally similar, and have capitalized on that similarity.
I agree with you on that issue, but I still think the fact that AOL failed to take action earlier trumps any other argument. Remember, they knew about it two years ago, and did nothing at all. IANAL (still), but as I understand it that failure to act constitutes an implied permission for Gaim to continue using its name.
I hope the Gaim people just change their name, and donate the $1,700 to the EFF to help someone fight for stuff that matters.
Personally, I think that not letting corporations push the little guy around is something that matters.
Trademarks are like copyrights -- the fact that a trademark has not been officially registered in no way means it isn't valid. Lawyer-speak at its best.
Actually, trademarks are different from copyrights in one important way: If you don't vigorously defend your trademark against all infractions, you risk losing it by letting it fall into common use.
That's relevant here because there's proof that AOL knew about the existence of Gaim two years ago (when they requested that the Gaim folks remove the AOL logo from their website) and AOL didn't try to defend its trademark at that time.
IANAL, but that fact makes it look to me like an open-and-shut case in favor of Gaim. I'm even willing to bet that AOL knows this, but they were hoping the Gaim folks wouldn't and they could bully them into changing the program's name.
Are they planning to use mozilla for this? I mean, that was the whole rationale for taking the extra time to build an entire applications framework into mozilla, rather than just putting out a browser, right? Assuming that's correct, this would be the ideal project to make use of mozilla.
In this scenario, Caucho has decided that their future payoff, either money or free software/services, is determined by their customers. This, I'll call it payoff based licensing (PBL), seems much more pragmatic than the extremist options presented by either Microsoft or GPL. Users of Caucho's software can decide if they want to use it independent of the ideological dogma of the software developer.
A similar effect can be had in many cases by simply issuing the software under multiple licenses. You can make your software available under the GPL, allowing anyone to inclue your code in other GPL'd software. Simultaneously, you can solicit royalties from those who want to use your code in their proprietary software. Many authors of GPL'd software do this.
I like your point about licenses and payoffs, though. Proprietary licenses and the GPL are alike in that they have a desired payoff, either money or more free software. Perhaps it's fair to call GPL and proprietary licenses "payoff licenses" and BSD-style licenses "non-payoff licenses."
For a post titled "The Obvious", yours does a good job of missing the point.
Armey's objection to Carnivore is that when it's attached to an ISP's servers, it captures the communications of all of the ISP's users, not just the one(s) the warrant was issued for.
Eliminating carnivore would make the FBI less effective. Unless you would like more terrorists and kidnappers running around.
Yes, that's the standard line. "If we don't surrender our civil liberties, we'll never be safe." Hogwash.
When I look at movie ads, I never bother looking at what the quotes actually say. Of course they're postive; they wouldn't be there if they weren't.
Rather, I look at who the studio is quoting. If it's Scooter McGee of the Hicksville Tribune, the movie is crap. If it's, say, Roger Ebert, then the movie is worth considering. This system hasn't failed me yet.
Bonus fact: The junket-critics mentioned in the article are referred to by real critics as "quote whores".
Caldera has always felt that the only way to make money with Linux was to bundle it with proprietary software.
As much as I hate the overused phrase "get it", it's pretty clear that Caldera doesn't get it. The most telling point in this regard is Love's comment on IBM in the Newsforge article:
"Linux is just a facilitator to a firm like IBM. It allows them to sell more hardware and services....
Linux doesn't make the company any money, but Linux support makes money, and hardware makes money. Linux helps them sell more hardware."
That's exactly the point. The days when you can make money selling software are coming to an end. From here on out, the money will be made on support, services, customization, and hardware. Even Microsoft seems to have grasped this, but Caldera is still trying to find a way to make money selling proprietary software.
What's the deal with every software project having to come up with a code name for each release. RedHat 7.1 = Seawolf? Slash 2.0 = Bender? Sagan, BHA? I mean, what's wrong with calling it Slash 2.0 from the start?
Aside from any practical value it may have, it's fun. When you sit down to work on "Slash 2.0", you think of another revision to a piece of software. When you sit down to work on "Bender", you think of a self-centered alcoholic robot, and that makes you smile.
Key management is the real weakness here, though. Sure, if a keyset is compromised it can be tagged as such on newer media, but old media which _doesn't_ know the keyset is compromised should play fine...
So what would happen in that case is that the hot new releases would be unpirateable for awhile (and thus people who wanted to see them would have to pay for them), but after a period of time the keys would be compromised and anyone could copy, excerpt, or modify the original work.
