It's not logically necessary what the parent poster said. But taking a realistic, cynical, read-between-the-lines view of Novell's announcement, it's a good bet that this is what it will mean.
If you know how to read corporate press releases, you know that what is unsaid is often as important as what is said, if not more so. While you can't say for 100% certainty what Novell has planned, it's a good bet that this is the direction they will take. Their statements left the door open for it, and it would be hugely harmful for them to make an definitive announcement before they are really ready to launch a working release version.
Agreed, 100%. That's why the words "if it says in the ToS" are repeated so many times in my post. If the ISP won't divulge details of the ToS, and can't or won't answer relevant questions, they have no case against the customer.
TIME - you can connect for x minutes per day. Broadband advertises that they are "always on" and thus not capped in this way. Dialups don't cap you in this way, either, but may well charge you for minutes above and beyond a certain amount, though most allow unlimited time connectivity per billing period for a flat rate.
BANDWIDTH - Bandwidth really means "range of frequencies" that you're allowed to transmit/receive on, which is either dictated by the FCC or the RFC for the technology you're using, or both. But I'll ignore that, for now, and talk about "bandwidth" as it is commonly used, which is to define the speed of the connection in bits per unit of time. You have physical limits inherent to the hardware, here, and also many broadband providers cap the hardware at a certain limit. Cable modems can pull down something like 33 Mb/s but are normally capped around 3Mb/s.
THROUGHPUT - Many ISPs ToS agreements include a clause stating how many bytes you can move up or down per month. Typically, with such agreements, this limit is much lower than the amount of data that you could theoretically push over your connection if you saturated it 24/7.
Note well that if you calculate the throughput cap as a speed and compare it with the "bandwidth" cap, the "bandwidth" cap will always be higher. They're saying, in effect, that you can drive 80mph but that you have to rest 10 hrs. out of every 24.
I'll guarantee that the limit that the ISP is complaining about in this case is the "throughput" type. If you saturate your connection, it costs the ISP more because they pay *their* connectivity bills according to throughput. It also throws a lot of suspicion that you are violating copyright, or spamming, or launching DoS attacks, or reselling your connection against their ToS, even if this is not necessarily true. A high level of activity = "you're up to something".
The argument about whether the usage level for a particular user is "above average" or not is not really the issue if the ToS includes a specific amount of throughput per month provided. "Above average" is a spurious argument, as many have already pointed out. The real issue is what does the ToS say, and are you abiding by that.
Most ISPs won't terminate you for exceeding this, but will bill you for bytes moving over your connection above and beyond this limit. And you'll pay through the nose for exceeding your limit, too. Step up to the next level and buy a business-grade service if you need that much throughput.
The reason for having a "bandwidth" (read: speed) cap that's higher than the "throughput" cap is to enable you to move a high amount of data quickly.
Say your ToS says you can pull 40GB/month down according to your agreement. But you don't want to wait an ENTIRE MONTH to pull that 40GB down. Your cable modem is capped at 3Mb/s, so you don't have to. Maybe you want to pull 30GB worth of ISOs in a few days time, and spend the rest of the month pulling the remaining 10GB allocated to you for email, gaming, browsing, or whatever.
The ToS agreement is desgined to allow you to do this, but if you go over 40GB that month, you're going to be paying extra or find yourself shut off.
If, on the other hand, the ToS doesn't have a clause about throughput caps, then the ISP has no leg to stand on, and if they say "unlimited usage" then they have to abide by it, and will probably go out of business doing so.
Where the marketing claim of "unlimited" and the fine print agreement to limits contradict each other, you can litigate with a false advertisement claim if you want, but you're still not going to get unlimited service. At best you'll get them to retract or modify the marketing claim, which itself would be something of a victory. But not the one you want.
Macs definitely don't "just work" anymore. And really, they haven't for a long time. They're darn good machines, but they require know-how and troubleshooting skills.
The idea that macs "just work" is a myth, and always has been. They're easier to get working right than a Windows PC, for sure, but if they do develop problems they can be harder to work with, because you're locked into one vendor, and they don't always like to admit that their boxes break, and there's generally less info out there in support of Mac-specific issues.
