The "fun" quotient of software coupled with its uniqueness is directly related to the desire to pirate it.
I thought so too, then I found 14,000 pages on Google with the words "Quickbooks crack"
So maybe the fun quotient isn't as important as the usefulness quotient?
Re:There ARE other ways
on
Fair IP Laws?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
But, the history of the human race, indeed of our own civilization, doesn't bear it out. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ulysees, Shakespear, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, and other artists too numerous to mention had all the incentive they needed to create the greatest works our civilization has ever known, all without the existence of copyright or any other form of "intellectual property."
That is a flawed statement, because there was no way to easily copy these works when they were created (with the possible exception of Van Gogh who did suffer problems with copy cats and poorly made copies).
In a smaller world, it is easier to maintain control of one's intellectual property. Thats not to say that others didn't make money from the works of art (for example theater owners likely made ticket money from presenting Shakespeare), but somebody else couldn't take a play and derive profit from it without compensating or crediting the author (because everbody knew Shakesphere and his plays, just like everybody knew Beethoven and his symphonies).
There are other ways to insure artists are compensated, without granting them (or, more likely, their publishers) an exclusive monopoly on their work, for any length of time.
Could you please cite some examples?
I believe that copyright law is neessesary to protect intellectual property, though I do not support recent changes in the law. I believe that Walt Disney should enjoy some protection for his mouse (but not for enternity). I believe that I should have certain rights under law if I choose to express myself artistically to protect me from others unlawfully gaining profit from my song, painting, movie, computer program, etc...
We should be discussing alternatives to copyright which can be implimented to insure that artists get compensated for their work, without imposing artifical, government mandated monopolies upon our society, monopolies which are antithetical to free markets, to freedom of speech, and ultimately, to freedom itself.
This would be the argument of the non creative who seek to make money from other's achievements. If you produce a song, should others gain money from your achivements? What if you are not strong enough (politically or physically) to demand payments that are yours? If there is no copyright protection, who ensures that you will receive due payment?
And if you are a creative person that feels that these laws are too restrivtive, then by all means, release your intelletual property to the public domain without demand or setoff.
I agree that copyright law has been abused and battered over the years. I also agree that the laws need a serious overhaul. But I do question your motives for eliminating intellectual property and copyright all together. It is my opinion that copyright law provides equal protection under the law to all who choose to use it - from the mega colglomate that copyrights a new music song, to the 69 year old grandmother that has just penned her first novel.
I urge you to respond and defend your positions a bit closer.
According to Salon, the purpose of the act is to condone spyware by regulating it, and thus setting a precedent for its continued use.
Spyware exists, and it will continue to exist until it is declared illegal by an act of Congress of supreme court. And thus, would you rather have it unregulated and sending all of your personal and impersonal information to and fro, or would you rather have it regulated?
Ciagrettes are also a deadly and annoying product that is regulated by the government, which would implicitly imply that the government condones tabacco use. Yet I would expect that few non smokers would argue that regulation is not a bad thing in that situation.
In a world with two evils (regulated spyware and unregulated spyware), I'll take the regulations, please...
But credit cards can be used remotely (telephone, web, etc..) And with a bit more equipment, expertise and time one could duplicate thousands and thousands of credit cards.
But since biometics would happen locally, could the average criminal get the biometric database, duplicate a fingerprint from the encoded fingerprint data and use it? How about cloning up some DNA? Beyond a physical attack, these things don't come easily, and definately not in the volume of compromised users that would make something like this profitable.
Biometrics are nice not because it will be impossible to duplicate, but rather because it will be difficult and expensive to duplicate.
My objection has always been that almost all of the most popular viruses, hacks, and backdoors have been discovered or created by accident.
These bugs are not discovered by accident. There are people (both good and bad) that spend many hours a day looking for these exploits. They do everything they can to find cracks in the armor of any package (be it Slashdot, windows XP or whatever).
And when the good guys find it, they publish information about it so it can be quickly patched and fixed. If the bad guys find it, then it gets posted where the script kiddies can find it. Under no circumstances think that these holes are found by accident. Thats as crazy as thinking that a high school student can sit down and guess the root password at NATO in three tries.
Now that I've done a little research, I see this as a naive view. For one thing, it doesn't explain the frequent security flaws in Linux and Apache.
All programmers write security holes at some time in their life. Having a buffer overrun or a security hole is not exclusive to Microsoft programmers, everybody does it.
