As I said, it does use the Real Player plugin. There is a Unix version available, but I don't know if it will work with Linux. I'm actually going to be taking my second stab at running Linux over the holidays, so needless to say I don't have enough experience to tell you whether or not it will work.
There are some services already existing that allow you to do this. Specifically, take a look at the Soundbooth at Wall of Sound, an offering from the Walt Disney Internet Group (formerly GO.com). It has a very cool interface which allows you to choose what types of songs to play on your station, as well as being able to choose specific artists and songs to be played. You can also choose how often these are played when you set them up AND on-the-fly as they are playing.
The bad part is that the player runs off of Real Player which has problems with Netscape 4.x (I haven't tried NS6/Mozilla with this yet, although that's my preferred browser these days). But it is still very cool!
Disclaimer: For those of you who may not have guessed this already, I do work for the Walt Disney Internet Group, albeit in a completely different division (and building for that matter) than Wall of Sound. But that doesn't make it any less cool! Almost everyone in our department uses it instead of downloading MP3s or listening to CDs. If you like modern rock and classic rock, check the StealthDaveRocks station! (I warned you there would be a shameless plug!;) Go to the Member Made stations and enter "StealthDaveRocks". I've been using it since the internal beta stages, and I can definitely say it rocks!
Additional Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, and are not sanctioned by Disney, Bill Nye the Science Guy, or the U.N. Security Council.
I just caught the last half-hour of the debate, and Lessig's last point to Valenti was an extremely poignant one. It's unfortunate that Valenti chose to ignore it.
Lessig was trying to get Valenti to define "fair use" in response to Valenti's assertion that "fair use" constitutes only what the author explicitly authorizes. To paraphrase, Lessig asked that if he wrote a book and that book included an agreement that by purchasing that book, you agree not to criticize the book, would writing a review of that book violate "fair use" of that work, to which Valenti replied that if such he bought such a book he would turn around and review the book to give the author a "kick in the butt". Lessig's follow-up question was if a person purchased a movie (presumably on DVD or some media type protected by the DMCA) and then proceded to watch the movie on a player that was not authorized by the author, does that go beyond "fair use" of that media. At which point, Jack essentially said "Oh, look at the time! Got to go!" (Paraphrased, but essentially accurate.)
Unfortunately, this tells us nothing new. Media producers are more concerned about maintaining absolute control over their works than they are the principles of fair use. I hope that a transcript of this talk is up soon so that it can be quoted more correctly than my paraphraseology.;)
With regards to roca, I think that he may have read a little too quickly through the CNet article. The assumption that the article is based entirely on this news thread is well refuted by CNet's quotes from MozOffice project leader, James Russell, and his web site on the subject.
Also, neither the article nor the MozOffice web site (or roca himself, to be fair) implies that MozOffice is a part of the Mozilla project. It is a separate project which plans to use the Gecko engine and Star Office's existing code (soon to be open-sourced) to create a cross-platform office suite. Claims that this project will further delay Mozilla are simply misinformed.
While I think the article had some good points (i.e. not all commercial software is bad), it was definitely skewed against the free software movement, beyond just being critical. One assumption that was made in particular sat wrong with me (and is conveniently quoted here):
Product F is free software. It comes with the standard no-warranty warranty.
Product P is proprietary software. It costs $50 for the binary-only version. It uses the most advanced techniques of software engineering. It never crashes, or departs in any way from its (mathematically expressed) specification. The seller is, in fact, so sure of those qualities that he will commit in writing that any violation of the specification during execution will immediately lead to reimbursement of the purchase price and compensation for any damages incurred.
The problem is that not only does most software include a heavy caveat emptor clause, all software includes it. The author goes on to ask how much would be too much for a product that was sufficiently warranted, and my answer would be quite a bit. Unfortunately, the question is moot. Has the author read some of the EULAs that are required for most software? Caveat emptor only begins to describe the restrictions placed on the purchase. And if you disagree with the EULA, most software retailers won't take the software back because it's been opened, and at most will allow you to exchange it for the exact same product.
