There is no demand for "rentals" or "purchases". There is demand for "content" at the lowest available price point. There are acceptable tradeoffs to consumers to achieve those price points.
If you think about it, a "rental" is a time-limited "purchase", basically. That's all it is. In exchange for this restriction, the company charges less. But, *WHY* would the company charge less? Answer: Because they're getting the product back and can rent it again. This is the underlying profit of the whole video rental industry. The fact that they can buy one video for P dollars and then rent it N times at R amount, where N*R > X.
But in the digital world, they don't need to get the thing back. It is possible to sell the content indefinitely, to all who are willing to purchase it. The only reason to raise the price is to increase profit, obviously. As the price rises, the market shrinks. Obviously there is an optimization function here, to maximize profit.
Have you done the market research which shows that the demand for $3 rentals does indeed not exceed the demand for $9 purchases by a factor of three?
It's not a function of the market demand for rentals. It's a function of the market demand for the content at the given price point. If the demand is indeed greater at $3, then it would make more sense to reduce the $9 sales down to the $3 point, in order to get that much more sales. Offering essentially the same content at two different prices, even with an artificial time-limitation on one of them, is less optimal than finding the correct price point in which to maximize profit.
What's more, that price point fluctuates over time, as demand decreases. So it'd make more sense to sell the content at a high price to start, then gradually lower it, maximizing profits over the whole of the audience.
They are also spending money on DRM schemes for the non-rental sales, so how is the cost any different?
The trend is clearly going away from DRM locked content for purchases, since consumers have figured out that you don't own content with DRM in it. Witness iTunes lack of DRM on music now.
Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm.
Huh?
Was that a question? The statement was straightforward enough.
It doesn't make any sense to charge less for a product when it costs more to create that product than to create a product which people will pay more for.
How does it work any better in the physical world, where I can simply rip the Netflix DVD I just rented? If anything, rental works better in the digital realm (in a world with strong DRM) than it does in the physical.
There is no such thing as "strong DRM", because DRM itself is a fundamental impossibility. No DRM can ever achieve the goal that DRM was created for. All DRM that exists has been broken. Most of it relatively quickly.
And you can rip the DVD, but you can also break the DRM. Neither of these is a relevant factor.
Rental works in the physical world because there's a fixed quantity of the item, and the items must be returned. Late fees can be charged, unreturned copies can be charged off entirely.
In the digital world, how do you charge a late fee? How do you charge if somebody wants to break the DRM shell open and buy the content? There's no more market other than the rental itself, which has a fixed bandwidth cost associated with it. The material itself is not limited by quantity, so there's no inherent difference between a rental and a purchase, other than one you've imposed (which can usually be easily broken and thus screw you out of a purchase, because without the DRM shell, rental == purchase).
The value of the MAC would change depending on the transaction, and part of the algorithm would involve a "shared secret". Basically a number shared between Microsoft and the merchant only.
A simplistic implementation would be to take the shared secret and the final price of the transaction, append them together, then run SHA over them to get a hash value. You can give the result to the client. If they change the price, then the hash doesn't match any more. They can't create a new hash, because they don't know the shared secret.
Obviously that approach is too simple, a real algorithm would be more complex, but you get the idea. Combine a secret code with values from the transaction, then use a one-way hashing function on them in some manner. The resulting hash is good only for those particular details, and can't be recreated by the untrusted client.
In the specific case of "rental", I'm always entertained by the comparison of the physical vs. the virtual world here. Specifically, the difference in distribution costs. Basically, rental makes no sense for the digital world in terms of distribution.
Think about it, the cost to download the content is the same whether you purchase it or rent it. The file would be the same one either way, basically. However, with rental, the price comes down because there's some sort of agreement or enforcement to make your copy expire in some fashion.
And if you consider it that way, it actually costs the retailer MORE for rental properties, as they now have to spend money on some kind of DRM scheme to enforce the time-based part of the contract. So the only reason for them to actually do this is volume; they'd have to get a significantly higher volume to make up for the price difference. If it's $3 to rent and $9 to buy, then they'd have to rent *over* three times as much as they'd sell, since there's also three times the bandwidth to be paid for now, as well as the costs of the DRM.
