The film content will be 'protected' by Microsoft's Digital Rights Management System.
Yep, those quotes belong there all right. Never mind that it's Microsoft. The OpenBSD team and the NSA combined couldn't make this work, assuming they were silly enough to try.
First off, once you've paid for your key and gotten your file unlocked, there's nothing to keep you from distributing it. What's that you say? They might embed an identifier in the decrypted file? No problem. Just get together with a friend or two, figure out which parts are different, and munge those areas. Even if they used a variety of different regions, anything that identifies you will have to differ from your friend's copy. And if they make tiny changes everywhere, just do the same thing...make tiny changes to the least-significant bits, everywhere. Poof. Identification gone.
Those who run the movie distribution industry will ultimately have just two choices. They will either provide the content only to theaters, enjoining the managers to keep everything locked up in a vault; or wake up and distribute things freely (speech not beer), accepting the small losses due to free riders in exchange for the greatly increased profits from the majority, who will play fair if they are treated fairly.
(Actually, the "majority" will have no idea how to pirate it anyway. I meant the majority of hackers.)
In the transitional period, no doubt they will keep trying the same old authoritarian bullshit that always worked before. They won't learn very quickly, I'm afraid. Perhaps not until their investors replace them for losing money eight quarters in a row.
Seriously, it's a different philosophy with different priorities. Linux developers in general are more interested in rapid growth, a rapid release cycle, lots of feedback to fix stuff. BSD developers in general take a more "autocratic" (if you don't agree) or "controlled" (if you do) approach. And the OpenBSD team takes an "extraordinarily careful" approach, which is why we never hear about OpenBSD boxen getting cracked...
OpenBSD can use Blowfish passwords. Not Serpent or Twofish but Blowfish. Why?
Password checking for user authentication is performed in software on a general-purpose computer. Brute-force password cracking can be carried out on specialized hardware. Algorithms that run much faster in hardware than in software are bad choices for password hashing.
The design of Blowfish makes it difficult to speed up in hardware. Twofish and Serpent, on the other hand, were designed for fast hardware implementation. Blowfish is also more scalable, which lets you keep up with Moore's Law.
A paper (PostScript format) on OpenBSD's rationale for choosing Blowfish can be found here. A short presentation is here.
If some of the chapters are being released under the GPL, doesn't that make the whole book a derived work...which would also have to be released under the GPL?
Really, the only way to find out what clients are in use is to actually ask people in a survey, which probably wouldn't cover too many users.
I agree, this is probably the only good way to find out. Why not ask/. to run a poll? Granted, it's hardly a random sample, but at least it's a large sample and it's better than nothing.
Clearly, Mr. Powell does not understand how the GPL works to protect the user community. Corel will be able to steer KDE for precisely as long as its changes are welcome to the community of KDE users and developers.
If they make changes the community doesn't like, the changes will be ignored by the community. If they fork KDE and make their own version with their changes, no one has to use it. If they add good stuff to their version, it has to be under the GPL, so the community can take what they like, put it in the free version, and leave the rest. They don't even have to reverse-engineer it.
If they close their source in defiance of the GPL, the community doesn't have to muck around with a lawsuit. Righteous outrage will decimate Corel's customer base, and the community will clone any useful features in the closed version. Users will be able to choose between a costly proprietary product and a free one that works just as well. Not a very difficult choice.
The Kerberos analogy is nonsense. Nothing under the GPL can be embraced, extended and engulfed as Microsoft tried to do to Kerberos. The derived-works provisions in the GPL are intended precisely to prevent that sort of thing.
OK, let me rephrase. It was Microsoft that made the computer accessible to most people, because it ran on much cheaper hardware than a Mac, and both businesses and home users bought a lot more of them.
Regarding Windows being a mess, and not innovative, I agree with you 100%. However I feel obligated to point out that MacOS was also proprietary, and ran on proprietary hardware as well. If Microsoft hadn't succeeded as much as it did, we might all be cursing Apple today.
Average distance from Earth to Pluto, 5.9E12 meters. Assume 1 gravity constant acceleration, we'll know how to get that much someday and you wouldn't want to use much more. Accelerate halfway then turn over and decelerate the rest of the way so you don't "smash into your target really quick".
This highest practical acceleration also gives us the highest velocity at turnover. It turns out to be about 7600 km/s, which is a hell of a lot by everyday standards but only 2.5% of c, so relativistic effects are negligible. (Your watch would be a little slow.)
