What is more important, your 'right' to modify the phone, or to stop little punks mugging kids for their phones?
Your right to modify the phone is more important. What should be illegal is the unauthorized use of the phone with the modified ID on the network with the purpose of stealing the service. Same argument, cable ISPs can buy a law saying modifying your MAC address on your NIC should be illegal since that's how they track your connection, and cable signal is easily stolen too. Then Microsoft can jump in and buy a law making it illegal to open your PC box since that's how they make sure your software is licensed and paid for several times.
Some comments say it's like modifying the vehicle ID number on your car. But the comparison is not valid. When you buy a car you have to register it with the government - that's why they have the VID number. As far as I know there are no such governmental controls on cell phones.
Furthermore, the fact is, although it's 'illegal', if you just do it in your room, you are unlikely to be caught and prosecuted for it, as compared to, say, if you did it and tried to sell a mobile phone.
DMCA supporters also claimed that it was unlikely that the law was going to be used as a means to cover up security issues in software or hardware products. Look where we are now. The fact is - when the charges go to judge he doesn't say - oh but this guy was _unlikely_ to steal the service, he just changed his phone ID to make sure his phone was secure. The judge will say - you changed the ID - you are kaput; because that's what the law says.
I agree that it's not as FUDy as before but c'mon... quotes follow:
"[bitching about samba]... This potentially ties the OEM to a particular Linux vendor's distribution and its support programs."
As opposed to when you go with Microsoft you will get a wide variety and choice in Windows distributions? Of course underlying problem being MS' close nature of the protocol which had to be reverse-engineered. Look for them to tell you choice is bad later on.
"Linux does not support trust relationships across domains or forests and thus cannot act as a trusted element in Novell Directory Service and Windows NT Domain-based networks."
NDS for Linux has been available since some time in 2000.
"Linux offers both free and commercially available add-on clustering and load balancing solutions. However, these add-on clustering solutions come from various sources, do not conform to any set standards, and are often implemented on a particular Linux distribution."
Choice is bad bad bad. You don't need choice! Also, do I hear MS bitching about "standards"? How do I respond to that one? Someone help me.
"Linux offers support for ASP but it is non-native and requires an add-on program to Apache or some other Web server deployed on Linux."
Actually, severalASPimplementations are available for Linux including some of the ones I cannot find right now; but choice is bad and we already established that.
"Linux now has over five options for a JFS. All of these are new to Linux and the depth of integration and regression testing can be scattered and the number of real-world implementations limited."
Ok, class... choosing the right filesystem for the desired function is bad, NTFS is your god. I know there was (but I can't find a link now) a Hans Reiser's technical paper on some of the things that are wrong with NTFS and why it is so slow. If anybody has a link post it please. Reality is, JFS, XFS have been around for a long time. While it is true that they have been implemented for Linux recently it's almost like saying NTFS is new to Win XP.
There's other arguments that I don't have time to respond to. Oh, and them bitching about GPL. Why doesn't everybody offer dual licensing for every GPL application? Option 1 - GPL; option 2 - MS EULA. That way they will understand that you don't have to accept GPL with any software in which case regular IP copyright protections apply; which is way less restrictive than MS licensing. I don't see any point in MS argument there.
Is Mr. Love spewing a lot of horseshit? Sure. But it's horseshit that other horses will sniff, recognize and find comfort in rather than the bullshit that a lot of the Linux community spouts. Bullshit is just confusing to horses - it smells kinda similar, but the nuances are missing and it makes the horses nervous.
Reverse holds true also; by the same ideology, Mr. Love has just spewed "horseshit" on people who expect and like "bullshit". Unless he purposely tried to alienate bulls with his horseshit, he's not in my opinion competent to use right shit for right animal group.
Oh, and by the way, our bulls will run over his horses any day of the week!:)
Mr. Love has charged/. and is planning to charge all readers a "per question fee" for this interview. This is to limit the support liability for these companies and to ensure a high quality, consistent answers. These fees will not be per seat as previously feared. Instead, the restriction is per server.
