Hmmm, never said it wasn't hypocritical. Since I don't subscribe to the whole intellectual property concept, I won't even begin to defend their thinking. But basically, it goes like this, "If I wrote the software, I can do with it what the heck I want and because I own it YOU better only do things with it that I want you to do with it."
FYI, the article says that it will only activate a "node" with the consent of the computer user.
I'm skeptical as to whether or not this is yet another April Fool's joke. But if it is, it's a hell of a lot more original, plausible, and creative than the other ones I've seen today.
Would've been nice if half of the stories today had been legitimate stories. I may not be dead yet from the "jokes" today, but I am certainly left craving real legitimate stories.
I may be checking for independent sources for a while after today. BTW, I searched for corroborating sources for this story. Surprise! There are none that I could find.
How much does MS pay you to troll Slashdot? If you'll read the many fine posts that have been moderated up, you'll see that many people are indeed getting paid. I see a lot of negative consequences if open source software didn't exist:
1. Many mom and pop businesses that can't afford Bill's software wouldn't exist.
2. Many poor people wouldn't have access to open source software and thus might not be able to do things like access the internet. Even our throw away computers can run certain distros of Linux. Poor people end up with them.
3. Many people wouldn't even get the opportunity to learn how to program because there would only be proprietary and expensive development tools.
4. The aforementioned poor people wouldn't be able to write proprietary software that might be used to start a successful business.
The list goes on and on I assure you. Considering all the good that comes from free software, I'm ok if I get stuck writing and supporting/maintaining specialized apps for businesses.
What a bad analogy. If someone has the time to write open source code, I'm inclined to think they're getting paid somehow. I like the analogy of open source programmers as artists. Not all artists are paid for every piece of art they make.
Hmmm...why does everybody think coders have to be paid? Many coders do get paid, in a manner of speaking, because they think other peoples' free software is pretty damn good and they should give something back. Damn it, we're not Ferengis!
For me, PC's won because they are indeed cheaper. To this day, I still replace my computer parts piece by piece. The last full computer I bought was a 486. Financially, I've saved big time because it has been considerably cheaper than if I'd had to buy a new Mac or fill in the blank complete computer every year.
I'll probably get flamed, but the next great leap is probably Hurd or something quite like it. From a design standpoint, the foundation is rock solid. Linux based operating systems have thrived because anybody can write software for the operating system. Linux based operating systems are quite decentralized. Anyone can roll their own Linux distribution based on software written by thousands of different people. That's why I call the Linux based operating systems "decentralized".
But the Linux kernel is different. Anyone can roll their own configuration of the kernel by recompiling it, but that's not quite the same. We're still limited to using the work of a relatively small group of people because of the nature of monolithic kernels. Any small patch to the kernel source can destabilize the entire kernel. Because of this fact only a small group of people can feasibly work on that kernel and keep the kernel stable. That's why monolithic kernel development must be centralized and tightly controlled.
GNU OS Hurd, on the other hand, encourages decentralization. Anyone can write servers that control hardware without destabilizing the kernel. And if you don't like how a server works, you can either not use it, or write one yourself. But at least you have the power to do that without going through tightly controlled channels to get your code into the kernel. And just as it is with software written for Linux based operating systems, if your code is crap very few will use it.
It just makes sense to have as many of the elements associated with a free operating system as decentralized as possible. (un)Natural selection will take care of quality assurance as it always has.
I'm not trying to diss Linus and the rest of the relatively small group of kernel hackers that work the linux kernel. They rock and personally have my deepest gratitude for their contribution to humanity. But they're only human.
Just a simple question, did you pay your bill on time? Regardless, I suggest you do what I did when I felt like my phone company was giving me the shaft...forget about the land line home phone altogether. Get a couple more lithium batteries and another charger for your cell phone. If you buy enough batteries to guarantee your phone always has juice, you save big in the long run by not having a land line. Two lithium batteries and two chargers will normally do the trick for the average guy. Of course this whole solution makes assumptions you already use a cell phone and don't use a dial up connection.
