Ok this is what.. a Mac news outlet...
Microsoft news outlets have clamed for a long time now they are fair with non-Microsoft products. Not missquoting RMS or mislabling him as a comunist and not giving Microsoft specal treatment.
But we know better... misquotes, improper tests and statistics inflasion is some of the things proMicrosoft publications have done. Add to this Microosofts own jernalist handlers and you can see Microsoft is never far from any such artical.
Now here comes a Mac mag.. Apple is one of long time rivals to Microsoft (I argue however that this relationship predates Microsoft as the evil empire and dates back to IBM as the evil empire.. then Apple.. then Microsoft.. in that order.. Apples time of evil was short mostly becouse Apple isn't evil.. and the patents were Xeroxes idea Apple simply paid for them)
Anyway... this is about Microsoft basing not Apple bashing so let's get this rant on track:)
Microsoft publications clame they are not anti-anything and just trying to publish the facts.
However thies "facts" are clearly not from the real world but from some Sim world Microsoft has running back at MsHQ.. probably on a Sun Sparc sence it seems so presistent in it's "facts".
Yeah Microsofts people didn't say they use NT everywhere.. they said they ignore the people who laugh at Microsoft for having to use Unix systems in it's own company.
Microsoft would have us believe Unix is obsolete.. that it can not do anything anymore...
But Linux is 10 years old not 30 or 40... Windows is a few years older...
(Build on 20 year old Dos based on 30 year old CP/M.. Giving Windows the same legacy as Linux... a 10 year old system based on 30 year old design... only Unix was compleatly revised 10 years ago. CP/M was not)
Every time Linux shows up with a bug fix Microsoft "jernalists" scream "See Linux has bugs"
But the reality is... they can't seem to report Linux bugs that have not been fixed. Ohh they exist but Microsoft jernalists are not ready to really understand Linux well enough to find them.
In the mean time defective features (Unix world calls thies "bugs" BTW not featues) stay in place on Windows. No effort is made to safe guard them, sheald them or remove them leaving Windows open to more attacks.
While Linux includes such minnor bug reports as "Icons are ugly" Microsofts "Features" include e-mail viruses.
Yeah Mac jernalists are gona be slanted... Linux jernalists say "We are LINUX jernalists.. you KNOW our slant" Microsoft jernalists say "Slant us? *fnord*Windows is god*fnord* nooo *fnord*worship bill gates*fnord* we wouldn't do that"
Yeah even our own CmdrTaco has an obveous Debian bies.. yet he still reports on RedHat and SuSA, Mandrake and all the other Linux disros of note...
So in closing *Fnord*Linux from Scratch*Fnord* I'd like to say that basicly right now unbiesed reporting is a rare gem... *Fnord*Meow Pawjects*Fnord* and that we need to keep an eye out for the yellow in jernalism today *Fnord*Vote for Ralf Nader*Fnord* thank you... *Fnord* ZenToe.cgi *Fnord*
Initally it's "They are tracking me"...
But... That happends anyway.. ZenToe.cgi logs you in. It would be a small effort to add a simple logger to the core and track everyone around my website.
But the web server dose that anyway..
Browser cookies.. etc etc etc It's allready here.. so whats so bad about having a scanner do it?
But this isn't like a web cookie.. it's built in hardware.. you change computers the id code stays.. Your computer is hit with a virus your cookies are gone... the ID code stays..
Your computer is distoryed by lightening... assuming the Cue Cat survived.. the ID stays... If the Cue Cat dies then you get a new Cue Cat...
And Radio Shack has your real name, address and phone number on record.. (They have been asking for this information sence the 1980s.. to give them credit this data lasts only a month.. they clear out old records they only want data on frequent shoppers)
Unless Radio Shack has a privacy policy (and I doupt they do as nobody really pushed the issue for such policys in the real world only on websites) it would be quite easy for that Cue Cat ID code to have your real name etc attached...
Not so easy normally...
Even if your computer had an ID imbeded into the CPU it would not be so easy to track this back to a real person (not imposable).
But there it is.. a quick and simple record... allready supplyed to DC.
To your name, number, address, credit card.
And as this is about buying stuff on-line.. an easly organised databank of your buying habbits.
Theres a product right there... a compleate databank of your buying habbits... with your real name, phone number, e-mail address, web url, partical cordinates of your soul, what you had for breakfast etc.
This is a really effective tool for gathering larg amounts of data about people and selling it
Ohh that clarifys everything....
Hay everyone... the DeCss.tar.gz file is ok.. the MPAA is worryed about a windows binary not a C source code...
Ok that explains everything......
Bizz... wrong answer.. DeCss is in Ansi C.. it compiles on Linux, Windows, MacOs, BeOs, Palm, etc.. basicly anything that you can get an Ansi C compiler for..
In short that means ANYTHING... and that gose dubble for any Unix platform...
Why? Vaporware dose the job just fine.. why worry about accually producing software?
In reality it's not in the vested intrests to produce DVD software for any platform. The greatest hope they might have is that "This Linux thing" takes root and crushes Microsoft Windows, MacOs.. and the DVD software that was put out a long time ago to drive intrest in the DVD format.
Now that DVD is a strong format with a strong market it would be better for them to kill DVD software. But there is no real agenda to do this sence DVD money comes from disk sales primarly and player sales secondary. They can live with DVD software but they certenly don't have any vested intrest in keepping it around.
If they could eliminate Windows and Mac DVD software they probably wouldn't. Not worth the potental backlash.
I'm not saying it's part of the agenda. They'd rather have good press than more player sales. But I doupt had they considered the posability of annother DVD player they'd have reconsidered this action.
