OK, I can see the sell. The real solution to this problem is better file metadata, which could help the user differentiate between (say) Word 95 versus 2000; RLE/AVI versus DivX/AVI; and JPEG/JFIF versus JPEG/Proprietary. But getting this to work in FTP-oriented Internet space is unlikely.
Another problem is MS's stupid extention-orientation. The file extention should not be the sole hint to the user of what's in a file. It actually shouldn't matter at all!
(BTW, I don't think Microsoft 'hates' DivX. It's giving them tons of mindshare in a market previously dominated by Real and Apple. It's just that it's probably an illegal modification of their code, so there's no way in hell for them to enforce it. DiVX users know where to get it.)
OK, people have an association between the AVI extention and poor quality postage-stamp sized video playing on a P-90 running Windows For Workgroups. People are also prejudiced idiots.
Does that mean that there's anything wrong with using the AVI header to describe the file's codecs? Is there something wrong with using the AVI file container format? DivX files *are* AVI files. If it was implemented under QuickTime, they would all be.MOV or.QT files.
(All AVI files under Windows have *.AVI extentions as a matter of convention. Indeo files were never called.INO and RLE files were never called.RLE. Now if Windows had decent MIME-type mapping instead of stupid file extension associations, it wouldn't matter, but until then, that's the way it is.)
It should be noted that moving to the AVI format was the major advancement of DivX over the Microsoft version, which was laden with copyright-management stuff built into the file format.
Likewise under Java. What, exactly, is Low Safety Java? Leave it to Microsoft...
BTW, by NTLM credentials, I mean your local NT logon. Apparently if you are are MYBOX\Adminisistrator, IE will happily advertise this and a weak hashed password to anyone who asks. Now, how many MCSEs are surfing porn sites as MYDOMAIN\Administrator right now?
Yeah, take this as a friendly reminder to open your IE prefs...
While you are there, there's a begger's banquet of potential security issues that you can mitigate. Microsoft was nice enough to provide the options, not nice enough to choose the secure default.
Advanced Tab
-----------
Profile Assistant (Allows web sites to upload information about you from somewhere. The Windows Address Book?)
Install on Demand (Web sites can install "Web Components" on demand. Vague enough for you?)
Search from the Address Bar (Unless you want to tell MSN what you are looking for..)
Security Tab
------------
ActiveX control settings (duh)
Tons of Script options which have known issues (which is why they are in this dialog box)
Automatic Logon (Sends your weakly encrypted NTLM network password hash to anyone who asks)
Back in the 1960's certain car magazines actually editorialized that we should build and 'elite' speed limitless road system for those elite drivers that could pass a rigorous test (that included mechanics, etc.).
Basically, because they owned a porsche and knew how to change their oil filter, they thought they deserved 'better' than the Ford-driving masses. Kinda similar to the attitude here.
So, what happened? Now, in CA, every salesman, middle aged housewife, and sorority girl drives a BMW, the road system hasn't been significantly expanded since the 1960s, and nobody can drive worth a shit anyway. Democracy in action!
Long ago, in the deep dark history of video gaming, there was a company called Atari. Atari not only popularized the idea of video games in the US, they also invented many of the classic games (such as Asteroids) which are apparently still being played to day. Other popular arcade games that they did not invent (such as PacMan), they spent substantial money purchasing the console and computer rights for.
After many years, Atari was nothing more than a shell of itself. It didn't create video games anymore, it didn't do anything. But it did have this enormous copyright and patent portfolio that they had spent millions building up in the glory years. So, they went about licencing their games and suing companies that had infringed on their early patents. Atari became a "intellectual property" concern, that's all.
Now, when Tramiel finally gave up on video games, he went looking for a buyer, and found Hasbro. Hasbro paid a piddling $3 Million for all of Atari's intellectual property. Only $3 Million! for the rights to produce the most recognizable video games of all time. (The gamers of the world should have started a fund to buy this stuff and put it in the public domain.)
Hasbro got a deal, but to capitalize on it, they now have to play the same intellectual property games were playing. So, this sort of this thing is not any different than what Atari was doing in the early 80's (when they sued Maganavox for a PacMan clone on the Odessey II) or the early 90's (when they licened games to Microsoft), or the mid 90's (when Atari tried "3D" rehashes of classic games on the Jaguar).
