I rember when he ran afowl with his recording studio and had to give up his recording name for a while (a loophole in the contract.. they owned music recorded under than name if he recorded music under a diffrent name it was his).
The problem was he's a prolific artist and wanted to release all his music. The recording studio didn't like that idea and would only release a fraction of his stuff.
I suspect the contract expired. We are talking the 1980s and it was probably a 5 year contract.
So getting away from all that and doing stuff under his own lable gives him a connection to the fans that he as an artist can be emethetic to.
Also his experence with a recording company controlling his music (in his case simply saying how much he can produce) gives him a heathly distast for the traditional recording companys.
In the mean time I'd like to add something.
Recording companys had plenty of warning as to what's to come in the 1980s.
An Apple// with a $2,000 sound card, and lots of really expensive ram and a really expensive 20 meg hard disk would be able to record music digitally and reproduce it at CD quality.
Also really expensive sound sample keyboards could record short samples.
Computers were imporving and it was purely a matter of time when that $2,000 sound card was $50 that 20 meg hd was in everybodys computer and the ram was cheap (however not expecting that everyone would need that much ram for the OS but every time there is more ram there are apps to use it).
Audio tape allready existed and was costing the music industry. But the losses were limited as anolog loses quality per copy.
They didn't look forward. They didn't see a threat comming at them at a snails pace.
Then digital audio tape. They paniced and got that banned. Ok now ferther warning of what was to come.
Did they think they could just get the sound cards banned?
Late 1980s the sound cards came down in price. 1990s they reached a point where every computer had a sound card and a CD rom drive that can rip music. Then the Internet.
Still not worryed.... MP3s.... panic again...
What is it with thies people? A little forsite they'd have from the early part of the 1980s to the late part of the 1990s to prepair for the eventual arival of MP3s. The unavoidable.
They had that long to create a busness plan that would handle this situation.
I'm not gona dream up a busness plan for them to folow in under 5 seconds someone could pick apart pritty easly.
The point is the music industry could have spent the time working with busness experts to devise a busness plan. Come on people you had 10 years you think your own busness managment experts couldn't come up with a few good ideas in that time?
They got one item banned. They think that is goning to happen forever? Just becouse it's inconvenent to them?
I wonder what they'd have done if the Dat was released in it's origial form with no anti-piracy technology? I wonder what would happen if the white house felt the industry needed to addapt to the new technology instead of passing laws restricting technology in the name of protecting industry.
I wonder what they'd do if that law was eliminated and DAT could be sold un-encombered.... Politics are fickle things people. It can happen. Elect a techno friendly presedent and maybe it will...
BTW.. dose anyone know of anyone with a tech clue running for the presedents office?
Gore.. no: Encryption
Bush.. no: he dosn't seem to have much of any clue (My personal bies)
Is this was about accually portecting kids (it's not but say otherwise for a moment) I did a Google search on "God dose not exist" and I found a number of articals that would strongly confuse a child.
The first few were accually arguments against that clame. Others argumenst for it. Many are convoluted and/or scary. To a child not quite ready for this level in indept philosophical argument it could scare far worse than porn.
But it's not about protecting kids. It's purely liability. Thies filters don't protect kids and it will allways be up to parents to be activly involved.
But this is purely a liability issue. The kids will still be damaged but it won't be from porn.
(as if seeing the nude human form could cause damage)
It's one thing when someone wants to pass a law saying "All schools must use filtering software" or worse "All schools must use brand X filtering software" but when the head of a libary whos job it is to accually run the libary desides to add a filter thats his job and if there is a problem you have a real person to talk to. If the software dosn't work the head of the libary may also junk the software.
At core.. if the software dosn't work can you junk it? Is the software there becouse someone in charg wants it or is it there from a mandate.
Yes it's ok when someone who is accually responsable for the facility says "We want filters". It's NOT ok when someone crams a law.
Basicly the problem is if you just mandate it the filter will be a random off the shelf solution that dosn't do anything. When it's a choise made by someone accually in charg then he will go for the best posable solution.
And so while I'm not able to answer your question I can at least ease your morals. Your job is not to satisify some random mandate. It's the mandates that are evil.
This was done to protect the owner of the equipment from liability.
If the software dosn't work it WILL me removed.
If this were a mandate the software will probably not work and it won't matter.
Yahoo News isn't much diffrent from Slashdot.
Yahoo being a link angentcy is just copying Slashdots "news". Occasionally this means linking to press releases.
Yahoo dosn't copy it compleately ofcourse. No comments section. No commintary from Yahoo. Just a link.
While taken from Slashdot Yahoo is doing this in Yahoos own style. Just link it. This can result in Yahoo posting press releases.
In the end Yahoo is "News for Investors" It's about the stocks man....
So like Suns little "Microsoft copyed our vision" rant wouldn't get the laughs it got from Slashdot. Becouse stock investers use those statments to understand the thinking of the companys and Microsoft copying Sun means basicly this isn't a true reflection of Microsofts ideals or goals but just something that was good and so Microsoft copyed it.
The news on Yahoo is gona be a bit.. umm strange... But it matters. Like when the news media gives the presedent of the United States the mike and just let's him rant. It's news becouse he runs things and what he's saying could become a facter in our daily lifes even if he's totall off his rocker. So the more factless his comments are the more newsworthy they become.
In the stock market the same rule applys. The more factless Adobes press release is the more newsworthy it is. This is stock moving data.
A factless tech specs sheat is very newsworthy on Slashdot. Oh wow a new technology. Yeah prepetual motion machine marke 5. Oh great... Bad technology to reduce a $2,000 computer into a $2,000 pile of junk.
Thats why it's news... not becouse it's factual but becouse Adobe is nuts
Throw asside the "You have no choice if your ISP uses it" argument. Ask your ISP before joining. Good idea for both sides sence your better off with ISP side filtering if you like filtering.
But it's not really IMAPS fault so much as AboveNet who uses it for peer filtering. That means any traffic that might go through them.
