You haven't heard of media players that you have to pay for* because microsoft abused it's OS monopoly to make it uneconomic to write one.
I'm not sure that this is true. It may be the reality today, but iTunes was free from the git-go because Apple wants to sell music and support the iPod, not because of Microsoft, and media players were free before MS started giving away Media Player. Sure, maybe MS is abusing its monopoly position, but the fact that media players are free is not a result of this.
This reminds me of the IE/Netscape argument that MS gave IE away to destroy Netscape - but Netscape also gave away their browser for free before IE existed. Has anyone ever paid for a verson of the Netscape browser? I've never met anyone who has.
You are correct, of course, concerning the DVD monopoly. It's interesting that the MPAA/whomever abusive monopoly didn't cut a licensing fee deal with the DVD-drive manufacturers allowing distribution of the decoding software for free, the way that they get a licensing fee from DVD player manufacturers.
Better yet, what's keeping MS from having the initial Windows startup sequence(on first boot) display a screen saying something like "The fscking EU made us remove Media Player from this version of Windows. Would you like to download it now?"
iTunes is free. Realplayer is free. I haven't heard of a media player that I actually have to pay money for.
And I don't think there's anything keeping computer manufacturers from pre-installing iTunes. They already install Quicktime and RealPlayer. If there is an MS contract provision preventing manufacturers from doing this, it should be crushed. But the solution seems to me to allow manufacturers to install competing software on the desktop (most do anyway) and not to remove Media Player from XP.
Interestingly enough, this is the same discussion that happened years ago with IE. Maybe next year we'll be arguing about Minesweeper - as the MS monopoly has completely crushed the third-party developer Minesweeper market.
You know, most retail computers come with Quicktime already installed. Sure, I always get the nagware "Upgrade to Quicktime Pro?" prompt when Quicktime first runs after a boot (I do occasionally turn off my computer), but that annoying fact of life is Apple's fault, not Microsoft's.
And yes, I do use iTunes, and I own an iPod, and I'm still not switching. I use iTunes because I have an iPod - that's really the only reason. I had already had most of my CD's copied to my computer as.wma files. I had to turn around and do it all over again so I could put that music onto my iPod.
I think that more customers buying XP-boxes without Media Player will turn around and download and install Media Player anyway. It's not as if their hard drives won't have enough room on it.
The EU's action may make sense from a legal standpoint, but it's not consumer-friendly, and unless MS is barred from selling XP with Media Player while selling XP without Media Player, most consumers would opt for the with Media Player version.
It's an interesting thought though - push people into Apples and Linux by not allowing them to buy XP with all of its features.
...the format used by the Lincoln-Douglas debates:
No moderators.
No questions from the peanut gallery.
The format is very simple.
Bush speaks for one hour. Kerry speaks for an hour-and-a-half. Bush speaks for half-an-hour.
The order of speaking is flipped for the second debate.
The candidates get to say anything they want - they can use their time to both pose questions to their opponent and to respond to their opponents questions and statements.
Maybe we can cut down on the time - have it 30/45/15 minutes instead of 60/90/30, or somewhere in between. The point is that with the candidates posing their own questions, there's no interference from without (such as the snappy "what if Kitty Dukakis were raped and killed" question that sunk Dukakis). Also, because of the strict format, there's no opportunity for "Where's the Beef" or "There he goes again" interruptions that are really meaningless soundbites rather than substantive argument.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were historic - Lincoln lost the Illinois Senate campaign, but the positions Douglas took, some of which Lincoln caused Douglas to take, were one of the reasons why Lincoln was subsequently elected President.
ackthpt, your recent moderations have been metamoderated as follows:
Killed auto emissions bill (-1 Troll) has been metamoderated as unfair. Proposed flag burning amendment (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as fair. 9/11 speech (4 insightful) has been metamoderated as fair. Tax cuts (3 Interesting) has been metamoderated as fair. Tell everyone to go out and spend that $300 right away (5 Funny) has been metamoderated as fair. Record deficit spending (-1 Troll) has been metamoderated as fair. Invade Afghanistan in pursuit of al qaeda (5 Interesting) has been metamoderated a fair. Invade Iraq (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as unfair. Gay marriage ban amendment (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as unfair.