Streaming suffers from this even more, now you pay the bandwidth to transfer the content *every single time* it's viewed.
So why bother with rental at all?
What if, instead, they sold the content at the rental price (or just a hair above it)? Just sell a one-time download (possibly with a confirmation scheme to ensure the download finishes). No repeats, you don't gain ownership in the sense that you can redownload it indefinitely (you delete it, tough luck to you). $3 and you can download a copy and we're done, end of transaction.
Ideally, they'd sell as many as they'd rent in this case (probably more considering it's a "buy" and buyers will take advantage of the reduced costs). The bandwidth usage is basically the same as the rental model, there's no DRM scheme to deal with and no added costs to cope with there. Essentially, they'd be able to make more money this way. Possibly a lot more.
Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm. When you have actual physical product to transfer around, sure, that works. But when the cost of each is basically the same, then there's little point in separation based on a price.
Unlike the rest of the internet, Facebook friends tend to be people who actually know each other in real life. Thus, the only people able to see and/or comment on the dead person's page will be people the dead person considered to be friends or acquaintances at least. Usually these people know each other as well, friend groups tend to be mutual.
Thus, you're far less likely to get the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory taking effect, because there's no anonymity involved.
If, however, someone used the blender codebase to make a web-app that allowed you to make 3d models and renderings, would the providers of the web app be required under GPLv2 to distribute the source of the app to people who were using the web service? I think that's the "loop hole" we're talking about here.
That is indeed what is being discussed, and no they would not be required to release the source.
The real question is why does anybody in their right mind think that they *should* be required to do so? They're using the software to create their web service. They're not distributing the software to other people.
This sort of thing is only a "loop-hole" to idiots. IMO, of course.
It was the express intent of GPL2 because there was no substantive use of derivative works that were not distributed at the time.
It's a little silly to claim that GPL2 was not arbitrarily socialist and AGPL3 is. Either both are or both are not. Each is equally radical for its time.
No, it's not silly.
The GPLv2 does exactly what I want it to do: ensure that the software remains free. It's saying "hey, anybody can use this software I created for whatever the hell they want. If they make changes and sell it, then I expect them to reciprocate by giving away their changes". Sure, it's a land-grab, but hey, they're the ones using my work in part of theirs, and this is how I expect to be compensated.
The GPLv3 goes too far and makes even *use* of the software into a land-grab scenario. It basically states that if you modify the software and then use it in any way, then everybody who gets the results of that use must also be entitled to the changes of the software. It doesn't cover just redistribution.
The video software analogy used by somebody else is perfect. What if I made a video editing program, and GPLv3'd it. Somebody else comes along and uses the tool to make a movie, which they then show to everybody. Maybe they customize the software a bit to produce effects for their particular needs.
So... now they have to release their changes as well? That's just bloody stupid. They made their custom tool for their custom use. Nobody has, or should have, any rights to it merely because they can view the results of that tool.
The problem with the FSF and the GPLv3 contingent seems to be that web-apps are somehow fundamentally different from any other software, and need special protections. This is where they are mistaken. They are different, but not in an important way that requires a protective blanket.
If I release a piece of software, then I'm essentially giving up control over that software. I retain the copyrights, and use the GPLv2 to assert that nobody can make the software that I'm giving away "unfree" later. if I take somebody else's GPL software, modify it, and then similarly give up control, the same license applies.
For a webapp, though, I'm not giving up control over anything. If I release a piece of software, and somebody else *uses* it to make a web-app, then they're not giving up control of the app. They're merely using it to produce some output. An app on a webpage is just *output*. It doesn't do anything by itself (javascripty UI stuff aside). The software is all on the back-end, being used. No control is lost.
That giving up of control over the software is the difference between a normal piece of software and a web-app. But it doesn't need special protections. They're making a "service", not "software". By what right does the creator of a piece of software have to say what services it can and cannot be used to create? Copyright doesn't cover it, for damn sure.
I would be surprised if that particular section of the GPLv3 would hold up in a court of law that actually knew WTF it was doing.