It's been said you can bypass AboveNet but exactly how you bypass any commen net carryer... let alone a backbone... is a carefully guarded secret.
No someone else handles my route tables and thats normal.. anyway such a procedure is the same as opt out and give it up thats exactly the problem we have with spam...
But.... AboveNets abuse of the list is something for a spammer to take up with Above not with RBL.
RBL presents a list for volintary filtering. Thats it's designed intent thats it's goal. Thats what the corts should look at.
You know what... you reminded me of all those nifty Usenet copyright violations.
Mag/newspaper articals, books, etc... Just scan em in OCR fix the OCR defects and post... (If your so inclined you can also just type it all in by hand).
Not just text.... image files... "gigs and gigs of copyright violations" <- the discription attached to one porn newsgroup...
How did anyone survive all that? They went after the accual violators... and worked with people to get the message out. For the most part it's done and over with. It may still happen but theres no rush to steal books.
It was handled in a nice polite mannor. "Please don't do this" not "Dear sir, We are legal experts here to scare you".
The RIAA could take some lessons from recent history. Yes the Internet is new but the text and still image world is allways going to get hit first...
Accually the GPL dose NOT need the EULA to exist. The GPL isn't the shrinkwrap liccens the EULA makes posable... The GPL grants redistrobution rights that would simply not exist without the GPL. The user has all the same rights to use the software that a user would have had the GPL been replaced with the standard "all rights reserved" copyright.
Also Microsofts has had shrinkwrap liccenses long before the EULA so it's quite posable Microsofts own liccens dosn't accually need the EULA.
Now if copyrights were to go away... the GPL would simply cease to exist.. But then the GPL would also cease to have any meaning. The whole idea of the GPL is to prevent someone from running off with someone elses free works. Eliminate copyrights and you eliminate this problem.
But copyrights serve a lagit function. People code for a living and they need copyrights to protect that work from theft.
My personal alternitive to the GPL would simply be make it just as illegal to turn public domain into products as it is to give away commertal code.
I mean it....
I do NOT want to see this in the stores...
I hear just about enough about problems with "Linux" that are problems in ONE distrobution, problems that no longer exist or problems that exist in the PC hardware design not in Linux.
[This on top of the FUD]
I do not need to be told how horrid Linux is by former Linux watch users...
Great proof of consept... wonderful.. Linux on a watch. Horray. It's done.. now stuff it in the nearest trash receptical and work on some other neat toy.
Not entirely correct....
Win 95 boots from Dos like Win 3.x dose..
From there Win 95 runs Dos in a VM the way 3.x dose..
The diffrence between Dos under Win95 and Dos under 3.x is that Dos on Win95 is hardcoded to boot Win95 automaticly.
This is for two reasons. 1. Present the illusion that Win95 is booted directly, 2. To intigrate Dos and Windows so Microsoft can legally continue to bundle Dos and Windows together as one pacage.
Removing Dos from WinME isn't some evil act.. It's giving the consummer in WinME what they prommised in Win95.
I attribute more mallance and incompatence to Dos being included with Win95 than I do with the exclusion from WinME.
I think history will record this time as a time of political ludites.
Going after technology not criminals.
We don't arrest people for wearing all black. We don't ban flashlights or lock picks. We don't ban things becouse a narrow few are threatoned.
We do go after companys that do false/missleading advertising and/or produce shooty products.
But in the high technology arena we let companys issue shrinkwrap liccenses that nullify consummer protection laws. We don't presue false/missleading advertising (to the point of it evolving into an art) and we don't hold the end user responsable for criminal acts.
If a tool is used for a criminal act the tool dose not transform into the embodyment of evil. It remains a tool.
This is the day and age of paranoia... a time of ludites and politics...
It is a good day for ranting....
In the long run... New tools and forums will be set up. Advocacy etc. A body of experence is built to prepair for any situation.
20 years from now... someone will have a new situation.. a new macarthyism.. a new age of politics and fear... one internet search later and problem DIES!!!!....
It's a pain in the backside to be in the fight. To be the ones fighting for freedom. It's not a bloody war this time. Just a legalistic one. Costing in millions of dollars instead of millions of lifes. But it's still annoying...
Next time it'll be the cost of millions of hours...
then it'll simply become a minnor inconvence...
The price of freedom WAS the price of blood.. that price is paid.. now it's costing in hard cold cash.. when the cost is purely time we'll have pritty much secured our freedom for all time...
Microsoft has continuously clamed Windows 9x as a compleate operating system but anyone willing to challange Microsoft will notice that Windows 9x runs on top of Dos just as Windows allways has.
Windows is obsolete. This has been my assertion for a long time. It's not an operating system itself but a batch of enhancments to Dos (multiasker, graphical interface, and network driver...).
As such Microsofts cheaf compeditor wasn't Apple or Linux or IBM but Dubble Dos and Deskview and every Dos enhancment pacage out there.
This being part of why Windows won the market. Why switch to MacOs, Unix or OS/2 when you can continue to use Dos? The industry standard for 10 years...
Microsoft couldn't remove Dos... Dos is what put Windows in the marketplace.
Now Microsoft CAN and they DO. There is no omnus motive to this. So an old obsolete Dos ultility won't work on WinME... blah... LILO still works...
Linux dosn't run under Dos it reboots out of Dos into Linux. UMSdos still works. It just needs the stupid file system nothing more.
My worry isn't that Microsoft removed Dos from WinME. My consern is that 5 years of Windows computer experts successfully ignored it's the fact that it's there becouse Windows is still a Dos App...
The question is.... Did Microsoft really remove Dos or did they just do a better job of covering up it's existence?
Experement... this will mess your Windows up a tad but try this anyway...
Install a Dos upgrade (IBM Dos or DrDos... MsDos upgrade won't do it...) or just install Dos by hand:) This can be done with Sys command (if memory serves.. this was a long time ago).
If it works it'll boot dos... not proff... That's got Dos installed on a Dos FS... like Linux installed.. it may not have been there before...