The primary motivation btw is itself a farce...
This software is for PLAYING DVDs.. the fear they have is that it can be used for COPYING DVDs and uploading them to the Internet.
Now for the irony...
Directions for pireting DVDs or ANY video by Felinoid...
get a legal certifyed stapped ok DVD player.. get any old screen capture recording program (Qseeme is one example thow the codec is pritty low grade and it isn't a recording program) basicly anything that uses screen capture in place of a camra driver...
Place the camra capture window over the DVD player.. start the capture then press play.
When done.. edit the results to remove the frames before you pressed play.
Save to your favoret video format.. upload to GnuTella...
The diffrence between doing the above and making a piracy program using DVD DeCSS?
Doing it with DeCSS requires you to write the encoding codec for the format your recording to... and a larg body of other software...
Lots easyer to just do a screen capture with software that dose screen capture in place of a camra driver...
I think you may have missed the point...
But by very very little..
The games are unplayable on this thing.. so it seems.. Just a hack to see "Look.. see"
This thing is to expensive to be a gameboy clone anyway... But if you get a PDA then you can save a little by using this instead of a gameboy
(think.. 1,000 remote controlls... thats what your looking at with PDAs and portable game boxes really soon... this PDA for one thing.. this PDA for that.. etc etc etc)
As for color.. busness graphs etc and other details also easyer on the eyes when it's color. The trade off isn't cost but battery life.
Also it's nice to have photos of your kid in your PDA instead of your wallet.. update them more often.. that sort of thing..
Nude pictues of your GF also.. not so easy to get to when they are on your PDA instead of your wallet.
Anyway.. a color screen is useful for looking at data or images I wouldn't go so far as porting games to the thing...
But.. if you allready have a PDA.. then why buy a pocket game box?
It's not a replacement to your computer of course but it is a replacement to the 1,001 little busness gadgets made in the late 1980s early 1990s... GameBoy being only one exaple... not however the most importent one...
This looks like it would be a pain to play.
The way the game pad is set up I imagin it would be a pain to accually play this thing.
Ok neat that it can be done... But I just can't see me using it to play games
Windows NT and CE also run on nonIntel hardware. Only 9x is bond to Intel hardware.
I understand the confusion.. Microsoft is using the Windows name to confuse people. NT and CE are not even remotely related to 9X. Thies are three diffrent operating systems sharing a look and feel interface.
To ferther the confusion Microsoft has damaged NT quite a bit...
While OS/2 was designed to run on nonIntel hardware IBM never took advantage of this sence OS/2 was not yet ready to do any heavy lifting hardware than running the office LAN (50 to 1,000 users vs Internet with a potetal of tens of thousands)
Microsoft tried to sell Windows NT for nonIntel machines but found people tech savy enough to use Risc servers are tech savy enough to stay away from Microsoft Windows (95,3.11). It made sence.. NT isn't Windows 95/3.11 it can do some heavy lifting but 95/3.11 for heavy work would be a joke. 95 for games becouse it's easy to lock up and nock out the rest of the operating system.. they do it and take over the system.. basicly reducing Windows 95 to that of a video game console.. with all the advatages of a PC keyboard, mouse and joystick.
Anyway... so Microsoft gave up on it and went the Intel optomisation route for NT.
When Alpha wanted to run NT it had to emulate the x86 to a degree becouse so many NT apps were not portable.
The Intel optomising made sence from Microsofts side.. However had Microsoft tryed to play that "NT is Windows" stunt techs wouldn't think "NT on Risc is a joke" when it wasn't.
They accadentally FUDed themselfs pritty badly... "If you don't know what you need NT for then you probably don't need NT at all" wops.. Great.. sence nobody knew what to do with NT at that time.. wonderful marketting...
Anyway yeah Microsoft can run NT and CE on non-x86 hardware but they didn't think that naming everything Windows users might give users the false impression that NT has all the defects of Windows... Being bond to X86 hardware being just one of many issues
Such hacks are a matter of reverse engenearing the hardware and publishing the results and hacking the accual software.
With Windows you'd have the additional step of reverse engenearing Windows and publishing the results.
It could be done but it may result in legal papers from Microsoft...
The makers of the Yopy might phone you and ask "Why?" but thats about all...
What service are they offering anyway?
The scanner reads a barcode that translates into a web url...
print a web url instead of the stupid bar code then you don't need the scanner or the service.
I'm doutful anyone would willingly paid just so they could scan urls instead of typing them
Ahh but the EULA dosn't apply becouse the toaster said no the first time not the user:)
(Ops)
Hay wait.. you just violated the EULA on the gun... you shot a non-living talking object...
It's only supposto be used on a living item....
*BANG* Ok now that was within the EULA *THUD*
The TiVo dose not on the surface appear to contain ANY hidden costs. You buy it take it home and plug it in.
Once you learn of the $10 a month fee you have allready paid for the box.
Selling at a loss can get you sued...
If your artificially low price hurts the sales of a compeating product the maker of that product may sue over it.
(They do not automaticly win BTW.. it needs to be shown that selling the product at a loss is abnormal.. in the video game market it is commen place and as such not an abnormal event.)
It's not privacy if you released the binary
and if you don't relase the binary then the GPL dosn't require you to release the code.
the BSD liccens scares me considerably...
People can only say what it dosn't do.. and don't seem able to say what it dose...
BTW... why would someone want to keep code a secret unless it's something unhealthy (such as a back door or embrace and extend)
The only freedom BSD preserves that the GPL dosn't is the freeom to allow a third party to take the freedom away...
The BSD liccens misses the whole point of liccensing the source to start with...