All of this well enough known that it shouldn't be a problem. Activision came out with a Frogger clone called "Chicken" and never got sued. Likewise with dozens of sorta-close-to-PacMan games. These games still do have value: The local CompUSA has two or three "game packs" with clones of old games for sale for $15. Plus MAME is still a very popular use of people's time. The problem is that you *still* either need to pay off Hasbro/Atari, or make a different damn game.
Atari sued Phillips/Magnavox over "KC Munchkin" in the early 1980s and won, establishing that a game doesn't have to be a 100% clone to infringe your copyright.
1982 - Digital Research sues Microsoft and IBM - DR wins. It was obvious MS-DOS and its PC-DOS variant were simply rip- offs of Digital Research's CP/M operating system. It remained only to prove it contained DR code. DR's Gary Kildall sat down at an IBM PC supplied by IBM and, using a secret code, got it to pop up a Digital Research copyright notice.
It's case won, Digital Research received monetary compensation and the right to clone MS-DOS. This is why Microsoft never sued DR over DR-DOS, but used every other means to destroy it. The settlement was under a strict non- disclosure agreement, so few even know DR sued, never mind that they won.
Digital Research was purchased by Novel and destroyed by neglect and mismanagement. The products now belong to Caldera, which has filed suit against Microsoft over predatory practices used to destroy DR-DOS's market.
Yes, you could make the argument that CD-R drives, sound cards, and even ripping software are all "digital audio recording devices".
However, the computer as a whole is not such a device. And since this is about Napster, the network interface, hard drive, and Napster software and servers are certainly not "digital audio recording devices".
As others have pointed out, be careful what you wish for. If your computer components qualify under the act, you can legally make copies. On the other hand, you will end up paying a record industry tax as well as having to install a anti-piracy system.
The AHRA provides the music industry with two principal benefits relating to digital audio recording technology. First, the Act requires manufacturers of "digital audio recording devices" to incorporate circuitry that prevents serial copying. 17 U.S.C. 1001(11), 1002. Second, the Act requires manufacturers of "digital audio recording devices" and "digital audio recording media" to pay prescribed royalties into a fund that is distributed to copyright holders. Id. 1003-1007. The royalty payment system is administered by the Copyright Office. Id. 1005, 1007.
(How the CD-R industry gets around this is an interesting question. Perhaps they are just careful about their 'marketing'.)
According to a Slashdot comment the other day, Microsoft has already stepped forward to help enforce these provisions. Apparently, Windows ME includes "rights management software" down even to the device driver level.
Now, either Microsoft just doing these guys a favor, or (worse) they are actually getting ready for the big shakedown, or (even worse) they are actively planning it as soon as enough "rights managed" seats are out there. And, depending on the interpretation of the act, it might actually be illegal to distribute rippers which don't comply to the industry's copy management specs. Which probably rules out open source software.
First of all, something like DeCSS is pretty much useless unless it is wide-spread. A secret DeCSS code would only enable some net anti-MPAA who have a monopoly on DVD piracy. Not to mention that an elite underground movement is just a target for the powers that be to make an example of.
The best solution is to encourage mass disregard for unpopular laws. (It worked for the national speed limit.) And by mass disregard, I don't mean symbolic acts such reproducing DeCSS source to slashdot or a t-shirt or on radio. I mean, encourging the Windows- and Mac-using masses to download some freeware so that they can bypass the annoying region codes and mandatory commercials found in the corporate approved DVD players.
Not a real solution, because it would be too easy to hack the flash bios to make the boot screen appear what ever you want.
Of course, consumers should independantly verify their purchases, but the PC industry as a whole doesn't want to admit that it's everyman-a-low-margin-reseller model is prone to fraud. FUDding your own sales channel is bad marketing.
One problem with the managing of files is that, in general, users don't want to manage files and directories, they want to manage information. It's only because we've had years of experience with computer systems that we can effortlessly make the file -> information jump.
So, the real problem is how to build an extendable interface which allow people to build "information management" applications into their user interface. In this light, a web shell is actually a decent design decision -- it's runtime interpreted, the language is widely understood, and you presumably have the software installed anyway. (The downside is local vs remote security.)
