Thank you for a very informative post. I agree with your overall theme, but I have one nit to pick. On the issue of hybrid efficiency, hybrids at highway speed also capture energy going up and down hills, which helps efficiency somewhat. I got 54 mpg in my last 3 hour highway drive in my Prius (with 2 adults and three in the car, plus luggage). Sure, the Prius is aerodynamic, but having the electic motor work on the hills must have helped.
I agree with you about MS going after OO.o on patent grounds. My humble prediction is that the DOJ will do nothing about it.
The third-party developers of plugins help MSOffice maintain its monopoly, especially at the corporate level. If your company uses a plugin to connect MSOffice to your document management or other essential system, you're not going to switch to OO.o and give it up. The closed.doc and.xls formats are a bigger factor, though. So while MS would sell the plug-in developers down the river if it was in MS's interest, that's just not going to be the case.
Well, you can imagine it, but I rather doubt it's going to happen. The plug-in interfaces are fairly stable, and MS is not going to change them and break compatibility with one plugin out of spite. There are a lot of third-party providers of Office plugins, and MS doesn't want to annoy them.
I know that MS has done similar things in the past (DR-DOS comes to mind), but usually that's only when a) they have a technically plausible reason for it and b) they think they can get away with it. This issue is too much in the public eye.
>Is this really copyright infringement? Or are we semi protected by parody exemptions?
IANAL, but I think you're infringing the copyright of the (ahem) performers. The parody exemption does not apply, because a) they're not singing parodies, they're singing the actual songs (though they suck, that's not parody) and more importantly b) you're not making a parody, you're streaming their work. In other words, the parody exemption applies to the "performers", not to you.
>And its not the "honor system", you DO have to have receipts.
The honor system applies more to the income side of the business, not the expense side. Many small businesses often under-report income. They get audited more often than large businesses for this reason. Show me a building contractor who offers a cash discount, and who won't give a receipt for all-cash transactions, and I'll show you a tax cheat.
>If someone puts out a warning about how Adobe's encryption is not so secure then they're drug over to the US for trial.
Are you referring to the Skylarov case? If so, you're off. First, he cracked the encryption; he didn't just issue a warning. Second, he was not dragged to the US for trial. He went to the US of his own free will and was arrested in the US.
I'm not saying whether Skylarov's actions were justified or not, but your version of the events is not correct.
I may be nit-picking here, but copyright law doesn't really impact the contracts made between publishing companies and medical illustrators. Any contract by a publishing company for a specific piece of art (say, a drawing of a broken femur) will require that the work will be created as a work-for-hire, so that the copyright belongs to the publishing company, not the illustrator. If other publishing companies were to use the broken femur in their books, then copyright law would come into play.
IANAL, but my spouse does a fair bit of contract work for publishing companies in a slightly different field.
That's what code reviews are for. A good code review can often (not always) find problems before they show up at runtime. Several years ago, I was doing a code walkthrough (less rigorous than a review) for a new feature that required the brand spanking new IE 4 to work. The code was written to look for the literal string "MSIE 4" in the User-Agent header; when IE 5 came out, the code would have failed to detect it. This was QA for non-existent products. The engineer later modified the code to pass a test that wouldn't be executed for several years.
This reminds me of the old RMS quote regarding working on non-free software being like sharecropping, in that you exist at the whim of the platform owner (in this case, Microsoft).
I like the headline: "MS Venture Nips at BlackBerry". How about "MS Will Eat BlackBerrys (for) Lunch." Anybody want to bet how long RIM's going to last? Two years? Three?
So much FUD for one post -- I'm impressed. First, though we get only a small amount of our oil from the Middle East, oil is a global market. When a big supplier has a problem, the price rises everywhere, quickly. Doesn't anyone remember Econ 101 and that the example of an inelastic (in the short run) commodity was oil? How about those of us on the East Coast, way away from Hurricane Katrina, that saw our gas prices rise overnight, even though none of our refining was done in New Orleans?
Second, Prius batteries last more than 3-5 years. They're warranteed for 8 years or 80,000 miles. I agree that they will probably not last as long as a VW diesel. I get between 40 and 45 mpg in my Prius in city driving.
Third, while the VW can run on biodiesel, I don't think there's a decent supply for this fuel yet, so whether the car can run on it is irrelevant. The biodiesel that exists is not fossil-fuel free, either, since the food that it's grown with uses fossil-fuel derived fertilizer.
Hmm, I don't recall any car accidents I've been in where I've taken pictures, then interviewed policemen, passersby, EMTs, and doctors. Then I didn't aggregate their responses, filter out the unimportant stuff, and write a coherent story of what happened. Since I haven't done any of that, I wouldn't expect to be paid as if I had.
