Yes, you would have been. The extreme detail in my post is because there's another bazillion/. readers who might not have heard of MIDI, wouldn't have known what a sequence was, etc., and one of them could possibly be the next all-star great MIDI composer, plug-in coder, etc.
Durn, I knew it had been too long since I looked up what the letters stood for. Teach me to trust my foggy middle aged brain to remember things right...;-)
Used a few fourth generatio languages, for the most part I've abandoned them as well.
Why? two simple reasons: the web and class libraries (C++ and Java, among others.
Why pay license fees into the thousands of dollars and get locked into a proprietary solution when effective foundation class libraries, etc. can be used to program things just as quickly, offer higher performance, etc.
but the reviews were so long that I fell asleep before I got to the ordering part...;-)
Just kidding, what I really want to do is to buy the book and make it required reading for all the PHB's (aka clueless managers) in my company in the hope that maybe one or two of them might actually climb on the clue train as well.
Note to Hemos et. al: while a long KISS, is good, a review has to KEEP IT SHORT and SWEET to be any good...
No. MIDI (hence Jazz++) is a composing tool, not a sound modification tool. Although IIRC Jazz++ has the ability to integrate wav files, etc. so there may be more sound editing features than I am aware of.
Starting at the very simplest level: Jazz++ is first and foremost a Musical Instruments Digital Instruments (MIDI) Sequencer. MIDI is essentially a protocol that allows computers and digital musical instruments to communicate with each other.
What the protocol enables me (amateur musician only BTW) to do is to connect a number of different sound modules --including one which is actually a card in my PC-- to a musical keyboard, then use that keyboard to tell all of those modules when to put out an audio signal, and a little bit about how.
A "sequencer" captures a "sequence" of midi events (those key presses, etc.), so it is essentially like a digital multitrack recorder -- except that instead of recording sounds, it is recording the "you pushed middle c on channel 1 which is assigned to voice piano" event
The sequencer essentially lets me become a whole band, orchestra, etc. and write music for a wide variety of instruments that I otherwise cannot play.
Although I don't know of an sequencer + integrated printing package on the Linux side, there are "musical notation" programs that essentially allow me to print out my own sheet music of stuff I've composed on the sequencer.
Anyway, Jazz++ seems to be the best solution available for MIDI right now, and the fact that they GPL'd the code is great because others can stand on their shoulders, or work from the ground up to create *nix stuff that can compete with the WinTel/Mac hegemony in the musical arena.
"If they were a newspaper, it would be a case of 'we will not run your advert until you assure us that we won't get sued becuause of you'."
Interesting point. My reading of the original/. article was different (more like Walmart going to an newspaper insert publisher and saying "you should get rid of the insert you publish for Sears because it may potentially say something libelous about Walmart in the future", and the newspaper then calling Sears and saying "unless you post this huge bond and promise never to say anything bad about Walmart, we won't print your insert -- in fact, we'll get rid of all your work with until you do.
This is sort of like an economic attack on freedom of the press in my book, but as always, I am interested in the commentaries because I learn from it. Hence my sig line.
... but I'm insecure enough to need to point that out, because anyone else who defends a gay site must obviously be a raging queer. However, it's okay, because I've just told you I'm not one of those homos, and so my opinion is of implicitly higher value.
What a bunch of crock, here's my response to it:
Who's more insecure, a person who agrees with the general populace about sexual issues, and does nothing, or the person (MMHM) who is way out to the right but defends someone at the opposite end of the spectrum because the rule of law is on the line?
My opinion matters no more and no less than anybody else.
Anyone who defends the site must care more about justice and the rule of law more than they care about sexual preferences
Being against something (homosexuality) does not mean that a person, group, or country should have the authority to unilaterally discriminate against another group or individual because of their differences, but if the general populace doesn't oppose it, the viral evil of prejudices continue to infect.