Then go to cd/windows if you can find a program like win.exe... run it... Dose Windows ME boot?
Even if it has some nasty behavure and crashes if Win.exe runs and TRYS to boot Windows.. you have your varification... Thow it dosn't boot under any stock version of Dos.. this to be expected... I'm supprised that Win 9x ran fine under Dos 5.x
If however it dosn't even give a graphic "Booting Windows" or anything like that.. Dos really has been removed...
I'm saying all this while I have no access to WinME... so just experement and post responce..
Oh yeah and ummm reinstall becouse nodoupt this'll really mess up Windows:)
HTML and HTTP was born standard.. (HTML is a markup language not a programming language and HTTP is a data transer protocal.. they exist as standards)
C was in wide use with a standard.. that standard got ignored but it did exist.
Most programming languages start off with one design then everyone forks from it and then a year or so after everyone uses it a standards organisation puts out a standard. ANSI C...
Today standards are taken more sereously than they were 20 years ago and I havn't really seen the flurry of new languages like we had in the 1970s.
The problem 20 years ago however wasn't lack of standard. The original design is the standard. People just didn't care.
The way Microsoft treated Java is the way people treated C. It was designed standard but Borland etc wanted to make it "better" and changed it to be enhanced for diffrent platforms.
Forths solution was to let people rewrite the language. Add and remove commands. This ment you could just rewrite the whole language and make it compatable with an existing standard.
Not a good solution... but then how many people use forth today?
How much of this was his design and how much was hier ups saying "Gee wouldn't it be nice if..."
In todays world you design Apps, operating systems and programming languages diffrently.
With Apps you have a known goal and a known result. The rest tends to be fuzzy but managable.
With operating systems there is a basic design goal. Easy to visialise but internals need to be left to the experts.
A new programming language is an enigma from day one. Only the designer has a clear idea what it will look like and even he is wrong.
Sun knows how to make operating systems and knows how to back off enough to let people get the work done.
But even that wasn't enough to prevent... Java....
Microsoft is far worse. I can only guess what they do but it shows in the results that managment has WAY to much say in app and os design.
So the question is... did Microsoft lay off or did marketting climb all over this like ants...
Microsoft is capable of doing this.. setting a team away from the normal managment style and let them go at it. They can do this for ANY project.
My question is... did they... can't assume they did.. can't assume they didn't....
But then if it turns out as planned we know Microsoft did something right...
I doupt we'll have a Java... Microsoft would rather kill the progect than have a "all new Java"...
My guess... Market droids poked in a lot and said "Don't make it like Java" and walked away.. thats all.. do ANYTHING just don't make annother Java...
Most news websites pull traffic to get visits. Visits turn into banner clicks.
So what to do? Well don't click on the banner ads.
It's a little hard to stop the angry mob from visiting but it's a good idea to tell them not to click on the banners.
What you mean they'll lissen? No not really... they won't click on banners anyway.. but Moody et all will look at the pees and then check banner stats.. and sure enough... the additional traffic generated NO additional banner clicks.
They may even see a significant number of them didn't even load the banners at all (Banner filters are your friend)... and some didn't load ANY GRAPHICS WHAT SO EVER!!! (All hail Lynx)...
Just bandwith and load... increasing costs without generating additional revenue....
Subtract a week from the release date every time a constummer asks marketing for a release date.
The inital release date should be generated by the CFO who knowing he dosn't know will throw out a reasonably far distent date that wouldn't strain the budget to badly (as thats what he knows).
Then open lines to marketting and techs and let the users push the date around.
Release about 2 weeks late while issuing apologys that gain extra press.
Open source, IPO, Sell your shares, Quit.
Leave in hands of the genous who should have been running things from day one.
5 Years later go to work for resulting company as a consultent.
After 3 years declare your to old for this stuff anymore.
Wait a year for the company to become a global empire. Write a book "How I built GlobalCor" even thow you didn't.
A lot of the "Enterprise" features are in the Linux 2.4 kernel... It's "Not quite there yet" but it's comming... For now you use Solarus who is there.
In this same line it could be said the open source busness plan is comming with the 2.6.. It's still a ways off and a lot of people are working on it. But it exists like a bunch of kernel patches that are stampped "Beta".
A considerable number of open source companys have problems while many are quite successful.
The diffrences between the successful companys and the failures seem considerably small.
Open source is a compleatly new approch and it might be best for larg companys to sitback and watch or throw out test projects and see what works. Leave it to hobby companys and the sereous advocates to bang out the trubble spots.
As for the using side... Preinstalling Linux on specally made servers or just using free software is a very successful method.
Using free software was a way companys secretly cut costs.
Instead of hiring overseas or buying cheapper equipment companys could simply download free software and cut costs but not quality.
If an existing open source product isn't up to stuff for your company sick your techs on it and make it up to snuff. The small amount of R&D costs save you in the long run plus you get a small amount of premotional from the open source (not Slashdot but you may ask for a mention in the credits for the program).
As a rule if you can not see a clearly suppereor proffit moddle in open source it may not be the best choice.
Open source software develupment as a proffitable venture is a new deal and no one is really clear how to go forward.
There are no bullet proof arguments for open source. They arn't any against open source. For now your best hope is to explore and not dive right in.
Open source examples, samples, tools etc. But leave the main body closed. For now.
An example of this... With Microsoft Windows open sourcing Visual C++. Visual Basic, Internet Explorer, Dos 8 and Windows 3.11 while keeping Windows 9X, NT and 2K closed would be a bold move present a great deal of free press and get a lot of sales for 2K.
What this dose....
Dos 8 and Win3.11 could give new life to old computers giving poor users cash strapped schools and hobby develupers a chance to use the more stripped down low load operating systems on XTs,[2/3/4]86s, and load intesnive software develupment on Pentiums
IE is allready free giving away the source would give develupers a chance to finish off where IE is lacking.
Visual Basic and C++ would give a free foundation for free and comertal software develupment.
