Well, the show "COPS" hasn't seemed to change anyone's attitude towards law enforcement, in spite of what (to me) appears to be a constant stream of people being subjected to objectionable treatment over "crimes" that are questionably illegal in the first place.
except that as long as the invasiveness is largely invisible, no one will really know except those of us who can decipher JavaScript or other embedded objects in pages... and just think how much extra work it will be to decipher what is actually happening in an applet or a similarly embedded object where the source isn't easily viewed via "View Source". The only time the public knows or cares is when you give them an active demonstration on the TV news. Or when something goes wrong and it becomes painfully obvious, i.e. trojaned applets and things like that.
Yeah. Never mind that the sky is not falling. Despite the fact that the police have tools now that can see through walls (unless you shield), or that the FBI can read your email (unless you encrypt), or that there are cameras on the streets (wear a mask?), things are actually improving for most Americans.
First of all, never have so many had so much access to information. The internet and cable/satellite TV and efficient mail delivery do more each day to bring a diverse panoply of information and news to households across the nation. "Rage in the streets" and only a few people will hear you as they dodge the tear gas and try to avoid burning dumpsters. If you don't like the media, become the media. It's easy. The hard part is getting people to listen. You'll have to be creative-- especially if your message is something like "this country is screwed up, it's revolution time!"... that kind of message will tend to scare Americans.
Second, the speech that is allowed now is more speech than was ever allowed before. With the exception of the child pr0n witch-hunt, explicit imagery is allowed both virtually and in real life at a level unprecedented in American history. Political speech is at least as safe as it ever was, but it certainly hasn't gotten worse. Anarchists, communists, socialists, and other revolutionaries have always been targeted by national intelligence... and probably always will be.
Third, let's not have a democracy. That's just mob rule. We might as well keep the status quo. The people aren't suddenly going to find themselves with an enlightened majority in the near future. Our current system takes great pains to protect minority viewpoints and groups from being trampled by the larger group.
The US government is NOT bought and paid for. If you walk around and ask people, they voted (if they bothered to vote at all) for the people who were elected. The people who are your neighbors apparently DO like it this way-- since voting is one of the easiest things in the world to do, and none of them are voting for any serious changes beyond the flip-flops between Democrat and Republican. The average citizen just doesn't see a need for more choices. I just read yet another article yesterday taking Ralph Nader to task for helping elect Bush, since look at how much Bush hates consumers since he isn't going to go for Microsoft's jugular.
Take a look at how capitalism can support the public good. Citizens can easily purchase ownership shares in the large corporations. In fact, many do. 401ks, mutual funds, etc have made shareholders out of a lot of people who never would have held equity investments just 50 years ago. But do the citizen-investors give a rip about their roles as owners? No, they seek only maximum return on investment. They have forfeited their say in making social progress to satisfy their greed. They aren't willing to take the long view, that is "to make the pie higher", because they are selfish and afraid. If they would let some of that go, they might easily build a nation that had a greater shared wealth in which each person had access to more because there was just plain a lot more to be had.
Re:eBay is and old idea on new Tech, not so with N
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eBay Beats DMCA
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· Score: 1
No. You don't have a right to back stuff up. There is nothing in the Constitution, nor in the law, that says that makers of copyrighted works must make it possible for you to copy the work, whether such a thing is Fair Use or not. The Fair Use clause _assumes_ that you have the ability to do this, and therefore grants some exceptions so that you can't be prosecuted for doing it. Fair Use does not guarantee that right to you.
If your new purchases do not work as expected you MUST return them to the source with an explanation and you MUST stop buying from that source until they change their behavior. Or you could do like some have done, and crack the protection layer. Theoretically the DMCA allows for private cracking for Fair use purposes. Sadly, it prevents us from discussing such cracking in public-- so the old "when XYZ is outlawed, only outlaws will XYZ" becomes "when Fair Use is outlawed, only the extremely competent crackers will have Fair Use".
And no, I don't expect CD makers to replace your "gone bad" discs unless it's an obvious manufacturing fault any more than I expect book publishers to replace books you drop in the tub or use until the spine falls apart. If you want nice stuff, take care of it, I guess.:)
I am NOT on the side of the large content providers. I think the laws are treasonous in the damage they do the public good. But as it stands, the current laws don't support the notion that Napster is a "backup" of any sort.