I don't know if whether Google's usage is "fair use" or not. But it's not fair to say that journalists "built a news medium on the backs of other people lives, without paying for any of the content". They maintain their medium by researching the events and describing them for people who weren't there, and that's a service that many people (myself included) find valuable and willing to pay for. Journalists don't just regurgitate whatever they're told*.
* Certain former New York Times reporters (*cough* Judith Miller *cough*) excepted.
>No reason I guess, unless your site isn't built on open source software, on which case you should be paying your commercial MySql licence.
I think you're misinterpreting the MySQL license, which is the GPL, as interpreted by MySQL AB. Whether or not eldavojohn's site is built on open-source software is irrelevant because he's not distributing the software. He's only distributing HTML files, so he's under no obligation to purchase a license for MySQL. In fact, the link above specifically exempts eldavojohn from having to release any code:
Free use for those who never copy, modify or distribute. As long as you never distribute the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not.
This is sometimes called the the "Application Service Provider" loophole in the GPL (since MySQL specifically mentions that the GPL doesn't apply in this case, it's not a loophole, but some people call it one anyway). ASPs don't have to publish their modifications to GPLed code, because they don't distribute the code. They only distribute the "output" of the code, which is not protected by the GPL.
Set him up so that he's not an admin. See Aaron Margosis's blog for details. Another option is to introduce him to the RunAs functionality, though it's not needed much if you set him up as a non-admin.
If you're willing to do a bit of legwork, you can use Windows as an administrator. It's much, much safer.
>How in the world do you know who submitted what when?
When I submit a story (which isn't often), I post the submission in my Slashdot journal, which date/timestamps it. Then I get to complain when later submissions are accepted. This gets me.... well, just about nothing, but I do it anyway.
My understanding is that owners of existing analog televisions will have to buy (possibly with government assistance) a tuner/converter box that plugs into their antenna and their television. Maybe they'll need to get a remote control to change the channel. Nobody needs to throw out their television. Yes, some people will instead buy a new digital TV, but it won't be a big deal in the larger scheme of things.
Analog TV transmitters, on the other hand, will probably be mostly useless. Most antenna towers do not have a lot of extra space to keep around unused antennas, so the analog TV antennas will be removed and replaced with something else. It makes perfect economic sense - something of lower value will be replaced with something of higher value.
>If you can remove ALL associations to the file format (at least until the extent is known) this would be beneficial.
ASSOC.wmf=txtfile
The ASSOC command to the rescue! The command above should cause wmf files to be opened in Notepad. It should be used in combination with unregistering the DLL, though, because I think the ASSOC command only affects opening the files within regular (not Internet) Explorer.
>if I'm not even stopping for stop signs, then I'm not buying drugs, or picking up some nasty hooker.
Let me get this straight: you're driving like an ass through bad neighborhoods, and that's OK, because the people there are perceived by you to be bad. So when you hit a kid who's riding his bike on the sidewalk and crosses at an intersection with a stop sign that you didn't stop for, are you going to feel bad? Or will you think, oh well, he was just a poor kid, no big deal.
My understanding was that Apple lost the case because the UI was not protected by trademark. Apple v. Microsoft (don't know the exact case name, sorry) was never a patent case. And patents and trademarks have nothing in common except that they're grouped (with copyrights) under "intellectual property".
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for a very informative post. I agree with your overall theme, but I have one nit to pick. On the issue of hybrid efficiency, hybrids at highway speed also capture energy going up and down hills, which helps efficiency somewhat. I got 54 mpg in my last 3 hour highway drive in my Prius (with 2 adults and three in the car, plus luggage). Sure, the Prius is aerodynamic, but having the electic motor work on the hills must have helped.
Not quite. It's actually from coal. Gas is 14%.
The third-party developers of plugins help MSOffice maintain its monopoly, especially at the corporate level. If your company uses a plugin to connect MSOffice to your document management or other essential system, you're not going to switch to OO.o and give it up. The closed .doc and .xls formats are a bigger factor, though. So while MS would sell the plug-in developers down the river if it was in MS's interest, that's just not going to be the case.
I know that MS has done similar things in the past (DR-DOS comes to mind), but usually that's only when a) they have a technically plausible reason for it and b) they think they can get away with it. This issue is too much in the public eye.
You should read http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184348&cid= 15221800 . Your recommendation does not jibe with this.
IANAL, but I think you're infringing the copyright of the (ahem) performers. The parody exemption does not apply, because a) they're not singing parodies, they're singing the actual songs (though they suck, that's not parody) and more importantly b) you're not making a parody, you're streaming their work. In other words, the parody exemption applies to the "performers", not to you.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, at least in Nevada.