The whole trip takes about 18 days. Just how big do you think the solar system is, anyway?
A superior product will cover a multitude of sins even being proprietary.
Ah, but let's examine the problems that come along with proprietary software, shall we? It's more than a philosophical issue.
You're using the browser. It breaks. You submit a bug report. You wait six months for a fix. You pay for the new version. Sound familiar?
Or, you're using it, and you really wish the interface looked like this, or the program would do this. Well, I suppose you can ask them to add the feature. Maybe they will. Real soon now.
And let's not forget that ol' lock-in factor. Maybe they use a proprietary, undocumented format for your bookmark file. And you have hundreds of them. Want to try another browser? Well, you can always type them all in by hand...
Well, yes, it was Microsoft that made the computer accessible to non-hackers. There was a tremendous market out there. Someone would have done it. It happened to be Microsoft.
And that is why it also happened to be Microsoft that ended up dominating the personal computer industry. They had an edge and they ran with it. They took some good-enough software and a lot of damned good marketing, crushed their competitors, and just kept on going. Hell, it had worked so far, why stop now?
Now it's easy for we Linux users to say, who cares, we don't have to use their junk. Let them control the pointy-haired boss's desktop. Problem is, a lot of us want to work in the programming field, and inevitably a lot of us are going to end up working for the PHB, and he'll want us using the same thing he uses.
And, as you pointed out, there's the little matter of standards and protocols. What happens if 90% of the people on PCs are creating their pages with FrontPage and reading everyone else's pages with IE? Microsoft controls the web by default, that's what. W3C becomes irrelevant, Microsoft dictates the standards, and we all have to chase their moving target. (Their undocumented moving target.) While everyone else buys their software, because MS programmers are the only ones who have the full specs to work from.
You say the APIs aren't totally closed. True enough. That would work against them. But they keep moving the target, because that way they can keep charging for classes and certification and new books. And their application programmers can stay one step ahead of the rest of the world.
I tried learning Windows programming a few years ago, and it didn't take me long to realize the kind of game they had set up for me. I looked around, and Unix looked pretty stable, and Linux had a lot more books than FreeBSD. It wasn't until much later that I realized it's stable because the user community is in charge and nobody can muck around with things for their sole benefit.
My copy of The Mythical Man-Month is unfortunately not available, but I remember that Brooks mentioned the system that was in place at IBM when he was there.
The general idea was that you could advance as a manager, or as a technologist. There were equivalent parallel positions at each level, with similarly impressive-sounding names. If someone was transferred from the technology track to the same level on the management track, it was with no increase in salary; but the reverse move did get a raise. The idea was to offset the "management mystique" and remind everyone that the "technologists" were just as important as the "managers".
It may be that some companies are using a similar system today. IBM may still be using it, for that matter, if you want to work for them. This would seem to be a solution to your dilemma. HTH.
So, Microsoft buys some time. And, I suppose, more chances for the ruling to be overturned.
Does it really matter?
Let's suppose Microsoft is split in two and restrained from its usual dirty tricks. Let's even go way out on a limb and suppose that the restraints will actually work. Great. Microsoft can no longer reach for market domination.
Of course, they already have market domination.
So let's suppose that something else happens. There's another suit and Microsoft gets liquidated. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer die in the same plane crash. Whatever.
Still doesn't matter. Because there are plenty of other companies out there that still believe in proprietary code, closed source, restrictive licenses and all the rest. Microsoft was merely the most successful and aggressive player of that game. And lots of people have learned from them.
And the simple fact is, as long as people continue to buy proprietary software and click on those licenses, the closed-source people will continue to make money and exert control over the computing world.
The U.S. federal government is a big lumbering elephant, very powerful, but very slow. Look how long it took them to notice all the things Microsoft was doing. Remember the other suit, back in the early 90's IIRC, the one that didn't accomplish anything? We certainly can't count on the Feds to keep the software business competitive.
That's our job.
This case does no more than give Microsoft a black eye. We can destroy Microsoft, and all the rest of the closed-source world, and their paradigm. Just by continuing to make free software.
And on that note, I'm gonna log off and do some hacking...
But if I want to be on Mars ASAP, which technology is going to get me there first? Conventional, tried-and-true, already-exists rockets? Or untested, not-yet-mature, haven't-built-one-yet technology?
Just launch a damn ship NOW.
You are advocating precisely the same approach that took us to the moon six times...and then no more, in almost thirty years.
