Er... Because they have to hire more employees to handle the purchasing load...
Er... Because the Britney Spears needs a new swimming pool for her poodle... yeah!
Isn't it time we just declare the RIAA a monopoly and start regulating it because, obviously, there is no competition.
(I'm reminded of that montage scene in Real Genius where more and more people don't show up to class and instead have tape recorders to record the lecture... eventually the professor stops coming to class and just has a tape to play to the tape recorders...)
"Hey, my 3ghz computer is running as slow as a Pentium 1.5ghz... Why is that?" "Oh that's all the new virus checking that runs the executables before they run to make sure they don't have any viruses in them."
See? Microsoft pays YOU for bugs. Open Source leaves you high and dry.
That's the Microsoft(tm) difference!
It's the only thing that makes sense. Why start paying for bugs now? It's also interesting in that I think this is finally acknowledgement that their monopoly on the computing industry is in jeopardy.
There are rumors that the Playstation 3 would do the same as well.
Wireless controllers are an intersting option. But standard? Note that there are a whole bunch of corner cases that wireless joysticks have that haven't been well addressed yet. For instance, the Nintendo wavebird controller has no vibration capability. Most XBox wireless joysticks don't handle an XBox live headset or memory card.
Battery life is obviously a problem. I'd like to see docking cradles for the joysticks on the box itself so they can be charged and ready for play. (Or interestingly... maybe they could be connected with cables like they are currently for charging. So play with the cable while charging play without otherwise.)
And, of course, it's not as satisfying to get pissed off and yank the cable out of the box to demonstrate your frustration... (But it IS easier to throw the joystick across the room...)
So if the wireless joysticks are standard, does that mean there won't be any joystick "ports" on the box at all?
and don't understand world events... But the Commission has more power than the Parliament and can get legislation to the Council that the Council has to act on?
Is the fear that there are enough votes in the Council that this will pass?
With Open Source, you can see the source code, hence it's easier to speculate about security holes and develop attack theories. Thus it's easier to SEE vulnerabilities. Even if such vulnerabilities aren't in the wild.
With Microsoft generally someone has to make the vulnerability. Then it has to be put into use. Then someone has to discover that it was being used on them. Then be smart enough to determine that it's a vulnerability and not an improper setup or bad hardware. Then notify Microsoft who then has to verify that it's a vulnerability and issue a fix but will NOT publicize the vulnerability until it's fixed. If you're lucky, a researcher will discover the vulnerability first but it's harder to do that with a closed source base than it is with an open source one.
In any event, the test is engineered to give Microsoft the best results. Because the test is based on Microsoft's strengths (a paid for, targetted development team concentrating... right now.. on security, over a loose confederation paid for people and hobbyists donating their time.)
And we probably sent it there on the Viking Probes!
(or it's from the remains of a long dead civilization that had a war with the fifth planet of the solar system. The fifth planet was turned to rubble and the aftermath of the war destroyed Mars. So the survivors fled to Earth and feasted on dinosaur meat until they hunted them to extinction...)
You just don't allow the game to be downloaded (not at first, anyway). Then the distributors get first sell profits like they normally do. Distributors never get money from sales of used games anyway. (It's why they keep trying to get it outlawed).
Although if you make the used game market viable by activating new accounts then you would potentially diminish new games sales. Though I couldn't say that would make THAT much of an impact if the game normally retails for $50, the used copy goes for $30 and you charge $20 to reactivate the key. Or even charge the guy $25 to reactivate the key so that you're still fulfilling your end of the bargain, but making a disincentive for buying used product.
This is related to the Banes-Oxley act which mandated that all email conversations (as well as other electronic documentation) must be backed up regularly and for a fixed period of time.
IANAL but it appears that a side effect of this is that it elevates this form of business communication as more legally binding above and beyond normal paper document communications. IE Official business memos are legally required to be stored but simple interperonsal memo communication between officers is not. But if it IS kept and found, it's legally admissable.