>This is especially true when one realizes that Bruce Perens and RMS are currently in the process of updating the GPL so that even internally distributed software may count as software being distributed and hence should be Opened
This sounds a bit FUD like...
First Bruce Perens has nothing to do with revisions to the GPL as he is not part of the FSF.. the organisation in charg of changes to the GPL.
Debian and the FSF could not comply with this change as the both do not release code they are testing. So Bruce Perens and RMS themselfs could not posably comply with thies requirements...
And frankly keepping "internally sensitive" code secret is why 1970s computers were so easy to crack.. The whole notion of not sharing security precuations with others made you more secure resulted in a great number of people having no clue what precautions to take.
A liccens is strings attached... releasing software under the BSD is NOT "no strings attached"... and if you don't know what those strings are then you may be restricting your users in ways you never imagined.
In the case of governemnt code whatever liccens is used it should require changes be reliease the way the GPL is.
With a BSD liccens we may be waiting for years for the source to be released while a friend of an elected offical sells us a closed source version.
Underhanded deals happen... a lot... and releasing source under an ineffective liccens like the BSD liccens is just inviting trubble.
Anyway this isn't a software author giving away his work out of a desire to make his work freely available..
This is government work given to the public (who ultimatly paid for it).
Ultimatly I think the GPL is far more reasonable.
BTW: It is standard operating procedure for some to sell free government information simply becouse it's so hard for the avrage person to get his hands on same.
Expect your BSD source to be "public" in a locked file cabonet in the basement bathroom with a sign on the door saying "beware of the lepard" while a friend of Senitor Barfly from the state of Confusion sells a binary only version of the software.
Becouse THAT is how government works...
On the other hand.. the GPL wouldn't exactly accept a locked file cabonet as "released" and Mr Barflys friend gets stuck with giving out the code.
On a final note... While searching governemnt information I had to access an FTP server that for some reason was accessable only from a very old version of FTP...
(probably a very old FTP server)
It was a bit difficult to get the data I needed.
But with the aid of some intresting software hacks I was able to download everything I needed quickly and effecently.
This was porbably set up this way to prevent access from newer equipment (Non Unix machines like Windows or MacOs.. and Unix users who were not familure with the older FTP client)
It was all reasonable and within limits but it was rather annoying...
At the time I was using a 3B2 (older Unix machine) so it all worked out for the better.
I think the US government should review open source liccenses and standardise on one..
I however strongly disagree that the GPL hurts the author.
The GPL is a bit borg-like.. RMS did this intentionally to encurage more open source develupment...
Most of this is just people getting upset over nothing.
But there can be problems there are liccens conflicts in government software...
So a standard should be picked to prevent conflicts... Not becouse one liccens is borg-like..
In my view the GPL offers more protection to the original author than any other liccens.
They may not be protections a given author cares about.. but they are there..
I just hope they don't go about writing YET ANNOTHER liccens.. we have enough problems as it is...
Incorrect...
You are allowed to distribute binarys IF the source is available..
If you made no changes to the source then the source is available from the same place you got it from.. if you made changes then you must provide those changes.
Commertal or non-commertal. dosn't matter...
The source must be available...
As a rule if your just giving it away then the source IS available..
Excuse me? Isn't that like paying for music with out permition?
Linux is liccensed to be distributed as widely as posable...
I guess it is posable to distribute Linux with out permition (binary only... and changes to code with no source provided)
Just as it is posable to buy CDs with out permition (Buy black market CDs instead of CDs made by the recording company) but it's not very likely to happen...
In my view it's less a problem that this one kid got cought and more a problem that ONE kid got cought.. not 1,000...
More effort is put into Napster than is put into hunting down pirates..
This one kid had put such a massive demand into his FTP server (from the comments it seems stuff you don't find on Napster or in the stores for that matter) that the RIAA couldn't ignore it.
He attracted such attention he'd have his connection pulled one way or annother.. Illegal or not...
How would it look if the RIAA ignored this kid?
But they do in effect ignore the vast majority of such FTP sites...
They do want to protect revenue stream..
From the comments it seems the music industry realises the full potental of Napster and knows that if Napster were allowed to develup on it's own unhindered the music industry themselfs couldn't provide a similer service and compleate on FAIR MARKET...
Basicly in my view the RIAA should go after people like this kid far more often than they do..
I so worry that the QCat is "Give away" to generate popularity.. In itself not a bad thing...
It's the "take back" end of it..
With open source drivers if they did "take back" the QCat someone could create compeating hardware using a diffrent design.
Netscape tried to pull this.. and was thwarted by Microsoft whom we worry is pulling a similer stunt with IE
I might add that IP rights don't fade (excluding TradeMarks) a person can be sued for years of abuse of IP.. The publishing of the QCat protocal dosn't grant anyone any rights to use that protocal. It only makes drivers posable... If someone made a compatable they could be sued.
They want to bring this product into the market and use freebes to bring it into everyones home. Good deal. But by denfending the drivers and preventing us from making our own open drivers they also have the additional power of being the only scanner.
A new scanner could not simply use a new protocal and add support to the same driver if the driver is closed.
Microsoft could make a new scanner.. a new service.. and just patch the Linux drivers... and push thies guys off the market..
If however the drivers themselfs are closed then a compatable driver is not so easy to make...
I profesionally understand his worry. He is conserned this will allow someone to build a whole new QCat. However my own understanding of IP law tells me he is wrong.. that a QCat clone would be a major violation of patents.
By the way.. if they didn't patent the protocall then I can see reason for worry...
But then if he didn't patent the protocal.. there is no intelectual property..