He chose the GPL for his own work because it was popular. Woohoo. Good for him. He also chose to use a shitload of GPL software-- that he has, yes, had to modify to work with his OS. He is free to continue to write and to relicense his own software, but a great deal of the code he's got holding his system together is actually GNU code, right down to the C library.
I said what I said because I think it sounds ungrateful to rip on the GPL while so obviously benefitting from work licensed as GPL. If he wants to switch to tax-funded BSD code, great for him. He's got a lot of work to do-- especially since his editor of choice seems to be emacs. But all of the GNU software was privately developed. Those developers have offered _their_ work for free, and have a right to expect work based on their work to be similarly free.
GPL is a very appropriate license for private developments that the author wants to make available to the widest audiences. BSD style licensing is the license I would support for tax-funded development (i.e. university or gov research). In cases of tax-funded development, the tax-payers have already paid their share, and rightfully the original source belongs to all. But there is no "deal" between the government and private development at that point. But as a private developer, why would I give away work that *I* paid for without some means of holding others to a similar standard? Or more importantly, why shouldn't I attach that condition to my work, since the GPL is there for me to use for just such a purpose?
This critique itself is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on the GPL. Just read to the end. All of the major points he makes against the OAL are the same points people make against the GPL. It reads almost like a cut and paste.
The problem is not with the licenses. The problem is with the underlying assumptions about what is appropriate behavior on the part of all concerned. These assumptions drive people's decisions on how to license their works. Glass never actually discusses the assumptions, only the consequents. It's an argument that is presented the wrong way around.
It's annoying because he doesn't propose solid ways to share freedom while fixing any of the things he points out as problems. His only good example of a semi-successful alternative method is the Grateful Dead's policy on live taping... something most musicians either can't (because of contractual reasons) or won't go for (because they'd like to be able to sell live albums as well as studio work). And last time I checked, the GD policy was mostly informal. The OAL is highly formal-- it does not rely on continued goodwill from the artist. That's the whole point.
Actually it looks to me like they're somehow making most of their money off beta software and product announcements. How is it we have the XboxII when Xbox (one) hasn't even been released and successful?
Although in some parts of the USA you can't even call them "pets" anymore... they are now "companion animals". For me, I don't see why I'd want a smart, lovable robot in my house. Keep it stupid and make it work. That's what machines are for. So unless RoboRover can mow or vacuum or sort laundry I don't see the point. Can it even solve Rubik's cube?
Security is hard stuff to get right no matter how diligent you are. Let's not overestimate the average Linux admin. I've got examples (myself included) of people who hadn't learned everything they needed to know before putting a Linux box into a dangerous position. However, I will grant you that Linux is just by nature harder to exploit with this sort of thing. I almost have to think this is a proof of concept to demonstrate to the world how ineffective an email-based virus is on a Linux platform.
If you look at the list of GNU and GPL applications included in AtheOS, I think it's more than a little disingenuous to go around whining about GPL zealotry. If he does "go away from GPL altogether" he's got a lot of stuff to write that right now he's only had to patch.
Actually, there's very little precedent other than consumer willingness to obey that supports the notion that software purchased in a package is "licensed" rather than purchased. Sure, there's a label, and yes, copyright still applies, but if I buy a box containing software, I'd be glad to assert my right to resell it in its entirety or backup the disk. I didn't sign any contract, and as far as I know, tearing a sticker is not yet a legally binding authorization.
I mean, if I accidentally tear the cover off of my book, does that mean I can't sell it because there are a lot of books now that include a note that it is likely than coverless books are "stolen" (because tearing the cover off is how bookstores get credit for overstocks)? If I can find a buyer, that is a perfectly legitimate sale. Same with software-- as long as I'm not keeping a copy of it for myself.
This doesn't prevent software makers from implementing techniques like "phone home" to prevent more than one user from ever using a given serial number. But that's a different issue.
Re:eBay is and old idea on new Tech, not so with N
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eBay Beats DMCA
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Since when does downloading a file over the internet constitute "making a backup of your music in digital format"? I suspect the ratio of infringing to non-infringing material on Napster was a lot higher than 20:1. While I support massive changes to the music distribution industry and to our copyright laws, let's not deceive ourselves. Napster was about sharing music you were not willing to pay for. As such it presented little or no harm to the music industry, but it was not an unfairly targeted haven for Fair Use.