Throwing polygamy into the mix isn't different and it's "friggin retarded". Your argument that any religious based arguments are null justifies polygamy to the same extent as gay marriage. Why shouldn't three or four people, of whatever gender, have the ability to enter into a binding marriage if they want to? What is the big deal about limiting marriage to two people? By allowing gay marriage, what you are doing is throwing morality, religion, and tradition out of marriage, and those are the only things preventing polygamy from being recognized as legal.
And, polygamy is perfectly consistant with Islam and the Mormon faith (before they were forced to change it). So forget the religion argument - polygamy is illegal only because of tradition and the moral positions of the religious philosophies of those in power.
So, my question to you is this: If two same sex people can be married, then they shouldn't three same sex people be married?
The FAA installed a new system. There were bugs in that system, in the custom software the FAA uses to move planes around the sky. Instead of fixing those bugs properly (as they apparently did in Seattle), the FAA instead went with the quick fix of rebooting the server every month, and backed that up with a script rebooting the server automatically if it's not done manually. Then, the FAA techs didn't follow the FAA's workaround procedures, and Chaos results.
Exactly how was this Microsoft's fault? Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't see what MS did here. And OpenSource wouldn't have solved this problem, because I really doubt that anyone is going to write FAA flight control software under an open source license.
Mod parent up as insightful - c'mon, the way Hollywood works, you have got to know that there are four or five hacks out there working on spec scripts for an episode of LAX based on this, and the executive producer probably thought, as his plane was routed to another airport "Hmmm, ripped from the headlines..."
Very good point. I loved FFVII, but Vincent is probably the lamest and most whiny charactor of the bunch. I'm not sure he's even needed to finish the game. We want more Cloud and Tifa and Yuffie, and even Red XIII. Vincent and Cid? Lamers.
What we REALLY want is a means of resurrecting Aeris.
Why not a game about Yuffie collecting materia as she goes through puberty and her chest fills out to Tifa-like proportions? They can call it FFVII-36DD.
Apple Corps acted in a reasonable manner - it settled their legitimate claim against Apple Computer in return for Apple Computer's promise to not enter into the music industry. If Jobs and Woz named Apple Computer "Coca-Cola Computer" instead, they would have been driven completely out of business.
Yes, I do believe that it was a voluntary deal - Apple Corps. and Apple Computer settled Apple Corp's quite reasonable trademark infringement claim in a perfectly reasonable (at the time) manner. Twenty years ago, why would anyone suspect that Apple Computer would ever get into the music industry?
Contracts, however, are made to be broken. Apple Computer could certainly violate the settlement it entered into with Apple Corps, but only at a cost. Now Apple Corps has a great breach of contract lawsuit against Apple Computer, and Apple Computer gets to pay the penalty.
And why is this unfair? Jobs or his successors (I forgot who was in charge in 1991) certainly knew what they were doing when they originally settled with Apple Corps, and Jobs certainly knew what he was doing when he decided to break the contract. They could have easily created "iTunes Music" as a separate corporation not taking advantage of the Apple name. Of course, Jobs knew that this was going to lead to a lawsuit from Apple Corps. He's probably betting that the advantage of keeping iTunes under the Apple umbrella is worth more than what he'll have to pay to Apple Corps. Only time will tell if Jobs made the right decision, or stepped firmly upon his penis.
That's not the way motor-voter works. Registration to vote is not automatic when you get or renew a driver's license. They just give you very easy access to the forms.
Remember Pris, the pleasure model? Of course she's going to look human - would you want to engage in sexual activities with a green bodied replicant? No!
Please note that trial court opinions do not establish any legal precedent beyond the case at hand. Trial court decisions are not controlling authority. For an opinion to become law that has to be followed in other courts, the opinion has to be from an appellate court. And many appellate court decisions are "depublished" and are not given any value as precedent.
And it gets more complicated than that. The federal courts in the 9th Circuit don't have to follow appellate decisions of the 7th Circuit. California state courts don't have to follow Florida state court appellate decisions (Thank God). Only the U.S. Supreme Court's opinions are precedent everywhere, and the U.S. Supreme court doesn't have the power to overturn state court decisions that are founded only in state law. For example, the US Supreme Court may not overturn the Massachusetts Supreme Court's opinion that MA law (not federal law) prohibits bans on gay marriage.