And finally, not that I can do anything about it but I don't want you to "rest easy". I'd rather you get mad at the folks involved in trying to legally enslave the net -- whether it be the DCMA, UCITA, Amazon, eToys, or anyone else.
This is a perfect example of how case law can be abused to deny a person or group fair and equal treatment based on a prejudice.
A bad decision in the Daemon UK case, (IIRC a basically bigmouthed person successfully sued the ISP for not removing some inflammatory information about him) and now the British ISP's are so worried about being sued that they overreact and start pulling crap like this on their customers -- my guess is that it's the more controversial sites that are being targeted -- and just like that we have an economic blockade to free expression.
I wonder if bandwidth constraints keep the idea of hosting their site outside the UK unfeasible, because sure shooting the day an ISP does that to me (here in the US, by the way), it will be the last day I do business with that ISP, and I would probably countersue if at the time they dropped my site I was in compliance with all of their existing rules.
Just for the record, I am MMFM (monogamous married hetero male), so I'm as far from gay as a man could get, but I still stand on the side of Outcast and agree that the web (/.) community needs to raise a ruckus against the ISP.
(Qualitfications to make this post: none, not a lawyer, but I follow this stuff pretty close)
All code isn't protected as free speech, in fact most code isn't. For example, for most company's that I've worked for, an explicit part of the employment agreement is that I do not own what they pay me to create (code), and because I don't, there are contractual restrictions to what I can and cannot do with the code. So I'm not free to share trade secrets, copyrighted coding techniques, etc.
Similarly, I can't claim someone else's work as my own aka plagiarism, which in tech terms is usually copying someone else's code (hint: the nickname CodeShark isn't related to stealing code, it's related to rapidly learning techniques from free code and then integrating the techniques into client company systems), unless I am explicitly licensed (GPL, LGPL, etc.) to do so.
"Are we now to assume that the source code to virii are the same plane as say, angry adolescent poetry?" It depends. If I knew the specifics I could try to exercise my free speech by discussing in detail how to build a cheap biological weapon too, but I'd have alot of trouble convincing a judge that it was in society's best interest to let me do so.
See, freedom requires responsibility, responsibilities require remedies, etc. So when I talk about the DCMA, DeCSS, etc., which I am strongly against, I'm not a proponent of anything more than who controls the decision point as to what my freedoms are and my responsibility to exercise those freedoms within the constraints of law.
And I'll be damned or damned trying before I cede control of that decision point to laws like the DCMA and UCITA which are designed from the ground up to favor the damned greedy corporations.
I'm sitting here at my workstation with my jaw somewhere just above my shoelaces, hoping that maybe all of the comments posted by members of the/. community might have actually made a difference before a corporation does something that ends up being anti-freedom instead of after. My thought is that Pinkerton deserves at least one kudo for listening, and a whole lot more if they follow through with effective changes and/or dismantling parts of the program altogether.
That said, here's my list of thoughts, then a list of questions.
Thoughts:
Offering a T-Shirt to a young person isn't necessarily bad --but not as an incentive to "turn someone in". If I were a student, I'd much rather get a T-Shirt for participating in a program in which I learned how to reach out to a a depressed or disaffected person, rather than rat-finking on somebody I didn't even really understand.
An anonymous toll free number is good. Now then, make it a hotline where a depressed student can call and get anonymous help, and it might actually be a force for good, instead of for reporting differences.
Questions:
The company says it is also already revamping its vague criteria for identifying disturbed or dangerous kids, using specific symptoms recommended by psychiatric organizations.
Great, now we've got untrained, immature students trying to perform complex psychological evaluations on each other. How does Pinkerton propose to overcome this immaturity and lack of training in students?
Wouldn't a more effective use of web resources be to create sites that offer training in communication techniques, web places where a student can anonymously ask for help?
It suggests the worst kind of Geek Profiling, in the process wantonly violating constitutional protections against unwarranted intrusions, search and seizure.
How does Pinkerton propose to implement WAVE without violating these constitutional rights?
