Regular expressions have academic books behind them, and computer science books are written about them. Maybe what you talk about is nice, but REs (with extensions) are kind of ultimate solutions to the problem they try to solve (describing an automaton in a string of characters).
The only thing that is needed to use another complete system is a theorem that proves there is a two way conversion between the system you like and REs, and then it would be fairly easy to implement everywhere.
Now, these steps don't happen every time - that's what keeps people coming back. But you have to admit, many of the "crackers" are doing this sort of thing. The "free software" is the bait. So perhaps you need to add a few steps to your illegal process - run virus scan, run rootkit scan, run malware scan BEFORE installing. Of course if you do that, then the legal path looks like the simpler path.
Back in the day, I used kazaa networks, and that kind of thing never happened to me. I suppose it _could_ happen, it just didn't happen to me, or anyone I know, and lots of them are still using windows. With legit software, it does actually happen that you get malware, rottkits, and stuff, and you saw it here in slashdot. If anything, you should add the steps to both, and then: Wait for other people to install the software, and tell everybody whether they have found any rootkits.
Ubuntu 6.06 - Dapper Drake (The last release) takes six steps to install on a new computer. That is something like 15 minutes, taking it very slowly. Then it starts copying files, you go watch some tv, and it's ready to use. You don't need to stay there, watching the progress bar, because it finishes without human interaction. Hardware drivers install automagically, everything gets autodetected, no driver CDs, not asking for stuff, nothing.
If, after having a functional OS, you want proprietary stuff in you ubuntu, you have to install Automatix, that is one single download, installs obviously with a double-click, and after that, you run Automatix, select all the proprietary software you want, from a checklist, let it download all the stuff, and be done with it.
Automatix, the proprietary part of the installation of software for Ubuntu, that is completely optional, it's a little less user friendly, because you need to agree to different licenses, that reminds you of the pain that is installing software outside of the free world. Anyway, that's a problem of proprietary software in all platforms, so Ubuntu is only hard to install in the places where it is just like Windows, because of external causes to both of them.
And about it being good, I don't know what they want. Gnome is great, the only issue I have is about compatibility. The solution is that I run IE for the one obscure, badly designed, VBScript site I use, with wine. Functionality is much better, simpler, and easy to use for me and my girlfriend. She hates the complexity of her XP machine at work, after using Ubuntu at home.
Compiz gives me all the eye candy I needed.
I don't know what the GP meant by "make it good", sincerely.
Wait a minute! If somebody steals your software, they are not a customer, they are a pirate.
Let's clarify this: software is _not_ property, it can't be stolen. You are using an analogy that doesn't work. When someone steals something from you, you don't have it anymore. That doesn't happen in the case you describe.
There is not such thing as intellectual property. That is just an slogan, like "diamonds are forever". Intellectual stuff can't be regarded as property, because you can't own things that don't have a physical presence. Copyright, specifically, is an agreement where you give your works to the public domain, and in exchange, you get a distribution privilege on them. That is not property, like owning a car, or a TV. It can't be stolen from you.
And that word you are using, "pirate" sounds a little ridiculous in this context. It's ok to call copyright infringers "pirates" for RIAA propaganda, but in the context of a serious discussion, it doesn't actually mean anything useful. For the RIAA, pirates are anyone they don't like. For some people that include me, piracy is robbery in high seas, and has nothing to do with software. Obviously you must have your own definition that includes copyright infringers, but if you are referring to copyright infringement, you might as well be clear and call it by its name, not using a word that is meant for propaganda. Aside from that, in most places, installing an unauthorized XP copy doesn't make you a criminal.
The CNN example you've given is not related to that scenario at all (unless you are trying to say that Fidel Castro has a financial stake in CNN?).
The original poster was using the international definition of "terrorists". That would be the guys who are trying to overthrow Fidel Castro by assasination and stuff.
Of course, using the US definition of "terrorist" (that would be something like "people who the US government doesn't like"), Fidel Castro would be a "terrorist", and not a somewhat socialist dictator.