On a more serious note, it seems like UnitedLinux will be trying to feed corporate customers to what they are used to - being ripped off. The general attitude at an average corporate IT consumer, most will agree, is and has always been "you get what you pay for". It's certainly so for the management who makes decisions. At the same time the same attitude is being smashed and ridiculed by most in the community when it comes to software (I am not talking about support!). UnitedLinux will be landing 2 different impacts with this move - make corporate friends, and alienate an average developer to develop for UnitedLinux. They will try to work this from top to bottom, not from bottom up.
But by pushing only in corporate server market, in my opinion, will not put UnitedLinux over the hurdle; you need to have the word of mouth and average developer support. Again, in my opinion, UnitedLinux selling back to developers what developers have given to UL for free will not sit right with many. That was I think one question that should have been asked - Mr Love, to accomplish UL goals do you believe today that you need developer support? What do you think his answer would be?
The ruling states that, although the links themselves were indirect, they were accompanied by detailed instructions on how to locate the pages in question. It was this combination which the judge ruled illegal, not the actual link per se.
On the other hand, judge could have ordered to remove the instructions on how to get to the "illegal" articles, not remove the link to the main page.
I can see it now:
FBI: How do we obtain DeCSS on the web?
Anyone: Just type DeCSS in the Google sea... uh-oh...
FBI: You have the right to remain silent; anything you say...
Mozilla is a great browser and an excellent tool for developers as well as casual users. Regardless, the notes on Mozilla site state that the browser is intended for developers primarily.
If this is the case then "Save Page As..." dialog default should save the page source exactly as supplied into the specified file. Mozilla, on the other hand and by default, saves the complete page *as viewed* with its images and creating directories on HD, and also performing Javascript calculations; basically ala IE. Maybe it would be OK if this was a default in NS, but for a browser targeted to developers source should be the default save page as functionality.
Nintendo included, stopped making fun games long ago and instead concentrated on what eye candy with no substance. You can't tell me that you can seriously compare any N64 or Gamecube game to an old-school Nintendo or SNES game...
I don't know about you, but I am a big Zelda fan; I have played and completed most Zeldas on NES, SNES, GB, GBC, and N64. Your statement may hold true for other consoles and other games, but it's exactly the opposite for Zelda; which adds both eye candy *and* content with every new version.
And, in my opinion, game like Zelda is an excellent strategy to keep people buying Nintendo consoles and systems. Resurrection of Metroid should also help tremendously. As far as 3rd party sports games, and other "eye candy" crap - they are available on any console and they are not as much decision makers or breakers.
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
This statement is ridiculous. Does this mean, if this is granted and held up, that any arbitrary window that pops under the active window could be subject to licensing and lawsuits? They can sue your ass for any window that appears non-focused and then let the judge decide whether it's an "Advertisement" or "Web browser" that was in use assuming the patent even states those.
When Kevin Hodges, attorney for the dissenting states, asked him how many APIs would be exempt, Allchin said he did not know the exact number, but it would include APIs that deal with anti-piracy and digital rights management.
DRM?? Gimme a break! Sounds like a marketing push to RIAA that MS DRM will not be violated. Because, you know, if terrorists were to break the MS DRM and listen to unlicensed copies of RIAA products that would violate the National Security and allow severe setbacks in war in Afghanistan.
I just hope the judge is listening to this very carefully.
When you click on a particular comment the following page scrolls you down to that comment directly thereby bypassing the viewing of the great banner ads on top of the page. If I was a sponsor, I would request Slashdot to turn over the user browsing data on the grounds that the above activity clearly constitutes as stealing the content. Also, scroll bars should be disabled until the banner ad goes through at least 3 iterations of its images.
The point I think they are trying to make is that the only reason this seems even slightly reasonable (and the above examples do not) is because it affects so many people that it becomes a statistic, and the way in which those people's privacy is violated is complicated enough that it is easy to gloss over the fact that it is a severe intrusion into the living rooms of SONICBlue's customers!
Of course, SonicBlue's problem being that they explicitly put the clause in the service agreement allowing them to collect such information from the consumer. Which is what TiVo did also. Now, I do not believe it has come up whether this clause in itself would be legal and enforceable; but I do not see why not. Usage info is being tracked from variety devices and software legally.