Under what criteria would an individual be added to a company database, and how long would they remain in the records?
Would records be made available to law enforcement agencies without a search warrant?
Finally, what guarantees are there in place that any information in these databases can never be exposed to outside parties?
Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for safe schools, etc. But students reporting on each other is the wrong use of resources. I'm all for a WAVE program that teaches inclusion, not reporting of exclusions.
Re: a VHS player for my laptop
on
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· Score: 1
ROFLMAO.... Can't moderate and post on the same thread, and have zero points, otherwise you'd get it for a very astute and funny post.
However, please correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there PCMIA video decoding cards for laptops which could connect to your VHS player?
Great news?? I think not...
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· Score: 5
Okay, so there's going to be a closed source version of a DVD decoder, Woo Hoo!! great news, right?
Uh-huh, right. Try these scenarios on for size:
there's no mention that the decoder will be supported for all of the major distributions, let alone minor or alternate language ones.
So if I don't happen to be running Linux on a main distribution,I'm still locked out of playing movies I paid for (if I were willing to buy CSS encoded DVDs in the first place, which I am not --I'm boycotting the damn MPAA until this thing is resolved).
What happens if the company is/goes public and a company such as the so-called evil empire (M$, AOL Time Warner, etc. ) buys enough stock to effectively control the decoder. They now effectively also have power to control my access (changing a closed spec, etc.) so as to render any investment I may have made in the DVD player and/or DVD's moot without my having a say so.
Lastly, a closed source decoder means that I have no idea how well the decoder is written, whether it does other things (like tracking my usage patterns, etc.), how well it obeys system rules, does it work with all video cards, etc.
So thanks but no thanks. I'll vote with my money to continue the fight for a control free solution like deCSS.
I have a better idea (maybe). How about porting the Be components to a library for the *nix family (including Darwin and the *bsd's) so that it can run on G3, x86, SA-110, Alpha?
'Course knowing next to nothing about Beos, I have no clue if this is even doable, but it'd be (geek spelling required) uber-kewl.
Hey, is the tide turning? Are judges coming up to speed in defense of the freedom of the net? WE can at least hope so -- given this ruling and a couple of statements by legal scholars recently about the whole DCMA fiasco.
Of course, Big Business, even a monopoly like Ticket Master won't go down without a fight:
Ticketmaster plans to file an amended complaint attempting to reinstate the dismissed claims.
*Sigh* Guess I'll have to hold off on concerts for a while too... (in addition to boycotting Amazon for the 1-click lawsuit, and anything associated with the MPAA for the deCSS lawsuits)
Guess it's a good thing I can post on/. for entertainment -- otherwise I might end up on somebody's W.A.V.E list.;-)
YACOGSBB against the little guy(s). (yet another case of government supporting big business).
Let me offer an example: suppose I have a copy of the cphack source code (which I have extensively modified, but not released yet), which I accepted under terms of the GPL. Mattel has not notified me in writing that they believe they now own the rights to the original source code.
So I assign (still under the GPL) the rights to my heavily modifed code to the FSF.
This would appear to close the loophole mentioned in the article, but would it stop Mattel from threatening to shut down my site(s), have the justice system throw me in jail, etc. because a judge in a different state decided to issue a restraining order in such a way that I am vulnerable to the application of his ruling?
The problem is, there's no law that protects me from Mattel's legal department. Such as a "loser pays" requirement in lawsuits deemed to be harassment.
I for one was happy to see the involvement of the ACLU in the battle over Censorware, but this is much much worse: we have a big business (Pinkertons) combining with governmental and quasi-governmental organizations (law enforcement and schools) to create something that violates more of the principles of American democracy (as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution (Bill of Rights),
How about these for starters:
...among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
with the idea that the pursuit of happiness should not be encumbered by undue governmental intrusion(s)
rights against unreasonable search and seizure,(4th Amendment, I think).