> PEOPLE want information to be free, and seem to have a tremendous lack of respect (or perhaps just a tremendous amount of ignorance) about our current economic system,
There is the catch 22... They are ignornent becouse they lack the information to realise why information isn't free...
Information is expensive, vital and in very short supply..
I personally have never used a NeXT however when visiting the personal home page of the maintainer of lynx (at least at the time) he talked about his computers.
One of his machines was a NeXT and he was proud of it.
Let us step back in time shall we.. I used a 3B2/300...
At the time the NeXT was created it was normal for Unix venders to charg extra for develupment tools (this being part of why the FSF exists) precompiled binarys of GCC for NeXT (and other systems) were available for download.
This same problem existed on consummer desktop machines at the same timeframe and still exists for Windows..
This explains why dev tools were not on NeXT (Why should NeXT offer dev tools if no one else will?)
Many Unix machines were still text only... X11 was (and still is) designed to access a larg remote mainframe at the other end of a lan not the computer right infront of you. Part of the problem Linux has with graphics comes from this "big slothy layor"[1] (along with limited support from hardware venders)
[1] Said on Geeks in Space
Eventually Linux may need to dump X11 for a consummer style GUI instead of a server style Network graphics interface...
Even if the 68000 that the NeXT was using at the time was cutting edge it was still not enough to run both client and server to run an X11.. graphics were still high load and anything that made it worse was a bad thing...
So it made perfict sence to create a whole new GUI.
NeXT makes a great Unix box for the 1980s.. like the 3B2.... and Sun i386...
But a Sun i386 today sucks eggs... 3B2 is slothy and for all that NeXTs problems are not having dev tools or X11... I'd say thats surviving time pritty nicely...
If they own the copyright this means she did it as "work for hire" it sucks but thats normal for the music industry..
Now it depends on her accual contract.. If they pay her a flat ammount then she is screwed... however that is just plain wrong. It makes the music artist into a factory worker producing bulk units (this works out for prolific artists but not for artists who like to produce one title every 2 to 5 years but extreamly prolific artists who like to publish everything also get shafted when they are told "No more" becouse the value of each title drops when you have to many titles).
Anyway... if her contract is by roialtys not by titles then she gets a cut.. part of this money comes from her titles...
Artists are usually paid by roialtys unless they are just hired for a one time deal (to fill in for someone else who may be out sick).
It's also bad for the recording company to do busness this way. The more titles an artist produces the less value each title has. There there is only one CD from a really good group containning basicly only the best recordings they ever made then it is more valuable to fans than the artist who puts out a new CD each month.
By roialtys each artist is encuraged to produce the best quality by title the artist is encuraged to throw out as much garbage as posable.
Side note.. many programmers are paid by salery not by roialtys....
How would Windows change if the programmers were paid by roialtys and not by salery?
[And you know Microsoft could afford to do that...]
In the past programmers were paid by roialtys... when comertal software could compeate with free software....
Hmmm... Time to dust off my old commodore disk drive.. set up a 64 emulation and code DVD DeCSS, Napster, one click shopping and a few other things. Save it all on old 5 1/4 inch disks.. print out 1980s style disk lables.. Then save the day with a bunch of prior art...
Ok I'm being silly... the one click shopping BTW would be a BBS instead of a website and it would be a SID napster instead of MP3s..
Then what.. Then they look in the copyright database and find none of it existed...
Wops...
If you can get old enough then it's during a time when copyrights had to be regestured to be recognised.
With public domain you can find a user group with a software libary that can conferm the software is from the 1970s or 80s... or a company like WC Cdrom that can certify the software was on an old CDrom sold during the early 1990s.
For newer stuff you need FreshMeat who tracks when the software was first announced on FM what version and what features came later on...
One of the first software patent horror storys I heard was a patent on a software tecnque allready in commen use. I suspect the patent itself was long sence eliminated due to heavy amounts of prior art..
Proving it isn't much of an issue.. it's pritty easy to provide at least a whitness if not documentation of age...
The problem is the patent office dosn't seem to care about doing any real prior art search...
It's not really dictating how we view DVDs.. it's getting paranoid over a player they don't control becouse of a poorly designed format and a great deal of poor planning..
Yeah thats a scarry thought....
However it would need to be embraced by avrage users and some technical people...
The avrage user isn't going to go for being required to have the computer connected to the net for so much time a month...
This is required if the computer is to be of any use for remote processing.
In any case I buy my computers in parts and asemble them (No not chip level.. I buy case, mother board etc...)
Nothing preinstalled this way...
Privacy in the public in effect dosn't exist.
If I walk around with no cloaths in my home and someone looks in my window they are invading my privacy... if I walk outside with no cloaths then it's indecent exposure...
Sence I don't wish to cause mass insaity and no one wishes to see my ugly butt there is no chance of eather...
Basicly your outside...
Unreasonable use of computing resorces?
Maybe such a law needs to be put in place...
Something like "Use of equipment that is far outside what the equipments known function or publicly accepted function or the owners publicly stated function"
Spam would be outside this standard sence clecting e-mail addresses is "far outside" e-mailing itself isn't so it's accually the colecting of addresses that would be made illegal...
(I like that.. ban "blind harvesting" of e-mail)
Anyway there is a clear and obveous alternitive of sending out humans to look at web urls that are banned by bots..... gives jobs to a lot of kids... (Wanted: Kids to surf websites to look for illegal matereal)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok this is what.. a Mac news outlet...
:)
Microsoft news outlets have clamed for a long time now they are fair with non-Microsoft products. Not missquoting RMS or mislabling him as a comunist and not giving Microsoft specal treatment.