For the credit card commission problem, that's easy. Just sell *store credit* in non-micropayment sized chunks like $10 or $15 or whatever, like those gift cards you can buy anywhere. Then let the user download $chunk/0.29 songs.
Also, make it easy for friends to buy each other credit and/or songs as a gift.
I'll show the jury photos of her nude on the moon, at the Last Supper, in the limo next to JFK, and shaking hands with Elvis Presley. How would they ever know beyond a reasonable doubt that she had really appeared nude in Nebraska if she could be shown to have appeared nude where she couldn't possibly have been?
An issue is moot if you can achieve the same result (attaching some kind of computing device to a $1000 1600x1200-capable LCD monitor in this case) for $700. Which can be done with either a laptop costing $1700 or a desktop PC costing $700 + a $1000 LCD monitor. Thus, the cost issue is, in fact, moot.
As to your RAM issue... You can put more (and cheaper) RAM in a desktop box. Laptop memory is more expensive and you have fewer slots on a laptop. So if you really want a lot of RAM, you want a desktop system.
The trump card advantage of a laptop is portability. If that's important to you then there's very little to recommend a desktop workstation for.
If low power consumption is an important factor as well, then a laptop may well be a good choice, assuming that the laptop is a low power consumer. But there are also low-power desktop PCs which may be more cost effective or powerful, and merit consideration.
If computing power is the main priority, you can't beat a good desktop PC. But you can get adequate to more than adequate power for a great many uses in a laptop.
2.) I wanted an LCD that'd do 1600 by 1200, and the cheapest I've found those is $1,000. My laptop was only $700 on top of that. (Yay for Dell.)
The laptop is $700 over a 1600x1200 LCD monitor, but so would a pretty good mid-range Dell desktop. Or a pretty kick ass whitebox system you build for yourself. So the cost reason seems a moot point.
1000 projects for a boy
on
Linux Toys
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Or, Why Johnny Doesn't have Fingers or Eyebrows.
Someone please think of the children and sue these dangerous idea publishers out of existence.
How can we expect to profit from ancient religions if we do not first extend copyright retroactively backwards 10,000 years? These myths would all be dead were it not for the incentive business has to keep them alive. What better way to guarantee a quality product than by quashing all competition and guaranteeing a monopoly for one company? If we let other companies tell us who the ancient gods were, there might be an upheaval of religious dissent, and that could lead to terrorism and wars. We must have strong copyright laws if we are to avert such senseless tragedies!
Since XP already groups multiple windows open in the same application and puts them on their own pseudo-tabs on the task bar, it's probably considered redundant. I know it isn't quite the same thing, but they probably think of it has having implemented tabbed apps as an OS-wide feature already.
Pirates can drive a cart through the holes in the release schedule whether there's region codes or not, but the holes in the release schedules will still be there whether the region codes are in place or not.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky, unless you plan on delivering a "one size fits all" product, or holding up the release of an essentially finished and ready for Market X product until the product is ready for Markets A-Z. One size fits all product means either limiting content to the most restrictive censorship laws in all the regions you want to distribute in. Holding up the release date until all are ready means movies will lose their currency and timeliness.
If there is, however, then it kinda depends on what you will take as "help". SCO's idea of "helping" linux users stop violating their alleged copyrights could be as simple as telling them to stop using Linux and start using legally-acquired and paid-for SCO Unix. They certainly would not have any obligation to help you re-write the Linux kernel in such a way that does not violate their copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not logically necessary what the parent poster said. But taking a realistic, cynical, read-between-the-lines view of Novell's announcement, it's a good bet that this is what it will mean.
If you know how to read corporate press releases, you know that what is unsaid is often as important as what is said, if not more so. While you can't say for 100% certainty what Novell has planned, it's a good bet that this is the direction they will take. Their statements left the door open for it, and it would be hugely harmful for them to make an definitive announcement before they are really ready to launch a working release version.
can != don't.