The thing that you fail to understand is that since the same security flaws are going to exist in both open source and propriatary software, the security risk is the same for both sides. But, if the open source is openly available, then the white hats can quickly attack it and publish the exploits before the black hats have a chance to use it.
For propritary software, the crackers need to wait for the software to go into the wild. Once it is widly distributed, then they start attacking it slowly. The white hats start examining it too, but without the benifit of the code, they can only move as fast as the crackers. Some times the good guys win, and the exploits are published (and hopefully fixed). Some times the bad guys win, and you get a Melissa virus.
This suggests that it is far more harmful to publish this info (which really isn't helpful to users anyway) than to keep it secret, where it can do no harm.
Don't for a minute think that obscurity is going to prevent an exploit from being discovered and used. The only think obscurity can do is prevent somebody from finding the bug, and informing the proper people so that it can be fixed before further damange can be done.
All programmers make mistakes. You can either hide those mistakes away and wrongly hope that somebody isn't going to find it, or you can get your mistakes exposed to the world and get them fixed quickly and efficiently.
It would. It's not a good excuse, but it is true. In the short term, Microsoft cracks would increase.
Mod this one up insightful.
For the first, say 5 months, it would be anarchy - People would be fixing bug 24 hours a day all around the world, just to stay a few steps ahead of the crackers. Then as soon as the largest holes are patched, there willl be peace in our time. Machines would be fairly secure, and we could go back to actually using our bandwidth and machines for important things instead of 3 MB of klez and sircam worms daily.
Instead Microsoft would rather keep the bugs obscured, so they will escape slowly over a number of years. And don't get me wrong, they will escape, there is no amount of obscurity that can mask the continious onslaught of people pouring over every inch of the code looking for holes.
Eventually the FCC decided to offer a Faustian bargain: Industry could use the existing ISM spectrum if they adhered to certain technical limitations with no expectation of protection.
In other words, as long as you stay within the 2.4 GHz spectrum, you can do what ever you want, as long as you didn't expect to be protected from interference from other devices.
Bluetooth and 802.11B have already violently clashed in this space already. I have seen it myself - with a 802.11B card in one PCMCIA slot, as soon as I turn on a bluetooth card in the other slot, my average ping time on the 802.11B goes up considerably.
I know this is a troll, but I am in a arguing sort of mood.
The States came after Microsoft because they had dollar signs in their eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. They just wanted a piece of the pie.
What, so you think that the states will see any settlement money? Did you think that Bill G was going to show up with a huge novelty check with the memo "Sorry for fucking you over"??
I don't know about the other states, but Utah joined as a result of the ongoing litigation with Caldera over DR-DOS. Many of the experts in the case are at the University Of Utah, and after reviewing the facts in the case, they all advised the then attorney general to join the case.
If nothing else, it was an effort to punish Microsoft, and maybe drum up a little more support for the hometown heros Caldera and Novell.
Not to mention, being ruled a monopoly is a surefire way to ensure every con artist and halfwit who can't make it in the market on their own will slither out of the woodwork and make bogus claims against you.
Right - you know I really hate it when I have to go out and pick a telephone provider, or gas station, or what kind of car to drive. Wouldn't it just have been easier if we all drove Ford cars filled with Standard Oil gas while talking on our AT&T phones?
Maybe because if we had let those monopolies stand, AT&T would be charging you $2.00 a minute instead of 15 cents, Ford cars would breaking down ever 10,000 miles forcing you to buy a new one, and gasoline would be at 10 bucks a gallon.
Important: They don't actually get money up front, and living expenses aren't covered - it's all a loan, and it's all taken out of their (small)share of the profits.
That is important - and thank you for setting me straight. I assumed that it was somewhat like the movie business where the superstars get the money in advance (ie, Arnold gets $5 million for his next movie) and thus I figured that a big draw like Aerosmith would get millions for their next record (just to use an example).
But for being such a terrible business to be in, there sure are alot of people who want to do it. Maybe it *is* the groupies that is getting them all excited...:)
So assuming that the artists get all $400,000 dollars that are left - thats $100,000 dollars a guy for what amounts to more than a year of recording and filming (and that doesn't even count touring). These seem to be very tedious and boring things to do. Heck, I get close to $100,000 and I work a 8-5 job. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of money for a gold or platinum artist, does it? And it certainly doesn't seem to justify a $30 price for a CD. Maybe all the groupies make up for it.