Just yesterday the Supreme Court voted unanimously to deny police departments from doing the same type of things that "WAVE" views as foundational -- profiling a person solely based on an anonymous tip -- which in the schools you know will lead to false accusations and then immediately by harassment (getting called to the school's office and subjected to hostile interviewers)
Free speech, especially the right to protest without harassment.
Perhaps I choose to be different than you. Perhaps part of my protest of the existing status quo includes words such as "I hate...", "I feel powerless...", "let's make some noise..." Am I therefore to be branded as dangerous, my name kept in databases I know nothing about? Databases kept by a commercial entity with (AFAICT)no stated privacy policy?
There are others but in the interest of brevity and time I'll quit here with a more emphatic repeat of my question: where the h--- is the ACLU, and why aren't they involved in fighting this crap?
IMHO this is one smart judge, because he's looking down the line at how his ruling(s) could potentially be used.
For those who do not understand this, let me briefly explain: the results of a court case here in the U.S. can be used as "precedents", which are in essence a lawyer's foundation for arguing his side of "what the law really means" based on how previous courts have interpreted those same laws. Thus, a good decision (against M$ probably) in this case can potentially be used in unintended (bad) ways in the future -- which is what I think Judge Jackson is trying to avoid.
So even if M$ has done all the evil things that the DOJ says they have, every facet of Judge Jackson's rulings can be used to define the interpretation of how anti-trust regulations are used for and against software companies in the future.
I could be completely off base here, but what this says to me is that the judge is essentially ready to rule against M$, M$ knows it, the DoJ knows it, heck -- we all know it -- but that maybe justice can be better served without a precedent setting judicial decision. The danger is that any decision could potentially cripple parts of the software industry by taking the control out of the hands of innovators and placing it in the domain of lawyers whose sole interest is winning the money and control of the 'Net, etc. for their clients.
IMHO the most significant concern expressed in this article dealt with when the author was talking to staff people working for the Senate: (Note: the omitted sentences support these main points -- I'm skipping them for brevity):
...the more I described this ideal of end-to-end and its relationship to open access and the principles of the Internet, the more impatient these staffers became.
A deal would be struck, I was told. At least the major ISPs would get access to the cable network....access would be granted on terms set by the network owners... This is Washington's version of the Internet. There isn't a problem so long as the big guys can buy access.
In other words, the Senate's view on these things is going to be driven by one thing: big, corporate money. Unless [jaded mode on] and possibly even if [jaded mode off] those of us who are clued into the issue make enough noise to prevent another important area of web access from being sold to the highest corporate bidders, who are definitely not interested in the public good.
Well, I'd grade them at least a "B". I've seen other resources that were at least as good, but the Code Warrior stuff (AFAICT) is free. One think I like is that even though the courses are 24x7, obviously the instructors are not, but they get back to you with help pretty darn quick -- if other students don't beat them to it.
I will probably work through more of their courses, at least, because I want to see what does/doesn't work in terms of on-line courseware, because like many people, I'd like to see a free "Open Source" educational initiative succeed on the web.
Seriously though, I know very almost nothing about writing virus programs, only a moderate amount about writing and compiling binary programs for Linux, but I still could have written this whole article just by reading and re-packaging parts of the better posts from a previous Slashdot discussion on this exact subject.
Which is why I continue to read and post to/. myself -- in spite of all the trolls, off-topic posts, flames, and other crap, this is still one of the best discussion resources on the web. As long as I continue to read and learn from y'all, I'll keep coming back, and hopefully occasionally have something to add to the commentary.
"Seriously, though. The Tomb Raider games aren't much better than the Deer Hunter games. Why burden Linux's still-fledgling gaming abilities with crap? "
Well, having not played either, my thought about "why" was pure and simple mindspace. The Tomb Raider series has quite a bit of name recogniztion, porting it to Linux would be a way of saying to the WinXX world, "hey, come on in, the water's fine".