Somewhat OT: Check out Parallels, as mentioned in the New York Times (scroll halfway down). It's like VMWare for Macs.
The honor system applies more to the income side of the business, not the expense side. Many small businesses often under-report income. They get audited more often than large businesses for this reason. Show me a building contractor who offers a cash discount, and who won't give a receipt for all-cash transactions, and I'll show you a tax cheat.
Are you referring to the Skylarov case? If so, you're off. First, he cracked the encryption; he didn't just issue a warning. Second, he was not dragged to the US for trial. He went to the US of his own free will and was arrested in the US.
I'm not saying whether Skylarov's actions were justified or not, but your version of the events is not correct.
IANAL, but my spouse does a fair bit of contract work for publishing companies in a slightly different field.
I think the problem is that Israel could use the technology in Snort to spy on the US. That's the reason behind doing the review, anyway.
That's what code reviews are for. A good code review can often (not always) find problems before they show up at runtime. Several years ago, I was doing a code walkthrough (less rigorous than a review) for a new feature that required the brand spanking new IE 4 to work. The code was written to look for the literal string "MSIE 4" in the User-Agent header; when IE 5 came out, the code would have failed to detect it. This was QA for non-existent products. The engineer later modified the code to pass a test that wouldn't be executed for several years.
I like the headline: "MS Venture Nips at BlackBerry". How about "MS Will Eat BlackBerrys (for) Lunch." Anybody want to bet how long RIM's going to last? Two years? Three?
Second, Prius batteries last more than 3-5 years. They're warranteed for 8 years or 80,000 miles. I agree that they will probably not last as long as a VW diesel. I get between 40 and 45 mpg in my Prius in city driving.
Third, while the VW can run on biodiesel, I don't think there's a decent supply for this fuel yet, so whether the car can run on it is irrelevant. The biodiesel that exists is not fossil-fuel free, either, since the food that it's grown with uses fossil-fuel derived fertilizer.
I don't know if whether Google's usage is "fair use" or not. But it's not fair to say that journalists "built a news medium on the backs of other people lives, without paying for any of the content". They maintain their medium by researching the events and describing them for people who weren't there, and that's a service that many people (myself included) find valuable and willing to pay for. Journalists don't just regurgitate whatever they're told*.
* Certain former New York Times reporters (*cough* Judith Miller *cough*) excepted.
I think you're misinterpreting the MySQL license, which is the GPL, as interpreted by MySQL AB. Whether or not eldavojohn's site is built on open-source software is irrelevant because he's not distributing the software. He's only distributing HTML files, so he's under no obligation to purchase a license for MySQL. In fact, the link above specifically exempts eldavojohn from having to release any code:
This is sometimes called the the "Application Service Provider" loophole in the GPL (since MySQL specifically mentions that the GPL doesn't apply in this case, it's not a loophole, but some people call it one anyway). ASPs don't have to publish their modifications to GPLed code, because they don't distribute the code. They only distribute the "output" of the code, which is not protected by the GPL.
Oh, you can keep your BlackBerry as long as you want. Just get used to it saying "No Service" until RIM finally bucks up.
The original sentence does not say that there were worms years ago. You misunderstand its meaning. Let's look at the original sentence again:
This could be reworded as:If you're willing to do a bit of legwork, you can use Windows as an administrator. It's much, much safer.
When I submit a story (which isn't often), I post the submission in my Slashdot journal, which date/timestamps it. Then I get to complain when later submissions are accepted. This gets me .... well, just about nothing, but I do it anyway.
Analog TV transmitters, on the other hand, will probably be mostly useless. Most antenna towers do not have a lot of extra space to keep around unused antennas, so the analog TV antennas will be removed and replaced with something else. It makes perfect economic sense - something of lower value will be replaced with something of higher value.
The ASSOC command to the rescue! The command above should cause wmf files to be opened in Notepad. It should be used in combination with unregistering the DLL, though, because I think the ASSOC command only affects opening the files within regular (not Internet) Explorer.
Let me get this straight: you're driving like an ass through bad neighborhoods, and that's OK, because the people there are perceived by you to be bad. So when you hit a kid who's riding his bike on the sidewalk and crosses at an intersection with a stop sign that you didn't stop for, are you going to feel bad? Or will you think, oh well, he was just a poor kid, no big deal.
Here's a clue: you're a selfish jerk.
My understanding was that Apple lost the case because the UI was not protected by trademark. Apple v. Microsoft (don't know the exact case name, sorry) was never a patent case. And patents and trademarks have nothing in common except that they're grouped (with copyrights) under "intellectual property".