I myself have not quite understood the logic behind selling software develupment tools for your own platform.
Back in the 1970s computer makers PAID software develupers to port software. Selling software develupment tools adds an additional road block for getting software to market and frankly thats not good.
All this generates goodwill and press for the opensourcing company. So long as there is a clear revenue path.
I myself am aiming for the folowing busness plan:
Give away the software.. tech support by web forum.. make money on banner ads.
The idea here is that I've got you comming to my website to read news, information and download software. What I don't make in direct sales I make up for in bulk.
In the mean time I save money on marketting, sales etc and focus primarly on product.
This is far from ready sence I'm still just working on the web forum code. That is also open sourced.
In a few years I'll have an acuall product to give away. Then we'll see how well my plan works.
But if it dosn't... Then I'll try something else. Far from rock solid. This is an experement as are all open source busness modles.
We can only wait and see who haves the best...
Right now I'd say the Slashdot/BSI/EveryDev busness modle is the best shot. (Not the Slashdot/Andover "Buy success" but Slashdot/BSI/EveryDev Build it and they will come.. and when they come.. get em with banner ads).
We shall now send out the obsolete Unix salesmen to call you about "upgrades"
Only $4,000 for an unlimited user version... cheap...
Come on... we'll even throw in a stuffed Mascot doll.. not OUR mascot not TUX.. gezz..
>Once you get outside of the PC world, hasn't licensed software always come with draconian license agreements?
Hehe.. It dose seem that way some times..
However.. no...
People got paranoid over software piracy.
The first shrinkwrap liccenses were nothing more that spelling out the law.
A few software liccenses were even kinda cool.. granting a few rights preveously not allowed.
Then came the warnings. Stupid stuff to make people affrade of copying disks for any reason.
Then came the liccesnes that ranged from silly to stupid to outragous...
It simply go worse... and we just allowed it becouse it didn't seem to matter.
Now they can dictate what software you must buy...
The store shelf version is 4 times more expensive than the preinstalled or bulk rate versions.
Even buying twice they get a discount of half price.
They arn't being screwed as bad as people paying full price.
It stinks but it's not a big issue...
[And the employees steal the extra copys for home use... I wish people would stop doing that kind of stuff.. it's the whole reason Microsoft charges outragous prices in the first place]
It was once an issue of national locality for Trademarks.
A beer of the United States was unlikely to be sold in say Germany.
Today we live in a world of international commerce. The idea of protecting the name of a company or product in one nation only is about the same as protecting the name for the distence of one city block.
As of late we've seen attempts to trademark Linux..
This is back door legalism anyway. They need to sue the people who named it Samba. But they can't becouse those people are where that trademark isn't valid. So they sue the users. Who didn't name it and arn't responsable for the naming issue.
Let's sue anyone who brings money from Germany for the Samba trademark... same issue same legal tactic.. same reasoning...
Tall order people... People who bash Windows generally don't call it the worst "EVER!"...
I occasionally brag that "I" wrote the wrost operating system ever. I know it's not true. I wrote a horrific OS and anything that ever made it to market could beat it bloody. But theres the software that NEVER made it to market to account for.
My system would fuction for about 30 min to an hour... scramble it's command structure and ignore all input. Thats pritty nasty. But then in prototypes there were operating systems that would scramble data on the disk. Reboot mine and your ok. Reboot a system with a scrambled disk and your dead forever. It is posable for an operating system to distory hardware in some cases (this allows for both bad software and hardware defects.. this isn't hard to imagin). Now those are the operating systems that never made it to market. The worst "EVER".
Let's move on to operating systems that did make it to market. I remember using a mainframe with the wonderful defect of occasionally sending data to THE WRONG USER. Ohhh great security guys MY PASSWORD ON SOMEONE ELSES SCREEN. This was a combonation of hacked hardware and an operating system that wasn't designed for it.
Then we have that wonderful security defect where valuable information is stored in memory can be grabbed up by clever crackers. This small problem (a way crackers went for low security accounts to high security accounts) has sence been fixed by.. get ready.... Amiga, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Linux, IBM, etc etc etc etc etc Hover, Black and Decker, Toys R Us, Little Timmy, the guy working the fast food drive by window.... you get the idea...
[Disclamer.. Accually some of the above listed didn't.. I'm sure Little Timmy had no hand in fixing any such defect]
This defect is pritty well gone today but back 20 years ago big big security defect.
We have had many problems over the years making computers do what we want them to do and found many soltions to those problems. We use the cheapest most effective solutions and now they are history.
Nothing on the market today is anywhere near as bad as operating systems once were...
For the worst ever you need to look in trash bins of psycopath programmers still trying to fit Unix on Commodore 64s....
Or you can use this guys standard for best/worst... I sereously doupt the worlds worst would EVER get a bugtrap report... I mean I wrote the most second most secure operating system ever... 30 min to an hour and NO ONE has access.. yeah but the most secure is the one that makes the mother board explode....
I'd certenly be intrested in how my ZenToe.cgi mesured up to Slashdot under heavy load. Disclamer: ZenToe.cgi wasn't made for heavy load...
It would be intresting to see what many diffrent web forums do under heavy load under recomended condutions...
(SlashCode using MySQL.. etc) Oh yeah... ZenToe.cgi.. Linux and NO SQL.. none at all... scary.... That would be intresting to be honnest... No matter... I expect ZenToe to have the hier load...
Such arguments are based on the extream posabilitys of the libertarian philosophy rather than the expressed views.
They arn't far away from expressed views. I've heard no one argue for the elimination of the FDA but I do twitch when I hear plans to eliminate the IRS.
However I have hear worse from intelectuals. People get wrapped up in idealism and forget there is a real world out there, That real world dosn't function in extreams.
Slashdot Mirror
I rember when he ran afowl with his recording studio and had to give up his recording name for a while (a loophole in the contract.. they owned music recorded under than name if he recorded music under a diffrent name it was his).