Why? Because they were in a hurry. Because they wanted to hit Kennedy's arbitrary deadline. Because it was a stunt, strictly for prestige value. So instead of investing in infrastructure, they slapped together the quickest solution they could.
If you want to go to Mars once, use conventional solutions and launch now. If you want to keep going there, over and over without end...if you want to make it more than a stunt...be patient, develop the technology to support it, do it right.
Furthermore, conventional solutions, which accelerate only at the beginning and end, take time proportional to the distance. Constant-acceleration takes time proportional to the square root of the distance. This allows you to go not only to Mars but anywhere in the solar system.
Several people have already pointed out that ClearType does not represent innovation on Microsoft's part. Here is a related point for your consideration.
When the Free Software / Open Source community creates something innovative, anyone can use it in any way, improve upon it, incorporate it into any kind of tool. Everyone benefits. This is the paradigm of science.
When a corporation such as Microsoft creates something innovative and keeps it proprietary, no one can use it in any way except as the corporation permits. The lion's share of the benefit goes to the corporation, and further innovation is stifled. This is the paradigm of intellectual property.
Anyone, including a corporation, has the right to handle their creations as they see fit...but where do you want to go today?
Computer: Welcome to Microsoft Windows 2005! Please enter your password using your normal rhythm.
User: i-a-m-a-l-u-s-e-r [enter]
Computer: I'm sorry, that rhythm did not match. Please try again.
User: i-a-m-a-l-u-s-e-r [enter]
(Three tries later...)
Computer: I'm sorry, you have failed login too many times. Your account has been locked. Please call Microsoft Tech Support at 1-900-SCREWME for assistance. Only $5 a minute!
Slashdot Mirror
The film content will be 'protected' by Microsoft's Digital Rights Management System.
Yep, those quotes belong there all right. Never mind that it's Microsoft. The OpenBSD team and the NSA combined couldn't make this work, assuming they were silly enough to try.
First off, once you've paid for your key and gotten your file unlocked, there's nothing to keep you from distributing it. What's that you say? They might embed an identifier in the decrypted file? No problem. Just get together with a friend or two, figure out which parts are different, and munge those areas. Even if they used a variety of different regions, anything that identifies you will have to differ from your friend's copy. And if they make tiny changes everywhere, just do the same thing...make tiny changes to the least-significant bits, everywhere. Poof. Identification gone.
Those who run the movie distribution industry will ultimately have just two choices. They will either provide the content only to theaters, enjoining the managers to keep everything locked up in a vault; or wake up and distribute things freely (speech not beer), accepting the small losses due to free riders in exchange for the greatly increased profits from the majority, who will play fair if they are treated fairly.
(Actually, the "majority" will have no idea how to pirate it anyway. I meant the majority of hackers.)
In the transitional period, no doubt they will keep trying the same old authoritarian bullshit that always worked before. They won't learn very quickly, I'm afraid. Perhaps not until their investors replace them for losing money eight quarters in a row.
------
Woo! Great stuff. Now if only I could encrypt my BIOS...
------
They grind code slowly but exceeding fine.
Seriously, it's a different philosophy with different priorities. Linux developers in general are more interested in rapid growth, a rapid release cycle, lots of feedback to fix stuff. BSD developers in general take a more "autocratic" (if you don't agree) or "controlled" (if you do) approach. And the OpenBSD team takes an "extraordinarily careful" approach, which is why we never hear about OpenBSD boxen getting cracked...
------
A nice turn of phrase :)
------
Jeff beat me to it
OpenBSD can use Blowfish passwords. Not Serpent or Twofish but Blowfish. Why?
Password checking for user authentication is performed in software on a general-purpose computer. Brute-force password cracking can be carried out on specialized hardware. Algorithms that run much faster in hardware than in software are bad choices for password hashing.
The design of Blowfish makes it difficult to speed up in hardware. Twofish and Serpent, on the other hand, were designed for fast hardware implementation. Blowfish is also more scalable, which lets you keep up with Moore's Law.
A paper (PostScript format) on OpenBSD's rationale for choosing Blowfish can be found here. A short presentation is here.
------
Arrgh. I only checked a few pages worth. A search form would be nice.
Still, I see they've repeated the "how many email addresses do you have" one, so why not this one too? It was almost a year ago.
------
If some of the chapters are being released under the GPL, doesn't that make the whole book a derived work...which would also have to be released under the GPL?
------
Designer: What do you want?
Surfer: Information.