Where would they both be now if they stopped fighting in, say, 1999?
In DRM hell, of course. There is where you can see how correct RMS was, back in the day. The GPL is of course the only thing that effectively stops MS from embracing and extending GNU/Linux. If Linus Torvalds hadn't learned about the GNU project and the GPL, lots of hard work by lots of people in the kernel could be made irrelevant.
Plus, these IT companies should have big IT budgets, they shouldn't have all their stuff running on free operating systems, it's called redistribution of wealth.
Or they could invest the same amount of money in premium support, or even premium developers to help improve their software. Official support is a source of money for the developers of the OS, and the in-house developers can contribute their improvements. Now all users benefit more directly, the same amount of jobs are created, and the big company has a saying in the development of the OS they use, and they can make it improve where they need it. Sounds like the sensible thing to do. Throwing money at HP and hoping that they will implement X feature for the next release, and hoping that your money creates jobs is a little bit too naive.
Get as much prior art out there so that there are fewer ideas patentable by the private sector.
If you meant _proprietary_ sector, you should know that free software is mostly created by the private sector. It's not a government thing.
It's analogous, if you meant to refer to the closed source - open source disctinction. There are even proprietary software projects that are open source (OSI compatible).
I don't like the colors of the menus, I use that, because it's the default, and I don't really use the menus that much, winkey-r is my preferred way for launching programs in win. Anyhow, what your propose is just too hard for a simple task (classic mode? I don't know what that is, and I don't want to).
Gnome works ok by default, and good defaults are a big part of UI design. No fiddling with configuration options that change across different computers. If I could change anything, I would just change to Ubuntu, like we have at home. Simple, hassle free. Easy to launch programs.
So, assuming the monitor can display 1000 different brigthnesses, you end up with a picture where the brigthest pixel in a face is say 404 and the darkest pixel is say 397.
Of course, you would have a hard time calculating the range, if the brightest tone of the face is Not Found (ducks).
Aside from that, the 1000 different brigthness values could be selected accordingly to a logarithmic scale, more suited to the human eye, and adapted to its peculiarities. A digital sensor just uses a linear scale, and just by shifting scales you can improve the information that actually gets processed by the brain.
With kde or gnome, it's pretty stupid every thing starts with K or G, so you have to rename everything (plus when you have lots of tasks you just see a K or a G in the title. doh).
Lamer. Gnome doesn't do that. You get "Volume control", or "Sound recorder", or "Inbox", in the menus and in the window titles. Plus, the Gnome launcher gives you an incremental search for the program you need, without having to navigate a list if you don't want to.
And I use winxp here at work, that winkey,1 thing just doesn't work. Maybe in your particular configuration, but it doesn't work everywhere.
Switch to consoles. Windows gaming is more expensive than console gaming, if you include licenses and special hardware needed, and it's far less convenient. Windows gaming doesn't have much to stand against next generation console gaming. I don't think gaming in Vista will be as important as it was, for instance, in win98. Consoles have lots of advantages over what a computer has to offer. GNU/Linux for computing, Wii (or whatever rocks your boat) for gaming. That should be easy enough, and keep administration issues at the lowest.
But you could plant hemp! You know, all the stoners are saying that, 4 times the yield of trees, yearly harvests, is there something fundamentally wrong on those numbers, or are people who make paper just stupid?
White collar crimes are no better than the other kind. Where I live, some bankers (Peirano, Rohm, and others, in uruguayan banks Comercial, Montevideo, and more), stole some hundred million dollars, and became one of the cause why the country entered a several year financial crisis, halting development, and effectively harming infrastructure. That has a social effect, and physically harms people, and can even kill them, like in the cases where "white collar criminals" steal from humanitarian help. Just because consequences are not easily seen, it doesn't mean that white collar criminals are not actual criminals. Commonly, their effect in society as a whole can be much worse.
Money laundering was just part of their crimes, but money launderers in general are not to be regarded as harmless.
Of course, money laundering is always related to other illicit activities, too.
