Well if they increase their prices then that will make their competitors products more attractive in comparison. Which in turn means they are loosing money. Companies are always trying to reduce their costs, if it's expensive enough to break the law they'll stop doing that.
Think about it from this angle, too: companies will always try to achieve the highest price for their products. If they can raise the price after a cost increase, then they failed to maximize the price properly before the cost increase. This would not apply if all competing companies had the same problem (e.g. rising taxes) and thus also had to raise their prices. Penalties from a lawsuit will however put them at a disadvantage to their competitors.
I think 'we' want a certain amount of freedom for all computer users. 'We' want everybody to have control of their computers, to be able to use them to copy files instead of having to accept bizarre DRM systems [1], to have a OS and applications which don't spy on them, to have software which is stable.
There is something in it for 'us', too: once Linux has sufficient market share it's no longer possible for companies to decide e.g. that you need a Windows machine to play a DVD.
As far as the root-thing goes: you have a point there - however I have the impression that distributions are getting better at preventing this sort of thing. I recently installed SuSE on a test machine, the standard install first asked for a root password, then for the info to setup a user account - after the installation the KDM login appeared, root was not even listed among the users. With an install like that, the user might not even get the idea that he could login as root.
[1] I'm opposed to stealing music, I just don't want to accept restrictions on the music I already bought.
Well I don't know what you are thinking of - I can merely reply to what you write. What you have described so far doesn't work, and I pointed out why it doesn't work. I think that's only reasonable in discussion. Maybe you have a good thought there, but then you need to explain that thought. Sure I can think of schemes to transfer tag ownership, I can also think of ways in which these schemes fail. I can not tell if those problems apply to your scheme since I don't know what it is.
On the other hand I ask you to refrain from personal attacks.
If every store has access to a key, then it's programmable by basically everybody. If it can be re-programmed, then the first programming is not particular helpful. Is it all that difficult to remove an RFID tag? Replace it with a different one? Sorry, but your idea just doesn't help.
You could scratch your name in the back of the case with the same result. Besides the RFID would only help with the first re-sale, and if it was reprogrammable crooks could reprogram it, too.
Huh? We should excuse immoral behaviour just because it's done by a company? Why should we? Capitalism teaches us that, if you demand ethical behaviour from companies you buy from, then they'll adjust to market. If we have enough people like you, who accept anything a company does because "it's business", then obviously they'll get away with it.
Besides it's far from clear whether bringing frivolous law suits via a proxy company is legal, or whether it's compatible with anti-trust restrictions which apply to Microsoft.
Well flash can be used for more than just cluttering up websites. It can be used to create art - movies and games which are cross platform. This is pretty cool, and if you are interested in creating flash-movies on Linux, this porting effort is just what you need. Depending how well this will run, I'd consider buying this. Wine is not exactly my first choice though - if it's to slow to be fun it will probably fail to sell - hopefully Macromedia understands this.
Pretty cool this - if that sort of process becomes more common it could solve the "how are programmers paid for OSS work" problem. Programmers would be paid by several customers to create the software they need (thus sharing the cost), and the result would be open source.
Hmmm - I'm not sure I understand that. What would Daimler file the suit for? SCO has been banned from making their claims in Germany (unless they back it up, that is) and they have complied with that. So according to German law they haven't done anything wrong within German jurisdiction. That a German-American company gets sued in the US is not a matter for German courts.
I'm all for giving SCO a hard time, but I don't see how the German courts could do that, currently.
I'm not sure which name to give it, but I agree it's not capitalism. Capitalism really requires competition to work, several companies trying to produce the same kind of goods for less money. The idea behind capitalism is that this competition - the drive of companies to make more money for themselves, will produce lower and lower prices and thus benefit everyone. The idea of patents and copyrights is not really compatible with that, since it limits competition.
It would be nice though if Mozilla was interfacing with e.g. KDE more nicely - e.g. to support KDE drag-n-drop (dragging a picture from a webpage into kmail etc), and to allow the Mozilla state to be saved as part of the session. Also the file dialog in Mozilla really ought to work the same as the platform on which it runs - I think the other widgets don't matter too much, but there it's really inconvenient.
Thanks that was a nice clarification - the Nazis wanted to use the Horst-Wessel-Lied instead of the Deutschlandlied, IIRC.
[about verse 1 of the Deutschlandlied] As far as I know that is still part of the official anthem.
It's no longer part of it, no. There was some discussion about this - some time after the war the rule was "only the third verse will be sung on official occassions". Some people interpreted this as "verse 1 and 2 are still part of it, but not sung". After unification the German government took the oportunity to clarify this, and the rule is now "the national anthem is verse 3".
This does not mean that verse 1 and 2 are banned or anything, btw. They are just not the national anthem.