I recognize that most artists get money up front, and that most of their living expenses are covered (homes, cars, etc...), but it still appears like there are millions and millions of dollars disappearing into black holes somewhere.
If I was Courtney Love, I *would* be upset (mostly because I was Courtney Love, but aside from the self angst, I would be upset that I gained so little from my talent).
I have always been a fan of the monkey in the tree experiment.
The setup story goes like this:
There is hunter walking through the forest, and he sees a monkey in the distance in a tree. He shoots at the monkey. Well, the monkey is so startled by the gunshot that he falls out of the tree at the same instant that the gun is fired. The bullet still hits the monkey. How is this so?
Basically this takes advantage of the fact everything falls at the same rate. You set up a gun of some sort (with a round projectile), and you set up a "tree" with the monkey a distance way. The gun and the monkey should be at the exact same height. The trick is to then fire the gun and drop the monkey at the same instant. The projectile should hit the monkey every time.
This experiment is a pain to get setup correctly, but it is pretty cool when it is successful. I couldn't find any video of it on the web, maybe somebody else can find some.
Unfortunately Microsoft can't take ALL the blame for the problems of Klez... The SMTP itself is inherently insecure to begin with and anyone can send mail that looks like it is from anyone else.
But only Microsoft provides a hands off and automagic way for somebody to take advantage of the insecurities in SMTP with little trouble.
Thats what is so bad about these little episodes. SMTP has existed since the early 70's, yet e-mail born viruses that take advantage of the SMTP header spoofing have only existed a few years.
Mandatory qualifier - I work in Linux development. I have both my own personal GPL software (see my sig), and I also develop closed software for my employer.
You don't have to go completely open source either. Keep a few Windows PCs and Macs with the proprietary stuff and let the BSA worry about those.
At least convert as much server software as possible, thats where the real money is for the BSA members.
That's complete BS. There is plenty of excellent, free software in almost all areas.
Ever try to find a open source tax preperation program? Doesn't exist. True, you can get lots of programs from the open source world, but the more specialized the programs get, the less likely you will find a free alternative. These programs normally take a higher expertise level (ie, you need to be a chemistry expert to design a feasible chemistry app), and the open source need just isn't there. And your average unversity isn't going to spend tens of thousands of dollars in salary to develop a complex app and then give it away for free to their competitors (ie, other universities).
Having said that, I agree that universities should put more effort into discovering open source solutions, but they shouldn't go overboard. These people have a job to do, and they will get the best tool for the job regardless of open source philosophy.
* What formats and standards is TiVo compatible with? o TiVo is only compatible with a Standard Definition NTSC signal.
If this is true, that is sad on the part of the developers. You almost can't buy a television encoder that doesn't handle both formats seemlessly. For 300-400 dollars, I would expect that it should be able to handle either mode, maybe with a switch on the back?
I am pretty sure. This means that anyone that installs Linux on a Windows machine (unless they make it a dual boot) is breaking the law.
NO! NO! NO!
All they say is that the Windows licence that was purchased with the computer must stay with the computer. End of story.
So for example, I had to pay the MS tax on my laptop, and I have my unopened Windoze ME to prove it. So, if I ever sell or donate my laptop, I am only obligated to give them the CD with it, because technically, that copy of ME is only valid for the machine that I purchased.
Microsoft is trying to prevent people from getting OEM software, and then keeping int and putting it on new boxes - thereby not purchasing a new copy. It might be a greedy policy, but its definately not illegal.
Windows runs on hardware made by thousands of vendors, and this is good for choice.
Windows runs on hardware made by thousands of vendors that are only using a handful of approved CPUs and BIOS approved and mandated by Microsoft themselves. You will find drastic similarity in 95% of all of those products.
Releasing bits of Windows that are different for every vendor creates less choice because specific custom versions of Windows will be tied to a specific vendor.
The other 5% of vendors (PDAs, set top boxes, etc...) *do* run custom versions of Windows, apparently with no noticable affect on profits. And remember that Microsoft probably charged these companies hundreds of thosuands of dollars for custom versions of the operating system.
This means that you will have to go with one hardware vendor or another to get the version of Windows you want.
This is completely not true. The code that you are discussing is so far removed from the processor type that its like trying to say that your car runs differently depending on what color shirt you are wearing. Again, the code on 95% of all Windows boxes will be virtually idential (exepct for some bootstrap code that probably already differs for each processor anyway). The other 5% are already custom jobs, so your point has no merit.