It'd be quite possible to run a check and throw a warning if a change effects greater than a certain percentage of domains. Or you could check against a sample of domains that really aren't going to change (I'm thinking mcdonalds.se, ibm.se etc etc).
- The total impact was less than an hour.
- The number of affected users was likely only in the dozens range (thanks to DNS caching).
- Even individual computers use DNS caching nowadays. All Windows machines, for example, cache DNS lookup results for a default of a day or so.
- Do we really need to develop a cumbersome and expensive process to solve a most likely one-time problem that affected virtually nobody in any serious way?
Thus, we had a loop-hole in that companies which performed the software over the net without ever distributing it can make substantive derivative works of the program from which they derive tremendous profit but have none of the obligations. Think of google in this context.
How exactly is that a loop-hole? They're not offering the program to other users, they're offering the results of their use of that program. That is not a loop-hole, that is the *express intent* of the GPLv2.
If somebody uses my software, even modified, to produce output, and then sells the output, why in the hell would I think that I'd have any right to force them to provide their modifications? They're producing the output, not the software.
The original goal of the GPL was to set the software free, not to force everybody to comply with some arbitrary socialist agenda.
Absolutely. GPLv3 software is software that I cannot contribute to in good faith, because I disagree with the fundamental terms of the license. I contribute to many GPLv2 projects, and all my GPL'd code is licensed under GPLv2 only, with no upgrade clause.
The GPLv3 is simply a bad license that does bad things, and I refuse to have any part of it. The FSF really screwed the pooch on that one, and are now untrustworthy because of it.
You can't protect against a single point of failure when you're talking about a person updating a system. Redundancy protects against computer error, not human error.
See, ultimately, somebody, somewhere has to be responsible for the name updating. Having it in two places just means that an incorrect update gets pushed to both places by the person making the change.
In this case, the effects were minimized by the nature of DNS itself, and the caching mechanisms involved. Most servers probably never saw the changes. Those that did will get their caches cleared fairly rapidly, and the effect is minimal.
Basically you attach your twitter account to your paypal account, then you can send money to any other twitter user with a simple message to that effect.
Of course, the catch is that the money never actually gets transferred until you "settle" the account. It just keeps a running tally for everybody, then you settle and pay the whole shebang at once.
A comment system should not allow you to insert javascript code of any kind, period. How exactly did he slip this past the filters? Does reddit even have filters?
Regardless, I've added reddit.com to my blocklist. Simple immunity.:)
Isn't one of the main tenants of OSS (in this case, Linux) that zillions of volunteers working for free was equal-to or superior-to the zillions spent by the big corporate monopoly?
For many of us, Linux is far superior. But not all people are equal.
all of this is beyond the average user.
And we should give a damn about the average user because... ?
Your comments precisely demonstrate the mindset that inhibits mainstream adoption of Linux and other open-source software. If you are correct, then Linux will remain a niche software, and Windows (or other big company software) will stay the most popular.
I believe you're laboring under a misconception here. You seem to think that the goal of Linux is somehow related to marketshare or how widespread the use is.
This is fundamentally incorrect.
People who use and develop Linux really couldn't give a damn whether the rest of the world uses it or not. See, it's not about creating a solution for "the average user" or even for anybody else.
People who create Linux create it for themselves. It's a solution for them. Not for anybody else.
So, in that respect, it really doesn't make any difference how widespread it becomes or not. They're not focused on marketshare. They're not focused on making it usable for the average user (well, most of them, anyway). The important fact to glean from this is *they don't have to be*.
Linux currently dominates the server market. Nothing else is even remotely close. The internet as a whole, mostly, runs on Linux. Basically, what I'm saying is that, without trying, a bunch of people working for free created a system that runs the global network without giving a damn about usability for some random Joe on the street.
And you think that they need to suddenly care about the average user?
Open Source software is about choice. You're free to use Linux if it solves a problem for you. Of course, you're free not to use it as well. Furthermore, since it's "open", you're free to solve your own problems and contribute those back to help everybody else. This is how it improves.