But we know better... misquotes, improper tests and statistics inflasion is some of the things proMicrosoft publications have done. Add to this Microosofts own jernalist handlers and you can see Microsoft is never far from any such artical.
Now here comes a Mac mag.. Apple is one of long time rivals to Microsoft (I argue however that this relationship predates Microsoft as the evil empire and dates back to IBM as the evil empire.. then Apple.. then Microsoft.. in that order.. Apples time of evil was short mostly becouse Apple isn't evil.. and the patents were Xeroxes idea Apple simply paid for them)
Anyway... this is about Microsoft basing not Apple bashing so let's get this rant on track
Microsoft publications clame they are not anti-anything and just trying to publish the facts.
However thies "facts" are clearly not from the real world but from some Sim world Microsoft has running back at MsHQ.. probably on a Sun Sparc sence it seems so presistent in it's "facts".
Yeah Microsofts people didn't say they use NT everywhere.. they said they ignore the people who laugh at Microsoft for having to use Unix systems in it's own company.
Microsoft would have us believe Unix is obsolete.. that it can not do anything anymore...
But Linux is 10 years old not 30 or 40... Windows is a few years older...
(Build on 20 year old Dos based on 30 year old CP/M.. Giving Windows the same legacy as Linux... a 10 year old system based on 30 year old design... only Unix was compleatly revised 10 years ago. CP/M was not)
Every time Linux shows up with a bug fix Microsoft "jernalists" scream "See Linux has bugs"
But the reality is... they can't seem to report Linux bugs that have not been fixed. Ohh they exist but Microsoft jernalists are not ready to really understand Linux well enough to find them.
In the mean time defective features (Unix world calls thies "bugs" BTW not featues) stay in place on Windows. No effort is made to safe guard them, sheald them or remove them leaving Windows open to more attacks.
While Linux includes such minnor bug reports as "Icons are ugly" Microsofts "Features" include e-mail viruses.
Yeah Mac jernalists are gona be slanted... Linux jernalists say "We are LINUX jernalists.. you KNOW our slant" Microsoft jernalists say "Slant us? *fnord*Windows is god*fnord* nooo *fnord*worship bill gates*fnord* we wouldn't do that"
Yeah even our own CmdrTaco has an obveous Debian bies.. yet he still reports on RedHat and SuSA, Mandrake and all the other Linux disros of note...
So in closing *Fnord*Linux from Scratch*Fnord* I'd like to say that basicly right now unbiesed reporting is a rare gem... *Fnord*Meow Pawjects*Fnord* and that we need to keep an eye out for the yellow in jernalism today *Fnord*Vote for Ralf Nader*Fnord* thank you... *Fnord* ZenToe.cgi *Fnord*
Initally it's "They are tracking me"...
But... That happends anyway.. ZenToe.cgi logs you in. It would be a small effort to add a simple logger to the core and track everyone around my website.
But the web server dose that anyway..
Browser cookies.. etc etc etc It's allready here.. so whats so bad about having a scanner do it?
But this isn't like a web cookie.. it's built in hardware.. you change computers the id code stays.. Your computer is hit with a virus your cookies are gone... the ID code stays..
Your computer is distoryed by lightening... assuming the Cue Cat survived.. the ID stays... If the Cue Cat dies then you get a new Cue Cat...
And Radio Shack has your real name, address and phone number on record.. (They have been asking for this information sence the 1980s.. to give them credit this data lasts only a month.. they clear out old records they only want data on frequent shoppers)
Unless Radio Shack has a privacy policy (and I doupt they do as nobody really pushed the issue for such policys in the real world only on websites) it would be quite easy for that Cue Cat ID code to have your real name etc attached...
Not so easy normally...
Even if your computer had an ID imbeded into the CPU it would not be so easy to track this back to a real person (not imposable).
But there it is.. a quick and simple record... allready supplyed to DC.
To your name, number, address, credit card.
And as this is about buying stuff on-line.. an easly organised databank of your buying habbits.
Theres a product right there... a compleate databank of your buying habbits... with your real name, phone number, e-mail address, web url, partical cordinates of your soul, what you had for breakfast etc.
This is a really effective tool for gathering larg amounts of data about people and selling it
Ohh that clarifys everything....
Hay everyone... the DeCss.tar.gz file is ok.. the MPAA is worryed about a windows binary not a C source code...
Ok that explains everything......
Bizz... wrong answer.. DeCss is in Ansi C.. it compiles on Linux, Windows, MacOs, BeOs, Palm, etc.. basicly anything that you can get an Ansi C compiler for..
In short that means ANYTHING... and that gose dubble for any Unix platform...
and finnally... EXE isn't source code...
Why? Vaporware dose the job just fine.. why worry about accually producing software?
In reality it's not in the vested intrests to produce DVD software for any platform. The greatest hope they might have is that "This Linux thing" takes root and crushes Microsoft Windows, MacOs.. and the DVD software that was put out a long time ago to drive intrest in the DVD format.
Now that DVD is a strong format with a strong market it would be better for them to kill DVD software. But there is no real agenda to do this sence DVD money comes from disk sales primarly and player sales secondary. They can live with DVD software but they certenly don't have any vested intrest in keepping it around.
If they could eliminate Windows and Mac DVD software they probably wouldn't. Not worth the potental backlash.
I'm not saying it's part of the agenda. They'd rather have good press than more player sales. But I doupt had they considered the posability of annother DVD player they'd have reconsidered this action.
The primary motivation btw is itself a farce...
This software is for PLAYING DVDs.. the fear they have is that it can be used for COPYING DVDs and uploading them to the Internet.
Now for the irony...