Sadly, this case with eBay has almost no value as a precedent for making P2P more likely to pass legal muster, since the doofus author wasn't even willing to go through eBay's procedures to verify that he was, in fact, entitled to challenge the sale of the material. eBay are not, as the posting here on/. indicates, some heroes fighting for Fair Use. Just ask people involved in the sale of things like movie trailers.
It's not that "no one" uses these features. It just that most people don't. The features have been added over the years to wean people off of other high-end applications in their toolset, and into MS-only-ness. Not that it's bad, per se, it's darn efficient. The ony problem is that we are left without serious options because it gets harder and harder everyday to break into that market-- and because MS has shown that they are willing to use unethical and even illegal tactics to preserve their advantages (so that even they aren't the best tool for the job, they end up being the most likely tool for the job).
And even if they were perfect angels, a biological model of computing supports the notion that evolution (that is, "progress") can only happen within a diverse environment-- something that doesn't occur when one company owns the OS and the seven most popular applications. The main problem with this is that their flaws are readily replicated from spot to spot and like all complex systems they have plenty of those. Diversity makes the flaws different from point to point, which increases the strength of the system (fault tolerance) by localizing errors.
Just so you don't think I'm a zealot, this is same issue affects Linux and Unix with the overdependence on the C language and the C shared libraries. This is why format string attacks, stack smashing, and the like are so common on that platform. The same basic fault is repeated over and over.
I dunno. Somehow *I* made it through school when all we had was PETs and Apple IIs. The school itself ran a lot of stuff through a mainframe (that I don't think had a single MS product on it). The quality of education here in Minnesota has NOT improved considerably with the advent of iMac filled labs and school offices running MS Windows and Office.
In fact, not more than a couple of years ago, with all this mandatory testing crap, there was a big hoohah because the computers involved screwed up the scoring!
The solution? Keep it simple. Don't change stuff that ain't broken. Implement change slowly and deliberately-- not because some Silicon Valley Marketeer dazzled you with a totally contrived demo. Every cent that is wasted on expensive technology is money that couldn't be used to hire competent teachers-- and teaching children is a LOT more than guiding them through point and click exercises on some candy colored computer.
So your solution is to spend many thousands of dollars on expensive hardware and software that may will require expensive upgrades every couple of years and is generally overpriced to begin with? As opposed to saving a lot of money on licensing fees, allowing for school-based cooperative development of non-commercial software (which means that kids could theoretically take software home for free without being "pirates"), and hiring some competent techies to run the labs?
That's a very short-sighted approach, imho. I would adamantly support ANY move in my local school district to switch to a Free OS and other Free software, including volunteering time to run the lab, install software, etc etc. These are my tax dollars on the line, too... why should they be wasted on software development that when all is said and done, the taxpayers have little control over?
Um, that's a total non-sequitor. The engineer in question could write "open source", but since the manager in question is asking them for a working software in 6 months, the engineer will apparently be funding the development in the meantime from his income from working at Wendy's. Now, if the engineer can find an open source package and convince the boss to allow that as a starting point...
Nice try, troll, but they are the only people using street-corner spam who aren't either giving out free samples. Heck, even the Nation of Islam guys are at least selling their newspaper. My personal desire is to be left alone if I'm walking around-- not subjected to offers of salvation from an illegitimate branch of Christianity. Why don't you let me know next time you see monks and nuns out preaching on street corners instead of actively doing God's work as a way of spreading the Gospel?
If you have evidence that street corner proselytizing converts the unconverted, I'd love to hear it. I have never seen any. I think it is a technique designed more to test and demonstrate faith in converts than to inculcate it in non-converts.
The problem is that the total cost of Linux doesn't actually go down from $79 to $39.50 if you have two machines. The total cost of Win XP does go from $99 to $198, though. But on a per machine basis, the price of XP is fixed. Whereas with each additional Linux machine the cost to purchase Linux decreases.
I admit to being somewhat duplicitous since the comparison wasn't really fair. However, the AC is a twerp, that much I do know. The basic fact is this: (assuming equal base prices for Linux and XP) the difference in total software purchase cost is Linux = XP/Number of Machines.
To further this, there are already restrictions on sending unsolicited faxes, there are public registries which can be used to prevent unwanted solicitations over the phone, and theoretically someone who requests to be removed from a UCE list has to be.