If you squint a little -- okay, if you squint a lot -- it almost looks like something the U.S. founding fathers would approve of. The creators of new works would have a limited period of exclusive distribution (providing an incentive to create works), after which the works would fall into the public domain.
This has already been mentioned in this context, but I haven't seen it yet in this discussion. Gandhi's four steps to victory are as follows:
1. They ignore you.
2. They laugh at you.
3. They fight you.
4. You win.
Linux spent approximately a decade at step 1. Step 2 was hit this past year (I think) when Microsot ran an ad featuring mutated penguins in Germany. With these remarks, coupled with Allchin's earlier ones (Free Software being un-American and all that), it looks like Linux has entered step 3.
Pity. I was hoping step 2 would last a little longer, but I guess Microsoft isn't in a "laughing" mood these days.
TheFrood
Re:GamesDomain.com has always been my first choice
on
DailyRadar.com Closes
·
· Score: 2
Decent coverage, although updates are sometimes sporadic.
GamesDomain's gratest yirtue, IMO, is that they take a week or two to actually play games before reviewing them. Where other review sites give you the reviewer's impression based on perhaps 48 hours of gameplay, GamesDomain reviewers can actually comment on how much replayability and lasting appeal a game has.
The purpose of copyright law, according to the U.S. Constitution, is to promote the creation of new works. (Art.I, Sec.8, Cls.8).
Does prohibiting the distribution of amateur-created guitar tabs serve this purpose? Would the extra income generated by having exclusive guitar-tab-creation rights result in musicians producing more music? And if so, would the public benefit more from that increase than they would lose from giving up the right to create and distribute their own guitar tabs?
Unless the answer to both questions can be shown to be "yes" (and shown convincingly), people should be free to create and distribute their own guitar tabs. (Note that I'm not talking about what current law says, I'm talking about what it should say.)
Calling this a "law" is technically accurate, but misleading. To the layperson, the word "law" implies a regulation that affects private citizens, which this isn't. Really, it's just an internal government policy decision, stating that the government will use free software whenever possible (assuming it gets passed, of course). It doesn't regulate what individuals and private companies can do.
Yes, I know it's a '90s-centric list, but Chris Crawford and Dani Bunten both belong in any list of influential game designers.
Crawford wrote a number of envelope-pushing games for the 8-bit Atari platform. Eastern Front:1941 used various clever tricks to squeeze 16 colors onto the screen and was a landmark for interface design (a complex wargame controlled using only the joystick and spacebar). Later, he switched to the Macintosh, where he wrote the groundbreaking geopolitical simulation Balance of Power.
As for Bunten, her Modem Wars was the first multiplayer RTS ever. 'Nuff said.
But I already knew this because I read gaming websites. This is old news! I can't believe/. would be so lame as to post a story that I personally already knew about because it falls within one of my interests. And/. calls itself a news site! Ha!
Also, I submitted the same story last Tuesday and it was rejected! I take this as a personal insult!
[Before flaming, please re-read this post as parody. Thank you.]
According to basic physics, a beam of light that is emitted from an aperture will widen over distance -- that is, the area of the beam's cross-section increases the further you get from the source of the beam.
Can someone who knows the math tell us something about this? I would think you'd want the beam to cover the entire solar system of the target star, or at least the inner planets, where a technological society would be more likely to live. What size of physical laser are we talking about here?
When Bell first deployed Touch Tone(tm) dialing, 16 touch tones were defined. 0-9 *, #, and A B C and D (* and # are also known as E and F). If we add the other 4 tones, we can get a lot more mileage out of out 7 digit numbers and 3 digit area codes.
But if we do that, then all phone numbers will have to start with "0x".
Goes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well
I saw him speak at the National Press Club today on CNN. He showed absolutely no regret at all. He made a few interesting points in response to questions:
1. According to Nader, Bush has three virtues: He's not very bright, he's lazy, and he dislikes controversy. For that reason, he's unlikely to be as bad for the country as most Democrats think. ("Bad" from the Democrats' point of view.)
2. Gore has no right to people's votes. If he doesn't earn them, he doesn't deserve them.
3. The Democrats in Congress are much likelier to stand up for traditional left-wing issues (labor, environment, etc.) if there's a Republican in the White House. A moderate Democrat President, says Nader, saps the will of the Democrats in Congress.
Polls for Nader before the election put him at about five or six percent. The percent of people who actually voted for Nader is two or three percent. That means that a substantial number of people were swayed by the Democratic party's extortion towards voting for Gore.
Which polls were those? I never saw Nader get more than 3% in any national poll. Based on that, the scare tactics didn't have much effect.