// with a $2,000 sound card, and lots of really expensive ram and a really expensive 20 meg hard disk would be able to record music digitally and reproduce it at CD quality.
The problem was he's a prolific artist and wanted to release all his music. The recording studio didn't like that idea and would only release a fraction of his stuff.
I suspect the contract expired. We are talking the 1980s and it was probably a 5 year contract.
So getting away from all that and doing stuff under his own lable gives him a connection to the fans that he as an artist can be emethetic to.
Also his experence with a recording company controlling his music (in his case simply saying how much he can produce) gives him a heathly distast for the traditional recording companys.
In the mean time I'd like to add something.
Recording companys had plenty of warning as to what's to come in the 1980s.
An Apple
Also really expensive sound sample keyboards could record short samples.
Computers were imporving and it was purely a matter of time when that $2,000 sound card was $50 that 20 meg hd was in everybodys computer and the ram was cheap (however not expecting that everyone would need that much ram for the OS but every time there is more ram there are apps to use it).
Audio tape allready existed and was costing the music industry. But the losses were limited as anolog loses quality per copy.
They didn't look forward. They didn't see a threat comming at them at a snails pace.
Then digital audio tape. They paniced and got that banned. Ok now ferther warning of what was to come.
Did they think they could just get the sound cards banned?
Late 1980s the sound cards came down in price. 1990s they reached a point where every computer had a sound card and a CD rom drive that can rip music. Then the Internet.
Still not worryed.... MP3s.... panic again...
What is it with thies people? A little forsite they'd have from the early part of the 1980s to the late part of the 1990s to prepair for the eventual arival of MP3s. The unavoidable.
They had that long to create a busness plan that would handle this situation.
I'm not gona dream up a busness plan for them to folow in under 5 seconds someone could pick apart pritty easly.
The point is the music industry could have spent the time working with busness experts to devise a busness plan. Come on people you had 10 years you think your own busness managment experts couldn't come up with a few good ideas in that time?
They got one item banned. They think that is goning to happen forever? Just becouse it's inconvenent to them?
I wonder what they'd have done if the Dat was released in it's origial form with no anti-piracy technology? I wonder what would happen if the white house felt the industry needed to addapt to the new technology instead of passing laws restricting technology in the name of protecting industry.
I wonder what they'd do if that law was eliminated and DAT could be sold un-encombered.... Politics are fickle things people. It can happen. Elect a techno friendly presedent and maybe it will...
BTW.. dose anyone know of anyone with a tech clue running for the presedents office?
Gore.. no: Encryption
Bush.. no: he dosn't seem to have much of any clue (My personal bies)
Is this was about accually portecting kids (it's not but say otherwise for a moment) I did a Google search on "God dose not exist" and I found a number of articals that would strongly confuse a child.
The first few were accually arguments against that clame. Others argumenst for it. Many are convoluted and/or scary. To a child not quite ready for this level in indept philosophical argument it could scare far worse than porn.
But it's not about protecting kids. It's purely liability. Thies filters don't protect kids and it will allways be up to parents to be activly involved.
But this is purely a liability issue. The kids will still be damaged but it won't be from porn.
(as if seeing the nude human form could cause damage)
It's one thing when someone wants to pass a law saying "All schools must use filtering software" or worse "All schools must use brand X filtering software" but when the head of a libary whos job it is to accually run the libary desides to add a filter thats his job and if there is a problem you have a real person to talk to. If the software dosn't work the head of the libary may also junk the software.
At core.. if the software dosn't work can you junk it? Is the software there becouse someone in charg wants it or is it there from a mandate.
Yes it's ok when someone who is accually responsable for the facility says "We want filters". It's NOT ok when someone crams a law.
Basicly the problem is if you just mandate it the filter will be a random off the shelf solution that dosn't do anything. When it's a choise made by someone accually in charg then he will go for the best posable solution.
And so while I'm not able to answer your question I can at least ease your morals. Your job is not to satisify some random mandate. It's the mandates that are evil.
This was done to protect the owner of the equipment from liability.
If the software dosn't work it WILL me removed.
If this were a mandate the software will probably not work and it won't matter.
Yahoo News isn't much diffrent from Slashdot.
Yahoo being a link angentcy is just copying Slashdots "news". Occasionally this means linking to press releases.
Yahoo dosn't copy it compleately ofcourse. No comments section. No commintary from Yahoo. Just a link.
While taken from Slashdot Yahoo is doing this in Yahoos own style. Just link it. This can result in Yahoo posting press releases.
In the end Yahoo is "News for Investors" It's about the stocks man....
So like Suns little "Microsoft copyed our vision" rant wouldn't get the laughs it got from Slashdot. Becouse stock investers use those statments to understand the thinking of the companys and Microsoft copying Sun means basicly this isn't a true reflection of Microsofts ideals or goals but just something that was good and so Microsoft copyed it.
The news on Yahoo is gona be a bit.. umm strange... But it matters. Like when the news media gives the presedent of the United States the mike and just let's him rant. It's news becouse he runs things and what he's saying could become a facter in our daily lifes even if he's totall off his rocker. So the more factless his comments are the more newsworthy they become.
In the stock market the same rule applys. The more factless Adobes press release is the more newsworthy it is. This is stock moving data.
A factless tech specs sheat is very newsworthy on Slashdot. Oh wow a new technology. Yeah prepetual motion machine marke 5. Oh great... Bad technology to reduce a $2,000 computer into a $2,000 pile of junk.
Thats why it's news... not becouse it's factual but becouse Adobe is nuts
Throw asside the "You have no choice if your ISP uses it" argument. Ask your ISP before joining. Good idea for both sides sence your better off with ISP side filtering if you like filtering.
But it's not really IMAPS fault so much as AboveNet who uses it for peer filtering. That means any traffic that might go through them.
It's been said you can bypass AboveNet but exactly how you bypass any commen net carryer... let alone a backbone... is a carefully guarded secret.