So additional legislation in this area is largely unnecessary-- not to mention that I personally agree with it being a free speech issue. It's a hard line to draw. If we make a rule like "your email cannot contain a specific offer to sell something" then spammers will just be creative and use words that get around any sale offers. At some point on the grey scale, you get to where your friend can't send you an email invitation to go out to lunch because that is a commercial activity involving buying stuff.
I put this sort of legislation (anti-spam) in the same category as COPA and the DMCA. Too hard to be Constitutional to even bother with. What we don't need is more complex laws.
We need to educate users on email filtering and get them to realize that replying or even reading obvious spam are bad ideas (and thanks to Outlook all they have to do is open the email to be tagged as having read the email-- and if they click on a link in the email, they are being tracked as though the email were just another webpage). Spam must be useful to spammers because the public is not equipped to make it irrelevant. But, of course, those idiots from "Campus Crusade for Christ" are always on the street corners yelling or passing out their endless stream of tracts despite no result, too-- so maybe it's just one of those things we have to deal with.
First, the price of RedHat Deluxe or whatever being $79 is mostly because what they've included in the box is a support contract and a printed manual (I hope I'm right).
The sad fact is that many of the more expensive Linux distros include proprietary software as key components of the distro. Look at how long Netscape was considered essential (and for some users it still may be considered as such). There are also a lot of other "open source" programs in a lot of distros that have confusing, difficult, or essentially non-free licenses.
However, generally, one CD is all a home or business needs to buy. As soon as you have two computers on which you want to run your OS, Win XP doubles in price. Not so Linux, you've just halved the cost. This ratio continues to grow for each machine you add to your network.
But really, who cares? Either you care about user freedom or you don't. If you do, the stable build of Debian GNU/Linux is available for less than $20 from a huge number of resellers-- just an example, many BSDs are also good options. If you don't, you shouldn't just go out and buy your OS at Best Buy or Circuit City based on the price! You should consider what applications you want to run, then choose your OS based on that. Have we dumbed-down computing so much that we are no longer interested in even bothering to do basic grunt work, like making sure we have any clue what we are doing before we go making OS purchase decisions?
"Are we really supposed to feel secure knowing that the main obstacle preventing our "secure" systems all over from being cracked is the danger of being cracked?"
Should read "... the danger of being sued or even arrested.".
Yes, it does matter. The most important issue here is that the DMCA protects bad security. I can't wait for MS to say "there have been no published or known exploits to XYZ Security Package, so it is secure", then later selling the US Government some NT-based, web-based nuclear missile launcher running off IIS. Or they sell systems to Citibank or the Federal Reserve.
Then some well-paid foreign hacker can crack the server, launch the missile at Canada and all heck breaks loose. Or some terrorist sympathizer can funnel money to his buddies, or simply cause havoc in major US financial systems.
Do you really think the best hackers in the world are all boring enough to work for the NSA, or even born in the US? Are we really supposed to feel secure knowing that the main obstacle preventing our "secure" systems all over from being cracked is the danger of being cracked? Talented hackers are not script kiddies. Talented hackers won't be leaving little notes like "j00 4r3 0wn3d". Talented hackers just might not care about the things the rest of us care about-- and they may be largely immune to legal action.
I think it's important that we consider the DMCA not only an affront to our traditional rights as consumers (i.e. Fair Use), but a danger to national security.
The whole thing is a bit like making it illegal to publish reviews of various locks from the hardware store. Yeah, it will keep consumer reports from telling shoppers which locks are high grade titanium or alloys and which locks are flimsy plastic, but it won't keep crooks from figuring out which is which and having a field day breaking into houses secured with the plastic locks.
Too true. I think my favorite "journalism" is the NY Times business section. First, the underlying assumption is that everything taught in MBA courses on economics, marketing, advertising, workplace relations, etc, is correct, true, and prescriptive (rather than descriptive). This feeds analyses that come off as apologies for the darker sides of capitalism (and all economies have darker sides, this is not a bash on capitalism) with absolutely no consideration for the mind games that corporations are playing with themselves, the government, and the public.
Second, they frequently are faxed, emailed, or read the contents of a corporate press release, which is then considered a primary, reliable source of information.