Listening to an EFF representative on CNet radio, and reading this brief, I wouldn't think this was a great argument to reverse the original ruling. This brief goes way too much into how privacy would be violated and presents not so good analogies. Of course MPAA is going to respond by arguing SonicBlue has perfectly legal right to collect such info (based on the clause in their agreement).
IMHO, what they should have argued more than anything else, is that in the discovery process plaintiffs have no right to demand extra, non-existent information from the defendants or ask them to create such data, and presented more and more rulings backing this argument. But then again, IANAL.
Yeah, this is exactly what the industry needs: price controls and mandatory redistribution of wealth according to government policy. That has just worked so very well in the past.
Yeah, but it is a little bit late to post this since that's how RIAA is taxing everyone's purchases of items such as CD burners, blank CDs, tapes, etc. I guess the proposition in the article would create a similar taxation system by "artists".
I agree that this is wrong since you cannot charge everyone their adequate share of downloaded or shared music; much less distribute the money fairly to these "artists". But what's wrong here is the principle, not the plan.
Since the principle says people who share or download have to pay somehow no matter what. While it is true that if you are hosting several terabytes of copyrighted content solely for the purposes of redistribution and financial gain can be considered stealing, I do not think running a Gnutella client casually comes to anything close to it. Just because the distribution is cheaper due to improvements in technology does not validate the older distributors' right to their old distribution model.
Courts have said that size and quantity matters when distributing or setting up a system that eases distribution of copyrighted content. So while Napster was found to be out of bounds, again, casual sharing will not. And, in general, the numbers have so far shown that casual sharing does promote the industry growth, innovation, and other good things.
Labeling this activity as pirating or stealing is just a dumbfounded response from "old guys". And asking for the legislation to require copy-protected hardware everywhere will do nothing but stall the industry.
So, the solution is for RIAA and MPAA to stop pointing fingers and lobbying for legislation, only go after blatant copyright violators. It will benefit them in the short and mid term by raising their revenues and profits while they rip off the "artists". In the long term, please solve the distribution problem that will be antiquated pretty soon. That means offer *more* at a lower cost, not the other way around, like they want to at present.
I know every slasheep's autoresponse to this is "I want my GTA", but I'm going to risk my karma in order to speak my mind...please have patience, and try to give this argument some credit.
OK, I did give you some credit and here's the answer:
First, we have to recognize exactly what this bill would do. It would quite simply regulate the ability of youngsters to obtain video games that contain the kind of thing we already don't let them observe in movies or talk about in public. That is, it doesn't take away any rights.
In other words, since this bill appears not to take away any adults' rights, it must be good. Actually, it's wrong on both counts; not only does it restrict minors, it also restricts sale and rental. And I am still looking for research numbers proving that minors who play GTA are more likely to steal a car than minors who don't. Actually, I am willing to bet against this; I am willing to bet that minors who play GTA are less likely to commit a crime than minors who don't. So, I will now be supporting the legislation to provide government subsidies to violent game manufacturers because they decrease the crime. This sounds as ridiculous as the bill itself.
Those who use the First Amendment out of context to support hurtful speech are just that: hurtful, to America.
Whoa! And we should let those bought out corrupt politicians define what's "hurtful". Such as, it should be illegal for minors to purchase an NHL game that depicts violence and blood, but it's perfectly OK for ESPN to show exactly the same *real* and *live* action on TV. Let's tell Disney they can't show NHL games live anymore, I'm sure they'll listen.
Lastly, recall that the Constitution does not grant the right of "Personhood" to minors (those under 18). Technically, they fall under the same category ("non-free Chattel") as slaves once did.
Again, just because in your opinion this bill does not do anything wrong, does not mean it's right, and I've given and give more reasons why it's wrong.
In conclusion, let's please think about this objectively; this legislation would not give up any of our current rights, and in protecting our children from corruption would actually serve to protect our rights for generations to come.
Read the above paragraph again, then this: Do you really expect this regulation to help crimes committed by minors? If this was to be an OK proposition, it would have to be linked to some numbers like playing games like Warcraft III increases the risk for that minor to commit a crime. And, maybe we could add AOE to that too.