No someone else handles my route tables and thats normal.. anyway such a procedure is the same as opt out and give it up thats exactly the problem we have with spam...
But.... AboveNets abuse of the list is something for a spammer to take up with Above not with RBL.
RBL presents a list for volintary filtering. Thats it's designed intent thats it's goal. Thats what the corts should look at.
You know what... you reminded me of all those nifty Usenet copyright violations.
Mag/newspaper articals, books, etc...
Just scan em in OCR fix the OCR defects and post...
(If your so inclined you can also just type it all in by hand).
Not just text.... image files... "gigs and gigs of copyright violations" <- the discription attached to one porn newsgroup...
How did anyone survive all that?
They went after the accual violators... and worked with people to get the message out.
For the most part it's done and over with. It may still happen but theres no rush to steal books.
It was handled in a nice polite mannor. "Please don't do this" not "Dear sir, We are legal experts here to scare you".
The RIAA could take some lessons from recent history.
Yes the Internet is new but the text and still image world is allways going to get hit first...
Accually the GPL dose NOT need the EULA to exist.
The GPL isn't the shrinkwrap liccens the EULA makes posable...
The GPL grants redistrobution rights that would simply not exist without the GPL. The user has all the same rights to use the software that a user would have had the GPL been replaced with the standard "all rights reserved" copyright.
Also Microsofts has had shrinkwrap liccenses long before the EULA so it's quite posable Microsofts own liccens dosn't accually need the EULA.
Now if copyrights were to go away... the GPL would simply cease to exist..
But then the GPL would also cease to have any meaning.
The whole idea of the GPL is to prevent someone from running off with someone elses free works.
Eliminate copyrights and you eliminate this problem.
But copyrights serve a lagit function. People code for a living and they need copyrights to protect that work from theft.
My personal alternitive to the GPL would simply be make it just as illegal to turn public domain into products as it is to give away commertal code.
It's theft eather way just one is currently legal
I mean it....
I do NOT want to see this in the stores...
I hear just about enough about problems with "Linux" that are problems in ONE distrobution, problems that no longer exist or problems that exist in the PC hardware design not in Linux.
[This on top of the FUD]
I do not need to be told how horrid Linux is by former Linux watch users...
Great proof of consept... wonderful.. Linux on a watch. Horray. It's done.. now stuff it in the nearest trash receptical and work on some other neat toy.
Not entirely correct....
Win 95 boots from Dos like Win 3.x dose..
From there Win 95 runs Dos in a VM the way 3.x dose..
The diffrence between Dos under Win95 and Dos under 3.x is that Dos on Win95 is hardcoded to boot Win95 automaticly.
This is for two reasons. 1. Present the illusion that Win95 is booted directly, 2. To intigrate Dos and Windows so Microsoft can legally continue to bundle Dos and Windows together as one pacage.
Removing Dos from WinME isn't some evil act.. It's giving the consummer in WinME what they prommised in Win95.
I attribute more mallance and incompatence to Dos being included with Win95 than I do with the exclusion from WinME.
Bad example BTW... :)
the CLI is a must for coders like me
It's very useful...
But Microsoft would much rather get rid of it
I think history will record this time as a time of political ludites.
Going after technology not criminals.
We don't arrest people for wearing all black. We don't ban flashlights or lock picks. We don't ban things becouse a narrow few are threatoned.
We do go after companys that do false/missleading advertising and/or produce shooty products.
But in the high technology arena we let companys issue shrinkwrap liccenses that nullify consummer protection laws. We don't presue false/missleading advertising (to the point of it evolving into an art) and we don't hold the end user responsable for criminal acts.
If a tool is used for a criminal act the tool dose not transform into the embodyment of evil. It remains a tool.
This is the day and age of paranoia... a time of ludites and politics...
It is a good day for ranting....
In the long run... New tools and forums will be set up. Advocacy etc. A body of experence is built to prepair for any situation.
20 years from now... someone will have a new situation.. a new macarthyism.. a new age of politics and fear... one internet search later and problem DIES!!!!....
It's a pain in the backside to be in the fight. To be the ones fighting for freedom. It's not a bloody war this time. Just a legalistic one. Costing in millions of dollars instead of millions of lifes. But it's still annoying...
Next time it'll be the cost of millions of hours...
then it'll simply become a minnor inconvence...
The price of freedom WAS the price of blood.. that price is paid.. now it's costing in hard cold cash.. when the cost is purely time we'll have pritty much secured our freedom for all time...
Microsoft has continuously clamed Windows 9x as a compleate operating system but anyone willing to challange Microsoft will notice that Windows 9x runs on top of Dos just as Windows allways has.
:) This can be done with Sys command (if memory serves.. this was a long time ago).
/windows if you can find a program like win.exe... run it... Dose Windows ME boot?
:)
Windows is obsolete. This has been my assertion for a long time. It's not an operating system itself but a batch of enhancments to Dos (multiasker, graphical interface, and network driver...).
As such Microsofts cheaf compeditor wasn't Apple or Linux or IBM but Dubble Dos and Deskview and every Dos enhancment pacage out there.
This being part of why Windows won the market. Why switch to MacOs, Unix or OS/2 when you can continue to use Dos? The industry standard for 10 years...
Microsoft couldn't remove Dos... Dos is what put Windows in the marketplace.
Now Microsoft CAN and they DO. There is no omnus motive to this. So an old obsolete Dos ultility won't work on WinME... blah... LILO still works...
Linux dosn't run under Dos it reboots out of Dos into Linux. UMSdos still works. It just needs the stupid file system nothing more.
My worry isn't that Microsoft removed Dos from WinME. My consern is that 5 years of Windows computer experts successfully ignored it's the fact that it's there becouse Windows is still a Dos App...
The question is.... Did Microsoft really remove Dos or did they just do a better job of covering up it's existence?
Experement... this will mess your Windows up a tad but try this anyway...