Aside from the political and legal problems with MS's IE integration is the fact that they never did a really good job providing any sort of decent "information management" on top of explorer. (JPEG preview is merely the obvious gimme.) So, like you say, in a stock Windows config the reasoning behind using a web component is really non-obvious when you can have a simple OSX-style browser
Now, Nautilus, from what I can tell from the screen shots, really takes this up a notch with far more component integration. Whether or not this is a useful way of managing file-based data remains to be seen. But, hopefully it will be a full enough implementation that (unlike Windows), users will get the idea and start runnig with it.
What I'd really like to see, for example, is a hierarchical search interface which abstracts the actual directory structure. Also, a standard policy way of doing database-like attributes is a longterm must. "Home pages" for shared project directories and integrated versioning would also be features that I could start using tomorrow. Something like Natalius would be the perfect place to start to implement these sorts of interfaces.
(Note that I'm not trying to say that something like Nautilus is a cure-all, just something useful. There will always be the need for a shell, a stripped down Mac/Win95 file browser, and specialized database and cataloging tools.)
Driver signing is also used under Windows 2000 to allow a non-privledged user to install Plug'n'Play hardware. The Admin does need to install the driver in the first place.
In my book, that's a sensible solution to the plugnpray problem (although administrators can't sign their own drivers), and it's also a nice double-check against trojans that use the regular methods for installing malicious drivers. But, this digital rights management stuff is a little too much. When will the "policy in the kernel" jihad conquer redmond?
The problem was in older versions of Windows, where sometimes when the pallette was shifted, colors in background windows or the desktop pattern would explode into a really violent bright orange/bright green puke mixture.
If Windows had decent pallet shifting, we might never have had the 'safe' pallet.
(kinda interesting that got modded up, considering it was supposed to be flamebait, but I hadn't had enough coffee to operate the submit button correctly...)
On the other hand, Mozilla's XUL themes can't be considered correct engineering, except in the 1959 Cadillac tail-fin sense.
Huh? The local SYSTEM account has access to almost everything in a default installation. It's essentially Local Administrator minus networking.
Perhaps you can change this, but my guess is that doing so would break a large number of services that depend on system having rights. It would make more sense to have COM run under an admin-controlled user account.
Microsoft makes hundreds of shrinkwrapped products. Are you sure they build all of them like a novice VB project?
P.S. Netscape v2 was a crashy POS, it just didn't matter that much because you weren't on the web 8 hours a day back then.
IE 4 was also a crashy POS, but it was generally engineered correctly (full DOM renderer just like Mozilla). On the other hand, Mozilla's XUL themes can't be considered correct engineering, except in the 1959
Matrox Forum tech support does kick ass -- those guys know their stuff.
However, Matrox also is pretty slow at getting driver releases out the door, so consequentally those tech support guys take a lot of crap from users like me.
I have a G400Max, and am very happy with the gorgeous image quality with my 21" monitor. HOWEVER, there's a number of driver-level problems under Windows 2000 (SMP support, TV-out support, DH doesn't work right due to MS), that I'd hesitate a little in recommending it to someone else.
Furthermore, Microsoft doesn't explicitly sell support, they sell a product. That gives them the big incentive to design the product in such a way to lower support costs.
Linux companies have the inverse model -- a free product and a per incident support model leads to products which (A) Are much more complex to support, often by being highly configurable and tunable, but (B) are also easier to support for the knowledgeable person.
The real problem with the OSS model is that companies will usually happily pay for a product, but hate to pay recurring charges for support, and only do it if they really have to. Not to mention the fact that many of them don't realize that you often need to spend money to save money in long run support costs.
Novell ruled file+print, but to the extent that anyone was running applications (mail servers, database servers) on PCs back in the early 90s, it was usually on OS/2.
I was there. OS/2 was a maze of pricy add-ons to get it working, and also as unstable as hell as a server. We dramatically improved our uptimes moving to NT, if that tells you anything.
The guy you are responding to is right. In AD, OUs were a later add-on to meet some feature checklist. (They weren't in the early whitepapers.) The only thing they allow is the devolution of some administrative powers to departmental admins, and they are probably only useful in the short term while you move from the One Big Domain LanMan model to the Many Small Domains ActiveDirectory model.
You obviously can't have 2 rmalda@slashdot.org. You can make sales.slashdot.org a seperate domain and have rmalda@sales.slashdot.org. Sure, in other systems, OUs segregate the namespace, but nobody really wants an UID of "CN=rmalda/OU=sales"@slashdot.org (See some malimplemented Lotus Notes sites that actually use addresses like that.)