I don't deny that they CAN cap your time, but most don't because there's no business reason to do so.
Agreed, 100%. That's why the words "if it says in the ToS" are repeated so many times in my post. If the ISP won't divulge details of the ToS, and can't or won't answer relevant questions, they have no case against the customer.
There's (at least) three ways to look at caps:
TIME - you can connect for x minutes per day. Broadband advertises that they are "always on" and thus not capped in this way. Dialups don't cap you in this way, either, but may well charge you for minutes above and beyond a certain amount, though most allow unlimited time connectivity per billing period for a flat rate.
BANDWIDTH - Bandwidth really means "range of frequencies" that you're allowed to transmit/receive on, which is either dictated by the FCC or the RFC for the technology you're using, or both. But I'll ignore that, for now, and talk about "bandwidth" as it is commonly used, which is to define the speed of the connection in bits per unit of time. You have physical limits inherent to the hardware, here, and also many broadband providers cap the hardware at a certain limit. Cable modems can pull down something like 33 Mb/s but are normally capped around 3Mb/s.
THROUGHPUT - Many ISPs ToS agreements include a clause stating how many bytes you can move up or down per month. Typically, with such agreements, this limit is much lower than the amount of data that you could theoretically push over your connection if you saturated it 24/7.
Note well that if you calculate the throughput cap as a speed and compare it with the "bandwidth" cap, the "bandwidth" cap will always be higher. They're saying, in effect, that you can drive 80mph but that you have to rest 10 hrs. out of every 24.
I'll guarantee that the limit that the ISP is complaining about in this case is the "throughput" type. If you saturate your connection, it costs the ISP more because they pay *their* connectivity bills according to throughput. It also throws a lot of suspicion that you are violating copyright, or spamming, or launching DoS attacks, or reselling your connection against their ToS, even if this is not necessarily true. A high level of activity = "you're up to something".
The argument about whether the usage level for a particular user is "above average" or not is not really the issue if the ToS includes a specific amount of throughput per month provided. "Above average" is a spurious argument, as many have already pointed out. The real issue is what does the ToS say, and are you abiding by that.
Most ISPs won't terminate you for exceeding this, but will bill you for bytes moving over your connection above and beyond this limit. And you'll pay through the nose for exceeding your limit, too. Step up to the next level and buy a business-grade service if you need that much throughput.
The reason for having a "bandwidth" (read: speed) cap that's higher than the "throughput" cap is to enable you to move a high amount of data quickly.
Say your ToS says you can pull 40GB/month down according to your agreement. But you don't want to wait an ENTIRE MONTH to pull that 40GB down. Your cable modem is capped at 3Mb/s, so you don't have to. Maybe you want to pull 30GB worth of ISOs in a few days time, and spend the rest of the month pulling the remaining 10GB allocated to you for email, gaming, browsing, or whatever.
The ToS agreement is desgined to allow you to do this, but if you go over 40GB that month, you're going to be paying extra or find yourself shut off.
If, on the other hand, the ToS doesn't have a clause about throughput caps, then the ISP has no leg to stand on, and if they say "unlimited usage" then they have to abide by it, and will probably go out of business doing so.
Where the marketing claim of "unlimited" and the fine print agreement to limits contradict each other, you can litigate with a false advertisement claim if you want, but you're still not going to get unlimited service. At best you'll get them to retract or modify the marketing claim, which itself would be something of a victory. But not the one you want.
It's DRM for dollar bills. If we can't figure out how to defeat this, the RI/MPAA has already won!
Plus, it'd be neat to find out how the technology involved actually works.
Is it just me, or does Mockapetris sound like a tetris-like game played with falling five-block pieces that make fun of you as they descend?
Now when CD sales continue to slump, the RIAA will have to find something else to blame.
Macs definitely don't "just work" anymore. And really, they haven't for a long time. They're darn good machines, but they require know-how and troubleshooting skills.
The idea that macs "just work" is a myth, and always has been. They're easier to get working right than a Windows PC, for sure, but if they do develop problems they can be harder to work with, because you're locked into one vendor, and they don't always like to admit that their boxes break, and there's generally less info out there in support of Mac-specific issues.