My point really is...check out the alternatives. Unfortunately, finding good companies to work with is becoming a lot like choosing a good US political candidate. It's a choice between lesser "evils".
No, you got popped alright, but it wasn't under. There was no kiss and no lubrication. It's too bad we have to combat corporations that think they treat people like some kind of mindless animal with no rights. It peeves me even more that I have to traverse their technological mazes just to disassociate myself with the aforementioned slime ball corporations. Think customer service phone menus. Yikes, this trend is getting serious! (Where's my cheese?)
Thanks for the idea of how to get my account deleted faster since they have no means available (that I'm aware of) for deleting my account immediately. Maybe they figure I won't stay pissed off long. They're wrong of course. Now I associate them with every other slime ball corporation out there. They can be "Spam pimps" for someone else.
And why not target US people? As of late, we're treated like thiefs and sheep. It seems the gloves are off and they're not bothering with lubrication these days. And I'd like to say for the record, "My butt hurts!"
And to the one who deleted my post about the at&t scam, I hope that the.75 cents at&t stole from me yesterday with their "press pound to hear the number, but forward the call anyway no matter what they press" scam is spent to call you during dinner!!!!
I don't have any boxes checked for my profile because I know I'm going to get more spam if I do check some. Like everyone else, I hate spam.
So no, I don't think Yahoo is really going to lose an assett because I seriously doubt people are taking the time be profiled. Instead of losing an assett, I'd say what Yahoo is really going to lose is a lot of respect.
I apologize if this post seems like a rant. It is. I'm infuriated yet again by this trend of corporate corruption which is more of an explanation than an excuse. I'm really pissed at Yahoo. But I'm even more pissed at AT&T at the moment, but I'll get to that in a moment. At least with yahoo, I can do exactly what I did which was delete or change any possible information that could possibly give them something to sell to someone. Then I changed my password to some really freaking obscure password that I'll never remember in a million years. I tried to cancel their account, but to no avail, I can't seem to find out how to cancel my account. I tried. But their little rat maze doesn't seem to be set up for people to cancel their accounts. I'm not surprised.
Now on to AT&T. I have a question. Has anyone else had the experience of calling AT&T directory information to find a number only to be told by some automated voice, "Press pound to hear the number." At which point, you press pound happily expecting to hear the number. Instead of hearing the number, you instead hear the voice of the receptionist of the place you desired to call manually. Keep in mind I always write down the number so that I can manually call the number instead of paying the , "I'm a lazy moron." tax. Most non-thinking people would dismiss it as a freak occurence. I don't. I verified my facts. I got charged the moron tax against my will. I'm confident many others have been charged this tax against their will as well. Now I desire to verify it. How many of you have been charged the moron tax against your will? If it's thousands of people who have been subjected to the "moron" tax against their will, then I'd say AT&T has got quite the scam going and is a shining example of what may soon be widely known as the "Rat Tactic". I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
I must say that I am never surprised at the corruption I find in Corporate America. (One of my personal least favorite scams is the customer service automated systems that never seem to have the option I need unless of course I want to sign up for their service my ISP my cellphone service provider.) You say that's not a scam, but I say that it is especially when I'm trying to complain about something that could result in a loss of millions of dollars by customers collectively, not individually. It feels like a scam that ranks right up there with the guy who took a few pennies out of millions of bank accounts. By the way, is that an urban legend? Even if it is, the principle is sound. And I'd say it's the principle that corporations rely upon the most to jilt the masses out of billions fo dollars. It might be aptly called the "Rip off the masses by small amounts so nobody will notice and you can grow rich in your big house while you watch society decline into a group of mindless drone rats that never complain that wake up every day just to work for you, consume your products, fsck , eat, drink, poop, pay taxes, fart, and breathe while never really having one meaningful thought during the day. (all while using your products)" tactic. Personally, I affectionately call it the "Rat Tactic" for possibly arbitrary reasons.