Open APIs keep consumer choice in place (choose the same OS for 1000's of hardware vendors), allow competing software into the platform, and does require much work on anyones part in terms of enforcement.
Which is great, as long as the API is truely open. In the past, they have opened half of a given API, and its turns out that the other half is the stuff that really makes the software work well. Its difficult to compete with the makers of the worlds most dominate operating system when they won't even give you the complete API to make your program work in the first place.
Sanders, in written testimony submitted before his scheduled appearance, said that the litigating states' proposed remedy of requiring Microsoft to sell a stripped-down version of Windows "would have harmful effects on AMD, the computer industry as whole, the U.S. economy and consumers worldwide."
The proposal, he argued, could lead to the fragmentation of Windows and "would set the computer industry back almost 20 years."
Sanders praised Microsoft for helping to bring standardization to the computer industry. "Standardized platforms promote competition," he asserted. The absence of this standardization "would diminish overall competition as many software and hardware vendors would have to decide which particular operating system(s) to target as a development platform."
Now, I'm not a big city lawyer, but it sure sounds like AMD *is* taking Microsoft's side in the case, and it sure sounds like the CEO *is* opposed to the "remedy being persued by the states".
To: Good Citizen posing as an evil hacker by exposing our own stupidity From: The Law Offices of Bend, Over, and Takeit.
Dear Sir:
You have recently refered to a website that had discussed the possibility of posting conceptual code that exposes an embarassing hole in our client's poorly constructed software.
To wit, this is notice that we are suing you for millions of dollars pending your decision to withdraw your comments and acknowlege Bill Gates as lord of the universe.
You have until the end of this sentence to comply.
Re:How can this be?
on
Lineo near Death
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Every failed Linux-centric company had 'value added' proprietary software that they sold
As did every failed Windows-centric company, and every failed Oracle-centric company, and every failed Solaris-centric company.... Failure is not exclusive to the Linux world, though, the media may make you feel differently. This is an unfortunate side effect of being a media darling. They love you when you are doing well, and love you even more when you are failing.
And the reason is simple: Linux is viewed as "free software." And by "Linux", I mean the OS, the tools, everything. There is an entire subculture that finds the notion of paying for software offensive (though many of them want to get paid for writing it at their jobs).
But there also another entire group of large corporations that doe not want to pay thousands of dollars for propriatary operating system licences, not to mention costs for customized applications. If I can deliver the same application, minus an expensive licence for the operating system, wouldn't that make some sense?
Nobody ever said that Lineo was selling to the average Linux affcionado. Nobody, and I mean nobody will ever make money doing that. I would rather chew off my left arm than buy something from a company like Lineo, especially when I can write it myself.
Lineo was selling to the big boys, corporations who see the value in paying $20 an unit for an solution, instead of $120.
Re:How can this be?
on
Lineo near Death
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Somebody mod this back up... He's an idiot, but he would be right, if thats all they were doing.
But you see, they wern't selling free software. They were trying to sell closed source software leveraged off of free software, and (more importantly) the expertise to combine the two.
They failed because of their they way they ran their business, and many, many management missteps along the way.
If Redhat goes under, then you might question the intellegence of selling free software, until then, don't give the Lineo management so much credit. Put the blame where it belongs: not on "free" software, but rather really bad business.
saying I had to google, and that I would be right back. Five minutes later, I had my [sourceforge.net] response. [spoiled.org] (And implemented [freshmeat.net], too! Download today.)
Have you been living in a Afgani cave for the last 3 years? Ext3 has been around since 1999. Its even the default filesystem in RH 7.2.
ResierFS went in to the 2.4.1 kernel in 2001, but I know for a fact that the first patches appeared much earlier than that.
Petitions do nothing, writing people who dont listen to you will do nothing, you have to show them you disagree, begging gets you no where
** sarcasm ** Thats right, we'll stop at nothing less than violent overthrow of the government. Or maybe we can get a few hundred of our closest friends to run for congress and win. Or maybe we can leave and start our own country. With blackjack and hookers! **/sarcam **
Or maybe those of us who are not listed in Forbes or People can attack the bill by spreading knowlege and letting our congress people know that our money and our votes will go elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
The "fun" quotient of software coupled with its uniqueness is directly related to the desire to pirate it.
I thought so too, then I found 14,000 pages on Google with the words
"Quickbooks crack"
So maybe the fun quotient isn't as important as the usefulness quotient?