The only time the articles get really good is when it sounds like the writer has talked to Corp A before talking to Corp B and Mr. A says something about Corp B., so the guy at B says something about A, or implies rather crudely that Mr. A is lying. It's like watching fifth graders argue at recess.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the show "COPS" hasn't seemed to change anyone's attitude towards law enforcement, in spite of what (to me) appears to be a constant stream of people being subjected to objectionable treatment over "crimes" that are questionably illegal in the first place.
except that as long as the invasiveness is largely invisible, no one will really know except those of us who can decipher JavaScript or other embedded objects in pages... and just think how much extra work it will be to decipher what is actually happening in an applet or a similarly embedded object where the source isn't easily viewed via "View Source". The only time the public knows or cares is when you give them an active demonstration on the TV news. Or when something goes wrong and it becomes painfully obvious, i.e. trojaned applets and things like that.
Yeah. Never mind that the sky is not falling. Despite the fact that the police have tools now that can see through walls (unless you shield), or that the FBI can read your email (unless you encrypt), or that there are cameras on the streets (wear a mask?), things are actually improving for most Americans.
First of all, never have so many had so much access to information. The internet and cable/satellite TV and efficient mail delivery do more each day to bring a diverse panoply of information and news to households across the nation. "Rage in the streets" and only a few people will hear you as they dodge the tear gas and try to avoid burning dumpsters. If you don't like the media, become the media. It's easy. The hard part is getting people to listen. You'll have to be creative-- especially if your message is something like "this country is screwed up, it's revolution time!"... that kind of message will tend to scare Americans.
Second, the speech that is allowed now is more speech than was ever allowed before. With the exception of the child pr0n witch-hunt, explicit imagery is allowed both virtually and in real life at a level unprecedented in American history. Political speech is at least as safe as it ever was, but it certainly hasn't gotten worse. Anarchists, communists, socialists, and other revolutionaries have always been targeted by national intelligence... and probably always will be.
Third, let's not have a democracy. That's just mob rule. We might as well keep the status quo. The people aren't suddenly going to find themselves with an enlightened majority in the near future. Our current system takes great pains to protect minority viewpoints and groups from being trampled by the larger group.
The US government is NOT bought and paid for. If you walk around and ask people, they voted (if they bothered to vote at all) for the people who were elected. The people who are your neighbors apparently DO like it this way-- since voting is one of the easiest things in the world to do, and none of them are voting for any serious changes beyond the flip-flops between Democrat and Republican. The average citizen just doesn't see a need for more choices. I just read yet another article yesterday taking Ralph Nader to task for helping elect Bush, since look at how much Bush hates consumers since he isn't going to go for Microsoft's jugular.
Take a look at how capitalism can support the public good. Citizens can easily purchase ownership shares in the large corporations. In fact, many do. 401ks, mutual funds, etc have made shareholders out of a lot of people who never would have held equity investments just 50 years ago. But do the citizen-investors give a rip about their roles as owners? No, they seek only maximum return on investment. They have forfeited their say in making social progress to satisfy their greed. They aren't willing to take the long view, that is "to make the pie higher", because they are selfish and afraid. If they would let some of that go, they might easily build a nation that had a greater shared wealth in which each person had access to more because there was just plain a lot more to be had.
No. You don't have a right to back stuff up. There is nothing in the Constitution, nor in the law, that says that makers of copyrighted works must make it possible for you to copy the work, whether such a thing is Fair Use or not. The Fair Use clause _assumes_ that you have the ability to do this, and therefore grants some exceptions so that you can't be prosecuted for doing it. Fair Use does not guarantee that right to you.
:)
If your new purchases do not work as expected you MUST return them to the source with an explanation and you MUST stop buying from that source until they change their behavior. Or you could do like some have done, and crack the protection layer. Theoretically the DMCA allows for private cracking for Fair use purposes. Sadly, it prevents us from discussing such cracking in public-- so the old "when XYZ is outlawed, only outlaws will XYZ" becomes "when Fair Use is outlawed, only the extremely competent crackers will have Fair Use".
And no, I don't expect CD makers to replace your "gone bad" discs unless it's an obvious manufacturing fault any more than I expect book publishers to replace books you drop in the tub or use until the spine falls apart. If you want nice stuff, take care of it, I guess.
I am NOT on the side of the large content providers. I think the laws are treasonous in the damage they do the public good. But as it stands, the current laws don't support the notion that Napster is a "backup" of any sort.