We, the complainers, the ones willing to speak up are unfortunately a very small minority. "They" count on that and count on their automated systems to oppose our attempts for satisfaction (while vigorously using the rat tactic). Is there any other reason it takes two seconds to get to a customer service rep when you want to order service. But if you want to complain, that's another story altogether. If you want to complain, "they" conveniently use technology to thwart your efforts. The most common mechanism is the setting up automated mazes for us to traverse so that by the time we get ahold of a real person, we're so infuriated that the low level customer service rep immediately calls his/her supervisor for assistance. He, of course, solves MY problem by crediting me the seventy five cents I'm due while happily keeping the money of the thousands of "sheep" rats unwilling to complain.
Well today I was too infuriated to traverse the maze for very long and now I'm venting on slashdot. I hope it sends a resoundingly clear message to Corporate Earth which is this: "We know what is going on and we are growing in numbers and discontent."
At least I hope that's the message that they get, but my message is more likely going to be ignored by the greedy guy in the big house who looks down upon us as rats that need our wheels, our mazes, and plenty of shiny things. Well I've got news for "them", I'm not a rat that likes wheels or mazes. I kind of enjoy using my brain. I don't worship their god of money. I'm sorry, but exercise wheels and mazes just don't do it for me. Though to be honest, I do like a few shiny things. But the truth is I'm not a rat at all. I am a human. And I'm not too distracted with my wheel, mazes, and shiny things that I won't make the time to bitch.
So everybody join me in bitching about something that's bothering you. They can't kill us all. Perhaps we can successfully discourage some of the rampant greed and corruption by curbing peoples' purchasing habits. And maybe, just maybe, we won't become a species that is somewhere between rats running on exercise wheels, the Ferengi, and the Borg.
Slashdot Mirror
It only takes one to net install Debian.
Hey wait a minute, this kind of seems like legal "terrorism"! And it's successful at that. Georgie Boy, sickem!
Nobody appreciates a dry sense of humor these days :)
They should:
1. Open source all their software products
2. Make everyone cash in their stocks.
3. Dissolve their corporation.
Oh, and I want a public apology from Bill. Is that too much to ask for?
Hmmm, never said it wasn't hypocritical. Since I don't subscribe to the whole intellectual property concept, I won't even begin to defend their thinking. But basically, it goes like this, "If I wrote the software, I can do with it what the heck I want and because I own it YOU better only do things with it that I want you to do with it."
You can violate your own rules if you are the one making them.
FYI, the article says that it will only activate a "node" with the consent of the computer user.
I'm skeptical as to whether or not this is yet another April Fool's joke. But if it is, it's a hell of a lot more original, plausible, and creative than the other ones I've seen today.
Would've been nice if half of the stories today had been legitimate stories. I may not be dead yet from the "jokes" today, but I am certainly left craving real legitimate stories.
I may be checking for independent sources for a while after today. BTW, I searched for corroborating sources for this story. Surprise! There are none that I could find.
What you so angry about? Pimp out my mama? How did you know Linus was paying me to do that?
How much does MS pay you to troll Slashdot? If you'll read the many fine posts that have been moderated up, you'll see that many people are indeed getting paid. I see a lot of negative consequences if open source software didn't exist:
1. Many mom and pop businesses that can't afford Bill's software wouldn't exist.
2. Many poor people wouldn't have access to open source software and thus might not be able to do things like access the internet. Even our throw away computers can run certain distros of Linux. Poor people end up with them.
3. Many people wouldn't even get the opportunity to learn how to program because there would only be proprietary and expensive development tools.
4. The aforementioned poor people wouldn't be able to write proprietary software that might be used to start a successful business.
The list goes on and on I assure you. Considering all the good that comes from free software, I'm ok if I get stuck writing and supporting/maintaining specialized apps for businesses.
Cheers.
austus, estonian for respect.
What a bad analogy. If someone has the time to write open source code, I'm inclined to think they're getting paid somehow. I like the analogy of open source programmers as artists. Not all artists are paid for every piece of art they make.