Directions for pireting DVDs or ANY video by Felinoid...
get a legal certifyed stapped ok DVD player.. get any old screen capture recording program (Qseeme is one example thow the codec is pritty low grade and it isn't a recording program) basicly anything that uses screen capture in place of a camra driver...
Place the camra capture window over the DVD player.. start the capture then press play.
When done.. edit the results to remove the frames before you pressed play.
Save to your favoret video format.. upload to GnuTella...
The diffrence between doing the above and making a piracy program using DVD DeCSS?
Doing it with DeCSS requires you to write the encoding codec for the format your recording to... and a larg body of other software...
Lots easyer to just do a screen capture with software that dose screen capture in place of a camra driver...
I think you may have missed the point...
But by very very little..
The games are unplayable on this thing.. so it seems.. Just a hack to see "Look.. see"
This thing is to expensive to be a gameboy clone anyway... But if you get a PDA then you can save a little by using this instead of a gameboy
(think.. 1,000 remote controlls... thats what your looking at with PDAs and portable game boxes really soon... this PDA for one thing.. this PDA for that.. etc etc etc)
As for color.. busness graphs etc and other details also easyer on the eyes when it's color. The trade off isn't cost but battery life.
Also it's nice to have photos of your kid in your PDA instead of your wallet.. update them more often.. that sort of thing..
Nude pictues of your GF also.. not so easy to get to when they are on your PDA instead of your wallet.
Anyway.. a color screen is useful for looking at data or images I wouldn't go so far as porting games to the thing...
But.. if you allready have a PDA.. then why buy a pocket game box?
It's not a replacement to your computer of course but it is a replacement to the 1,001 little busness gadgets made in the late 1980s early 1990s... GameBoy being only one exaple... not however the most importent one...
This looks like it would be a pain to play.
The way the game pad is set up I imagin it would be a pain to accually play this thing.
Ok neat that it can be done... But I just can't see me using it to play games
Yet annother user who dosn't know the diffrence between Windows and those other operating systems shipped under the name.
Windows NT and CE also run on nonIntel hardware. Only 9x is bond to Intel hardware.
I understand the confusion.. Microsoft is using the Windows name to confuse people. NT and CE are not even remotely related to 9X. Thies are three diffrent operating systems sharing a look and feel interface.
To ferther the confusion Microsoft has damaged NT quite a bit...
While OS/2 was designed to run on nonIntel hardware IBM never took advantage of this sence OS/2 was not yet ready to do any heavy lifting hardware than running the office LAN (50 to 1,000 users vs Internet with a potetal of tens of thousands)
Microsoft tried to sell Windows NT for nonIntel machines but found people tech savy enough to use Risc servers are tech savy enough to stay away from Microsoft Windows (95,3.11). It made sence.. NT isn't Windows 95/3.11 it can do some heavy lifting but 95/3.11 for heavy work would be a joke. 95 for games becouse it's easy to lock up and nock out the rest of the operating system.. they do it and take over the system.. basicly reducing Windows 95 to that of a video game console.. with all the advatages of a PC keyboard, mouse and joystick.
Anyway... so Microsoft gave up on it and went the Intel optomisation route for NT.
When Alpha wanted to run NT it had to emulate the x86 to a degree becouse so many NT apps were not portable.
The Intel optomising made sence from Microsofts side.. However had Microsoft tryed to play that "NT is Windows" stunt techs wouldn't think "NT on Risc is a joke" when it wasn't.
They accadentally FUDed themselfs pritty badly... "If you don't know what you need NT for then you probably don't need NT at all" wops.. Great.. sence nobody knew what to do with NT at that time.. wonderful marketting...
Anyway yeah Microsoft can run NT and CE on non-x86 hardware but they didn't think that naming everything Windows users might give users the false impression that NT has all the defects of Windows... Being bond to X86 hardware being just one of many issues
If you did Microsoft might sue.
Such hacks are a matter of reverse engenearing the hardware and publishing the results and hacking the accual software.
With Windows you'd have the additional step of reverse engenearing Windows and publishing the results.
It could be done but it may result in legal papers from Microsoft...
The makers of the Yopy might phone you and ask "Why?" but thats about all...
What service are they offering anyway?
The scanner reads a barcode that translates into a web url...
print a web url instead of the stupid bar code then you don't need the scanner or the service.
I'm doutful anyone would willingly paid just so they could scan urls instead of typing them
Ahh but the EULA dosn't apply becouse the toaster said no the first time not the user :)
(Ops)
Hay wait.. you just violated the EULA on the gun... you shot a non-living talking object...
It's only supposto be used on a living item....
*BANG* Ok now that was within the EULA *THUD*
The TiVo dose not on the surface appear to contain ANY hidden costs. You buy it take it home and plug it in.
Once you learn of the $10 a month fee you have allready paid for the box.
Selling at a loss can get you sued...
If your artificially low price hurts the sales of a compeating product the maker of that product may sue over it.
(They do not automaticly win BTW.. it needs to be shown that selling the product at a loss is abnormal.. in the video game market it is commen place and as such not an abnormal event.)
It's not privacy if you released the binary
and if you don't relase the binary then the GPL dosn't require you to release the code.
the BSD liccens scares me considerably...
People can only say what it dosn't do.. and don't seem able to say what it dose...
BTW... why would someone want to keep code a secret unless it's something unhealthy (such as a back door or embrace and extend)
The only freedom BSD preserves that the GPL dosn't is the freeom to allow a third party to take the freedom away...
The BSD liccens misses the whole point of liccensing the source to start with...