Why? The states that have very small populations, i.e. empty Western states, are Bush diehards. In Wyoming, the have ~300,000 people and get 3 electoral votes (2 Senators + 1 representative). In California they get 54(?) elctoral votes and have 33 million people. This means that each Wyominger gets 1/100,000 = 000 001 of an electoral vote Californians each get.000 000 13 electoral votes apiece. That is a difference of about ten-fold, and Bush is more or less guaranteed to win the teeny states.
I can't fault your logic, but I recall seeing a map a few weeks ago showing that Gore had an advantage in electoral votes based on states that were solidly favoring or leaning toward one candidate at the time. The advantage was something like 240-170 in Gore's favor (with the remaining 120 or so being toss-ups), despite the fact that the polls at that time showed the candidates about even in the popular vote (maybe a slight advantage for Gore at that time; I'm not sure.)
Perhaps Gore has an advantage in medium-sized states? Individually, they don't give the same bang for the buck as the small states, but there are many, many more of them.
Does anyone know a good source for state-by-state tracking info?
Slashdot Mirror
When Howard Coble says:
"The law is performing the way we hoped... As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders."
what he means is
"My customers are very happy with their purchase."
TheFrood
Are you sure about this? Thanks to a number of loopholes in the corporate tax regulations, a lot of large corporations pay negligible, or even zero taxes.
Does anyone know where to go to find out if Adobe really does pay taxes?
TheFrood
I don't have time to respond to the rest of your drivel, but this paragraph deserves some attention.
No, this does not happen only on Slashdot. Almost anyone you talk to will praise certain government actions while condemning others, and you can see this reflected in the general media. The government is composed of such a large number of divisions and departments that it's bound to generate mixed opinions. Only a simpleton would think that government actions are all good or all bad.
TheFrood
I agree with you on that issue, but I still think the fact that AOL failed to take action earlier trumps any other argument. Remember, they knew about it two years ago, and did nothing at all. IANAL (still), but as I understand it that failure to act constitutes an implied permission for Gaim to continue using its name.
I hope the Gaim people just change their name, and donate the $1,700 to the EFF to help someone fight for stuff that matters.
Personally, I think that not letting corporations push the little guy around is something that matters.
TheFrood
Actually, trademarks are different from copyrights in one important way: If you don't vigorously defend your trademark against all infractions, you risk losing it by letting it fall into common use.
That's relevant here because there's proof that AOL knew about the existence of Gaim two years ago (when they requested that the Gaim folks remove the AOL logo from their website) and AOL didn't try to defend its trademark at that time.
IANAL, but that fact makes it look to me like an open-and-shut case in favor of Gaim. I'm even willing to bet that AOL knows this, but they were hoping the Gaim folks wouldn't and they could bully them into changing the program's name.
TheFrood
TheFrood
TheFrood
A similar effect can be had in many cases by simply issuing the software under multiple licenses. You can make your software available under the GPL, allowing anyone to inclue your code in other GPL'd software. Simultaneously, you can solicit royalties from those who want to use your code in their proprietary software. Many authors of GPL'd software do this.
I like your point about licenses and payoffs, though. Proprietary licenses and the GPL are alike in that they have a desired payoff, either money or more free software. Perhaps it's fair to call GPL and proprietary licenses "payoff licenses" and BSD-style licenses "non-payoff licenses."
TheFrood
For a post titled "The Obvious", yours does a good job of missing the point.
Armey's objection to Carnivore is that when it's attached to an ISP's servers, it captures the communications of all of the ISP's users, not just the one(s) the warrant was issued for.
Eliminating carnivore would make the FBI less effective. Unless you would like more terrorists and kidnappers running around.
Yes, that's the standard line. "If we don't surrender our civil liberties, we'll never be safe." Hogwash.
TheFrood
Rather, I look at who the studio is quoting. If it's Scooter McGee of the Hicksville Tribune, the movie is crap. If it's, say, Roger Ebert, then the movie is worth considering. This system hasn't failed me yet.
Bonus fact: The junket-critics mentioned in the article are referred to by real critics as "quote whores".
TheFrood
There's probably enough discussion to be had on this topic to fill a full "article". So write it up and submit it.
TheFrood
As much as I hate the overused phrase "get it", it's pretty clear that Caldera doesn't get it. The most telling point in this regard is Love's comment on IBM in the Newsforge article:
"Linux is just a facilitator to a firm like IBM. It allows them to sell more hardware and services.... Linux doesn't make the company any money, but Linux support makes money, and hardware makes money. Linux helps them sell more hardware."