Extremists come in all races, colors and religions. All towelhead religious stereotypes you can make up, apply also to nuts that read the new testament.
Religious nuts exist everywhere. And people to make lots of money with them, through warfare, too. There's no need to think they are all muslim.
Drunken BJs are nothing to brag about in RL, although in old/. days, it could have been. Right now lots of us are not teenagers anymore, so the kind of things that sounded impossible don't have real merit right now, like getting laid. Lots of people are married here, probably most of them actually got laid two or three times.
I never got stoned, but I have been among stoners, and they have a nice perspective on stuff, that could make some interesting code.
The other three, I have done in combination, but not all three of them together.
And aside from that, I said it _could_ be nice, I didn't say I had experienced any of those in combination.
200 years old? That would be paying for the service, because the content should no longer be protected by copyright. You could buy some of that material, and then share it legally with something like eMule, or at least bittorrent. Nice!
So extending copyrights excessively is not a good idea...
I think that mostly everyone should agree on that. That is a view I share with most people.
"I don't think we should be granting distribution privileges to authors anymore."
Perhaps a better suggestion is not to extend copyright time period? Or are you suggesting that copyright has not been an incentive to creativity in the past?
In _my_ particular opinion, more is lost by the public than is won with copyright laws, in _all_ cases, watching the whole picture. Of course, I don't want everyone to agree with me, or even to understand what copyright is, and why it is bad for everybody, so I would at least like better copyright terms. 20 years (not death + 20 years, just 20 years from release) sounds like a looong time, in a world where you can distribute and profit from your stuff globally in months, opposed to the times where copyright was created, that books needed years to be popular, and sold.
Slashdot Mirror
Regular expressions have academic books behind them, and computer science books are written about them.
Maybe what you talk about is nice, but REs (with extensions) are kind of ultimate solutions to the problem they try to solve (describing an automaton in a string of characters).
The only thing that is needed to use another complete system is a theorem that proves there is a two way conversion between the system you like and REs, and then it would be fairly easy to implement everywhere.
Now, these steps don't happen every time - that's what keeps people coming back. But you have to admit, many of the "crackers" are doing this sort of thing. The "free software" is the bait. So perhaps you need to add a few steps to your illegal process - run virus scan, run rootkit scan, run malware scan BEFORE installing. Of course if you do that, then the legal path looks like the simpler path.
Back in the day, I used kazaa networks, and that kind of thing never happened to me. I suppose it _could_ happen, it just didn't happen to me, or anyone I know, and lots of them are still using windows.
With legit software, it does actually happen that you get malware, rottkits, and stuff, and you saw it here in slashdot. If anything, you should add the steps to both, and then: Wait for other people to install the software, and tell everybody whether they have found any rootkits.
Ubuntu 6.06 - Dapper Drake (The last release) takes six steps to install on a new computer. That is something like 15 minutes, taking it very slowly. Then it starts copying files, you go watch some tv, and it's ready to use. You don't need to stay there, watching the progress bar, because it finishes without human interaction. Hardware drivers install automagically, everything gets autodetected, no driver CDs, not asking for stuff, nothing.
If, after having a functional OS, you want proprietary stuff in you ubuntu, you have to install Automatix, that is one single download, installs obviously with a double-click, and after that, you run Automatix, select all the proprietary software you want, from a checklist, let it download all the stuff, and be done with it.
Automatix, the proprietary part of the installation of software for Ubuntu, that is completely optional, it's a little less user friendly, because you need to agree to different licenses, that reminds you of the pain that is installing software outside of the free world. Anyway, that's a problem of proprietary software in all platforms, so Ubuntu is only hard to install in the places where it is just like Windows, because of external causes to both of them.
And about it being good, I don't know what they want.
Gnome is great, the only issue I have is about compatibility. The solution is that I run IE for the one obscure, badly designed, VBScript site I use, with wine.
Functionality is much better, simpler, and easy to use for me and my girlfriend. She hates the complexity of her XP machine at work, after using Ubuntu at home.
Compiz gives me all the eye candy I needed.