The law change (to help prevent another Enron) elevates all communication to a stored status. From the consumer side this is "good" because smoking guns are easier to find. But from the business side this is "bad" because a lot of ideas get thrown around when trying to develop business plans. Ideas that may be quasi-legal to begin with, but not recognizable as such until they bounce the plan off one of the legal team and he quashes it. End of story right? Not if that communication is part of the official record because it was emailed. Now it becomes a smoking gun as part of a "pattern of intent to do illegal buisness practices".
In my experience, that's "petrified" code. Suppose the last maintainer dies (or becomes a Windows programmer). For someone to pick up the code base then the code itself has to be of a skill level lower than the person using it OR documented enough to explain those complexities that aren't readily understandable.
That's the one area where Open Source is weak. Closed Source can (again) throw money at the problem and fund a code "archeologist" to go through and resurrect the code base. Open Source requires individuals willing to have the passion to do so (although other open source individuals could fund the resurrection and then modify it to make it more open). But I think it more likely that if BSD did "die" this way then most people would just switch to Linux rather than spend the effort. (Not to be offensive, I'm just being pragmatic.. I could be wrong on the passion and number of BSD people).
I always thought that if you have enough people "chewing" (working) on the same module that it should eventually self-standardize into a least common denominator of maintainability. Which, if not the most maintainable code, should be as maintainable as possible given the design and interoperability constraints (with other modules). Evolutionarily speaking... it HAS to be maintainable or it "dies" (becomes unmaintained and then unused or superceded by another implementation).
On the flip side, a closed source module could be built "top down" to a unified set of coding standards that would help maintainability. But it's not a requirement. I've seen plenty of code bases built just this way that were horrific... But still maintained and not changed because management was willing to throw enough money to keep things going (but not enough money to make it more interoperable).
(As a Republican) that the "scream" was an overplayed "attack" on Dean from other Democratic party members. It makes absolutely 0 sense that in 24 hours Dean goes from being the revolutionary leading candidate of the Democratic Party to the whack-job has been who screams insanely.
Sure he had just lost the Iowa Caucus but he still had a lot of political momentum built up... But that disappeared almost immediately as the scream kept getting played and replayed and replayed... so much so that it became an incident in and of itself and the Iowa caucus' were quickly forgotten.
Especially when the "scream" was obviously just an emotional moment in a campaign. And there are plenty of those that happen that never get covered. But this one was... to death. Coincidence? I think not.
Because it only spews porn and spam. And not... say.. stuff like the truth about corrupt administrations or corporate shenanigans or false media reports or uniting disparate peoples with similar ideologies or...
Nope, not an important freedom at all (Coz, y'know fire is destructive and pollutive too, California's trying to ban it!... just sayin! don't go beserk now)
and 'sides... you can still access the internet in China through Net Cafes.
Short term, getting everybody roped into a subscription based model "locks" existing customers in.
But now it shows up in the budget as "annual recurring costs" and not a one-time fixed cost.
So this stuff comes up for dicussion every year during budget time. And... it looks pretty silly to be spending 5 million dollars on "clippy" a year when you can't afford enough police to protect the city.
So now they HAVE to lower the cost of the product *and* governments are now aware of OpenOffice (which is free). Whereas if they had just lowered costs to begin with and offered some things like "free" support to sweeten the pot, they could've kept stringing them along.
(And why is this article sectioned as "politics"?)
The power of this piece isn't in the incident itself. It's in the political manipulations of such... But then this is on Slashdot under the heading "Your rights online"
Slashdot Mirror
We can sue the government for cutting the # of police resulting in more crime, yeah.
Well they have to raise prices!
Because the cost of manufacturing has...
Er... Because they have to hire more employees to handle the purchasing load...
Er... Because the Britney Spears needs a new swimming pool for her poodle... yeah!
Isn't it time we just declare the RIAA a monopoly and start regulating it because, obviously, there is no competition.
(I'm reminded of that montage scene in Real Genius where more and more people don't show up to class and instead have tape recorders to record the lecture... eventually the professor stops coming to class and just has a tape to play to the tape recorders...)
]]]THUD[[[
Message for you sir!