1. Unisys and MS start a $25+ mil PR campaign against Unix and set up a web site as a part of this wehavethewayout.com.
2. The website is running on Apache and FreeBSD and the campaign receives criticism.
3. Next day they move the hosting of the above to MS' domain and the server's IP address changes and software seems to be Win2k/IIS 5.
4. In no time after this move, the Win2k server gets cracked and started serving an empty HTML page and then getting 403 errors, campaign gets more bad PR.
Just a curious question. How in the hell are they spending this $25+ mil that has so far not gotten any positive coverage and only generated bad PR? Funny that the FreeBSD site seems to be still up and running at http://198.63.57.204/
is the clause that will prohibit MS to make any "Windows only PC" deals with manufacturers. Look, it's pretty simple:
1. MS was found to have a monopoly in the desktop operating system market;
2. MS was found to illegally use that monopoly to stifle competition.
It has to be a no-brainer to make all agreements that MS has with PC manufacturers void and prohibit them from making any such deals in the future until further review of the court.
Escape sequences special sequences encoded other data. A telephone navigation system is merely a command driven system. Nothing is escaped.
Go back and read your own escape sequence definition that you got from Webopedia, as long as it is a "sequence of special characters" that send a command to a device or program it is an escape sequence. Then you have to get into the argument of "pressing 4 on the telephone dial is not a special character". What is a special character by the way? Would pressing #4 while interrupting phone message recording (to take you back to the main menu) be considered as a "sequence of special characters"? IOW, fighting over definitions does not make sense.
What is rightly an issue, is that the BT patent on hyperlinks was not an invention when it was approved. And, one of the examples of similar practices is dated from way long ago, and you can call it escape sequence, or call it something else if you like.
URL, then since the protocol preceeds the '/', this would not be an example of an escape sequence. I think the real issue is the escape sequences preceeded by '%' signs.
All those can be escape sequences, including an HTML tag on a web page since it modifies the meaning of a regular text and, instead, sends a "command" to the browser ("device or program") to interpret the included text otherwise.
The White House confirmed today that voting on the web was indeed not a good option. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesperson, elaborated in today's press conference that the main reason the president cited behind this stance was that Al Gore invented the Internet and it would not be a fair playing field.
On a more serious note, neither Democrats nor Republicans have yet figured out how they will control the election results after voting is completed since they wouldn't be counting ballots on a national TV, and running out the clock at their option. It was further troubling that Larry Ellison promised to provide free clustered database solution which was presumably "unbreakable", and would take only 2 seconds to count all votes instead of 3 months.
Well, I don't think the word "replace" has a deep meaning; if you make a product competing against another product then you are looking to replace that product with yours in the marketplace by definition.
Here's a timeline:
Mid-nineties: critics - Linux will never succeed in the marketplace server or desktop, it will only be used by hackers;
Mid-nineties: Linus - we are pushing mainly for server functinality right now;
Result: late nineties: Linux starts to replace where Netwares and NTs have ruled before becoming the fastest growing server OS still only second to NT market share; also displaces different Unices, gets IBM support and is on the way to gain foothold on mainframes.
Late nineties and afterwards: ctirics - Linux is a viable server platform, but it won't be able to do any damage on the desktop
Late nineties and afterwards: Linus - the OS is "good enough" for server for now, we'll push desktop
Result: [enter your prediction based on the precedent]
I am no lawyer but if you look through all the documents and filings, etc. you will see that the cybersquatting charge was dropped. In the argument and reasoning that you are referring to the court was trying to determine if it had jurisdiction over Rosenthal. To do that, one of the points to consider was if the defendant had done substantial commercial activity in CA, which of course, wasn't the case.
In a further development, in response to NASA's announcement, IRS announced today that it will no longer accept or ask for the taxes from anyone who has had a history of drinking, cheating, or lying.
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What is more important, your 'right' to modify the phone, or to stop little punks mugging kids for their phones?
Your right to modify the phone is more important. What should be illegal is the unauthorized use of the phone with the modified ID on the network with the purpose of stealing the service. Same argument, cable ISPs can buy a law saying modifying your MAC address on your NIC should be illegal since that's how they track your connection, and cable signal is easily stolen too. Then Microsoft can jump in and buy a law making it illegal to open your PC box since that's how they make sure your software is licensed and paid for several times.