That's exactly the point. The days when you can make money selling software are coming to an end. From here on out, the money will be made on support, services, customization, and hardware. Even Microsoft seems to have grasped this, but Caldera is still trying to find a way to make money selling proprietary software.
TheFrood
Aside from any practical value it may have, it's fun. When you sit down to work on "Slash 2.0", you think of another revision to a piece of software. When you sit down to work on "Bender", you think of a self-centered alcoholic robot, and that makes you smile.
TheFrood
So what would happen in that case is that the hot new releases would be unpirateable for awhile (and thus people who wanted to see them would have to pay for them), but after a period of time the keys would be compromised and anyone could copy, excerpt, or modify the original work.
If you squint a little -- okay, if you squint a lot -- it almost looks like something the U.S. founding fathers would approve of. The creators of new works would have a limited period of exclusive distribution (providing an incentive to create works), after which the works would fall into the public domain.
TheFrood
1. They ignore you.
2. They laugh at you.
3. They fight you.
4. You win.
Linux spent approximately a decade at step 1. Step 2 was hit this past year (I think) when Microsot ran an ad featuring mutated penguins in Germany. With these remarks, coupled with Allchin's earlier ones (Free Software being un-American and all that), it looks like Linux has entered step 3.
Pity. I was hoping step 2 would last a little longer, but I guess Microsoft isn't in a "laughing" mood these days.
TheFrood
GamesDomain's gratest yirtue, IMO, is that they take a week or two to actually play games before reviewing them. Where other review sites give you the reviewer's impression based on perhaps 48 hours of gameplay, GamesDomain reviewers can actually comment on how much replayability and lasting appeal a game has.
TheFrood
Does prohibiting the distribution of amateur-created guitar tabs serve this purpose? Would the extra income generated by having exclusive guitar-tab-creation rights result in musicians producing more music? And if so, would the public benefit more from that increase than they would lose from giving up the right to create and distribute their own guitar tabs?
Unless the answer to both questions can be shown to be "yes" (and shown convincingly), people should be free to create and distribute their own guitar tabs. (Note that I'm not talking about what current law says, I'm talking about what it should say.)
TheFrood
TheFrood
Crawford wrote a number of envelope-pushing games for the 8-bit Atari platform. Eastern Front:1941 used various clever tricks to squeeze 16 colors onto the screen and was a landmark for interface design (a complex wargame controlled using only the joystick and spacebar). Later, he switched to the Macintosh, where he wrote the groundbreaking geopolitical simulation Balance of Power.
As for Bunten, her Modem Wars was the first multiplayer RTS ever. 'Nuff said.
TheFrood
Also, I submitted the same story last Tuesday and it was rejected! I take this as a personal insult!
[Before flaming, please re-read this post as parody. Thank you.]
TheFrood
Can someone who knows the math tell us something about this? I would think you'd want the beam to cover the entire solar system of the target star, or at least the inner planets, where a technological society would be more likely to live. What size of physical laser are we talking about here?
TheFrood
But if we do that, then all phone numbers will have to start with "0x".
TheFrood
I saw him speak at the National Press Club today on CNN. He showed absolutely no regret at all. He made a few interesting points in response to questions:
1. According to Nader, Bush has three virtues: He's not very bright, he's lazy, and he dislikes controversy. For that reason, he's unlikely to be as bad for the country as most Democrats think. ("Bad" from the Democrats' point of view.)
2. Gore has no right to people's votes. If he doesn't earn them, he doesn't deserve them.
3. The Democrats in Congress are much likelier to stand up for traditional left-wing issues (labor, environment, etc.) if there's a Republican in the White House. A moderate Democrat President, says Nader, saps the will of the Democrats in Congress.
At any rate, I think Nader will sleep just fine.
TheFrood
Which polls were those? I never saw Nader get more than 3% in any national poll. Based on that, the scare tactics didn't have much effect.
TheFrood
I can't fault your logic, but I recall seeing a map a few weeks ago showing that Gore had an advantage in electoral votes based on states that were solidly favoring or leaning toward one candidate at the time. The advantage was something like 240-170 in Gore's favor (with the remaining 120 or so being toss-ups), despite the fact that the polls at that time showed the candidates about even in the popular vote (maybe a slight advantage for Gore at that time; I'm not sure.)
Perhaps Gore has an advantage in medium-sized states? Individually, they don't give the same bang for the buck as the small states, but there are many, many more of them.
Does anyone know a good source for state-by-state tracking info?
TheFrood