Slashdot Mirror
OK, I can see the sell. The real solution to this problem is better file metadata, which could help the user differentiate between (say) Word 95 versus 2000; RLE/AVI versus DivX/AVI; and JPEG/JFIF versus JPEG/Proprietary. But getting this to work in FTP-oriented Internet space is unlikely.
Another problem is MS's stupid extention-orientation. The file extention should not be the sole hint to the user of what's in a file. It actually shouldn't matter at all!
(BTW, I don't think Microsoft 'hates' DivX. It's giving them tons of mindshare in a market previously dominated by Real and Apple. It's just that it's probably an illegal modification of their code, so there's no way in hell for them to enforce it. DiVX users know where to get it.)
OK, people have an association between the AVI extention and poor quality postage-stamp sized video playing on a P-90 running Windows For Workgroups. People are also prejudiced idiots.
.MOV or .QT files.
.INO and RLE files were never called .RLE. Now if Windows had decent MIME-type mapping instead of stupid file extension associations, it wouldn't matter, but until then, that's the way it is.)
Does that mean that there's anything wrong with using the AVI header to describe the file's codecs? Is there something wrong with using the AVI file container format? DivX files *are* AVI files. If it was implemented under QuickTime, they would all be
(All AVI files under Windows have *.AVI extentions as a matter of convention. Indeo files were never called
It should be noted that moving to the AVI format was the major advancement of DivX over the Microsoft version, which was laden with copyright-management stuff built into the file format.
Likewise under Java. What, exactly, is Low Safety Java? Leave it to Microsoft...
BTW, by NTLM credentials, I mean your local NT logon. Apparently if you are are MYBOX\Adminisistrator, IE will happily advertise this and a weak hashed password to anyone who asks. Now, how many MCSEs are surfing porn sites as MYDOMAIN\Administrator right now?
Yeah, take this as a friendly reminder to open your IE prefs...
While you are there, there's a begger's banquet of potential security issues that you can mitigate. Microsoft was nice enough to provide the options, not nice enough to choose the secure default.
Advanced Tab
-----------
Profile Assistant (Allows web sites to upload information about you from somewhere. The Windows Address Book?)
Install on Demand (Web sites can install "Web Components" on demand. Vague enough for you?)
Search from the Address Bar (Unless you want to tell MSN what you are looking for..)
Security Tab
------------
ActiveX control settings (duh)
Tons of Script options which have known issues (which is why they are in this dialog box)
Automatic Logon (Sends your weakly encrypted NTLM network password hash to anyone who asks)
Back in the 1960's certain car magazines actually editorialized that we should build and 'elite' speed limitless road system for those elite drivers that could pass a rigorous test (that included mechanics, etc.).
Basically, because they owned a porsche and knew how to change their oil filter, they thought they deserved 'better' than the Ford-driving masses. Kinda similar to the attitude here.
So, what happened? Now, in CA, every salesman, middle aged housewife, and sorority girl drives a BMW, the road system hasn't been significantly expanded since the 1960s, and nobody can drive worth a shit anyway. Democracy in action!
Long ago, in the deep dark history of video gaming, there was a company called Atari. Atari not only popularized the idea of video games in the US, they also invented many of the classic games (such as Asteroids) which are apparently still being played to day. Other popular arcade games that they did not invent (such as PacMan), they spent substantial money purchasing the console and computer rights for.
After many years, Atari was nothing more than a shell of itself. It didn't create video games anymore, it didn't do anything. But it did have this enormous copyright and patent portfolio that they had spent millions building up in the glory years. So, they went about licencing their games and suing companies that had infringed on their early patents. Atari became a "intellectual property" concern, that's all.
Now, when Tramiel finally gave up on video games, he went looking for a buyer, and found Hasbro. Hasbro paid a piddling $3 Million for all of Atari's intellectual property. Only $3 Million! for the rights to produce the most recognizable video games of all time. (The gamers of the world should have started a fund to buy this stuff and put it in the public domain.)
Hasbro got a deal, but to capitalize on it, they now have to play the same intellectual property games were playing. So, this sort of this thing is not any different than what Atari was doing in the early 80's (when they sued Maganavox for a PacMan clone on the Odessey II) or the early 90's (when they licened games to Microsoft), or the mid 90's (when Atari tried "3D" rehashes of classic games on the Jaguar).