:)
Now go back to your hole, Ferengi bastard!
austus, estonian for respect
Hmmm...why does everybody think coders have to be paid? Many coders do get paid, in a manner of speaking, because they think other peoples' free software is pretty damn good and they should give something back. Damn it, we're not Ferengis!
Consistent GUI reads stagnation or lack of innovation to me.
For me, PC's won because they are indeed cheaper. To this day, I still replace my computer parts piece by piece. The last full computer I bought was a 486. Financially, I've saved big time because it has been considerably cheaper than if I'd had to buy a new Mac or fill in the blank complete computer every year.
I'll probably get flamed, but the next great leap is probably Hurd or something quite like it. From a design standpoint, the foundation is rock solid. Linux based operating systems have thrived because anybody can write software for the operating system. Linux based operating systems are quite decentralized. Anyone can roll their own Linux distribution based on software written by thousands of different people. That's why I call the Linux based operating systems "decentralized".
But the Linux kernel is different. Anyone can roll their own configuration of the kernel by recompiling it, but that's not quite the same. We're still limited to using the work of a relatively small group of people because of the nature of monolithic kernels. Any small patch to the kernel source can destabilize the entire kernel. Because of this fact only a small group of people can feasibly work on that kernel and keep the kernel stable. That's why monolithic kernel development must be centralized and tightly controlled.
GNU OS Hurd, on the other hand, encourages decentralization. Anyone can write servers that control hardware without destabilizing the kernel. And if you don't like how a server works, you can either not use it, or write one yourself. But at least you have the power to do that without going through tightly controlled channels to get your code into the kernel. And just as it is with software written for Linux based operating systems, if your code is crap very few will use it.
It just makes sense to have as many of the elements associated with a free operating system as decentralized as possible. (un)Natural selection will take care of quality assurance as it always has.
I'm not trying to diss Linus and the rest of the relatively small group of kernel hackers that work the linux kernel. They rock and personally have my deepest gratitude for their contribution to humanity. But they're only human.
Just a simple question, did you pay your bill on time? Regardless, I suggest you do what I did when I felt like my phone company was giving me the shaft...forget about the land line home phone altogether. Get a couple more lithium batteries and another charger for your cell phone. If you buy enough batteries to guarantee your phone always has juice, you save big in the long run by not having a land line. Two lithium batteries and two chargers will normally do the trick for the average guy. Of course this whole solution makes assumptions you already use a cell phone and don't use a dial up connection.
My point really is...check out the alternatives. Unfortunately, finding good companies to work with is becoming a lot like choosing a good US political candidate. It's a choice between lesser "evils".
No, you got popped alright, but it wasn't under. There was no kiss and no lubrication. It's too bad we have to combat corporations that think they treat people like some kind of mindless animal with no rights. It peeves me even more that I have to traverse their technological mazes just to disassociate myself with the aforementioned slime ball corporations. Think customer service phone menus. Yikes, this trend is getting serious! (Where's my cheese?)
Thanks for the idea of how to get my account deleted faster since they have no means available (that I'm aware of) for deleting my account immediately. Maybe they figure I won't stay pissed off long. They're wrong of course. Now I associate them with every other slime ball corporation out there. They can be "Spam pimps" for someone else.
And why not target US people? As of late, we're treated like thiefs and sheep. It seems the gloves are off and they're not bothering with lubrication these days. And I'd like to say for the record, "My butt hurts!"
.75 cents at&t stole from me yesterday with their "press pound to hear the number, but forward the call anyway no matter what they press" scam is spent to call you during dinner!!!!
And to the one who deleted my post about the at&t scam, I hope that the
I don't have any boxes checked for my profile because I know I'm going to get more spam if I do check some. Like everyone else, I hate spam.
So no, I don't think Yahoo is really going to lose an assett because I seriously doubt people are taking the time be profiled. Instead of losing an assett, I'd say what Yahoo is really going to lose is a lot of respect.