Some comments say it's like modifying the vehicle ID number on your car. But the comparison is not valid. When you buy a car you have to register it with the government - that's why they have the VID number. As far as I know there are no such governmental controls on cell phones.
Furthermore, the fact is, although it's 'illegal', if you just do it in your room, you are unlikely to be caught and prosecuted for it, as compared to, say, if you did it and tried to sell a mobile phone.
DMCA supporters also claimed that it was unlikely that the law was going to be used as a means to cover up security issues in software or hardware products. Look where we are now. The fact is - when the charges go to judge he doesn't say - oh but this guy was _unlikely_ to steal the service, he just changed his phone ID to make sure his phone was secure. The judge will say - you changed the ID - you are kaput; because that's what the law says.
"It's remarkably ... fair."
... This potentially ties the OEM to a particular Linux vendor's distribution and its support programs."
I agree that it's not as FUDy as before but c'mon... quotes follow:
"[bitching about samba]
As opposed to when you go with Microsoft you will get a wide variety and choice in Windows distributions? Of course underlying problem being MS' close nature of the protocol which had to be reverse-engineered. Look for them to tell you choice is bad later on.
"Linux does not support trust relationships across domains or forests and thus cannot act as a trusted element in Novell Directory Service and Windows NT Domain-based networks."
NDS for Linux has been available since some time in 2000.
"Linux offers both free and commercially available add-on clustering and load balancing solutions. However, these add-on clustering solutions come from various sources, do not conform to any set standards, and are often implemented on a particular Linux distribution."
Choice is bad bad bad. You don't need choice! Also, do I hear MS bitching about "standards"? How do I respond to that one? Someone help me.
"Linux offers support for ASP but it is non-native and requires an add-on program to Apache or some other Web server deployed on Linux."
Actually, several ASP implementations are available for Linux including some of the ones I cannot find right now; but choice is bad and we already established that.
"Linux now has over five options for a JFS. All of these are new to Linux and the depth of integration and regression testing can be scattered and the number of real-world implementations limited."
Ok, class... choosing the right filesystem for the desired function is bad, NTFS is your god. I know there was (but I can't find a link now) a Hans Reiser's technical paper on some of the things that are wrong with NTFS and why it is so slow. If anybody has a link post it please. Reality is, JFS, XFS have been around for a long time. While it is true that they have been implemented for Linux recently it's almost like saying NTFS is new to Win XP.
There's other arguments that I don't have time to respond to. Oh, and them bitching about GPL. Why doesn't everybody offer dual licensing for every GPL application? Option 1 - GPL; option 2 - MS EULA. That way they will understand that you don't have to accept GPL with any software in which case regular IP copyright protections apply; which is way less restrictive than MS licensing. I don't see any point in MS argument there.
Go to the smartfilterwhere filter checker site and request that they remove it through the automated form...
Instead, I just requested that www.bsa.org be classified under "criminal skills".
Is Mr. Love spewing a lot of horseshit? Sure. But it's horseshit that other horses will sniff, recognize and find comfort in rather than the bullshit that a lot of the Linux community spouts. Bullshit is just confusing to horses - it smells kinda similar, but the nuances are missing and it makes the horses nervous.
:)
Reverse holds true also; by the same ideology, Mr. Love has just spewed "horseshit" on people who expect and like "bullshit". Unless he purposely tried to alienate bulls with his horseshit, he's not in my opinion competent to use right shit for right animal group.
Oh, and by the way, our bulls will run over his horses any day of the week!
Mr. Love has charged /. and is planning to charge all readers a "per question fee" for this interview. This is to limit the support liability for these companies and to ensure a high quality, consistent answers. These fees will not be per seat as previously feared. Instead, the restriction is per server.
On a more serious note, it seems like UnitedLinux will be trying to feed corporate customers to what they are used to - being ripped off. The general attitude at an average corporate IT consumer, most will agree, is and has always been "you get what you pay for". It's certainly so for the management who makes decisions. At the same time the same attitude is being smashed and ridiculed by most in the community when it comes to software (I am not talking about support!). UnitedLinux will be landing 2 different impacts with this move - make corporate friends, and alienate an average developer to develop for UnitedLinux. They will try to work this from top to bottom, not from bottom up.