Much as I personally dislike (read: hate hate hate) IE, for example, it did bring alot of people to the web by making Internet Access easily available via their "setup a dialup connection" wizards which did the same thing: "hey, this web thing is cool, and you don't have to be a total geek to get there..."
Secondarily, I think Eidos would have been able to generate some funds for future Linux gaming, much the same way M$ kept selling MS-DOS for years after they officially pronounced it "dead".
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Yes, you would have been. The extreme detail in my post is because there's another bazillion /. readers who might not have heard of MIDI, wouldn't have known what a sequence was, etc., and one of them could possibly be the next all-star great MIDI composer, plug-in coder, etc.
Thanks for the correction.
Why? two simple reasons: the web and class libraries (C++ and Java, among others.
Why pay license fees into the thousands of dollars and get locked into a proprietary solution when effective foundation class libraries, etc. can be used to program things just as quickly, offer higher performance, etc.
Just kidding, what I really want to do is to buy the book and make it required reading for all the PHB's (aka clueless managers) in my company in the hope that maybe one or two of them might actually climb on the clue train as well.
Note to Hemos et. al: while a long KISS, is good, a review has to KEEP IT SHORT and SWEET to be any good...
No. MIDI (hence Jazz++) is a composing tool, not a sound modification tool. Although IIRC Jazz++ has the ability to integrate wav files, etc. so there may be more sound editing features than I am aware of.
What the protocol enables me (amateur musician only BTW) to do is to connect a number of different sound modules --including one which is actually a card in my PC-- to a musical keyboard, then use that keyboard to tell all of those modules when to put out an audio signal, and a little bit about how.
A "sequencer" captures a "sequence" of midi events (those key presses, etc.), so it is essentially like a digital multitrack recorder -- except that instead of recording sounds, it is recording the "you pushed middle c on channel 1 which is assigned to voice piano" event
The sequencer essentially lets me become a whole band, orchestra, etc. and write music for a wide variety of instruments that I otherwise cannot play.
Although I don't know of an sequencer + integrated printing package on the Linux side, there are "musical notation" programs that essentially allow me to print out my own sheet music of stuff I've composed on the sequencer.
Anyway, Jazz++ seems to be the best solution available for MIDI right now, and the fact that they GPL'd the code is great because others can stand on their shoulders, or work from the ground up to create *nix stuff that can compete with the WinTel/Mac hegemony in the musical arena.
Interesting point. My reading of the original /. article was different (more like Walmart going to an newspaper insert publisher and saying "you should get rid of the insert you publish for Sears because it may potentially say something libelous about Walmart in the future", and the newspaper then calling Sears and saying "unless you post this huge bond and promise never to say anything bad about Walmart, we won't print your insert -- in fact, we'll get rid of all your work with until you do.
This is sort of like an economic attack on freedom of the press in my book, but as always, I am interested in the commentaries because I learn from it. Hence my sig line.
What a bunch of crock, here's my response to it:
- Who's more insecure, a person who agrees with the general populace about sexual issues, and does nothing, or the person (MMHM) who is way out to the right but defends someone at the opposite end of the spectrum because the rule of law is on the line?
- My opinion matters no more and no less than anybody else.
- Anyone who defends the site must care more about justice and the rule of law more than they care about sexual preferences
- Being against something (homosexuality) does not mean that a person, group, or country should have the authority to unilaterally discriminate against another group or individual because of their differences, but if the general populace doesn't oppose it, the viral evil of prejudices continue to infect.
And finally, not that I can do anything about it but I don't want you to "rest easy". I'd rather you get mad at the folks involved in trying to legally enslave the net -- whether it be the DCMA, UCITA, Amazon, eToys, or anyone else.Commentary appreciated :-)
Nice try there AC. But Rob & Co have been bought by VA Linux, so I don't think so. But I'd give ya a funny point if I had one anyway.
A bad decision in the Daemon UK case, (IIRC a basically bigmouthed person successfully sued the ISP for not removing some inflammatory information about him) and now the British ISP's are so worried about being sued that they overreact and start pulling crap like this on their customers -- my guess is that it's the more controversial sites that are being targeted -- and just like that we have an economic blockade to free expression.