>This is especially true when one realizes that Bruce Perens and RMS are currently in the process of updating the GPL so that even internally distributed software may count as software being distributed and hence should be Opened
This sounds a bit FUD like...
First Bruce Perens has nothing to do with revisions to the GPL as he is not part of the FSF.. the organisation in charg of changes to the GPL.
Debian and the FSF could not comply with this change as the both do not release code they are testing. So Bruce Perens and RMS themselfs could not posably comply with thies requirements...
And frankly keepping "internally sensitive" code secret is why 1970s computers were so easy to crack.. The whole notion of not sharing security precuations with others made you more secure resulted in a great number of people having no clue what precautions to take.
A liccens is strings attached... releasing software under the BSD is NOT "no strings attached"... and if you don't know what those strings are then you may be restricting your users in ways you never imagined.
In the case of governemnt code whatever liccens is used it should require changes be reliease the way the GPL is.
With a BSD liccens we may be waiting for years for the source to be released while a friend of an elected offical sells us a closed source version.
Underhanded deals happen... a lot... and releasing source under an ineffective liccens like the BSD liccens is just inviting trubble.
Anyway this isn't a software author giving away his work out of a desire to make his work freely available..
This is government work given to the public (who ultimatly paid for it).
Ultimatly I think the GPL is far more reasonable.
BTW: It is standard operating procedure for some to sell free government information simply becouse it's so hard for the avrage person to get his hands on same.
Expect your BSD source to be "public" in a locked file cabonet in the basement bathroom with a sign on the door saying "beware of the lepard" while a friend of Senitor Barfly from the state of Confusion sells a binary only version of the software.
Becouse THAT is how government works...
On the other hand.. the GPL wouldn't exactly accept a locked file cabonet as "released" and Mr Barflys friend gets stuck with giving out the code.
On a final note... While searching governemnt information I had to access an FTP server that for some reason was accessable only from a very old version of FTP...
(probably a very old FTP server)
It was a bit difficult to get the data I needed.
But with the aid of some intresting software hacks I was able to download everything I needed quickly and effecently.
This was porbably set up this way to prevent access from newer equipment (Non Unix machines like Windows or MacOs.. and Unix users who were not familure with the older FTP client)
It was all reasonable and within limits but it was rather annoying...
At the time I was using a 3B2 (older Unix machine) so it all worked out for the better.
I think the US government should review open source liccenses and standardise on one..
I however strongly disagree that the GPL hurts the author.
The GPL is a bit borg-like.. RMS did this intentionally to encurage more open source develupment...
Most of this is just people getting upset over nothing.
But there can be problems there are liccens conflicts in government software...
So a standard should be picked to prevent conflicts... Not becouse one liccens is borg-like..
In my view the GPL offers more protection to the original author than any other liccens.
They may not be protections a given author cares about.. but they are there..
I just hope they don't go about writing YET ANNOTHER liccens.. we have enough problems as it is...
Incorrect...
You are allowed to distribute binarys IF the source is available..
If you made no changes to the source then the source is available from the same place you got it from.. if you made changes then you must provide those changes.
Commertal or non-commertal. dosn't matter...
The source must be available...
As a rule if your just giving it away then the source IS available..
Excuse me? Isn't that like paying for music with out permition?
Linux is liccensed to be distributed as widely as posable...
I guess it is posable to distribute Linux with out permition (binary only... and changes to code with no source provided)
Just as it is posable to buy CDs with out permition (Buy black market CDs instead of CDs made by the recording company) but it's not very likely to happen...
In my view it's less a problem that this one kid got cought and more a problem that ONE kid got cought.. not 1,000...
More effort is put into Napster than is put into hunting down pirates..
This one kid had put such a massive demand into his FTP server (from the comments it seems stuff you don't find on Napster or in the stores for that matter) that the RIAA couldn't ignore it.
He attracted such attention he'd have his connection pulled one way or annother.. Illegal or not...
How would it look if the RIAA ignored this kid?
But they do in effect ignore the vast majority of such FTP sites...
They do want to protect revenue stream..
From the comments it seems the music industry realises the full potental of Napster and knows that if Napster were allowed to develup on it's own unhindered the music industry themselfs couldn't provide a similer service and compleate on FAIR MARKET...
Basicly in my view the RIAA should go after people like this kid far more often than they do..
I so worry that the QCat is "Give away" to generate popularity.. In itself not a bad thing...
It's the "take back" end of it..
With open source drivers if they did "take back" the QCat someone could create compeating hardware using a diffrent design.
Netscape tried to pull this.. and was thwarted by Microsoft whom we worry is pulling a similer stunt with IE
I might add that IP rights don't fade (excluding TradeMarks) a person can be sued for years of abuse of IP.. The publishing of the QCat protocal dosn't grant anyone any rights to use that protocal. It only makes drivers posable... If someone made a compatable they could be sued.
They want to bring this product into the market and use freebes to bring it into everyones home. Good deal. But by denfending the drivers and preventing us from making our own open drivers they also have the additional power of being the only scanner.
A new scanner could not simply use a new protocal and add support to the same driver if the driver is closed.
Microsoft could make a new scanner.. a new service.. and just patch the Linux drivers... and push thies guys off the market..
If however the drivers themselfs are closed then a compatable driver is not so easy to make...
I profesionally understand his worry. He is conserned this will allow someone to build a whole new QCat. However my own understanding of IP law tells me he is wrong.. that a QCat clone would be a major violation of patents.
By the way.. if they didn't patent the protocall then I can see reason for worry...
But then if he didn't patent the protocal.. there is no intelectual property..