But by pushing only in corporate server market, in my opinion, will not put UnitedLinux over the hurdle; you need to have the word of mouth and average developer support. Again, in my opinion, UnitedLinux selling back to developers what developers have given to UL for free will not sit right with many. That was I think one question that should have been asked - Mr Love, to accomplish UL goals do you believe today that you need developer support? What do you think his answer would be?
Italics quoted from interview.
The ruling states that, although the links themselves were indirect, they were accompanied by detailed instructions on how to locate the pages in question. It was this combination which the judge ruled illegal, not the actual link per se.
On the other hand, judge could have ordered to remove the instructions on how to get to the "illegal" articles, not remove the link to the main page.
I can see it now:
FBI: How do we obtain DeCSS on the web?
Anyone: Just type DeCSS in the Google sea... uh-oh...
FBI: You have the right to remain silent; anything you say...
Mozilla is a great browser and an excellent tool for developers as well as casual users. Regardless, the notes on Mozilla site state that the browser is intended for developers primarily.
If this is the case then "Save Page As..." dialog default should save the page source exactly as supplied into the specified file. Mozilla, on the other hand and by default, saves the complete page *as viewed* with its images and creating directories on HD, and also performing Javascript calculations; basically ala IE. Maybe it would be OK if this was a default in NS, but for a browser targeted to developers source should be the default save page as functionality.
When I was a kid, video games only had two dimensions to them. And we liked it, gosh darn it... And it helped develop 'hand-eye' coordination.
Fast forward to 2000 - Zelda on N64 in surround sound develops hand-eye-ear coordination in a more realistic 3-D game.
Nintendo included, stopped making fun games long ago and instead concentrated on what eye candy with no substance. You can't tell me that you can seriously compare any N64 or Gamecube game to an old-school Nintendo or SNES game...
I don't know about you, but I am a big Zelda fan; I have played and completed most Zeldas on NES, SNES, GB, GBC, and N64. Your statement may hold true for other consoles and other games, but it's exactly the opposite for Zelda; which adds both eye candy *and* content with every new version.
And, in my opinion, game like Zelda is an excellent strategy to keep people buying Nintendo consoles and systems. Resurrection of Metroid should also help tremendously. As far as 3rd party sports games, and other "eye candy" crap - they are available on any console and they are not as much decision makers or breakers.
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
This statement is ridiculous. Does this mean, if this is granted and held up, that any arbitrary window that pops under the active window could be subject to licensing and lawsuits? They can sue your ass for any window that appears non-focused and then let the judge decide whether it's an "Advertisement" or "Web browser" that was in use assuming the patent even states those.
When Kevin Hodges, attorney for the dissenting states, asked him how many APIs would be exempt, Allchin said he did not know the exact number, but it would include APIs that deal with anti-piracy and digital rights management.
DRM?? Gimme a break! Sounds like a marketing push to RIAA that MS DRM will not be violated. Because, you know, if terrorists were to break the MS DRM and listen to unlicensed copies of RIAA products that would violate the National Security and allow severe setbacks in war in Afghanistan.
I just hope the judge is listening to this very carefully.
When you click on a particular comment the following page scrolls you down to that comment directly thereby bypassing the viewing of the great banner ads on top of the page.
If I was a sponsor, I would request Slashdot to turn over the user browsing data on the grounds that the above activity clearly constitutes as stealing the content. Also, scroll bars should be disabled until the banner ad goes through at least 3 iterations of its images.
The point I think they are trying to make is that the only reason this seems even slightly reasonable (and the above examples do not) is because it affects so many people that it becomes a statistic, and the way in which those people's privacy is violated is complicated enough that it is easy to gloss over the fact that it is a severe intrusion into the living rooms of SONICBlue's customers!
Of course, SonicBlue's problem being that they explicitly put the clause in the service agreement allowing them to collect such information from the consumer. Which is what TiVo did also. Now, I do not believe it has come up whether this clause in itself would be legal and enforceable; but I do not see why not. Usage info is being tracked from variety devices and software legally.