So, the EFF wouldn't have established any legal precedent by going to trial, unless the trial court's decision was appealed and EFF won on appeal.
Does this mean that Ashcroft is now our friend or is this the wrong week?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend - old Arab saying.
The wonderful think about the world is that it isn't entirely in black and white. You can still hate John Ashcroft while applauding his Justice Department efforts to crack down on spam. You can even be thankful that Bill Gates licensed and "integrated" Minesweeper into Windows for Workgroups 3.11 while still disliking him and most of what you perceive Microsoft stands for.
John Ashcroft doesn't wear a black hat. He wears a grey one, just like the rest of us, and some of the things he's responsible for are good and should be acknowledged as such.
You are correct. Region encoding should not be protected under the law, because it has nothing to do with copyright. It's a matter of the contracts between the copyright holders and its various distributors. Since this contractural relationship has nothing to do with consumers, consumers should be allowed to 1) buy anywhere they like; and 2) circumvent region encoding without fear of penalty.
It's not a contradiction, although perhaps I could have stated it better.
Monopolies are not necessarily inconsistant with free markets. In fact, under a pure free market system with no govt. intervention, a monopoly is perfectly valid - even unlimited copyrights could be fashoned through the use of shrink-wrapped licensing agreements.
In this case, by stating that maybe we'll someday ditch the free market in information, I meant to say that we would ditch the concept of copyright and let information be free the way it wants to be free.
Slashdot Mirror
You haven't heard of media players that you have to pay for* because microsoft abused it's OS monopoly to make it uneconomic to write one.
I'm not sure that this is true. It may be the reality today, but iTunes was free from the git-go because Apple wants to sell music and support the iPod, not because of Microsoft, and media players were free before MS started giving away Media Player. Sure, maybe MS is abusing its monopoly position, but the fact that media players are free is not a result of this.
This reminds me of the IE/Netscape argument that MS gave IE away to destroy Netscape - but Netscape also gave away their browser for free before IE existed. Has anyone ever paid for a verson of the Netscape browser? I've never met anyone who has.
You are correct, of course, concerning the DVD monopoly. It's interesting that the MPAA/whomever abusive monopoly didn't cut a licensing fee deal with the DVD-drive manufacturers allowing distribution of the decoding software for free, the way that they get a licensing fee from DVD player manufacturers.
Better yet, what's keeping MS from having the initial Windows startup sequence(on first boot) display a screen saying something like "The fscking EU made us remove Media Player from this version of Windows. Would you like to download it now?"
iTunes is free. Realplayer is free. I haven't heard of a media player that I actually have to pay money for.
And I don't think there's anything keeping computer manufacturers from pre-installing iTunes. They already install Quicktime and RealPlayer. If there is an MS contract provision preventing manufacturers from doing this, it should be crushed. But the solution seems to me to allow manufacturers to install competing software on the desktop (most do anyway) and not to remove Media Player from XP.
Interestingly enough, this is the same discussion that happened years ago with IE. Maybe next year we'll be arguing about Minesweeper - as the MS monopoly has completely crushed the third-party developer Minesweeper market.
Quicktime comes installed on most retail XP boxes already, as does RealPlayer.
You know, most retail computers come with Quicktime already installed. Sure, I always get the nagware "Upgrade to Quicktime Pro?" prompt when Quicktime first runs after a boot (I do occasionally turn off my computer), but that annoying fact of life is Apple's fault, not Microsoft's.
.wma files. I had to turn around and do it all over again so I could put that music onto my iPod.
And yes, I do use iTunes, and I own an iPod, and I'm still not switching. I use iTunes because I have an iPod - that's really the only reason. I had already had most of my CD's copied to my computer as
I think that more customers buying XP-boxes without Media Player will turn around and download and install Media Player anyway. It's not as if their hard drives won't have enough room on it.
The EU's action may make sense from a legal standpoint, but it's not consumer-friendly, and unless MS is barred from selling XP with Media Player while selling XP without Media Player, most consumers would opt for the with Media Player version.
It's an interesting thought though - push people into Apples and Linux by not allowing them to buy XP with all of its features.
...the format used by the Lincoln-Douglas debates:
No moderators.
No questions from the peanut gallery.
The format is very simple.
Bush speaks for one hour.