Re:What does it matter? It's the internet!
on
Germany Muzzles SCO
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It will come back to some people in Germany, but not all. Besides news of the fact that they've been forbidden from making these claims is also going around - and will make their claims at lot less credible.
There is an important distinction there between German and US law: German companies do not have free speech rights. This right is solely reserved for individuals. This means a CEO of a company has the same free speech rights as anyone else - but if he wants to issue a press release using company resources there are restrictions on the content.
Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time?
Because some people will become aware of the fake, but not of the fact that it's a fake. Some people might turn out for Kerry because they find out it was a fake, some against Kerry because they believe the fake. If the net result is fewer votes for Kerry, then the fake was successful.
I agree - inciting crimes is also a crime. Having said that, having one single case of a man viewing a website close to the time he kills someone does not mean there is any causal relationship between those events. Yet alone does it prove there was incitement.
Similar claims have often been made about pornography - trying to link rape and other sexual crimes with printing pictures of naked humans. Well there is no proof for such a link. (The only halfway reasonable investigation I've seen was in the case of Denmark, which went from very restrictive to basically no restriction at all. The result was a short-lived dip in crime, only to return to previous levels.)
Sure there may be one guy who reads a story about necrophilia and commits a crime. There may be another who manages to channel his desires into fantasies, just because he found such an outlet.
Who knows how that will turn out on average? Someone looking at one single case certainly doesn't.
Unless there is strong evidence for an increase of crime due to websites like this, there is just no justification for the police to interfere with totally innocent people's lifes.
There is no "Freedom of expression online" - anything online is governed by regular laws in the "Real World"
Well in many countries "Freedom of expression" is a regular law, and applies to all parts of the real world under that countries jurisdiction. That includes those parts of the internet which fall into their jurisdiction.
There is no "Freedom of expression" law in the UK
That's somewhat out of date - UK citizens acquired one via the EU.
The same lawbook that holds protection freedom of expression also outlaws things like necrophilia.
That's not the issue though. The law does not prohibit fantasizing or talking about necrophilia, it outlaws the act. A website can never commit the act. Even if I were to accept that this particular type of website could as well be censored - censorship is still a bad thing, because I can not verify what the censor does.
It's too bad that it takes the EC in order to bring about the possibility of these changes.
Well it's easier for the EU to do that - MS has a smaller lobby in the EU, MS' wellbeing is not going to influence politicans. The same would apply for EU companies operating in the US. In a way that's just another variant of division of power, which proves useful in keeping abuse low.
See that's exactly what I mean: "right to bear arms" - no matter what you think of that right - many other countries place no restrictions on that. Same for people entering your country. There's hardly an industrialized country which doesn't have to deal with that. Free speech (minus obscenity laws, slander and libel which limit it in the US) and due process - well numerous countries have that, and some are IMO even somewhat better at guaranteeing them. (They may compensate for that by sucking in other respects.)
I'm sorry if I'm offending you - but unless you really know a lot about other countries you shouldn't make blanket statements like "we are the most free". A comparison makes only sense if you know the elements you compare.
Well what about what lots of people do, send email through their ISPs web server, and use the email address of where they get mail, which may not be their ISP?
Sorry if this is a stupid suggestion, but wouldn't it be sufficient to just use "reply-to:"?
As for those of you saying you're glad you don't live in the US, we are the most free, most law-abiding country in the world. While we may not be perfect, we're the best thing going. Sorry if I'm offending anyone, but I'm tired of hearing knee-jerk reactions to things
How do you know, and how do you justify your knee-jerk "USA is best" claims? Did you really compare the rights and freedoms you have in other countries with yours? What makes you so sure you have more freedoms than others?
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Think about it from this angle, too: companies will always try to achieve the highest price for their products. If they can raise the price after a cost increase, then they failed to maximize the price properly before the cost increase. This would not apply if all competing companies had the same problem (e.g. rising taxes) and thus also had to raise their prices. Penalties from a lawsuit will however put them at a disadvantage to their competitors.
There is something in it for 'us', too: once Linux has sufficient market share it's no longer possible for companies to decide e.g. that you need a Windows machine to play a DVD.
As far as the root-thing goes: you have a point there - however I have the impression that distributions are getting better at preventing this sort of thing. I recently installed SuSE on a test machine, the standard install first asked for a root password, then for the info to setup a user account - after the installation the KDM login appeared, root was not even listed among the users. With an install like that, the user might not even get the idea that he could login as root.
[1] I'm opposed to stealing music, I just don't want to accept restrictions on the music I already bought.
On the other hand I ask you to refrain from personal attacks.
What do you know about this stuff anyhow?
Think you can somehow make this any more lame?