But expecting somebody else to solve your particular problems, for free, seems a bit odd to me. If Linux doesn't work for you, great, use something else. Just don't expect people to bend over backwards for you when you're not giving them any reason to do so.
First, Microsoft doesn't "do it". Without specific drivers provided by the OEM, the power-save functionality doesn't work well on Win either. The fact that all OEMs provide these is simply a matter of scale, Windows is 90% of the market, after all.
Secondly, Apple controls the hardware. They can do what they like and make sure it works because it's a limited subset. You pay extra for that too.
What you're basically asking for is "why can't this free software made by volunteers be as instantly capable with any hardware on the planet as the big corporate monopoly that spends zillions on the same thing"?
Do you now see the idiocy of the question?
Hey, the fact that it works at all is the miracle here. Okay, so you might have to tweak it. Generally speaking, you don't have to, but there's always edge cases.
Also, the existence of differing distributions reflects different needs. There's stuff in any install of Windows that people often don't need. So why install it? Linux being customizable for the task at hand is a feature, not a drawback.
And people expect an average computer user to want to use Linux when they have to make sure their kernel is compiled right to do basic power management?
No, you expect the average computer user to install the mobile or laptop version on a laptop, which come premade specifically with optimizations like these.
Err , if what the author saw can be independently verified by anyone who wants to try it then yes it damn well should be.
No, it damn well should not be. That's "original research". If you have to say "go out and repeat my experiment" then you're conducting research, by definition.
Wikipedia says this: "All articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." It's really that simple.
A primary source, like the software's manual, is fine, as long as it's not subject to interpretation. In other words, *facts* are fine if they're a) documented and b) not interpreted to have more than is actually said.
You're basically saying "run the software, observe X". The problem is that "the software" is not a third-party published source. It's first-party. It's what the article in question is about. If you want to put it in the manual for the software, or write something about it, then reference that, that's fine.
The point is that you have to reference something, and the words "do it yourself" is not a "reference" and will never be a "reference".
Won't work. Hard drives won't last that long without movement/use, and flash drives leak charge over time. Any transient storage medium won't last that long.
You need something not sensitive to light, magnetic fields, and which doesn't rely on electric charges. So, I'd say to not bother with stuff you can do at home.
Go to a print house, where they can make actual pressed discs, and get your data actually pressed onto CD's or DVD's. Burning isn't the same thing, and won't last even if it's in the dark the whole time. A full out disc will last a long time, and the hardware to read CDs still exists today, even though the CD was introduced in 1982. It's a format with staying power.
Yes, because using the primary source (the book) is original research.
If you're writing for Wikipedia, your job is to summarize current knowledge on whatever the subject is, using other references as your source.
If you use the original material as the source, then you're not summarizing current knowledge, you're *adding* to current knowledge. That's not what an encyclopedia does, it doesn't present new content, it presents a synthesis of pre-existing content.
If you want to read the book and write about it, go to a book review site and write a review. That review can be cited in Wikipedia all you like, assuming it passes muster as a respectable source.
It varies depending on the phone, the carrier, etc.
Most carriers have the ability to use the time difference of arrival on multiple towers to determine a general position, and this data is sent along to the call centers when a 911 call is made. This works with any phone. Problem is that it's pretty inaccurate. You can only narrow it down to a block or two, at best. Advanced methods of this can be more precise, but it's not something easy to automate for E911 purposes.
If the phone itself has GPS capabilities (or more commonly, Assisted GPS so that it'll work indoors too), then the phone itself sends the location data along with the 911 call. All phones with GPS systems do this.
To the emergency call handler, this is all more or less transparent; they get the callers name, number, and general location (or specific location for outdoors GPS signals).
Slashdot Mirror
You're thinking about it wrong.
There is no demand for "rentals" or "purchases". There is demand for "content" at the lowest available price point. There are acceptable tradeoffs to consumers to achieve those price points.
If you think about it, a "rental" is a time-limited "purchase", basically. That's all it is. In exchange for this restriction, the company charges less. But, *WHY* would the company charge less? Answer: Because they're getting the product back and can rent it again. This is the underlying profit of the whole video rental industry. The fact that they can buy one video for P dollars and then rent it N times at R amount, where N*R > X.