Listening to an EFF representative on CNet radio, and reading this brief, I wouldn't think this was a great argument to reverse the original ruling. This brief goes way too much into how privacy would be violated and presents not so good analogies. Of course MPAA is going to respond by arguing SonicBlue has perfectly legal right to collect such info (based on the clause in their agreement).
IMHO, what they should have argued more than anything else, is that in the discovery process plaintiffs have no right to demand extra, non-existent information from the defendants or ask them to create such data, and presented more and more rulings backing this argument. But then again, IANAL.
Yeah, this is exactly what the industry needs: price controls and mandatory redistribution of wealth according to government policy. That has just worked so very well in the past.
Yeah, but it is a little bit late to post this since that's how RIAA is taxing everyone's purchases of items such as CD burners, blank CDs, tapes, etc. I guess the proposition in the article would create a similar taxation system by "artists".
I agree that this is wrong since you cannot charge everyone their adequate share of downloaded or shared music; much less distribute the money fairly to these "artists". But what's wrong here is the principle, not the plan.
Since the principle says people who share or download have to pay somehow no matter what. While it is true that if you are hosting several terabytes of copyrighted content solely for the purposes of redistribution and financial gain can be considered stealing, I do not think running a Gnutella client casually comes to anything close to it. Just because the distribution is cheaper due to improvements in technology does not validate the older distributors' right to their old distribution model.
Courts have said that size and quantity matters when distributing or setting up a system that eases distribution of copyrighted content. So while Napster was found to be out of bounds, again, casual sharing will not. And, in general, the numbers have so far shown that casual sharing does promote the industry growth, innovation, and other good things.
Labeling this activity as pirating or stealing is just a dumbfounded response from "old guys". And asking for the legislation to require copy-protected hardware everywhere will do nothing but stall the industry.
So, the solution is for RIAA and MPAA to stop pointing fingers and lobbying for legislation, only go after blatant copyright violators. It will benefit them in the short and mid term by raising their revenues and profits while they rip off the "artists". In the long term, please solve the distribution problem that will be antiquated pretty soon. That means offer *more* at a lower cost, not the other way around, like they want to at present.
I know every slasheep's autoresponse to this is "I want my GTA", but I'm going to risk my karma in order to speak my mind...please have patience, and try to give this argument some credit.
OK, I did give you some credit and here's the answer:
First, we have to recognize exactly what this bill would do. It would quite simply regulate the ability of youngsters to obtain video games that contain the kind of thing we already don't let them observe in movies or talk about in public. That is, it doesn't take away any rights.
In other words, since this bill appears not to take away any adults' rights, it must be good. Actually, it's wrong on both counts; not only does it restrict minors, it also restricts sale and rental. And I am still looking for research numbers proving that minors who play GTA are more likely to steal a car than minors who don't. Actually, I am willing to bet against this; I am willing to bet that minors who play GTA are less likely to commit a crime than minors who don't. So, I will now be supporting the legislation to provide government subsidies to violent game manufacturers because they decrease the crime. This sounds as ridiculous as the bill itself.
Those who use the First Amendment out of context to support hurtful speech are just that: hurtful, to America.
Whoa! And we should let those bought out corrupt politicians define what's "hurtful". Such as, it should be illegal for minors to purchase an NHL game that depicts violence and blood, but it's perfectly OK for ESPN to show exactly the same *real* and *live* action on TV. Let's tell Disney they can't show NHL games live anymore, I'm sure they'll listen.
Lastly, recall that the Constitution does not grant the right of "Personhood" to minors (those under 18). Technically, they fall under the same category ("non-free Chattel") as slaves once did.
Again, just because in your opinion this bill does not do anything wrong, does not mean it's right, and I've given and give more reasons why it's wrong.
In conclusion, let's please think about this objectively; this legislation would not give up any of our current rights, and in protecting our children from corruption would actually serve to protect our rights for generations to come.
Read the above paragraph again, then this: Do you really expect this regulation to help crimes committed by minors? If this was to be an OK proposition, it would have to be linked to some numbers like playing games like Warcraft III increases the risk for that minor to commit a crime. And, maybe we could add AOE to that too.
Sorry for the tone, but that's how I feel.