> PEOPLE want information to be free, and seem to have a tremendous lack of respect (or perhaps just a tremendous amount of ignorance) about our current economic system,
There is the catch 22... They are ignornent becouse they lack the information to realise why information isn't free...
Information is expensive, vital and in very short supply..
> THIRD RULE OF SLASHDOT READ THE DAMN ARTICLE.
(Third rule of geeks in space.. don't talk about anything BUT geeks in space while on geeks in space) [CmdrTaco]
Rule 4.. Ignore rules 1-3.. existing posts.. and the artical itself
GCC will be available for MacOs X soon
I personally have never used a NeXT however when visiting the personal home page of the maintainer of lynx (at least at the time) he talked about his computers.
One of his machines was a NeXT and he was proud of it.
Let us step back in time shall we.. I used a 3B2/300...
At the time the NeXT was created it was normal for Unix venders to charg extra for develupment tools (this being part of why the FSF exists) precompiled binarys of GCC for NeXT (and other systems) were available for download.
This same problem existed on consummer desktop machines at the same timeframe and still exists for Windows..
This explains why dev tools were not on NeXT (Why should NeXT offer dev tools if no one else will?)
Many Unix machines were still text only... X11 was (and still is) designed to access a larg remote mainframe at the other end of a lan not the computer right infront of you. Part of the problem Linux has with graphics comes from this "big slothy layor"[1] (along with limited support from hardware venders)
[1] Said on Geeks in Space
Eventually Linux may need to dump X11 for a consummer style GUI instead of a server style Network graphics interface...
Even if the 68000 that the NeXT was using at the time was cutting edge it was still not enough to run both client and server to run an X11.. graphics were still high load and anything that made it worse was a bad thing...
So it made perfict sence to create a whole new GUI.
NeXT makes a great Unix box for the 1980s.. like the 3B2.... and Sun i386...
But a Sun i386 today sucks eggs... 3B2 is slothy and for all that NeXTs problems are not having dev tools or X11... I'd say thats surviving time pritty nicely...
If they own the copyright this means she did it as "work for hire" it sucks but thats normal for the music industry..
Now it depends on her accual contract.. If they pay her a flat ammount then she is screwed... however that is just plain wrong. It makes the music artist into a factory worker producing bulk units (this works out for prolific artists but not for artists who like to produce one title every 2 to 5 years but extreamly prolific artists who like to publish everything also get shafted when they are told "No more" becouse the value of each title drops when you have to many titles).
Anyway... if her contract is by roialtys not by titles then she gets a cut.. part of this money comes from her titles...
Artists are usually paid by roialtys unless they are just hired for a one time deal (to fill in for someone else who may be out sick).
It's also bad for the recording company to do busness this way. The more titles an artist produces the less value each title has. There there is only one CD from a really good group containning basicly only the best recordings they ever made then it is more valuable to fans than the artist who puts out a new CD each month.
By roialtys each artist is encuraged to produce the best quality by title the artist is encuraged to throw out as much garbage as posable.
Side note.. many programmers are paid by salery not by roialtys....
How would Windows change if the programmers were paid by roialtys and not by salery?
[And you know Microsoft could afford to do that...]
In the past programmers were paid by roialtys... when comertal software could compeate with free software....
Hmmm... Time to dust off my old commodore disk drive.. set up a 64 emulation and code DVD DeCSS, Napster, one click shopping and a few other things. Save it all on old 5 1/4 inch disks.. print out 1980s style disk lables.. Then save the day with a bunch of prior art...
Ok I'm being silly... the one click shopping BTW would be a BBS instead of a website and it would be a SID napster instead of MP3s..
Then what.. Then they look in the copyright database and find none of it existed...
Wops...
If you can get old enough then it's during a time when copyrights had to be regestured to be recognised.
With public domain you can find a user group with a software libary that can conferm the software is from the 1970s or 80s... or a company like WC Cdrom that can certify the software was on an old CDrom sold during the early 1990s.
For newer stuff you need FreshMeat who tracks when the software was first announced on FM what version and what features came later on...
One of the first software patent horror storys I heard was a patent on a software tecnque allready in commen use. I suspect the patent itself was long sence eliminated due to heavy amounts of prior art..
Proving it isn't much of an issue.. it's pritty easy to provide at least a whitness if not documentation of age...
The problem is the patent office dosn't seem to care about doing any real prior art search...
It's not really dictating how we view DVDs.. it's getting paranoid over a player they don't control becouse of a poorly designed format and a great deal of poor planning..
Yeah thats a scarry thought....
However it would need to be embraced by avrage users and some technical people...
The avrage user isn't going to go for being required to have the computer connected to the net for so much time a month...
This is required if the computer is to be of any use for remote processing.
In any case I buy my computers in parts and asemble them (No not chip level.. I buy case, mother board etc...)
Nothing preinstalled this way...
Privacy in the public in effect dosn't exist.
If I walk around with no cloaths in my home and someone looks in my window they are invading my privacy... if I walk outside with no cloaths then it's indecent exposure...
Sence I don't wish to cause mass insaity and no one wishes to see my ugly butt there is no chance of eather...
Basicly your outside...
Unreasonable use of computing resorces?
Maybe such a law needs to be put in place...
Something like "Use of equipment that is far outside what the equipments known function or publicly accepted function or the owners publicly stated function"
Spam would be outside this standard sence clecting e-mail addresses is "far outside" e-mailing itself isn't so it's accually the colecting of addresses that would be made illegal...
(I like that.. ban "blind harvesting" of e-mail)
Anyway there is a clear and obveous alternitive of sending out humans to look at web urls that are banned by bots..... gives jobs to a lot of kids... (Wanted: Kids to surf websites to look for illegal matereal)