But in the digital world, they don't need to get the thing back. It is possible to sell the content indefinitely, to all who are willing to purchase it. The only reason to raise the price is to increase profit, obviously. As the price rises, the market shrinks. Obviously there is an optimization function here, to maximize profit.
Have you done the market research which shows that the demand for $3 rentals does indeed not exceed the demand for $9 purchases by a factor of three?
It's not a function of the market demand for rentals. It's a function of the market demand for the content at the given price point. If the demand is indeed greater at $3, then it would make more sense to reduce the $9 sales down to the $3 point, in order to get that much more sales. Offering essentially the same content at two different prices, even with an artificial time-limitation on one of them, is less optimal than finding the correct price point in which to maximize profit.
What's more, that price point fluctuates over time, as demand decreases. So it'd make more sense to sell the content at a high price to start, then gradually lower it, maximizing profits over the whole of the audience.
They are also spending money on DRM schemes for the non-rental sales, so how is the cost any different?
The trend is clearly going away from DRM locked content for purchases, since consumers have figured out that you don't own content with DRM in it. Witness iTunes lack of DRM on music now.
Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm.
Huh?
Was that a question? The statement was straightforward enough.
It doesn't make any sense to charge less for a product when it costs more to create that product than to create a product which people will pay more for.
How does it work any better in the physical world, where I can simply rip the Netflix DVD I just rented? If anything, rental works better in the digital realm (in a world with strong DRM) than it does in the physical.
There is no such thing as "strong DRM", because DRM itself is a fundamental impossibility. No DRM can ever achieve the goal that DRM was created for. All DRM that exists has been broken. Most of it relatively quickly.
And you can rip the DVD, but you can also break the DRM. Neither of these is a relevant factor.
Rental works in the physical world because there's a fixed quantity of the item, and the items must be returned. Late fees can be charged, unreturned copies can be charged off entirely.
In the digital world, how do you charge a late fee? How do you charge if somebody wants to break the DRM shell open and buy the content? There's no more market other than the rental itself, which has a fixed bandwidth cost associated with it. The material itself is not limited by quantity, so there's no inherent difference between a rental and a purchase, other than one you've imposed (which can usually be easily broken and thus screw you out of a purchase, because without the DRM shell, rental == purchase).
The value of the MAC would change depending on the transaction, and part of the algorithm would involve a "shared secret". Basically a number shared between Microsoft and the merchant only.
A simplistic implementation would be to take the shared secret and the final price of the transaction, append them together, then run SHA over them to get a hash value. You can give the result to the client. If they change the price, then the hash doesn't match any more. They can't create a new hash, because they don't know the shared secret.
Obviously that approach is too simple, a real algorithm would be more complex, but you get the idea. Combine a secret code with values from the transaction, then use a one-way hashing function on them in some manner. The resulting hash is good only for those particular details, and can't be recreated by the untrusted client.
In the specific case of "rental", I'm always entertained by the comparison of the physical vs. the virtual world here. Specifically, the difference in distribution costs. Basically, rental makes no sense for the digital world in terms of distribution.
Think about it, the cost to download the content is the same whether you purchase it or rent it. The file would be the same one either way, basically. However, with rental, the price comes down because there's some sort of agreement or enforcement to make your copy expire in some fashion.
And if you consider it that way, it actually costs the retailer MORE for rental properties, as they now have to spend money on some kind of DRM scheme to enforce the time-based part of the contract. So the only reason for them to actually do this is volume; they'd have to get a significantly higher volume to make up for the price difference. If it's $3 to rent and $9 to buy, then they'd have to rent *over* three times as much as they'd sell, since there's also three times the bandwidth to be paid for now, as well as the costs of the DRM.
Streaming suffers from this even more, now you pay the bandwidth to transfer the content *every single time* it's viewed.
So why bother with rental at all?
What if, instead, they sold the content at the rental price (or just a hair above it)? Just sell a one-time download (possibly with a confirmation scheme to ensure the download finishes). No repeats, you don't gain ownership in the sense that you can redownload it indefinitely (you delete it, tough luck to you). $3 and you can download a copy and we're done, end of transaction.