But, the history of the human race, indeed of our own civilization, doesn't bear it out. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ulysees, Shakespear, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, and other artists too numerous to mention had all the incentive they needed to create the greatest works our civilization has ever known, all without the existence of copyright or any other form of "intellectual property."
That is a flawed statement, because there was no way to easily copy these works when they were created (with the possible exception of Van Gogh who did suffer problems with copy cats and poorly made copies).
In a smaller world, it is easier to maintain control of one's intellectual property. Thats not to say that others didn't make money from the works of art (for example theater owners likely made ticket money from presenting Shakespeare), but somebody else couldn't take a play and derive profit from it without compensating or crediting the author (because everbody knew Shakesphere and his plays, just like everybody knew Beethoven and his symphonies).
There are other ways to insure artists are compensated, without granting them (or, more likely, their publishers) an exclusive monopoly on their work, for any length of time.
Could you please cite some examples?
I believe that copyright law is neessesary to protect intellectual property, though I do not support recent changes in the law. I believe that Walt Disney should enjoy some protection for his mouse (but not for enternity). I believe that I should have certain rights under law if I choose to express myself artistically to protect me from others unlawfully gaining profit from my song, painting, movie, computer program, etc...
We should be discussing alternatives to copyright which can be implimented to insure that artists get compensated for their work, without imposing artifical, government mandated monopolies upon our society, monopolies which are antithetical to free markets, to freedom of speech, and ultimately, to freedom itself.
This would be the argument of the non creative who seek to make money from other's achievements. If you produce a song, should others gain money from your achivements? What if you are not strong enough (politically or physically) to demand payments that are yours? If there is no copyright protection, who ensures that you will receive due payment?
And if you are a creative person that feels that these laws are too restrivtive, then by all means, release your intelletual property to the public domain without demand or setoff.
I agree that copyright law has been abused and battered over the years. I also agree that the laws need a serious overhaul. But I do question your motives for eliminating intellectual property and copyright all together. It is my opinion that copyright law provides equal protection under the law to all who choose to use it - from the mega colglomate that copyrights a new music song, to the 69 year old grandmother that has just penned her first novel.
I urge you to respond and defend your positions a bit closer.
According to Salon, the purpose of the act is to condone spyware by regulating it, and thus setting a precedent for its continued use.
Spyware exists, and it will continue to exist until it is declared illegal by an act of Congress of supreme court. And thus, would you rather have it unregulated and sending all of your personal and impersonal information to and fro, or would you rather have it regulated?
Ciagrettes are also a deadly and annoying product that is regulated by the government, which would implicitly imply that the government condones tabacco use. Yet I would expect that few non smokers would argue that regulation is not a bad thing in that situation.
In a world with two evils (regulated spyware and unregulated spyware), I'll take the regulations, please...
But credit cards can be used remotely (telephone, web, etc..) And with a bit more equipment, expertise and time one could duplicate thousands and thousands of credit cards.
But since biometics would happen locally, could the average criminal get the biometric database, duplicate a fingerprint from the encoded fingerprint data and use it? How about cloning up some DNA? Beyond a physical attack, these things don't come easily, and definately not in the volume of compromised users that would make something like this profitable.
Biometrics are nice not because it will be impossible to duplicate, but rather because it will be difficult and expensive to duplicate.
My objection has always been that almost all of the most popular viruses, hacks, and backdoors have been discovered or created by accident.
These bugs are not discovered by accident. There are people (both good and bad) that spend many hours a day looking for these exploits. They do everything they can to find cracks in the armor of any package (be it Slashdot, windows XP or whatever).
And when the good guys find it, they publish information about it so it can be quickly patched and fixed. If the bad guys find it, then it gets posted where the script kiddies can find it. Under no circumstances think that these holes are found by accident. Thats as crazy as thinking that a high school student can sit down and guess the root password at NATO in three tries.
Now that I've done a little research, I see this as a naive view. For one thing, it doesn't explain the frequent security flaws in Linux and Apache.
All programmers write security holes at some time in their life. Having a buffer overrun or a security hole is not exclusive to Microsoft programmers, everybody does it.
The thing that you fail to understand is that since the same security flaws are going to exist in both open source and propriatary software, the security risk is the same for both sides. But, if the open source is openly available, then the white hats can quickly attack it and publish the exploits before the black hats have a chance to use it.