Kerry speaks for an hour-and-a-half.
Bush speaks for half-an-hour.
The order of speaking is flipped for the second debate.
The candidates get to say anything they want - they can use their time to both pose questions to their opponent and to respond to their opponents questions and statements.
Maybe we can cut down on the time - have it 30/45/15 minutes instead of 60/90/30, or somewhere in between. The point is that with the candidates posing their own questions, there's no interference from without (such as the snappy "what if Kitty Dukakis were raped and killed" question that sunk Dukakis). Also, because of the strict format, there's no opportunity for "Where's the Beef" or "There he goes again" interruptions that are really meaningless soundbites rather than substantive argument.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were historic - Lincoln lost the Illinois Senate campaign, but the positions Douglas took, some of which Lincoln caused Douglas to take, were one of the reasons why Lincoln was subsequently elected President.
ackthpt, your recent moderations have been metamoderated as follows:
Killed auto emissions bill (-1 Troll) has been metamoderated as unfair.
Proposed flag burning amendment (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as fair.
9/11 speech (4 insightful) has been metamoderated as fair.
Tax cuts (3 Interesting) has been metamoderated as fair.
Tell everyone to go out and spend that $300 right away (5 Funny) has been metamoderated as fair.
Record deficit spending (-1 Troll) has been metamoderated as fair.
Invade Afghanistan in pursuit of al qaeda (5 Interesting) has been metamoderated a fair.
Invade Iraq (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as unfair.
Gay marriage ban amendment (-1 Flamebait) has been metamoderated as unfair.
Throwing polygamy into the mix isn't different and it's "friggin retarded". Your argument that any religious based arguments are null justifies polygamy to the same extent as gay marriage. Why shouldn't three or four people, of whatever gender, have the ability to enter into a binding marriage if they want to? What is the big deal about limiting marriage to two people? By allowing gay marriage, what you are doing is throwing morality, religion, and tradition out of marriage, and those are the only things preventing polygamy from being recognized as legal.
And, polygamy is perfectly consistant with Islam and the Mormon faith (before they were forced to change it). So forget the religion argument - polygamy is illegal only because of tradition and the moral positions of the religious philosophies of those in power.
So, my question to you is this: If two same sex people can be married, then they shouldn't three same sex people be married?
...that it's not Microsoft's fault.
Here's what happened:
The FAA installed a new system. There were bugs in that system, in the custom software the FAA uses to move planes around the sky. Instead of fixing those bugs properly (as they apparently did in Seattle), the FAA instead went with the quick fix of rebooting the server every month, and backed that up with a script rebooting the server automatically if it's not done manually. Then, the FAA techs didn't follow the FAA's workaround procedures, and Chaos results.
Exactly how was this Microsoft's fault? Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't see what MS did here. And OpenSource wouldn't have solved this problem, because I really doubt that anyone is going to write FAA flight control software under an open source license.
Mod parent up as insightful - c'mon, the way Hollywood works, you have got to know that there are four or five hacks out there working on spec scripts for an episode of LAX based on this, and the executive producer probably thought, as his plane was routed to another airport "Hmmm, ripped from the headlines..."
Very good point. I loved FFVII, but Vincent is probably the lamest and most whiny charactor of the bunch. I'm not sure he's even needed to finish the game. We want more Cloud and Tifa and Yuffie, and even Red XIII. Vincent and Cid? Lamers.
What we REALLY want is a means of resurrecting Aeris.
Why not a game about Yuffie collecting materia as she goes through puberty and her chest fills out to Tifa-like proportions? They can call it FFVII-36DD.
Apple Corps acted in a reasonable manner - it settled their legitimate claim against Apple Computer in return for Apple Computer's promise to not enter into the music industry. If Jobs and Woz named Apple Computer "Coca-Cola Computer" instead, they would have been driven completely out of business.
Yes, I do believe that it was a voluntary deal - Apple Corps. and Apple Computer settled Apple Corp's quite reasonable trademark infringement claim in a perfectly reasonable (at the time) manner. Twenty years ago, why would anyone suspect that Apple Computer would ever get into the music industry?
Contracts, however, are made to be broken. Apple Computer could certainly violate the settlement it entered into with Apple Corps, but only at a cost. Now Apple Corps has a great breach of contract lawsuit against Apple Computer, and Apple Computer gets to pay the penalty.