I don't know what the GP meant by "make it good", sincerely.
Wait a minute! If somebody steals your software, they are not a customer, they are a pirate.
Let's clarify this: software is _not_ property, it can't be stolen.
You are using an analogy that doesn't work.
When someone steals something from you, you don't have it anymore. That doesn't happen in the case you describe.
There is not such thing as intellectual property. That is just an slogan, like "diamonds are forever". Intellectual stuff can't be regarded as property, because you can't own things that don't have a physical presence.
Copyright, specifically, is an agreement where you give your works to the public domain, and in exchange, you get a distribution privilege on them. That is not property, like owning a car, or a TV. It can't be stolen from you.
And that word you are using, "pirate" sounds a little ridiculous in this context. It's ok to call copyright infringers "pirates" for RIAA propaganda, but in the context of a serious discussion, it doesn't actually mean anything useful. For the RIAA, pirates are anyone they don't like. For some people that include me, piracy is robbery in high seas, and has nothing to do with software. Obviously you must have your own definition that includes copyright infringers, but if you are referring to copyright infringement, you might as well be clear and call it by its name, not using a word that is meant for propaganda. Aside from that, in most places, installing an unauthorized XP copy doesn't make you a criminal.
Do Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie actually look fine right now?
Paris has a somewhat nice body, but none of them has a beautiful face, as I see it.
Selective breeding didn't do its job well in that case, I think.
The CNN example you've given is not related to that scenario at all (unless you are trying to say that Fidel Castro has a financial stake in CNN?).
The original poster was using the international definition of "terrorists". That would be the guys who are trying to overthrow Fidel Castro by assasination and stuff.
Of course, using the US definition of "terrorist" (that would be something like "people who the US government doesn't like"), Fidel Castro would be a "terrorist", and not a somewhat socialist dictator.
Where would they both be now if they stopped fighting in, say, 1999?
In DRM hell, of course. There is where you can see how correct RMS was, back in the day. The GPL is of course the only thing that effectively stops MS from embracing and extending GNU/Linux. If Linus Torvalds hadn't learned about the GNU project and the GPL, lots of hard work by lots of people in the kernel could be made irrelevant.
Plus, these IT companies should have big IT budgets, they shouldn't have all their stuff running on free operating systems, it's called redistribution of wealth.
Or they could invest the same amount of money in premium support, or even premium developers to help improve their software.
Official support is a source of money for the developers of the OS, and the in-house developers can contribute their improvements. Now all users benefit more directly, the same amount of jobs are created, and the big company has a saying in the development of the OS they use, and they can make it improve where they need it.
Sounds like the sensible thing to do. Throwing money at HP and hoping that they will implement X feature for the next release, and hoping that your money creates jobs is a little bit too naive.
That's why Quake rocks, and Doom II doesn't.
Or portables, the guy in the desk behind mine, is running compiax with AIXGL, on his Intel-graphics equipped HP portable.
Get as much prior art out there so that there are fewer ideas patentable by the
private sector.
If you meant _proprietary_ sector, you should know that free software is mostly created by the private sector. It's not a government thing.
It's analogous, if you meant to refer to the closed source - open source disctinction. There are even proprietary software projects that are open source (OSI compatible).
I don't like the colors of the menus, I use that, because it's the default, and I don't really use the menus that much, winkey-r is my preferred way for launching programs in win.
Anyhow, what your propose is just too hard for a simple task (classic mode? I don't know what that is, and I don't want to).
Gnome works ok by default, and good defaults are a big part of UI design. No fiddling with configuration options that change across different computers.
If I could change anything, I would just change to Ubuntu, like we have at home. Simple, hassle free. Easy to launch programs.
So, assuming the monitor can display 1000 different brigthnesses, you end up with a picture where the brigthest pixel in a face is say 404 and the darkest pixel is say 397.
Of course, you would have a hard time calculating the range, if the brightest tone of the face is Not Found (ducks).