Ideally, they'd sell as many as they'd rent in this case (probably more considering it's a "buy" and buyers will take advantage of the reduced costs). The bandwidth usage is basically the same as the rental model, there's no DRM scheme to deal with and no added costs to cope with there. Essentially, they'd be able to make more money this way. Possibly a lot more.
Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm. When you have actual physical product to transfer around, sure, that works. But when the cost of each is basically the same, then there's little point in separation based on a price.
Unlike the rest of the internet, Facebook friends tend to be people who actually know each other in real life. Thus, the only people able to see and/or comment on the dead person's page will be people the dead person considered to be friends or acquaintances at least. Usually these people know each other as well, friend groups tend to be mutual.
Thus, you're far less likely to get the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory taking effect, because there's no anonymity involved.
If, however, someone used the blender codebase to make a web-app that allowed you to make 3d models and renderings, would the providers of the web app be required under GPLv2 to distribute the source of the app to people who were using the web service? I think that's the "loop hole" we're talking about here.
That is indeed what is being discussed, and no they would not be required to release the source.
The real question is why does anybody in their right mind think that they *should* be required to do so? They're using the software to create their web service. They're not distributing the software to other people.
This sort of thing is only a "loop-hole" to idiots. IMO, of course.
It was the express intent of GPL2 because there was no substantive use of derivative works that were not distributed at the time.
It's a little silly to claim that GPL2 was not arbitrarily socialist and AGPL3 is. Either both are or both are not. Each is equally radical for its time.
No, it's not silly.
The GPLv2 does exactly what I want it to do: ensure that the software remains free. It's saying "hey, anybody can use this software I created for whatever the hell they want. If they make changes and sell it, then I expect them to reciprocate by giving away their changes". Sure, it's a land-grab, but hey, they're the ones using my work in part of theirs, and this is how I expect to be compensated.
The GPLv3 goes too far and makes even *use* of the software into a land-grab scenario. It basically states that if you modify the software and then use it in any way, then everybody who gets the results of that use must also be entitled to the changes of the software. It doesn't cover just redistribution.
The video software analogy used by somebody else is perfect. What if I made a video editing program, and GPLv3'd it. Somebody else comes along and uses the tool to make a movie, which they then show to everybody. Maybe they customize the software a bit to produce effects for their particular needs.
So... now they have to release their changes as well? That's just bloody stupid. They made their custom tool for their custom use. Nobody has, or should have, any rights to it merely because they can view the results of that tool.
The problem with the FSF and the GPLv3 contingent seems to be that web-apps are somehow fundamentally different from any other software, and need special protections. This is where they are mistaken. They are different, but not in an important way that requires a protective blanket.
If I release a piece of software, then I'm essentially giving up control over that software. I retain the copyrights, and use the GPLv2 to assert that nobody can make the software that I'm giving away "unfree" later. if I take somebody else's GPL software, modify it, and then similarly give up control, the same license applies.
For a webapp, though, I'm not giving up control over anything. If I release a piece of software, and somebody else *uses* it to make a web-app, then they're not giving up control of the app. They're merely using it to produce some output. An app on a webpage is just *output*. It doesn't do anything by itself (javascripty UI stuff aside). The software is all on the back-end, being used. No control is lost.
That giving up of control over the software is the difference between a normal piece of software and a web-app. But it doesn't need special protections. They're making a "service", not "software". By what right does the creator of a piece of software have to say what services it can and cannot be used to create? Copyright doesn't cover it, for damn sure.
I would be surprised if that particular section of the GPLv3 would hold up in a court of law that actually knew WTF it was doing.
What about regression testing?
It'd be quite possible to run a check and throw a warning if a change effects greater than a certain percentage of domains. Or you could check against a sample of domains that really aren't going to change (I'm thinking mcdonalds.se, ibm.se etc etc).
- The total impact was less than an hour.
- The number of affected users was likely only in the dozens range (thanks to DNS caching).
- Even individual computers use DNS caching nowadays. All Windows machines, for example, cache DNS lookup results for a default of a day or so.