You could scratch your name in the back of the case with the same result. Besides the RFID would only help with the first re-sale, and if it was reprogrammable crooks could reprogram it, too.
Besides it's far from clear whether bringing frivolous law suits via a proxy company is legal, or whether it's compatible with anti-trust restrictions which apply to Microsoft.
Well flash can be used for more than just cluttering up websites. It can be used to create art - movies and games which are cross platform. This is pretty cool, and if you are interested in creating flash-movies on Linux, this porting effort is just what you need. Depending how well this will run, I'd consider buying this. Wine is not exactly my first choice though - if it's to slow to be fun it will probably fail to sell - hopefully Macromedia understands this.
Pretty cool this - if that sort of process becomes more common it could solve the "how are programmers paid for OSS work" problem. Programmers would be paid by several customers to create the software they need (thus sharing the cost), and the result would be open source.
I'm all for giving SCO a hard time, but I don't see how the German courts could do that, currently.
I'm not sure which name to give it, but I agree it's not capitalism. Capitalism really requires competition to work, several companies trying to produce the same kind of goods for less money. The idea behind capitalism is that this competition - the drive of companies to make more money for themselves, will produce lower and lower prices and thus benefit everyone. The idea of patents and copyrights is not really compatible with that, since it limits competition.
It would be nice though if Mozilla was interfacing with e.g. KDE more nicely - e.g. to support KDE drag-n-drop (dragging a picture from a webpage into kmail etc), and to allow the Mozilla state to be saved as part of the session. Also the file dialog in Mozilla really ought to work the same as the platform on which it runs - I think the other widgets don't matter too much, but there it's really inconvenient.
[about verse 1 of the Deutschlandlied] As far as I know that is still part of the official anthem.
It's no longer part of it, no. There was some discussion about this - some time after the war the rule was "only the third verse will be sung on official occassions". Some people interpreted this as "verse 1 and 2 are still part of it, but not sung". After unification the German government took the oportunity to clarify this, and the rule is now "the national anthem is verse 3".
This does not mean that verse 1 and 2 are banned or anything, btw. They are just not the national anthem.
It will come back to some people in Germany, but not all. Besides news of the fact that they've been forbidden from making these claims is also going around - and will make their claims at lot less credible.
There is an important distinction there between German and US law: German companies do not have free speech rights. This right is solely reserved for individuals. This means a CEO of a company has the same free speech rights as anyone else - but if he wants to issue a press release using company resources there are restrictions on the content.
It's not discrimination to apply the same rules to all persons or groups violating the license.
Because some people will become aware of the fake, but not of the fact that it's a fake. Some people might turn out for Kerry because they find out it was a fake, some against Kerry because they believe the fake. If the net result is fewer votes for Kerry, then the fake was successful.
Similar claims have often been made about pornography - trying to link rape and other sexual crimes with printing pictures of naked humans. Well there is no proof for such a link. (The only halfway reasonable investigation I've seen was in the case of Denmark, which went from very restrictive to basically no restriction at all. The result was a short-lived dip in crime, only to return to previous levels.)
Sure there may be one guy who reads a story about necrophilia and commits a crime. There may be another who manages to channel his desires into fantasies, just because he found such an outlet. Who knows how that will turn out on average? Someone looking at one single case certainly doesn't.
Unless there is strong evidence for an increase of crime due to websites like this, there is just no justification for the police to interfere with totally innocent people's lifes.
Well in many countries "Freedom of expression" is a regular law, and applies to all parts of the real world under that countries jurisdiction. That includes those parts of the internet which fall into their jurisdiction.
There is no "Freedom of expression" law in the UK
That's somewhat out of date - UK citizens acquired one via the EU.
You are forgetting the Magna Charta.
That's not the issue though. The law does not prohibit fantasizing or talking about necrophilia, it outlaws the act. A website can never commit the act. Even if I were to accept that this particular type of website could as well be censored - censorship is still a bad thing, because I can not verify what the censor does.
Well it's easier for the EU to do that - MS has a smaller lobby in the EU, MS' wellbeing is not going to influence politicans. The same would apply for EU companies operating in the US. In a way that's just another variant of division of power, which proves useful in keeping abuse low.
I'm sorry if I'm offending you - but unless you really know a lot about other countries you shouldn't make blanket statements like "we are the most free". A comparison makes only sense if you know the elements you compare.
Yeah, I seem to recall this Napoleon fellow. He had some trouble with Russia, but he picked up the odd victory in various European wars.
Sorry if this is a stupid suggestion, but wouldn't it be sufficient to just use "reply-to:"?
How do you know, and how do you justify your knee-jerk "USA is best" claims? Did you really compare the rights and freedoms you have in other countries with yours? What makes you so sure you have more freedoms than others?