He chose the GPL for his own work because it was popular. Woohoo. Good for him. He also chose to use a shitload of GPL software-- that he has, yes, had to modify to work with his OS. He is free to continue to write and to relicense his own software, but a great deal of the code he's got holding his system together is actually GNU code, right down to the C library.
I said what I said because I think it sounds ungrateful to rip on the GPL while so obviously benefitting from work licensed as GPL. If he wants to switch to tax-funded BSD code, great for him. He's got a lot of work to do-- especially since his editor of choice seems to be emacs. But all of the GNU software was privately developed. Those developers have offered _their_ work for free, and have a right to expect work based on their work to be similarly free.
GPL is a very appropriate license for private developments that the author wants to make available to the widest audiences. BSD style licensing is the license I would support for tax-funded development (i.e. university or gov research). In cases of tax-funded development, the tax-payers have already paid their share, and rightfully the original source belongs to all. But there is no "deal" between the government and private development at that point. But as a private developer, why would I give away work that *I* paid for without some means of holding others to a similar standard? Or more importantly, why shouldn't I attach that condition to my work, since the GPL is there for me to use for just such a purpose?
This critique itself is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on the GPL. Just read to the end. All of the major points he makes against the OAL are the same points people make against the GPL. It reads almost like a cut and paste.
The problem is not with the licenses. The problem is with the underlying assumptions about what is appropriate behavior on the part of all concerned. These assumptions drive people's decisions on how to license their works. Glass never actually discusses the assumptions, only the consequents. It's an argument that is presented the wrong way around.
It's annoying because he doesn't propose solid ways to share freedom while fixing any of the things he points out as problems. His only good example of a semi-successful alternative method is the Grateful Dead's policy on live taping... something most musicians either can't (because of contractual reasons) or won't go for (because they'd like to be able to sell live albums as well as studio work). And last time I checked, the GD policy was mostly informal. The OAL is highly formal-- it does not rely on continued goodwill from the artist. That's the whole point.
Actually it looks to me like they're somehow making most of their money off beta software and product announcements. How is it we have the XboxII when Xbox (one) hasn't even been released and successful?
Although in some parts of the USA you can't even call them "pets" anymore... they are now "companion animals". For me, I don't see why I'd want a smart, lovable robot in my house. Keep it stupid and make it work. That's what machines are for. So unless RoboRover can mow or vacuum or sort laundry I don't see the point. Can it even solve Rubik's cube?
Security is hard stuff to get right no matter how diligent you are. Let's not overestimate the average Linux admin. I've got examples (myself included) of people who hadn't learned everything they needed to know before putting a Linux box into a dangerous position. However, I will grant you that Linux is just by nature harder to exploit with this sort of thing. I almost have to think this is a proof of concept to demonstrate to the world how ineffective an email-based virus is on a Linux platform.
If you look at the list of GNU and GPL applications included in AtheOS, I think it's more than a little disingenuous to go around whining about GPL zealotry. If he does "go away from GPL altogether" he's got a lot of stuff to write that right now he's only had to patch.
Actually, there's very little precedent other than consumer willingness to obey that supports the notion that software purchased in a package is "licensed" rather than purchased. Sure, there's a label, and yes, copyright still applies, but if I buy a box containing software, I'd be glad to assert my right to resell it in its entirety or backup the disk. I didn't sign any contract, and as far as I know, tearing a sticker is not yet a legally binding authorization.
I mean, if I accidentally tear the cover off of my book, does that mean I can't sell it because there are a lot of books now that include a note that it is likely than coverless books are "stolen" (because tearing the cover off is how bookstores get credit for overstocks)? If I can find a buyer, that is a perfectly legitimate sale. Same with software-- as long as I'm not keeping a copy of it for myself.
This doesn't prevent software makers from implementing techniques like "phone home" to prevent more than one user from ever using a given serial number. But that's a different issue.
Since when does downloading a file over the internet constitute "making a backup of your music in digital format"? I suspect the ratio of infringing to non-infringing material on Napster was a lot higher than 20:1. While I support massive changes to the music distribution industry and to our copyright laws, let's not deceive ourselves. Napster was about sharing music you were not willing to pay for. As such it presented little or no harm to the music industry, but it was not an unfairly targeted haven for Fair Use.
/. indicates, some heroes fighting for Fair Use. Just ask people involved in the sale of things like movie trailers.