- Do we really need to develop a cumbersome and expensive process to solve a most likely one-time problem that affected virtually nobody in any serious way?
That's perfect. The only thing you need to do to support your policy is... well, do nothing.
Nah, I'll go one better. I'll contribute to projects that use licenses I agree with. GPLv2 projects, for example.
Of course you can.
When transcribing medical records, double-or-triple keying the data is the norm.
And where does this data come from? The doctor? The testing lab? What happens when the error is in the source that you give to three people to key in?
Ultimately, all data to be input derives from somewhere. An error there will just get duplicated down the line.
Thus, we had a loop-hole in that companies which performed the software over the net without ever distributing it can make substantive derivative works of the program from which they derive tremendous profit but have none of the obligations. Think of google in this context.
How exactly is that a loop-hole? They're not offering the program to other users, they're offering the results of their use of that program. That is not a loop-hole, that is the *express intent* of the GPLv2.
If somebody uses my software, even modified, to produce output, and then sells the output, why in the hell would I think that I'd have any right to force them to provide their modifications? They're producing the output, not the software.
The original goal of the GPL was to set the software free, not to force everybody to comply with some arbitrary socialist agenda.
Absolutely. GPLv3 software is software that I cannot contribute to in good faith, because I disagree with the fundamental terms of the license. I contribute to many GPLv2 projects, and all my GPL'd code is licensed under GPLv2 only, with no upgrade clause.
The GPLv3 is simply a bad license that does bad things, and I refuse to have any part of it. The FSF really screwed the pooch on that one, and are now untrustworthy because of it.
You can't protect against a single point of failure when you're talking about a person updating a system. Redundancy protects against computer error, not human error.
See, ultimately, somebody, somewhere has to be responsible for the name updating. Having it in two places just means that an incorrect update gets pushed to both places by the person making the change.
In this case, the effects were minimized by the nature of DNS itself, and the caching mechanisms involved. Most servers probably never saw the changes. Those that did will get their caches cleared fairly rapidly, and the effect is minimal.
Site: https://twitpay.me/
Basically you attach your twitter account to your paypal account, then you can send money to any other twitter user with a simple message to that effect.
Of course, the catch is that the money never actually gets transferred until you "settle" the account. It just keeps a running tally for everybody, then you settle and pay the whole shebang at once.
A comment system should not allow you to insert javascript code of any kind, period. How exactly did he slip this past the filters? Does reddit even have filters?
Regardless, I've added reddit.com to my blocklist. Simple immunity. :)
Actually, it's photo 27 now. Don't think those are fixed.
Depends on how you define "deadly", of course. Making it more easily transmitted would be better for the virus, for example.
Isn't one of the main tenants of OSS (in this case, Linux) that zillions of volunteers working for free was equal-to or superior-to the zillions spent by the big corporate monopoly?
For many of us, Linux is far superior. But not all people are equal.
all of this is beyond the average user.
And we should give a damn about the average user because... ?
Your comments precisely demonstrate the mindset that inhibits mainstream adoption of Linux and other open-source software. If you are correct, then Linux will remain a niche software, and Windows (or other big company software) will stay the most popular.
I believe you're laboring under a misconception here. You seem to think that the goal of Linux is somehow related to marketshare or how widespread the use is.
This is fundamentally incorrect.
People who use and develop Linux really couldn't give a damn whether the rest of the world uses it or not. See, it's not about creating a solution for "the average user" or even for anybody else.
People who create Linux create it for themselves. It's a solution for them. Not for anybody else.
So, in that respect, it really doesn't make any difference how widespread it becomes or not. They're not focused on marketshare. They're not focused on making it usable for the average user (well, most of them, anyway). The important fact to glean from this is *they don't have to be*.
Linux currently dominates the server market. Nothing else is even remotely close. The internet as a whole, mostly, runs on Linux. Basically, what I'm saying is that, without trying, a bunch of people working for free created a system that runs the global network without giving a damn about usability for some random Joe on the street.
And you think that they need to suddenly care about the average user?
Open Source software is about choice. You're free to use Linux if it solves a problem for you. Of course, you're free not to use it as well. Furthermore, since it's "open", you're free to solve your own problems and contribute those back to help everybody else. This is how it improves.