As compared to the "OS/2 Only Six?"
Actually, these are the "only six" on Solaris x86 also; on top of that, they are also "secret" to avoid public humiliation.
1. Unisys and MS start a $25+ mil PR campaign against Unix and set up a web site as a part of this wehavethewayout.com.
2. The website is running on Apache and FreeBSD and the campaign receives criticism.
3. Next day they move the hosting of the above to MS' domain and the server's IP address changes and software seems to be Win2k/IIS 5.
4. In no time after this move, the Win2k server gets cracked and started serving an empty HTML page and then getting 403 errors, campaign gets more bad PR.
Just a curious question. How in the hell are they spending this $25+ mil that has so far not gotten any positive coverage and only generated bad PR? Funny that the FreeBSD site seems to be still up and running at http://198.63.57.204/
is the clause that will prohibit MS to make any "Windows only PC" deals with manufacturers. Look, it's pretty simple:
1. MS was found to have a monopoly in the desktop operating system market;
2. MS was found to illegally use that monopoly to stifle competition.
It has to be a no-brainer to make all agreements that MS has with PC manufacturers void and prohibit them from making any such deals in the future until further review of the court.
Escape sequences special sequences encoded other data. A telephone navigation system is merely a command driven system. Nothing is escaped.
Go back and read your own escape sequence definition that you got from Webopedia, as long as it is a "sequence of special characters" that send a command to a device or program it is an escape sequence. Then you have to get into the argument of "pressing 4 on the telephone dial is not a special character". What is a special character by the way? Would pressing #4 while interrupting phone message recording (to take you back to the main menu) be considered as a "sequence of special characters"? IOW, fighting over definitions does not make sense.
What is rightly an issue, is that the BT patent on hyperlinks was not an invention when it was approved. And, one of the examples of similar practices is dated from way long ago, and you can call it escape sequence, or call it something else if you like.
URL, then since the protocol preceeds the '/', this would not be an example of an escape sequence. I think the real issue is the escape sequences preceeded by '%' signs.
All those can be escape sequences, including an HTML tag on a web page since it modifies the meaning of a regular text and, instead, sends a "command" to the browser ("device or program") to interpret the included text otherwise.
The White House confirmed today that voting on the web was indeed not a good option. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesperson, elaborated in today's press conference that the main reason the president cited behind this stance was that Al Gore invented the Internet and it would not be a fair playing field.
On a more serious note, neither Democrats nor Republicans have yet figured out how they will control the election results after voting is completed since they wouldn't be counting ballots on a national TV, and running out the clock at their option. It was further troubling that Larry Ellison promised to provide free clustered database solution which was presumably "unbreakable", and would take only 2 seconds to count all votes instead of 3 months.
You are mistaken, the ones that actually came from /. stories where the 7000 comments that said "I hate Microsoft".
No need for that, here's the top 40:
1. Britney Spears Unleashed
2. How to date Britney in 21 days
3. Britney for dummies
... etc.
On the other hand it will be interesting to have Slashdot top 40 links every week. But then again, that's predictable too.
Here's a timeline:
- Mid-nineties: critics - Linux will never succeed in the marketplace server or desktop, it will only be used by hackers;
- Mid-nineties: Linus - we are pushing mainly for server functinality right now;
Result: late nineties: Linux starts to replace where Netwares and NTs have ruled before becoming the fastest growing server OS still only second to NT market share; also displaces different Unices, gets IBM support and is on the way to gain foothold on mainframes.- Late nineties and afterwards: ctirics - Linux is a viable server platform, but it won't be able to do any damage on the desktop
- Late nineties and afterwards: Linus - the OS is "good enough" for server for now, we'll push desktop
Result: [enter your prediction based on the precedent]I am no lawyer but if you look through all the documents and filings, etc. you will see that the cybersquatting charge was dropped. In the argument and reasoning that you are referring to the court was trying to determine if it had jurisdiction over Rosenthal. To do that, one of the points to consider was if the defendant had done substantial commercial activity in CA, which of course, wasn't the case.
In a further development, in response to NASA's announcement, IRS announced today that it will no longer accept or ask for the taxes from anyone who has had a history of drinking, cheating, or lying.