Because the cost of manufacturing has...
Er... Because they have to hire more employees to handle the purchasing load...
Er... Because the Britney Spears needs a new swimming pool for her poodle... yeah!
Isn't it time we just declare the RIAA a monopoly and start regulating it because, obviously, there is no competition.
"Hey, my 3ghz computer is running as slow as a Pentium 1.5ghz... Why is that?"
"Oh that's all the new virus checking that runs the executables before they run to make sure they don't have any viruses in them."
So y'see... Viruses ARE good for the industry!
See? Microsoft pays YOU for bugs. Open Source leaves you high and dry.
That's the Microsoft(tm) difference!
It's the only thing that makes sense. Why start paying for bugs now? It's also interesting in that I think this is finally acknowledgement that their monopoly on the computing industry is in jeopardy.
Glass Cows?
GMail? Froogle?
Ooh... wait... I don't think I like where this insinuation is going...
They haven't gotten away with it...YET!
That the EU is currently setup as a "good cop, bad cop" government? [shudder]
There are rumors that the Playstation 3 would do the same as well.
Wireless controllers are an intersting option. But standard? Note that there are a whole bunch of corner cases that wireless joysticks have that haven't been well addressed yet. For instance, the Nintendo wavebird controller has no vibration capability. Most XBox wireless joysticks don't handle an XBox live headset or memory card.
Battery life is obviously a problem. I'd like to see docking cradles for the joysticks on the box itself so they can be charged and ready for play. (Or interestingly... maybe they could be connected with cables like they are currently for charging. So play with the cable while charging play without otherwise.)
And, of course, it's not as satisfying to get pissed off and yank the cable out of the box to demonstrate your frustration... (But it IS easier to throw the joystick across the room...)
So if the wireless joysticks are standard, does that mean there won't be any joystick "ports" on the box at all?
and don't understand world events... But the Commission has more power than the Parliament and can get legislation to the Council that the Council has to act on?
Is the fear that there are enough votes in the Council that this will pass?
With Open Source, you can see the source code, hence it's easier to speculate about security holes and develop attack theories. Thus it's easier to SEE vulnerabilities. Even if such vulnerabilities aren't in the wild.
With Microsoft generally someone has to make the vulnerability. Then it has to be put into use. Then someone has to discover that it was being used on them. Then be smart enough to determine that it's a vulnerability and not an improper setup or bad hardware. Then notify Microsoft who then has to verify that it's a vulnerability and issue a fix but will NOT publicize the vulnerability until it's fixed. If you're lucky, a researcher will discover the vulnerability first but it's harder to do that with a closed source base than it is with an open source one.
In any event, the test is engineered to give Microsoft the best results. Because the test is based on Microsoft's strengths (a paid for, targetted development team concentrating... right now.. on security, over a loose confederation paid for people and hobbyists donating their time.)
And we probably sent it there on the Viking Probes!
(or it's from the remains of a long dead civilization that had a war with the fifth planet of the solar system. The fifth planet was turned to rubble and the aftermath of the war destroyed Mars. So the survivors fled to Earth and feasted on dinosaur meat until they hunted them to extinction...)
You just don't allow the game to be downloaded (not at first, anyway). Then the distributors get first sell profits like they normally do. Distributors never get money from sales of used games anyway. (It's why they keep trying to get it outlawed).
Although if you make the used game market viable by activating new accounts then you would potentially diminish new games sales. Though I couldn't say that would make THAT much of an impact if the game normally retails for $50, the used copy goes for $30 and you charge $20 to reactivate the key. Or even charge the guy $25 to reactivate the key so that you're still fulfilling your end of the bargain, but making a disincentive for buying used product.
How hard can it be? Okay you buy a "used" CD so they don't give you a month's free subscription but force you to pony up $19 immediately.
Even if you assume that this guy just pirated a copy of WOW that's pure revenue to them for each new user.
What's to gain by binding one key to one CD? You want to bind it to one PAYING USER.
Somebody hasn't thought this through and just threw the usual boiler plate out into the EULA and said "ship it!"