I wonder if bandwidth constraints keep the idea of hosting their site outside the UK unfeasible, because sure shooting the day an ISP does that to me (here in the US, by the way), it will be the last day I do business with that ISP, and I would probably countersue if at the time they dropped my site I was in compliance with all of their existing rules.
Just for the record, I am MMFM (monogamous married hetero male), so I'm as far from gay as a man could get, but I still stand on the side of Outcast and agree that the web (/.) community needs to raise a ruckus against the ISP.
All code isn't protected as free speech, in fact most code isn't. For example, for most company's that I've worked for, an explicit part of the employment agreement is that I do not own what they pay me to create (code), and because I don't, there are contractual restrictions to what I can and cannot do with the code. So I'm not free to share trade secrets, copyrighted coding techniques, etc.
Similarly, I can't claim someone else's work as my own aka plagiarism, which in tech terms is usually copying someone else's code (hint: the nickname CodeShark isn't related to stealing code, it's related to rapidly learning techniques from free code and then integrating the techniques into client company systems), unless I am explicitly licensed (GPL, LGPL, etc.) to do so.
"Are we now to assume that the source code to virii are the same plane as say, angry adolescent poetry?" It depends. If I knew the specifics I could try to exercise my free speech by discussing in detail how to build a cheap biological weapon too, but I'd have alot of trouble convincing a judge that it was in society's best interest to let me do so.
See, freedom requires responsibility, responsibilities require remedies, etc. So when I talk about the DCMA, DeCSS, etc., which I am strongly against, I'm not a proponent of anything more than who controls the decision point as to what my freedoms are and my responsibility to exercise those freedoms within the constraints of law.
And I'll be damned or damned trying before I cede control of that decision point to laws like the DCMA and UCITA which are designed from the ground up to favor the damned greedy corporations.
That said, here's my list of thoughts, then a list of questions.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for safe schools, etc. But students reporting on each other is the wrong use of resources. I'm all for a WAVE program that teaches inclusion, not reporting of exclusions.However, please correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there PCMIA video decoding cards for laptops which could connect to your VHS player?
Uh-huh, right. Try these scenarios on for size:
- there's no mention that the decoder will be supported for all of the major distributions, let alone minor or alternate language ones.
- What happens if the company is/goes public and a company such as the so-called evil empire (M$, AOL Time Warner, etc. ) buys enough stock to effectively control the decoder. They now effectively also have power to control my access (changing a closed spec, etc.) so as to render any investment I may have made in the DVD player and/or DVD's moot without my having a say so.
- Lastly, a closed source decoder means that I have no idea how well the decoder is written, whether it does other things (like tracking my usage patterns, etc.), how well it obeys system rules, does it work with all video cards, etc.
So thanks but no thanks. I'll vote with my money to continue the fight for a control free solution like deCSS.So if I don't happen to be running Linux on a main distribution,I'm still locked out of playing movies I paid for (if I were willing to buy CSS encoded DVDs in the first place, which I am not --I'm boycotting the damn MPAA until this thing is resolved).
'Course knowing next to nothing about Beos, I have no clue if this is even doable, but it'd be (geek spelling required) uber-kewl.
Of course, Big Business, even a monopoly like Ticket Master won't go down without a fight:
*Sigh* Guess I'll have to hold off on concerts for a while too... (in addition to boycotting Amazon for the 1-click lawsuit, and anything associated with the MPAA for the deCSS lawsuits)Guess it's a good thing I can post on /. for entertainment -- otherwise I might end up on somebody's W.A.V.E list. ;-)
Let me offer an example: suppose I have a copy of the cphack source code (which I have extensively modified, but not released yet), which I accepted under terms of the GPL. Mattel has not notified me in writing that they believe they now own the rights to the original source code.