For propritary software, the crackers need to wait for the software to go into the wild. Once it is widly distributed, then they start attacking it slowly. The white hats start examining it too, but without the benifit of the code, they can only move as fast as the crackers. Some times the good guys win, and the exploits are published (and hopefully fixed). Some times the bad guys win,
and you get a Melissa virus.
This suggests that it is far more harmful to publish this info (which really isn't helpful to users anyway) than to keep it secret, where it can do no harm.
Don't for a minute think that obscurity is going to prevent an exploit from being discovered and used. The only think obscurity can do is prevent somebody from finding the bug, and informing the proper people so that it can be fixed before further damange can be done.
All programmers make mistakes. You can either hide those mistakes away and wrongly hope that somebody isn't going to find it, or you can get your mistakes exposed to the world and get them fixed quickly and efficiently.
It would. It's not a good excuse, but it is true. In the short term, Microsoft cracks would increase.
Mod this one up insightful.
For the first, say 5 months, it would be anarchy - People would be fixing bug 24 hours a day all around the world, just to stay a few steps ahead of the crackers. Then as soon as the largest holes are patched, there willl be peace in our time. Machines would be fairly secure, and we could go back to actually using our bandwidth and machines for important things instead of 3 MB of klez and sircam worms daily.
Instead Microsoft would rather keep the bugs obscured, so they will escape slowly over a number of years. And don't get me wrong, they will escape, there is no amount of obscurity that can mask the continious onslaught of people pouring over every inch of the code looking for holes.
Which method would you prefer?
Read the article:
Eventually the FCC decided to offer a Faustian bargain: Industry could use the existing ISM spectrum if they adhered to certain technical limitations with no expectation of protection.
In other words, as long as you stay within the 2.4 GHz spectrum, you can do what ever you want, as long as you didn't expect to be protected from interference from other devices.
Bluetooth and 802.11B have already violently clashed in this space already. I have seen it myself - with a 802.11B card in one PCMCIA slot, as soon as I turn on a bluetooth card in the other slot, my average ping time on the 802.11B goes up considerably.
I know this is a troll, but I am in a arguing sort of mood.
The States came after Microsoft because they had dollar signs in their eyes.
Nothing more, nothing less. They just wanted a piece of the pie.
What, so you think that the states will see any settlement money? Did you think that Bill G was going to show up with a huge novelty check with the memo "Sorry for fucking you over"??
I don't know about the other states, but Utah joined as a result of the ongoing litigation with Caldera over DR-DOS. Many of the experts in the case are at the University Of Utah, and after reviewing the facts in the case, they all advised the then attorney general to join the case.
If nothing else, it was an effort to punish Microsoft, and maybe drum up a little more support for the hometown heros Caldera and Novell.
Not to mention, being ruled a monopoly is a surefire way to ensure every con artist and halfwit who can't make it in the market on their own will slither out of the woodwork and make bogus claims against you.
Right - you know I really hate it when I have to go out and pick a telephone provider, or gas station, or what kind of car to drive. Wouldn't it just have been easier if we all drove Ford cars filled with Standard Oil gas while talking on our AT&T phones?
Maybe because if we had let those monopolies stand, AT&T would be charging you $2.00 a minute instead of 15 cents, Ford cars would breaking down ever 10,000 miles forcing you to buy a new one, and gasoline would be at 10 bucks a gallon.
Yeah, these anti-trust laws really suck.
Important: They don't actually get money up front, and living expenses aren't covered - it's all a loan, and it's all taken out of their (small)share of the profits.
:)
That is important - and thank you for setting me straight. I assumed that it was somewhat like the movie business where the superstars get the money in advance (ie, Arnold gets $5 million for his next movie) and thus I figured that a big draw like Aerosmith would get millions for their next record (just to use an example).
But for being such a terrible business to be in, there sure are alot of people who want to do it. Maybe it *is* the groupies that is getting them all excited...
So assuming that the artists get all $400,000 dollars that are left - thats $100,000 dollars a guy for what amounts to more than a year of recording and filming (and that doesn't even count touring). These seem to be very tedious and boring things to do. Heck, I get close to $100,000 and I work a 8-5 job. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of money for a gold or platinum artist, does it? And it certainly doesn't seem to justify a $30 price for a CD. Maybe all the groupies make up for it.
I recognize that most artists get money up front, and that most of their living expenses are covered (homes, cars, etc...), but it still appears like there are millions and millions of dollars disappearing into black holes somewhere.