Dear Slashdot Anonymous Coward,
You owe us for 7500+ song playback licenses. Also, cease and desist the use of your mind.
Thanks,
The RIAA legal team
For the credit card commission problem, that's easy. Just sell *store credit* in non-micropayment sized chunks like $10 or $15 or whatever, like those gift cards you can buy anywhere. Then let the user download $chunk/0.29 songs.
Also, make it easy for friends to buy each other credit and/or songs as a gift.
I'll show the jury photos of her nude on the moon, at the Last Supper, in the limo next to JFK, and shaking hands with Elvis Presley. How would they ever know beyond a reasonable doubt that she had really appeared nude in Nebraska if she could be shown to have appeared nude where she couldn't possibly have been?
What's up with BSD "demonizing" linux like that?
Actually, it's a fairly neat hack, even if the rivalry is somewhat silly.
Will eventually? I for one have already welcomed our new mechanical overlords.
If people can contribute content to Wiki sites, why can't they contribute the hosting and bandwidth in the same way?
It'd seem a logical choice to have wiki hosted in some sort of distributed/peer-to-peer fashion, given the ethos that wiki espouses.
Don't worry, I'm sure they'll get bought out by MS/AOL/Yahoo! and become lame just like every other good thing on the internet.
I guess we'll see if the heaters ever ignite the LOX.
An issue is moot if you can achieve the same result (attaching some kind of computing device to a $1000 1600x1200-capable LCD monitor in this case) for $700. Which can be done with either a laptop costing $1700 or a desktop PC costing $700 + a $1000 LCD monitor. Thus, the cost issue is, in fact, moot.
As to your RAM issue... You can put more (and cheaper) RAM in a desktop box. Laptop memory is more expensive and you have fewer slots on a laptop. So if you really want a lot of RAM, you want a desktop system.
The trump card advantage of a laptop is portability. If that's important to you then there's very little to recommend a desktop workstation for.
If low power consumption is an important factor as well, then a laptop may well be a good choice, assuming that the laptop is a low power consumer. But there are also low-power desktop PCs which may be more cost effective or powerful, and merit consideration.
If computing power is the main priority, you can't beat a good desktop PC. But you can get adequate to more than adequate power for a great many uses in a laptop.
Or, Why Johnny Doesn't have Fingers or Eyebrows.
Someone please think of the children and sue these dangerous idea publishers out of existence.
It's too bad the 3 Laws of Robotics don't apply to Corporations.
How can we expect to profit from ancient religions if we do not first extend copyright retroactively backwards 10,000 years? These myths would all be dead were it not for the incentive business has to keep them alive. What better way to guarantee a quality product than by quashing all competition and guaranteeing a monopoly for one company? If we let other companies tell us who the ancient gods were, there might be an upheaval of religious dissent, and that could lead to terrorism and wars. We must have strong copyright laws if we are to avert such senseless tragedies!
Since XP already groups multiple windows open in the same application and puts them on their own pseudo-tabs on the task bar, it's probably considered redundant. I know it isn't quite the same thing, but they probably think of it has having implemented tabbed apps as an OS-wide feature already.
What, did it have the president on board? Please tell me it broke up upon re-entry...
Pirates can drive a cart through the holes in the release schedule whether there's region codes or not, but the holes in the release schedules will still be there whether the region codes are in place or not.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky, unless you plan on delivering a "one size fits all" product, or holding up the release of an essentially finished and ready for Market X product until the product is ready for Markets A-Z. One size fits all product means either limiting content to the most restrictive censorship laws in all the regions you want to distribute in. Holding up the release date until all are ready means movies will lose their currency and timeliness.
I don't think there's any obligation to help.
If there is, however, then it kinda depends on what you will take as "help". SCO's idea of "helping" linux users stop violating their alleged copyrights could be as simple as telling them to stop using Linux and start using legally-acquired and paid-for SCO Unix. They certainly would not have any obligation to help you re-write the Linux kernel in such a way that does not violate their copyright.