Sadly, this case with eBay has almost no value as a precedent for making P2P more likely to pass legal muster, since the doofus author wasn't even willing to go through eBay's procedures to verify that he was, in fact, entitled to challenge the sale of the material. eBay are not, as the posting here on
for the record, the previous post is not at all what I'd typed in.
Oh yeah, baby.
It's not that "no one" uses these features. It just that most people don't. The features have been added over the years to wean people off of other high-end applications in their toolset, and into MS-only-ness. Not that it's bad, per se, it's darn efficient. The ony problem is that we are left without serious options because it gets harder and harder everyday to break into that market-- and because MS has shown that they are willing to use unethical and even illegal tactics to preserve their advantages (so that even they aren't the best tool for the job, they end up being the most likely tool for the job).
And even if they were perfect angels, a biological model of computing supports the notion that evolution (that is, "progress") can only happen within a diverse environment-- something that doesn't occur when one company owns the OS and the seven most popular applications. The main problem with this is that their flaws are readily replicated from spot to spot and like all complex systems they have plenty of those. Diversity makes the flaws different from point to point, which increases the strength of the system (fault tolerance) by localizing errors.
Just so you don't think I'm a zealot, this is same issue affects Linux and Unix with the overdependence on the C language and the C shared libraries. This is why format string attacks, stack smashing, and the like are so common on that platform. The same basic fault is repeated over and over.
I dunno. Somehow *I* made it through school when all we had was PETs and Apple IIs. The school itself ran a lot of stuff through a mainframe (that I don't think had a single MS product on it). The quality of education here in Minnesota has NOT improved considerably with the advent of iMac filled labs and school offices running MS Windows and Office.
In fact, not more than a couple of years ago, with all this mandatory testing crap, there was a big hoohah because the computers involved screwed up the scoring!
The solution? Keep it simple. Don't change stuff that ain't broken. Implement change slowly and deliberately-- not because some Silicon Valley Marketeer dazzled you with a totally contrived demo. Every cent that is wasted on expensive technology is money that couldn't be used to hire competent teachers-- and teaching children is a LOT more than guiding them through point and click exercises on some candy colored computer.
So your solution is to spend many thousands of dollars on expensive hardware and software that may will require expensive upgrades every couple of years and is generally overpriced to begin with? As opposed to saving a lot of money on licensing fees, allowing for school-based cooperative development of non-commercial software (which means that kids could theoretically take software home for free without being "pirates"), and hiring some competent techies to run the labs?
That's a very short-sighted approach, imho. I would adamantly support ANY move in my local school district to switch to a Free OS and other Free software, including volunteering time to run the lab, install software, etc etc. These are my tax dollars on the line, too... why should they be wasted on software development that when all is said and done, the taxpayers have little control over?
Um, that's a total non-sequitor. The engineer in question could write "open source", but since the manager in question is asking them for a working software in 6 months, the engineer will apparently be funding the development in the meantime from his income from working at Wendy's. Now, if the engineer can find an open source package and convince the boss to allow that as a starting point...
Nice try, troll, but they are the only people using street-corner spam who aren't either giving out free samples. Heck, even the Nation of Islam guys are at least selling their newspaper. My personal desire is to be left alone if I'm walking around-- not subjected to offers of salvation from an illegitimate branch of Christianity. Why don't you let me know next time you see monks and nuns out preaching on street corners instead of actively doing God's work as a way of spreading the Gospel?
If you have evidence that street corner proselytizing converts the unconverted, I'd love to hear it. I have never seen any. I think it is a technique designed more to test and demonstrate faith in converts than to inculcate it in non-converts.
I can count. :)
The problem is that the total cost of Linux doesn't actually go down from $79 to $39.50 if you have two machines. The total cost of Win XP does go from $99 to $198, though. But on a per machine basis, the price of XP is fixed. Whereas with each additional Linux machine the cost to purchase Linux decreases.
I admit to being somewhat duplicitous since the comparison wasn't really fair. However, the AC is a twerp, that much I do know. The basic fact is this: (assuming equal base prices for Linux and XP) the difference in total software purchase cost is Linux = XP/Number of Machines.
To further this, there are already restrictions on sending unsolicited faxes, there are public registries which can be used to prevent unwanted solicitations over the phone, and theoretically someone who requests to be removed from a UCE list has to be.