So I assign (still under the GPL) the rights to my heavily modifed code to the FSF.
This would appear to close the loophole mentioned in the article, but would it stop Mattel from threatening to shut down my site(s), have the justice system throw me in jail, etc. because a judge in a different state decided to issue a restraining order in such a way that I am vulnerable to the application of his ruling?
The problem is, there's no law that protects me from Mattel's legal department. Such as a "loser pays" requirement in lawsuits deemed to be harassment.
How about these for starters:
- ...among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
- rights against unreasonable search and seizure,(4th Amendment, I think).
- Free speech, especially the right to protest without harassment.
There are others but in the interest of brevity and time I'll quit here with a more emphatic repeat of my question: where the h--- is the ACLU, and why aren't they involved in fighting this crap?with the idea that the pursuit of happiness should not be encumbered by undue governmental intrusion(s)
Just yesterday the Supreme Court voted unanimously to deny police departments from doing the same type of things that "WAVE" views as foundational -- profiling a person solely based on an anonymous tip -- which in the schools you know will lead to false accusations and then immediately by harassment (getting called to the school's office and subjected to hostile interviewers)
Perhaps I choose to be different than you. Perhaps part of my protest of the existing status quo includes words such as "I hate...", "I feel powerless...", "let's make some noise..." Am I therefore to be branded as dangerous, my name kept in databases I know nothing about? Databases kept by a commercial entity with (AFAICT)no stated privacy policy?
For those who do not understand this, let me briefly explain: the results of a court case here in the U.S. can be used as "precedents", which are in essence a lawyer's foundation for arguing his side of "what the law really means" based on how previous courts have interpreted those same laws. Thus, a good decision (against M$ probably) in this case can potentially be used in unintended (bad) ways in the future -- which is what I think Judge Jackson is trying to avoid.
So even if M$ has done all the evil things that the DOJ says they have, every facet of Judge Jackson's rulings can be used to define the interpretation of how anti-trust regulations are used for and against software companies in the future.
I could be completely off base here, but what this says to me is that the judge is essentially ready to rule against M$, M$ knows it, the DoJ knows it, heck -- we all know it -- but that maybe justice can be better served without a precedent setting judicial decision. The danger is that any decision could potentially cripple parts of the software industry by taking the control out of the hands of innovators and placing it in the domain of lawyers whose sole interest is winning the money and control of the 'Net, etc. for their clients.
In other words, the Senate's view on these things is going to be driven by one thing: big, corporate money. Unless [jaded mode on] and possibly even if [jaded mode off] those of us who are clued into the issue make enough noise to prevent another important area of web access from being sold to the highest corporate bidders, who are definitely not interested in the public good.
I will probably work through more of their courses, at least, because I want to see what does/doesn't work in terms of on-line courseware, because like many people, I'd like to see a free "Open Source" educational initiative succeed on the web.
Seriously though, I know very almost nothing about writing virus programs, only a moderate amount about writing and compiling binary programs for Linux, but I still could have written this whole article just by reading and re-packaging parts of the better posts from a previous Slashdot discussion on this exact subject.
Which is why I continue to read and post to /. myself -- in spite of all the trolls, off-topic posts, flames, and other crap, this is still one of the best discussion resources on the web. As long as I continue to read and learn from y'all, I'll keep coming back, and hopefully occasionally have something to add to the commentary.
Well, having not played either, my thought about "why" was pure and simple mindspace. The Tomb Raider series has quite a bit of name recogniztion, porting it to Linux would be a way of saying to the WinXX world, "hey, come on in, the water's fine".
Much as I personally dislike (read: hate hate hate) IE, for example, it did bring alot of people to the web by making Internet Access easily available via their "setup a dialup connection" wizards which did the same thing: "hey, this web thing is cool, and you don't have to be a total geek to get there..."
Secondarily, I think Eidos would have been able to generate some funds for future Linux gaming, much the same way M$ kept selling MS-DOS for years after they officially pronounced it "dead".