All of this well enough known that it shouldn't be a problem. Activision came out with a Frogger clone called "Chicken" and never got sued. Likewise with dozens of sorta-close-to-PacMan games. These games still do have value: The local CompUSA has two or three "game packs" with clones of old games for sale for $15. Plus MAME is still a very popular use of people's time. The problem is that you *still* either need to pay off Hasbro/Atari, or make a different damn game.
The precedent already exists:
Atari sued Phillips/Magnavox over "KC Munchkin" in the early 1980s and won, establishing that a game doesn't have to be a 100% clone to infringe your copyright.
Your "statements or instructions" is the exception to the exception -- it's a digital recording device under the act.
My interpretation of that is the encoding, track markers, and other information which is used for digital playback.
Correction: QDOS 1.00 shipped before the IBM PC. The original version of PC-DOS was 1.10. Version 1.25 saw wider release.
Does the Rio record anything, or is it just storage and playback?
Usenet rumor had it that if you ran DEBUG on some of the utilities that shiped with PC-DOS 1.00, you got a Digital Research copyright.
According to the story, the QDOS guy didn't get done, and just reassembled some of the CP/M stuff for the 86. Sorry, Dejanews is offline, no refs.
This might be easy to verify if you can find the original PC-DOS on an abandonware site. (I've only found 1.03 or something...)
This is from http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html :
Yes, you could make the argument that CD-R drives, sound cards, and even ripping software are all "digital audio recording devices".
However, the computer as a whole is not such a device. And since this is about Napster, the network interface, hard drive, and Napster software and servers are certainly not "digital audio recording devices".
As others have pointed out, be careful what you wish for. If your computer components qualify under the act, you can legally make copies. On the other hand, you will end up paying a record industry tax as well as having to install a anti-piracy system.
The AHRA provides the music industry with two principal benefits relating to digital audio recording technology. First, the Act requires manufacturers of "digital audio recording devices" to incorporate circuitry that prevents serial copying. 17 U.S.C. 1001(11), 1002. Second, the Act requires manufacturers of "digital audio recording devices" and "digital audio recording media" to pay prescribed royalties into a fund that is distributed to copyright holders. Id. 1003-1007. The royalty payment system is administered by the Copyright Office. Id. 1005, 1007.
(How the CD-R industry gets around this is an interesting question. Perhaps they are just careful about their 'marketing'.)
According to a Slashdot comment the other day, Microsoft has already stepped forward to help enforce these provisions. Apparently, Windows ME includes "rights management software" down even to the device driver level.
Now, either Microsoft just doing these guys a favor, or (worse) they are actually getting ready for the big shakedown, or (even worse) they are actively planning it as soon as enough "rights managed" seats are out there. And, depending on the interpretation of the act, it might actually be illegal to distribute rippers which don't comply to the industry's copy management specs. Which probably rules out open source software.
First of all, something like DeCSS is pretty much useless unless it is wide-spread. A secret DeCSS code would only enable some net anti-MPAA who have a monopoly on DVD piracy. Not to mention that an elite underground movement is just a target for the powers that be to make an example of.
The best solution is to encourage mass disregard for unpopular laws. (It worked for the national speed limit.) And by mass disregard, I don't mean symbolic acts such reproducing DeCSS source to slashdot or a t-shirt or on radio. I mean, encourging the Windows- and Mac-using masses to download some freeware so that they can bypass the annoying region codes and mandatory commercials found in the corporate approved DVD players.
Not a real solution, because it would be too easy to hack the flash bios to make the boot screen appear what ever you want.
Of course, consumers should independantly verify their purchases, but the PC industry as a whole doesn't want to admit that it's everyman-a-low-margin-reseller model is prone to fraud. FUDding your own sales channel is bad marketing.
A file manager is for managing files
One problem with the managing of files is that, in general, users don't want to manage files and directories, they want to manage information. It's only because we've had years of experience with computer systems that we can effortlessly make the file -> information jump.
So, the real problem is how to build an extendable interface which allow people to build "information management" applications into their user interface. In this light, a web shell is actually a decent design decision -- it's runtime interpreted, the language is widely understood, and you presumably have the software installed anyway. (The downside is local vs remote security.)