Install a Dos upgrade (IBM Dos or DrDos... MsDos upgrade won't do it...) or just install Dos by hand
If it works it'll boot dos... not proff... That's got Dos installed on a Dos FS... like Linux installed.. it may not have been there before...
Then go to cd
Even if it has some nasty behavure and crashes if Win.exe runs and TRYS to boot Windows.. you have your varification... Thow it dosn't boot under any stock version of Dos.. this to be expected... I'm supprised that Win 9x ran fine under Dos 5.x
If however it dosn't even give a graphic "Booting Windows" or anything like that.. Dos really has been removed...
I'm saying all this while I have no access to WinME... so just experement and post responce..
Oh yeah and ummm reinstall becouse nodoupt this'll really mess up Windows
HTML and HTTP was born standard.. (HTML is a markup language not a programming language and HTTP is a data transer protocal.. they exist as standards)
C was in wide use with a standard.. that standard got ignored but it did exist.
Most programming languages start off with one design then everyone forks from it and then a year or so after everyone uses it a standards organisation puts out a standard. ANSI C...
Today standards are taken more sereously than they were 20 years ago and I havn't really seen the flurry of new languages like we had in the 1970s.
The problem 20 years ago however wasn't lack of standard. The original design is the standard. People just didn't care.
The way Microsoft treated Java is the way people treated C. It was designed standard but Borland etc wanted to make it "better" and changed it to be enhanced for diffrent platforms.
Forths solution was to let people rewrite the language. Add and remove commands. This ment you could just rewrite the whole language and make it compatable with an existing standard.
Not a good solution... but then how many people use forth today?
How much of this was his design and how much was hier ups saying "Gee wouldn't it be nice if..."
In todays world you design Apps, operating systems and programming languages diffrently.
With Apps you have a known goal and a known result. The rest tends to be fuzzy but managable.
With operating systems there is a basic design goal. Easy to visialise but internals need to be left to the experts.
A new programming language is an enigma from day one. Only the designer has a clear idea what it will look like and even he is wrong.
Sun knows how to make operating systems and knows how to back off enough to let people get the work done.
But even that wasn't enough to prevent... Java....
Microsoft is far worse. I can only guess what they do but it shows in the results that managment has WAY to much say in app and os design.
So the question is... did Microsoft lay off or did marketting climb all over this like ants...
Microsoft is capable of doing this.. setting a team away from the normal managment style and let them go at it. They can do this for ANY project.
My question is... did they... can't assume they did.. can't assume they didn't....
But then if it turns out as planned we know Microsoft did something right...
I doupt we'll have a Java... Microsoft would rather kill the progect than have a "all new Java"...
My guess... Market droids poked in a lot and said "Don't make it like Java" and walked away.. thats all.. do ANYTHING just don't make annother Java...
They are looking for banner clicks...
Most news websites pull traffic to get visits. Visits turn into banner clicks.
So what to do? Well don't click on the banner ads.
It's a little hard to stop the angry mob from visiting but it's a good idea to tell them not to click on the banners.
What you mean they'll lissen? No not really... they won't click on banners anyway.. but Moody et all will look at the pees and then check banner stats.. and sure enough... the additional traffic generated NO additional banner clicks.
They may even see a significant number of them didn't even load the banners at all (Banner filters are your friend)... and some didn't load ANY GRAPHICS WHAT SO EVER!!! (All hail Lynx)...
Just bandwith and load... increasing costs without generating additional revenue....
Subtract a week from the release date every time a constummer asks marketing for a release date.
The inital release date should be generated by the CFO who knowing he dosn't know will throw out a reasonably far distent date that wouldn't strain the budget to badly (as thats what he knows).
Then open lines to marketting and techs and let the users push the date around.
Release about 2 weeks late while issuing apologys that gain extra press.
Open source, IPO, Sell your shares, Quit.
Leave in hands of the genous who should have been running things from day one.
5 Years later go to work for resulting company as a consultent.
After 3 years declare your to old for this stuff anymore.
Wait a year for the company to become a global empire. Write a book "How I built GlobalCor" even thow you didn't.
A lot of the "Enterprise" features are in the Linux 2.4 kernel... It's "Not quite there yet" but it's comming... For now you use Solarus who is there.
In this same line it could be said the open source busness plan is comming with the 2.6.. It's still a ways off and a lot of people are working on it. But it exists like a bunch of kernel patches that are stampped "Beta".
A considerable number of open source companys have problems while many are quite successful.
The diffrences between the successful companys and the failures seem considerably small.
Open source is a compleatly new approch and it might be best for larg companys to sitback and watch or throw out test projects and see what works. Leave it to hobby companys and the sereous advocates to bang out the trubble spots.
As for the using side... Preinstalling Linux on specally made servers or just using free software is a very successful method.
Using free software was a way companys secretly cut costs.
Instead of hiring overseas or buying cheapper equipment companys could simply download free software and cut costs but not quality.
If an existing open source product isn't up to stuff for your company sick your techs on it and make it up to snuff. The small amount of R&D costs save you in the long run plus you get a small amount of premotional from the open source (not Slashdot but you may ask for a mention in the credits for the program).
As a rule if you can not see a clearly suppereor proffit moddle in open source it may not be the best choice.
Open source software develupment as a proffitable venture is a new deal and no one is really clear how to go forward.
There are no bullet proof arguments for open source. They arn't any against open source. For now your best hope is to explore and not dive right in.
Open source examples, samples, tools etc. But leave the main body closed. For now.
An example of this... With Microsoft Windows open sourcing Visual C++. Visual Basic, Internet Explorer, Dos 8 and Windows 3.11 while keeping Windows 9X, NT and 2K closed would be a bold move present a great deal of free press and get a lot of sales for 2K.
What this dose....
Dos 8 and Win3.11 could give new life to old computers giving poor users cash strapped schools and hobby develupers a chance to use the more stripped down low load operating systems on XTs,[2/3/4]86s, and load intesnive software develupment on Pentiums
IE is allready free giving away the source would give develupers a chance to finish off where IE is lacking.