When you start to add these factors into the argument, Product F starts looking a whole lot more appealing.
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As I said, it does use the Real Player plugin. There is a Unix version available, but I don't know if it will work with Linux. I'm actually going to be taking my second stab at running Linux over the holidays, so needless to say I don't have enough experience to tell you whether or not it will work.
- Stealth Dave
--
There are some services already existing that allow you to do this. Specifically, take a look at the Soundbooth at Wall of Sound, an offering from the Walt Disney Internet Group (formerly GO.com). It has a very cool interface which allows you to choose what types of songs to play on your station, as well as being able to choose specific artists and songs to be played. You can also choose how often these are played when you set them up AND on-the-fly as they are playing.
The bad part is that the player runs off of Real Player which has problems with Netscape 4.x (I haven't tried NS6/Mozilla with this yet, although that's my preferred browser these days). But it is still very cool!
Disclaimer: ;) Go to the Member Made stations and enter "StealthDaveRocks". I've been using it since the internal beta stages, and I can definitely say it rocks!
For those of you who may not have guessed this already, I do work for the Walt Disney Internet Group, albeit in a completely different division (and building for that matter) than Wall of Sound. But that doesn't make it any less cool! Almost everyone in our department uses it instead of downloading MP3s or listening to CDs. If you like modern rock and classic rock, check the StealthDaveRocks station! (I warned you there would be a shameless plug!
Additional Disclaimer:
My opinions are my own, and are not sanctioned by Disney, Bill Nye the Science Guy, or the U.N. Security Council.
- Stealth Dave
--
I just caught the last half-hour of the debate, and Lessig's last point to Valenti was an extremely poignant one. It's unfortunate that Valenti chose to ignore it.
Lessig was trying to get Valenti to define "fair use" in response to Valenti's assertion that "fair use" constitutes only what the author explicitly authorizes. To paraphrase, Lessig asked that if he wrote a book and that book included an agreement that by purchasing that book, you agree not to criticize the book, would writing a review of that book violate "fair use" of that work, to which Valenti replied that if such he bought such a book he would turn around and review the book to give the author a "kick in the butt". Lessig's follow-up question was if a person purchased a movie (presumably on DVD or some media type protected by the DMCA) and then proceded to watch the movie on a player that was not authorized by the author, does that go beyond "fair use" of that media. At which point, Jack essentially said "Oh, look at the time! Got to go!" (Paraphrased, but essentially accurate.)
Unfortunately, this tells us nothing new. Media producers are more concerned about maintaining absolute control over their works than they are the principles of fair use. I hope that a transcript of this talk is up soon so that it can be quoted more correctly than my paraphraseology. ;)
- Stealth Dave
With regards to roca, I think that he may have read a little too quickly through the CNet article. The assumption that the article is based entirely on this news thread is well refuted by CNet's quotes from MozOffice project leader, James Russell, and his web site on the subject.
Also, neither the article nor the MozOffice web site (or roca himself, to be fair) implies that MozOffice is a part of the Mozilla project. It is a separate project which plans to use the Gecko engine and Star Office's existing code (soon to be open-sourced) to create a cross-platform office suite. Claims that this project will further delay Mozilla are simply misinformed.
- Stealth Dave
While I think the article had some good points (i.e. not all commercial software is bad), it was definitely skewed against the free software movement, beyond just being critical. One assumption that was made in particular sat wrong with me (and is conveniently quoted here):
The problem is that not only does most software include a heavy caveat emptor clause, all software includes it. The author goes on to ask how much would be too much for a product that was sufficiently warranted, and my answer would be quite a bit. Unfortunately, the question is moot. Has the author read some of the EULAs that are required for most software? Caveat emptor only begins to describe the restrictions placed on the purchase. And if you disagree with the EULA, most software retailers won't take the software back because it's been opened, and at most will allow you to exchange it for the exact same product.
When you start to add these factors into the argument, Product F starts looking a whole lot more appealing.
- "Stealth" Dave