Aside from that, the 1000 different brigthness values could be selected accordingly to a logarithmic scale, more suited to the human eye, and adapted to its peculiarities. A digital sensor just uses a linear scale, and just by shifting scales you can improve the information that actually gets processed by the brain.
With kde or gnome, it's pretty stupid every thing starts with K or G, so you have to rename everything (plus when you have lots of tasks you just see a K or a G in the title. doh).
Lamer.
Gnome doesn't do that.
You get "Volume control", or "Sound recorder", or "Inbox", in the menus and in the window titles.
Plus, the Gnome launcher gives you an incremental search for the program you need, without having to navigate a list if you don't want to.
And I use winxp here at work, that winkey,1 thing just doesn't work. Maybe in your particular configuration, but it doesn't work everywhere.
Cheaper than ever before
Cool.
Switch to consoles.
Windows gaming is more expensive than console gaming, if you include licenses and special hardware needed, and it's far less convenient.
Windows gaming doesn't have much to stand against next generation console gaming. I don't think gaming in Vista will be as important as it was, for instance, in win98. Consoles have lots of advantages over what a computer has to offer.
GNU/Linux for computing, Wii (or whatever rocks your boat) for gaming. That should be easy enough, and keep administration issues at the lowest.
But you could plant hemp!
You know, all the stoners are saying that, 4 times the yield of trees, yearly harvests, is there something fundamentally wrong on those numbers, or are people who make paper just stupid?
White collar crimes are no better than the other kind.
Where I live, some bankers (Peirano, Rohm, and others, in uruguayan banks Comercial, Montevideo, and more), stole some hundred million dollars, and became one of the cause why the country entered a several year financial crisis, halting development, and effectively harming infrastructure. That has a social effect, and physically harms people, and can even kill them, like in the cases where "white collar criminals" steal from humanitarian help.
Just because consequences are not easily seen, it doesn't mean that white collar criminals are not actual criminals. Commonly, their effect in society as a whole can be much worse.
Money laundering was just part of their crimes, but money launderers in general are not to be regarded as harmless.
Of course, money laundering is always related to other illicit activities, too.
Stolen cellphones are a dime a dozen where I live. Well, they are around five hundred pesos, something like 22 canadian dollars.
Extremists come in all races, colors and religions.
All towelhead religious stereotypes you can make up, apply also to nuts that read the new testament.
Religious nuts exist everywhere. And people to make lots of money with them, through warfare, too. There's no need to think they are all muslim.
This will suck 200 times faster, though. That's like a straw compared to a fire hose.
Fire hoses don't suck. You need a more visual analogy.
Maybe something like this:
"That's like a tick compared to your mother!"
Drunken BJs are nothing to brag about in RL, although in old /. days, it could have been. Right now lots of us are not teenagers anymore, so the kind of things that sounded impossible don't have real merit right now, like getting laid. Lots of people are married here, probably most of them actually got laid two or three times.
I never got stoned, but I have been among stoners, and they have a nice perspective on stuff, that could make some interesting code.
The other three, I have done in combination, but not all three of them together.
And aside from that, I said it _could_ be nice, I didn't say I had experienced any of those in combination.
200 years old?
That would be paying for the service, because the content should no longer be protected by copyright.
You could buy some of that material, and then share it legally with something like eMule, or at least bittorrent. Nice!
So extending copyrights excessively is not a good idea...
I think that mostly everyone should agree on that. That is a view I share with most people.
"I don't think we should be granting distribution privileges to authors anymore."
Perhaps a better suggestion is not to extend copyright time period? Or are you suggesting that copyright has not been an incentive to creativity in the past?
In _my_ particular opinion, more is lost by the public than is won with copyright laws, in _all_ cases, watching the whole picture.
Of course, I don't want everyone to agree with me, or even to understand what copyright is, and why it is bad for everybody, so I would at least like better copyright terms. 20 years (not death + 20 years, just 20 years from release) sounds like a looong time, in a world where you can distribute and profit from your stuff globally in months, opposed to the times where copyright was created, that books needed years to be popular, and sold.