If I was Courtney Love, I *would* be upset (mostly because I was Courtney Love, but aside from the self angst, I would be upset that I gained so little from my talent).
I have always been a fan of the monkey in the tree experiment.
The setup story goes like this:
There is hunter walking through the forest, and he sees a monkey in the distance in a tree. He shoots at the monkey. Well, the monkey is so startled by the gunshot that he falls out of the tree at the same instant that the gun is fired. The bullet still hits the monkey. How is this so?
Basically this takes advantage of the fact everything falls at the same rate. You set up a gun of some sort (with a round projectile), and you set up a "tree" with the monkey a distance way. The gun and the monkey should be at the exact same height. The trick is to then fire the gun and drop the monkey at the same instant. The projectile should hit the monkey every time.
This experiment is a pain to get setup correctly, but it is pretty cool when it is successful. I couldn't find any video of it on the web, maybe somebody else can find some.
Unfortunately Microsoft can't take ALL the blame for the problems of Klez... The SMTP itself is inherently insecure to begin with and anyone can send mail that looks like it is from anyone else.
But only Microsoft provides a hands off and automagic way for somebody to take advantage of the insecurities in SMTP with little trouble.
Thats what is so bad about these little episodes. SMTP has existed since the early 70's, yet e-mail born viruses that take advantage of the SMTP header spoofing have only existed a few years.
Hmm.....
Mandatory qualifier - I work in Linux development. I have both my own personal GPL software (see my sig), and I also develop closed software for my employer.
You don't have to go completely open source either. Keep a few Windows PCs and Macs with the proprietary stuff and let the BSA worry about those.
At least convert as much server software as possible, thats where the real money is for the BSA members.
That's complete BS. There is plenty of excellent, free software in almost all areas.
Ever try to find a open source tax preperation program? Doesn't exist. True, you can get lots of programs from the open source world, but the more specialized the programs get, the less likely you will find a free alternative. These programs normally take a higher expertise level (ie, you need to be a chemistry expert to design a feasible chemistry app), and the open source need just isn't there. And your average unversity isn't going to spend tens of thousands of dollars in salary to develop a complex app and then give it away for free to their competitors (ie, other universities).
Having said that, I agree that universities should put more effort into discovering open source solutions, but they shouldn't go overboard. These people have a job to do, and they will get the best tool for the job regardless of open source philosophy.
* What formats and standards is TiVo compatible with?
o TiVo is only compatible with a Standard Definition NTSC signal.
If this is true, that is sad on the part of the developers. You almost can't buy a television encoder that doesn't handle both formats seemlessly. For 300-400 dollars, I would expect that it should be able to handle either mode, maybe with a switch on the back?
I am pretty sure. This means that anyone that installs Linux on a Windows machine (unless they make it a dual boot) is breaking the law.
NO! NO! NO!
All they say is that the Windows licence that was purchased with the computer must stay with the computer. End of story.
So for example, I had to pay the MS tax on my laptop, and I have my unopened Windoze ME to prove it. So, if I ever sell or donate my laptop, I am only obligated to give them the CD with it, because technically, that copy of ME is only valid for the machine that I purchased.
Microsoft is trying to prevent people from getting OEM software, and then keeping int and putting it on new boxes - thereby not purchasing a new copy. It might be a greedy policy, but its definately not illegal.
Mod this parent down!
Mod this parent up! He's the only one that understands whats going on here.
Windows runs on hardware made by thousands of vendors, and this is good for choice.
Windows runs on hardware made by thousands of vendors that are only using a handful of approved CPUs and BIOS approved and mandated by Microsoft themselves. You will find drastic similarity in 95% of all of those products.
Releasing bits of Windows that are different for every vendor creates less choice because specific custom versions of Windows will be tied to a specific vendor.
The other 5% of vendors (PDAs, set top boxes, etc...) *do* run custom versions of Windows, apparently with no noticable affect on profits. And remember that Microsoft probably charged these companies hundreds of thosuands of dollars for custom versions of the operating system.
This means that you will have to go with one hardware vendor or another to get the version of Windows you want.
This is completely not true. The code that you are discussing is so far removed from the processor type that its like trying to say that your car runs differently depending on what color shirt you are wearing. Again, the code on 95% of all Windows boxes will be virtually idential (exepct for some bootstrap code that probably already differs for each processor anyway). The other 5% are already custom jobs, so your point has no merit.