Aside from the political and legal problems with MS's IE integration is the fact that they never did a really good job providing any sort of decent "information management" on top of explorer. (JPEG preview is merely the obvious gimme.) So, like you say, in a stock Windows config the reasoning behind using a web component is really non-obvious when you can have a simple OSX-style browser
Now, Nautilus, from what I can tell from the screen shots, really takes this up a notch with far more component integration. Whether or not this is a useful way of managing file-based data remains to be seen. But, hopefully it will be a full enough implementation that (unlike Windows), users will get the idea and start runnig with it.
What I'd really like to see, for example, is a hierarchical search interface which abstracts the actual directory structure. Also, a standard policy way of doing database-like attributes is a longterm must. "Home pages" for shared project directories and integrated versioning would also be features that I could start using tomorrow. Something like Natalius would be the perfect place to start to implement these sorts of interfaces.
(Note that I'm not trying to say that something like Nautilus is a cure-all, just something useful. There will always be the need for a shell, a stripped down Mac/Win95 file browser, and specialized database and cataloging tools.)
Driver signing is also used under Windows 2000 to allow a non-privledged user to install Plug'n'Play hardware. The Admin does need to install the driver in the first place.
In my book, that's a sensible solution to the plugnpray problem (although administrators can't sign their own drivers), and it's also a nice double-check against trojans that use the regular methods for installing malicious drivers. But, this digital rights management stuff is a little too much. When will the "policy in the kernel" jihad conquer redmond?
The problem was in older versions of Windows, where sometimes when the pallette was shifted, colors in background windows or the desktop pattern would explode into a really violent bright orange/bright green puke mixture.
If Windows had decent pallet shifting, we might never have had the 'safe' pallet.
(kinda interesting that got modded up, considering it was supposed to be flamebait, but I hadn't had enough coffee to operate the submit button correctly...)
On the other hand, Mozilla's XUL themes can't be considered correct engineering, except in the 1959 Cadillac tail-fin sense.
Huh? The local SYSTEM account has access to almost everything in a default installation. It's essentially Local Administrator minus networking.
Perhaps you can change this, but my guess is that doing so would break a large number of services that depend on system having rights. It would make more sense to have COM run under an admin-controlled user account.
Microsoft makes hundreds of shrinkwrapped products. Are you sure they build all of them like a novice VB project?
P.S. Netscape v2 was a crashy POS, it just didn't matter that much because you weren't on the web 8 hours a day back then.
IE 4 was also a crashy POS, but it was generally engineered correctly (full DOM renderer just like Mozilla). On the other hand, Mozilla's XUL themes can't be considered correct engineering, except in the 1959
Matrox Forum tech support does kick ass -- those guys know their stuff.
However, Matrox also is pretty slow at getting driver releases out the door, so consequentally those tech support guys take a lot of crap from users like me.
I have a G400Max, and am very happy with the gorgeous image quality with my 21" monitor. HOWEVER, there's a number of driver-level problems under Windows 2000 (SMP support, TV-out support, DH doesn't work right due to MS), that I'd hesitate a little in recommending it to someone else.
Furthermore, Microsoft doesn't explicitly sell support, they sell a product. That gives them the big incentive to design the product in such a way to lower support costs.
Linux companies have the inverse model -- a free product and a per incident support model leads to products which (A) Are much more complex to support, often by being highly configurable and tunable, but (B) are also easier to support for the knowledgeable person.
The real problem with the OSS model is that companies will usually happily pay for a product, but hate to pay recurring charges for support, and only do it if they really have to. Not to mention the fact that many of them don't realize that you often need to spend money to save money in long run support costs.
Novell ruled file+print, but to the extent that anyone was running applications (mail servers, database servers) on PCs back in the early 90s, it was usually on OS/2.
I was there. OS/2 was a maze of pricy add-ons to get it working, and also as unstable as hell as a server. We dramatically improved our uptimes moving to NT, if that tells you anything.
The guy you are responding to is right. In AD, OUs were a later add-on to meet some feature checklist. (They weren't in the early whitepapers.) The only thing they allow is the devolution of some administrative powers to departmental admins, and they are probably only useful in the short term while you move from the One Big Domain LanMan model to the Many Small Domains ActiveDirectory model.
You obviously can't have 2 rmalda@slashdot.org. You can make sales.slashdot.org a seperate domain and have rmalda@sales.slashdot.org. Sure, in other systems, OUs segregate the namespace, but nobody really wants an UID of "CN=rmalda/OU=sales"@slashdot.org (See some malimplemented Lotus Notes sites that actually use addresses like that.)