This is related to the Banes-Oxley act which mandated that all email conversations (as well as other electronic documentation) must be backed up regularly and for a fixed period of time.
IANAL but it appears that a side effect of this is that it elevates this form of business communication as more legally binding above and beyond normal paper document communications. IE Official business memos are legally required to be stored but simple interperonsal memo communication between officers is not. But if it IS kept and found, it's legally admissable.
The law change (to help prevent another Enron) elevates all communication to a stored status. From the consumer side this is "good" because smoking guns are easier to find. But from the business side this is "bad" because a lot of ideas get thrown around when trying to develop business plans. Ideas that may be quasi-legal to begin with, but not recognizable as such until they bounce the plan off one of the legal team and he quashes it. End of story right? Not if that communication is part of the official record because it was emailed. Now it becomes a smoking gun as part of a "pattern of intent to do illegal buisness practices".
In my experience, that's "petrified" code. Suppose the last maintainer dies (or becomes a Windows programmer). For someone to pick up the code base then the code itself has to be of a skill level lower than the person using it OR documented enough to explain those complexities that aren't readily understandable.
That's the one area where Open Source is weak. Closed Source can (again) throw money at the problem and fund a code "archeologist" to go through and resurrect the code base. Open Source requires individuals willing to have the passion to do so (although other open source individuals could fund the resurrection and then modify it to make it more open). But I think it more likely that if BSD did "die" this way then most people would just switch to Linux rather than spend the effort. (Not to be offensive, I'm just being pragmatic.. I could be wrong on the passion and number of BSD people).
Maybe they could make a Family Guy: The Game..
Oh..
Wait...
I always thought that if you have enough people "chewing" (working) on the same module that it should eventually self-standardize into a least common denominator of maintainability. Which, if not the most maintainable code, should be as maintainable as possible given the design and interoperability constraints (with other modules). Evolutionarily speaking... it HAS to be maintainable or it "dies" (becomes unmaintained and then unused or superceded by another implementation).
On the flip side, a closed source module could be built "top down" to a unified set of coding standards that would help maintainability. But it's not a requirement. I've seen plenty of code bases built just this way that were horrific... But still maintained and not changed because management was willing to throw enough money to keep things going (but not enough money to make it more interoperable).
YMMV.
(As a Republican) that the "scream" was an overplayed "attack" on Dean from other Democratic party members. It makes absolutely 0 sense that in 24 hours Dean goes from being the revolutionary leading candidate of the Democratic Party to the whack-job has been who screams insanely.
Sure he had just lost the Iowa Caucus but he still had a lot of political momentum built up... But that disappeared almost immediately as the scream kept getting played and replayed and replayed... so much so that it became an incident in and of itself and the Iowa caucus' were quickly forgotten.
Especially when the "scream" was obviously just an emotional moment in a campaign. And there are plenty of those that happen that never get covered. But this one was... to death. Coincidence? I think not.
Because it only spews porn and spam. And not... say.. stuff like the truth about corrupt administrations or corporate shenanigans or false media reports or uniting disparate peoples with similar ideologies or...
... just sayin! don't go beserk now)
Nope, not an important freedom at all (Coz, y'know fire is destructive and pollutive too, California's trying to ban it!
and 'sides... you can still access the internet in China through Net Cafes.
Until now...
Occams Razor...
Short term, getting everybody roped into a subscription based model "locks" existing customers in.
But now it shows up in the budget as "annual recurring costs" and not a one-time fixed cost.
So this stuff comes up for dicussion every year during budget time. And... it looks pretty silly to be spending 5 million dollars on "clippy" a year when you can't afford enough police to protect the city.
So now they HAVE to lower the cost of the product *and* governments are now aware of OpenOffice (which is free). Whereas if they had just lowered costs to begin with and offered some things like "free" support to sweeten the pot, they could've kept stringing them along.
(And why is this article sectioned as "politics"?)
The power of this piece isn't in the incident itself. It's in the political manipulations of such... But then this is on Slashdot under the heading "Your rights online"
Rights?