Open APIs keep consumer choice in place (choose the same OS for 1000's of hardware vendors), allow competing software into the platform, and does require much work on anyones part in terms of enforcement.
Which is great, as long as the API is truely open. In the past, they have opened half of a given API, and its turns out that the other half is the stuff that really makes the software work well. Its difficult to compete with the makers of the worlds most dominate operating system when they won't even give you the complete API to make your program work in the first place.
Feel free to read the article:
Sanders, in written testimony submitted before his scheduled appearance, said that the litigating states' proposed remedy of requiring Microsoft to sell a stripped-down version of Windows "would have harmful effects on AMD, the computer industry as whole, the U.S. economy and consumers worldwide."
The proposal, he argued, could lead to the fragmentation of Windows and "would set the computer industry back almost 20 years."
Sanders praised Microsoft for helping to bring standardization to the computer industry. "Standardized platforms promote competition," he asserted. The absence of this standardization "would diminish overall competition as many software and hardware vendors would have to decide which particular operating system(s) to target as a development platform."
Now, I'm not a big city lawyer, but it sure sounds like AMD *is* taking Microsoft's side in the case, and it sure sounds like the CEO *is* opposed to the "remedy being persued by the states".
The Internet Worm of 1988 was cutting edge, if not for its technology, then certainly for its widespread damage and novelty:
http://world.std.com/~franl/worm.html
To: Good Citizen posing as an evil hacker by exposing our own stupidity
From: The Law Offices of Bend, Over, and Takeit.
Dear Sir:
You have recently refered to a website that had discussed the possibility of posting conceptual code that exposes an embarassing hole in our client's poorly constructed software.
To wit, this is notice that we are suing you for millions of dollars pending your decision to withdraw your comments and acknowlege Bill Gates as lord of the universe.
You have until the end of this sentence to comply.
Every failed Linux-centric company had 'value added' proprietary software that they sold
As did every failed Windows-centric company, and every failed Oracle-centric company, and every failed Solaris-centric company.... Failure is not exclusive to the Linux world, though, the media may make you feel differently. This is an unfortunate side effect of being a media darling. They love you when you are doing well, and love you even more when you are failing.
And the reason is simple: Linux is viewed as "free software." And by "Linux", I mean the OS, the tools, everything. There is an entire subculture that finds the notion of paying for software offensive (though many of them want to get paid for writing it at their jobs).
But there also another entire group of large corporations that doe not want to pay thousands of dollars for propriatary operating system licences, not to mention costs for customized applications. If I can deliver the same application, minus an expensive licence for the operating system, wouldn't that make some sense?
Nobody ever said that Lineo was selling to the average Linux affcionado. Nobody, and I mean nobody will ever make money doing that. I would rather chew off my left arm than buy something from a company like Lineo, especially when I can write it myself.
Lineo was selling to the big boys, corporations who see the value in paying $20 an unit for an solution, instead of $120.
Somebody mod this back up... He's an idiot, but he would be right, if thats all they were doing.
But you see, they wern't selling free software. They were trying to sell closed source software leveraged off of free software, and (more importantly) the expertise to combine the two.
They failed because of their they way they ran their business, and many, many management missteps along the way.
If Redhat goes under, then you might question the intellegence of selling free software, until then, don't give the Lineo management so much credit. Put the blame where it belongs: not on "free" software, but rather really bad business.
No - this will kill a lot of wimen with no visible effect whatsoever.
Then sign me up! There are way too many wimen in bars these days anyway. The little buggers get everywhere, and they eat all of your pretzels.
saying I had to google, and that I would be right back. Five minutes later, I had my [sourceforge.net] response. [spoiled.org] (And implemented [freshmeat.net], too! Download today.)
Have you been living in a Afgani cave for the last 3 years? Ext3 has been around since 1999.
Its even the default filesystem in RH 7.2.
ResierFS went in to the 2.4.1 kernel in
2001, but I know for a fact that the first patches appeared much earlier than that.
Petitions do nothing, writing people who dont listen to you will do nothing, you have to show them you disagree, begging gets you no where
/sarcam **
** sarcasm **
Thats right, we'll stop at nothing less than violent overthrow of the government. Or maybe we can get a few hundred of our closest friends to run for congress and win. Or maybe we can leave and start our own country. With blackjack and hookers!
**
Or maybe those of us who are not listed in Forbes or People can attack the bill by spreading knowlege and letting our congress people know that our money and our votes will go elsewhere.
You sir, are an dumbass....