And why is this unfair? Jobs or his successors (I forgot who was in charge in 1991) certainly knew what they were doing when they originally settled with Apple Corps, and Jobs certainly knew what he was doing when he decided to break the contract. They could have easily created "iTunes Music" as a separate corporation not taking advantage of the Apple name. Of course, Jobs knew that this was going to lead to a lawsuit from Apple Corps. He's probably betting that the advantage of keeping iTunes under the Apple umbrella is worth more than what he'll have to pay to Apple Corps. Only time will tell if Jobs made the right decision, or stepped firmly upon his penis.
Can Windows also prevent me from booting a Knoppix CD to copy files to my USB device?
The IT staff could disable CD-ROM booting in the computer's bios and prevent you from changing the bios without the proper password.
Also, if the hard drive is formatted in NTFS, would booting Knoppix allow you to access it at all? (Maybe - I just don't know)
That's not the way motor-voter works. Registration to vote is not automatic when you get or renew a driver's license. They just give you very easy access to the forms.
...that they take place before the Endor Holocaust.
You say that like it's a bad thing. The new and improved Death Star is destroyed, and the Ewoks are wiped out. I see this as a win-win.
Sorry, I had meant to say "...as she poured hot grits into my pants, not "...as she was poured hot grits into my pants.
I am truly sorry, but as you can see, I was distracted.
One thing we all agree on, though, is that the "Do we hate ________ today?" joke is fucking tired.
Interestingly enough, that's exactly what Natalie Portman was telling me the other day, as she was poured hot grits into my pants.
The amazing this is this: Disney does everything for profit. We know this. So, Disney's plan must be:
1. Invent new fireworks launching tech and donate it to charity.
2. ???
3. Profit!
And you call yourself an open source advocate. We should send our DNA encoding to our alien brothers under the GPL.
Don't forget Deathrace 2000.
Remember Pris, the pleasure model? Of course she's going to look human - would you want to engage in sexual activities with a green bodied replicant? No!
Speak for yourself.
James Tiberius Kirk
Please note that trial court opinions do not establish any legal precedent beyond the case at hand. Trial court decisions are not controlling authority. For an opinion to become law that has to be followed in other courts, the opinion has to be from an appellate court. And many appellate court decisions are "depublished" and are not given any value as precedent.
And it gets more complicated than that. The federal courts in the 9th Circuit don't have to follow appellate decisions of the 7th Circuit. California state courts don't have to follow Florida state court appellate decisions (Thank God). Only the U.S. Supreme Court's opinions are precedent everywhere, and the U.S. Supreme court doesn't have the power to overturn state court decisions that are founded only in state law. For example, the US Supreme Court may not overturn the Massachusetts Supreme Court's opinion that MA law (not federal law) prohibits bans on gay marriage.
So, the EFF wouldn't have established any legal precedent by going to trial, unless the trial court's decision was appealed and EFF won on appeal.
And don't forget the "Type-R" sticker.
Does this mean that Ashcroft is now our friend or is this the wrong week?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend - old Arab saying.
The wonderful think about the world is that it isn't entirely in black and white. You can still hate John Ashcroft while applauding his Justice Department efforts to crack down on spam. You can even be thankful that Bill Gates licensed and "integrated" Minesweeper into Windows for Workgroups 3.11 while still disliking him and most of what you perceive Microsoft stands for.
John Ashcroft doesn't wear a black hat. He wears a grey one, just like the rest of us, and some of the things he's responsible for are good and should be acknowledged as such.
You are correct. Region encoding should not be protected under the law, because it has nothing to do with copyright. It's a matter of the contracts between the copyright holders and its various distributors. Since this contractural relationship has nothing to do with consumers, consumers should be allowed to 1) buy anywhere they like; and 2) circumvent region encoding without fear of penalty.
It's not a contradiction, although perhaps I could have stated it better.
Monopolies are not necessarily inconsistant with free markets. In fact, under a pure free market system with no govt. intervention, a monopoly is perfectly valid - even unlimited copyrights could be fashoned through the use of shrink-wrapped licensing agreements.
In this case, by stating that maybe we'll someday ditch the free market in information, I meant to say that we would ditch the concept of copyright and let information be free the way it wants to be free.