So additional legislation in this area is largely unnecessary-- not to mention that I personally agree with it being a free speech issue. It's a hard line to draw. If we make a rule like "your email cannot contain a specific offer to sell something" then spammers will just be creative and use words that get around any sale offers. At some point on the grey scale, you get to where your friend can't send you an email invitation to go out to lunch because that is a commercial activity involving buying stuff.
I put this sort of legislation (anti-spam) in the same category as COPA and the DMCA. Too hard to be Constitutional to even bother with. What we don't need is more complex laws.
We need to educate users on email filtering and get them to realize that replying or even reading obvious spam are bad ideas (and thanks to Outlook all they have to do is open the email to be tagged as having read the email-- and if they click on a link in the email, they are being tracked as though the email were just another webpage). Spam must be useful to spammers because the public is not equipped to make it irrelevant. But, of course, those idiots from "Campus Crusade for Christ" are always on the street corners yelling or passing out their endless stream of tracts despite no result, too-- so maybe it's just one of those things we have to deal with.
Am I the only sane person here? ;)
First, the price of RedHat Deluxe or whatever being $79 is mostly because what they've included in the box is a support contract and a printed manual (I hope I'm right).
The sad fact is that many of the more expensive Linux distros include proprietary software as key components of the distro. Look at how long Netscape was considered essential (and for some users it still may be considered as such). There are also a lot of other "open source" programs in a lot of distros that have confusing, difficult, or essentially non-free licenses.
However, generally, one CD is all a home or business needs to buy. As soon as you have two computers on which you want to run your OS, Win XP doubles in price. Not so Linux, you've just halved the cost. This ratio continues to grow for each machine you add to your network.
But really, who cares? Either you care about user freedom or you don't. If you do, the stable build of Debian GNU/Linux is available for less than $20 from a huge number of resellers-- just an example, many BSDs are also good options. If you don't, you shouldn't just go out and buy your OS at Best Buy or Circuit City based on the price! You should consider what applications you want to run, then choose your OS based on that. Have we dumbed-down computing so much that we are no longer interested in even bothering to do basic grunt work, like making sure we have any clue what we are doing before we go making OS purchase decisions?
"Are we really supposed to feel secure knowing that the main obstacle preventing our "secure" systems all over from being cracked is the danger of being cracked?"
Should read "... the danger of being sued or even arrested.".
Yes, it does matter. The most important issue here is that the DMCA protects bad security. I can't wait for MS to say "there have been no published or known exploits to XYZ Security Package, so it is secure", then later selling the US Government some NT-based, web-based nuclear missile launcher running off IIS. Or they sell systems to Citibank or the Federal Reserve.
Then some well-paid foreign hacker can crack the server, launch the missile at Canada and all heck breaks loose. Or some terrorist sympathizer can funnel money to his buddies, or simply cause havoc in major US financial systems.
Do you really think the best hackers in the world are all boring enough to work for the NSA, or even born in the US? Are we really supposed to feel secure knowing that the main obstacle preventing our "secure" systems all over from being cracked is the danger of being cracked? Talented hackers are not script kiddies. Talented hackers won't be leaving little notes like "j00 4r3 0wn3d". Talented hackers just might not care about the things the rest of us care about-- and they may be largely immune to legal action.
I think it's important that we consider the DMCA not only an affront to our traditional rights as consumers (i.e. Fair Use), but a danger to national security.
The whole thing is a bit like making it illegal to publish reviews of various locks from the hardware store. Yeah, it will keep consumer reports from telling shoppers which locks are high grade titanium or alloys and which locks are flimsy plastic, but it won't keep crooks from figuring out which is which and having a field day breaking into houses secured with the plastic locks.
Too true. I think my favorite "journalism" is the NY Times business section. First, the underlying assumption is that everything taught in MBA courses on economics, marketing, advertising, workplace relations, etc, is correct, true, and prescriptive (rather than descriptive). This feeds analyses that come off as apologies for the darker sides of capitalism (and all economies have darker sides, this is not a bash on capitalism) with absolutely no consideration for the mind games that corporations are playing with themselves, the government, and the public.
:)
Second, they frequently are faxed, emailed, or read the contents of a corporate press release, which is then considered a primary, reliable source of information.
The only time the articles get really good is when it sounds like the writer has talked to Corp A before talking to Corp B and Mr. A says something about Corp B., so the guy at B says something about A, or implies rather crudely that Mr. A is lying. It's like watching fifth graders argue at recess.