There is a very simple problem: there is a huge time difference between us and them. We have a middleman between our geeks and their geeks, and we can't talk directly.
You see? If they had just let us take the noon-3am schedule we wanted, there wouldn't be a problem here. I think our Geek instincts knew something we didn't.
Rights, there's that word again. Yes, people who create things generally have rights to do with as they please with said thing. I'm an author by trade, and, while I don't feel the need to come out and say, "Hey, Joe Windows User, I don't want you reading my book!", I have the right to say, "Hey! Fred Publisher! You're not reprinting my material without paying me!"
But should I ever want to say, "Hey, Joe Windows User..", shouldn't I have that right? (Granted, it'd be pretty stupid of me *to* say that, but hey, work with me, people.) After all, anything I create is *mine*, to do with as *I* please.
Actually, you don't have that right. For example, if I open a restaurant, I don't have the right to say "Jews not allowed." Private groups have certain, limited rights to exclude membership/services/sales, but there are definite restrictions on this behavior.
Besides, I can have the right to do something, and it can still be wrong. It also can snowball into something completely intolerable.* It just means the government shouldn't have the power to stop me.
* Yes, the arguments against passport do appear to be snowball arguments. Let's hope this makes them false, and at some point people stop this system.
There's more to open file formats than you realize. It's not just about making applications interoperable, it's about making the data itself accessible to any analysis you want. Think of it this way, as long as.doc files are only readable by the latest version of Word, you can only work with the data in Word, and you are limited by Word's feature set. What if you want to post it on the web and get it crawled? MS won't let people write search spiders to index Word files. What if you want to OCR the file? If you can't read it properly, you can't OCR it properly. God help furture generations who try to go through archives of today. Even if the data still exists, they'll have to learn a different program for each little file format.
Remember the Middle Ages? That was when you could ask people in three different towns what a yard was, and you'd get three different answers. If MS want's to change the format every 2 years to allow new features, that's their business. However, if they won't share the specs with people, then computer technology will remain in the Dark Ages.
What an incredible double-standard there is here at Slashdot whenever the subject of Microsoft comes up.
If Redhat were to donate $1 billion in free software to all the poorest schools in America, they'd be hailed as saviors of the poor, and nominated for sainthood. But when Microsoft does it, it's just another evil conspiracy.
It's not a donation, it's a penalty. Your argument is like saying "Look at the nice man in the orange jumpsuit picking up trash. Isn't he a great guy!"
Wrong. I watched the entire amendment debate last night on CSPAN. I saw the lack of logic. I saw people openly admit that this bill was un-constitutional (I swear). They are trying to trash the forth. They really don't care.
You don't get it. The USA Act passed 337-71 in the House and 96-1 in the Senate. They don't need for it to be constitutional, they have enough votes to amend the constitution itself if they need to.
I think my political loyalties have completely changed today.
Paychecks don't feed children, it's just the way we have chosen to distribute our goods. People often forget this, thinking that prosperity and money are the same thing.
The systems we have in place have served us fairly well, rewarding merit and bringing material wealth, but this has only happened with the aid of governmental control. If the corporations had their way, the children woudn't have much of a "paycheck" to eat. It took years of work by the unions to force a living wage out of these corporations.
Our society exists in a balance between the corporations producing, and thus making profit, and the government and the people keeping them in check when the interests of profit conflict with the interests of society. The system isn't the worst we could get, but it's not the best we can have either. It's not good or evil, it's just another kind of machine, and like any machine, it needs to be upgraded sometimes.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a very simple problem: there is a huge time difference between us and them. We have a middleman between our geeks and their geeks, and we can't talk directly.
You see? If they had just let us take the noon-3am schedule we wanted, there wouldn't be a problem here. I think our Geek instincts knew something we didn't.
But should I ever want to say, "Hey, Joe Windows User..", shouldn't I have that right? (Granted, it'd be pretty stupid of me *to* say that, but hey, work with me, people.) After all, anything I create is *mine*, to do with as *I* please.
Actually, you don't have that right. For example, if I open a restaurant, I don't have the right to say "Jews not allowed." Private groups have certain, limited rights to exclude membership/services/sales, but there are definite restrictions on this behavior.
Besides, I can have the right to do something, and it can still be wrong. It also can snowball into something completely intolerable.* It just means the government shouldn't have the power to stop me.
* Yes, the arguments against passport do appear to be snowball arguments. Let's hope this makes them false, and at some point people stop this system.
Remember the Middle Ages? That was when you could ask people in three different towns what a yard was, and you'd get three different answers. If MS want's to change the format every 2 years to allow new features, that's their business. However, if they won't share the specs with people, then computer technology will remain in the Dark Ages.
What an incredible double-standard there is here at Slashdot whenever the subject of Microsoft comes up. If Redhat were to donate $1 billion in free software to all the poorest schools in America, they'd be hailed as saviors of the poor, and nominated for sainthood. But when Microsoft does it, it's just another evil conspiracy.
It's not a donation, it's a penalty. Your argument is like saying "Look at the nice man in the orange jumpsuit picking up trash. Isn't he a great guy!"
You don't get it. The USA Act passed 337-71 in the House and 96-1 in the Senate. They don't need for it to be constitutional, they have enough votes to amend the constitution itself if they need to.
I think my political loyalties have completely changed today.
It felt like a million DC owners screaming, then suddenly silenced
Paychecks don't feed children, it's just the way we have chosen to distribute our goods. People often forget this, thinking that prosperity and money are the same thing.
The systems we have in place have served us fairly well, rewarding merit and bringing material wealth, but this has only happened with the aid of governmental control. If the corporations had their way, the children woudn't have much of a "paycheck" to eat. It took years of work by the unions to force a living wage out of these corporations.
Our society exists in a balance between the corporations producing, and thus making profit, and the government and the people keeping them in check when the interests of profit conflict with the interests of society. The system isn't the worst we could get, but it's not the best we can have either. It's not good or evil, it's just another kind of machine, and like any machine, it needs to be upgraded sometimes.