Visual Basic and C++ would give a free foundation for free and comertal software develupment.
I myself have not quite understood the logic behind selling software develupment tools for your own platform.
Back in the 1970s computer makers PAID software develupers to port software. Selling software develupment tools adds an additional road block for getting software to market and frankly thats not good.
All this generates goodwill and press for the opensourcing company. So long as there is a clear revenue path.
I myself am aiming for the folowing busness plan:
Give away the software.. tech support by web forum.. make money on banner ads.
The idea here is that I've got you comming to my website to read news, information and download software. What I don't make in direct sales I make up for in bulk.
In the mean time I save money on marketting, sales etc and focus primarly on product.
This is far from ready sence I'm still just working on the web forum code. That is also open sourced.
In a few years I'll have an acuall product to give away. Then we'll see how well my plan works.
But if it dosn't... Then I'll try something else. Far from rock solid. This is an experement as are all open source busness modles.
We can only wait and see who haves the best...
Right now I'd say the Slashdot/BSI/EveryDev busness modle is the best shot. (Not the Slashdot/Andover "Buy success" but Slashdot/BSI/EveryDev Build it and they will come.. and when they come.. get em with banner ads).
Before something can be over rated it must be rated first...
Gezz... Think before moderating... thats a really dumb mod...
We shall now send out the obsolete Unix salesmen to call you about "upgrades"
:)
Only $4,000 for an unlimited user version... cheap...
Come on... we'll even throw in a stuffed Mascot doll.. not OUR mascot not TUX.. gezz..
Taco dose need some sort of controll on that
>Once you get outside of the PC world, hasn't licensed software always come with draconian license agreements?
Hehe.. It dose seem that way some times..
However.. no...
People got paranoid over software piracy.
The first shrinkwrap liccenses were nothing more that spelling out the law.
A few software liccenses were even kinda cool.. granting a few rights preveously not allowed.
Then came the warnings. Stupid stuff to make people affrade of copying disks for any reason.
Then came the liccesnes that ranged from silly to stupid to outragous...
It simply go worse... and we just allowed it becouse it didn't seem to matter.
Now they can dictate what software you must buy...
This is silly
The store shelf version is 4 times more expensive than the preinstalled or bulk rate versions.
Even buying twice they get a discount of half price.
They arn't being screwed as bad as people paying full price.
It stinks but it's not a big issue...
[And the employees steal the extra copys for home use... I wish people would stop doing that kind of stuff.. it's the whole reason Microsoft charges outragous prices in the first place]
It was once an issue of national locality for Trademarks.
A beer of the United States was unlikely to be sold in say Germany.
Today we live in a world of international commerce. The idea of protecting the name of a company or product in one nation only is about the same as protecting the name for the distence of one city block.
As of late we've seen attempts to trademark Linux..
This is back door legalism anyway. They need to sue the people who named it Samba. But they can't becouse those people are where that trademark isn't valid. So they sue the users. Who didn't name it and arn't responsable for the naming issue.
Let's sue anyone who brings money from Germany for the Samba trademark... same issue same legal tactic.. same reasoning...
Tall order people...
People who bash Windows generally don't call it the worst "EVER!"...
I occasionally brag that "I" wrote the wrost operating system ever. I know it's not true. I wrote a horrific OS and anything that ever made it to market could beat it bloody. But theres the software that NEVER made it to market to account for.
My system would fuction for about 30 min to an hour... scramble it's command structure and ignore all input. Thats pritty nasty. But then in prototypes there were operating systems that would scramble data on the disk. Reboot mine and your ok. Reboot a system with a scrambled disk and your dead forever.
It is posable for an operating system to distory hardware in some cases (this allows for both bad software and hardware defects.. this isn't hard to imagin).
Now those are the operating systems that never made it to market. The worst "EVER".
Let's move on to operating systems that did make it to market. I remember using a mainframe with the wonderful defect of occasionally sending data to THE WRONG USER. Ohhh great security guys MY PASSWORD ON SOMEONE ELSES SCREEN. This was a combonation of hacked hardware and an operating system that wasn't designed for it.
Then we have that wonderful security defect where valuable information is stored in memory can be grabbed up by clever crackers. This small problem (a way crackers went for low security accounts to high security accounts) has sence been fixed by.. get ready.... Amiga, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Linux, IBM, etc etc etc etc etc Hover, Black and Decker, Toys R Us, Little Timmy, the guy working the fast food drive by window.... you get the idea...
[Disclamer.. Accually some of the above listed didn't.. I'm sure Little Timmy had no hand in fixing any such defect]
This defect is pritty well gone today but back 20 years ago big big security defect.
We have had many problems over the years making computers do what we want them to do and found many soltions to those problems. We use the cheapest most effective solutions and now they are history.
Nothing on the market today is anywhere near as bad as operating systems once were...
For the worst ever you need to look in trash bins of psycopath programmers still trying to fit Unix on Commodore 64s....
Or you can use this guys standard for best/worst... I sereously doupt the worlds worst would EVER get a bugtrap report... I mean I wrote the most second most secure operating system ever... 30 min to an hour and NO ONE has access.. yeah but the most secure is the one that makes the mother board explode....
I'd certenly be intrested in how my ZenToe.cgi mesured up to Slashdot under heavy load.
Disclamer: ZenToe.cgi wasn't made for heavy load...
It would be intresting to see what many diffrent web forums do under heavy load under recomended condutions...
(SlashCode using MySQL.. etc)
Oh yeah... ZenToe.cgi.. Linux and NO SQL.. none at all... scary....
That would be intresting to be honnest...
No matter... I expect ZenToe to have the hier load...
Such arguments are based on the extream posabilitys of the libertarian philosophy rather than the expressed views.
They arn't far away from expressed views. I've heard no one argue for the elimination of the FDA but I do twitch when I hear plans to eliminate the IRS.
However I have hear worse from intelectuals.
People get wrapped up in idealism and forget there is a real world out there,
That real world dosn't function in extreams.