But expecting somebody else to solve your particular problems, for free, seems a bit odd to me. If Linux doesn't work for you, great, use something else. Just don't expect people to bend over backwards for you when you're not giving them any reason to do so.
First, Microsoft doesn't "do it". Without specific drivers provided by the OEM, the power-save functionality doesn't work well on Win either. The fact that all OEMs provide these is simply a matter of scale, Windows is 90% of the market, after all.
Secondly, Apple controls the hardware. They can do what they like and make sure it works because it's a limited subset. You pay extra for that too.
What you're basically asking for is "why can't this free software made by volunteers be as instantly capable with any hardware on the planet as the big corporate monopoly that spends zillions on the same thing"?
Do you now see the idiocy of the question?
Hey, the fact that it works at all is the miracle here. Okay, so you might have to tweak it. Generally speaking, you don't have to, but there's always edge cases.
Also, the existence of differing distributions reflects different needs. There's stuff in any install of Windows that people often don't need. So why install it? Linux being customizable for the task at hand is a feature, not a drawback.
And people expect an average computer user to want to use Linux when they have to make sure their kernel is compiled right to do basic power management?
No, you expect the average computer user to install the mobile or laptop version on a laptop, which come premade specifically with optimizations like these.
One size does NOT fit all.
Err , if what the author saw can be independently verified by anyone who wants to try it then yes it damn well should be.
No, it damn well should not be. That's "original research". If you have to say "go out and repeat my experiment" then you're conducting research, by definition.
Wikipedia says this: "All articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." It's really that simple.
A primary source, like the software's manual, is fine, as long as it's not subject to interpretation. In other words, *facts* are fine if they're a) documented and b) not interpreted to have more than is actually said.
You're basically saying "run the software, observe X". The problem is that "the software" is not a third-party published source. It's first-party. It's what the article in question is about. If you want to put it in the manual for the software, or write something about it, then reference that, that's fine.
The point is that you have to reference something, and the words "do it yourself" is not a "reference" and will never be a "reference".
Won't work. Hard drives won't last that long without movement/use, and flash drives leak charge over time. Any transient storage medium won't last that long.
You need something not sensitive to light, magnetic fields, and which doesn't rely on electric charges. So, I'd say to not bother with stuff you can do at home.
Go to a print house, where they can make actual pressed discs, and get your data actually pressed onto CD's or DVD's. Burning isn't the same thing, and won't last even if it's in the dark the whole time. A full out disc will last a long time, and the hardware to read CDs still exists today, even though the CD was introduced in 1982. It's a format with staying power.
Yes, because using the primary source (the book) is original research.
If you're writing for Wikipedia, your job is to summarize current knowledge on whatever the subject is, using other references as your source.
If you use the original material as the source, then you're not summarizing current knowledge, you're *adding* to current knowledge. That's not what an encyclopedia does, it doesn't present new content, it presents a synthesis of pre-existing content.
If you want to read the book and write about it, go to a book review site and write a review. That review can be cited in Wikipedia all you like, assuming it passes muster as a respectable source.
Last I checked, Facebook was a US company with no presence in Canada. Do they really have to care about Canada's laws?
I mean, if I start a website and let anybody use it, I'm not suddenly subject to Canada's privacy laws just because some Canadian uses it.
Or am I mistaken somehow, and FB does have an actual physical presence in Canada?
It varies depending on the phone, the carrier, etc.
Most carriers have the ability to use the time difference of arrival on multiple towers to determine a general position, and this data is sent along to the call centers when a 911 call is made. This works with any phone. Problem is that it's pretty inaccurate. You can only narrow it down to a block or two, at best. Advanced methods of this can be more precise, but it's not something easy to automate for E911 purposes.
If the phone itself has GPS capabilities (or more commonly, Assisted GPS so that it'll work indoors too), then the phone itself sends the location data along with the 911 call. All phones with GPS systems do this.
To the emergency call handler, this is all more or less transparent; they get the callers name, number, and general location (or specific location for outdoors GPS signals).