I apologize if this post seems like a rant. It is. I'm infuriated yet again by this trend of corporate corruption which is more of an explanation than an excuse. I'm really pissed at Yahoo. But I'm even more pissed at AT&T at the moment, but I'll get to that in a moment. At least with yahoo, I can do exactly what I did which was delete or change any possible information that could possibly give them something to sell to someone. Then I changed my password to some really freaking obscure password that I'll never remember in a million years. I tried to cancel their account, but to no avail, I can't seem to find out how to cancel my account. I tried. But their little rat maze doesn't seem to be set up for people to cancel their accounts. I'm not surprised.
:) I feel better now.
Now on to AT&T. I have a question. Has anyone else had the experience of calling AT&T directory information to find a number only to be told by some automated voice, "Press pound to hear the number." At which point, you press pound happily expecting to hear the number. Instead of hearing the number, you instead hear the voice of the receptionist of the place you desired to call manually. Keep in mind I always write down the number so that I can manually call the number instead of paying the , "I'm a lazy moron." tax. Most non-thinking people would dismiss it as a freak occurence. I don't. I verified my facts. I got charged the moron tax against my will. I'm confident many others have been charged this tax against their will as well. Now I desire to verify it. How many of you have been charged the moron tax against your will? If it's thousands of people who have been subjected to the "moron" tax against their will, then I'd say AT&T has got quite the scam going and is a shining example of what may soon be widely known as the "Rat Tactic". I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
I must say that I am never surprised at the corruption I find in Corporate America.
(One of my personal least favorite scams is the customer service automated systems that never seem to have the option I need unless of course I want to sign up for their service my ISP my cellphone service provider.) You say that's not a scam, but I say that it is especially when I'm trying to complain about something that could result in a loss of millions of dollars by customers collectively, not individually. It feels like a scam that ranks right up there with the guy who took a few pennies out of millions of bank accounts. By the way, is that an urban legend? Even if it is, the principle is sound. And I'd say it's the principle that corporations rely upon the most to jilt the masses out of billions fo dollars. It might be aptly called the "Rip off the masses by small amounts so nobody will notice and you can grow rich in your big house while you watch society decline into a group of mindless drone rats that never complain that wake up every day just to work for you, consume your products, fsck , eat, drink, poop, pay taxes, fart, and breathe while never really having one meaningful thought during the day. (all while using your products)" tactic. Personally, I affectionately call it the "Rat Tactic" for possibly arbitrary reasons.
We, the complainers, the ones willing to speak up are unfortunately a very small minority. "They" count on that and count on their automated systems to oppose our attempts for satisfaction (while vigorously using the rat tactic). Is there any other reason it takes two seconds to get to a customer service rep when you want to order service. But if you want to complain, that's another story altogether. If you want to complain, "they" conveniently use technology to thwart your efforts. The most common mechanism is the setting up automated mazes for us to traverse so that by the time we get ahold of a real person, we're so infuriated that the low level customer service rep immediately calls his/her supervisor for assistance. He, of course, solves MY problem by crediting me the seventy five cents I'm due while happily keeping the money of the thousands of "sheep" rats unwilling to complain.
Well today I was too infuriated to traverse the maze for very long and now I'm venting on slashdot. I hope it sends a resoundingly clear message to Corporate Earth which is this: "We know what is going on and we are growing in numbers and discontent."
At least I hope that's the message that they get, but my message is more likely going to be ignored by the greedy guy in the big house who looks down upon us as rats that need our wheels, our mazes, and plenty of shiny things. Well I've got news for "them", I'm not a rat that likes wheels or mazes. I kind of enjoy using my brain. I don't worship their god of money. I'm sorry, but exercise wheels and mazes just don't do it for me. Though to be honest, I do like a few shiny things. But the truth is I'm not a rat at all. I am a human. And I'm not too distracted with my wheel, mazes, and shiny things that I won't make the time to bitch.
So everybody join me in bitching about something that's bothering you. They can't kill us all. Perhaps we can successfully discourage some of the rampant greed and corruption by curbing peoples' purchasing habits. And maybe, just maybe, we won't become a species that is somewhere between rats running on exercise wheels, the Ferengi, and the Borg.
Thanks for listening
What's funny is that all made perfect sense to me.