Designer: You won't get it!
Surfer: By hack or by crack, we will.
------
Really, the only way to find out what clients are in use is to actually ask people in a survey, which probably wouldn't cover too many users.
I agree, this is probably the only good way to find out. Why not ask /. to run a poll? Granted, it's hardly a random sample, but at least it's a large sample and it's better than nothing.
------
Ah! Less than perfect
Must commit hara-kiri
"is" was lowercase
------
Well. I guess you put me in my place. I'm overwhelmed by your logic and grasp of the issues, not to mention your rhetorical brilliance.
Thanks for the tip on Oracle. Sounds like it needs some open-source competition.
------
Clearly, Mr. Powell does not understand how the GPL works to protect the user community. Corel will be able to steer KDE for precisely as long as its changes are welcome to the community of KDE users and developers.
If they make changes the community doesn't like, the changes will be ignored by the community. If they fork KDE and make their own version with their changes, no one has to use it. If they add good stuff to their version, it has to be under the GPL, so the community can take what they like, put it in the free version, and leave the rest. They don't even have to reverse-engineer it.
If they close their source in defiance of the GPL, the community doesn't have to muck around with a lawsuit. Righteous outrage will decimate Corel's customer base, and the community will clone any useful features in the closed version. Users will be able to choose between a costly proprietary product and a free one that works just as well. Not a very difficult choice.
The Kerberos analogy is nonsense. Nothing under the GPL can be embraced, extended and engulfed as Microsoft tried to do to Kerberos. The derived-works provisions in the GPL are intended precisely to prevent that sort of thing.
No. One. Can. Hijack. A. GPLed. Product.
Period.
------
Computer poet
Lacking sense of esthetics
is oxymoron
John Searle made good point
AI may be Chinese Room
Made in Japan--NOT!
------
Regarding Windows being a mess, and not innovative, I agree with you 100%. However I feel obligated to point out that MacOS was also proprietary, and ran on proprietary hardware as well. If Microsoft hadn't succeeded as much as it did, we might all be cursing Apple today.
------
Sigh. Do the math...
Average distance from Earth to Pluto, 5.9E12 meters. Assume 1 gravity constant acceleration, we'll know how to get that much someday and you wouldn't want to use much more. Accelerate halfway then turn over and decelerate the rest of the way so you don't "smash into your target really quick".
This highest practical acceleration also gives us the highest velocity at turnover. It turns out to be about 7600 km/s, which is a hell of a lot by everyday standards but only 2.5% of c, so relativistic effects are negligible. (Your watch would be a little slow.)
The whole trip takes about 18 days. Just how big do you think the solar system is, anyway?
------
A superior product will cover a multitude of sins even being proprietary.
Ah, but let's examine the problems that come along with proprietary software, shall we? It's more than a philosophical issue.
You're using the browser. It breaks. You submit a bug report. You wait six months for a fix. You pay for the new version. Sound familiar?
Or, you're using it, and you really wish the interface looked like this, or the program would do this. Well, I suppose you can ask them to add the feature. Maybe they will. Real soon now.
And let's not forget that ol' lock-in factor. Maybe they use a proprietary, undocumented format for your bookmark file. And you have hundreds of them. Want to try another browser? Well, you can always type them all in by hand...
------
Well, yes, it was Microsoft that made the computer accessible to non-hackers. There was a tremendous market out there. Someone would have done it. It happened to be Microsoft.
And that is why it also happened to be Microsoft that ended up dominating the personal computer industry. They had an edge and they ran with it. They took some good-enough software and a lot of damned good marketing, crushed their competitors, and just kept on going. Hell, it had worked so far, why stop now?
Now it's easy for we Linux users to say, who cares, we don't have to use their junk. Let them control the pointy-haired boss's desktop. Problem is, a lot of us want to work in the programming field, and inevitably a lot of us are going to end up working for the PHB, and he'll want us using the same thing he uses.
And, as you pointed out, there's the little matter of standards and protocols. What happens if 90% of the people on PCs are creating their pages with FrontPage and reading everyone else's pages with IE? Microsoft controls the web by default, that's what. W3C becomes irrelevant, Microsoft dictates the standards, and we all have to chase their moving target. (Their undocumented moving target.) While everyone else buys their software, because MS programmers are the only ones who have the full specs to work from.
You say the APIs aren't totally closed. True enough. That would work against them. But they keep moving the target, because that way they can keep charging for classes and certification and new books. And their application programmers can stay one step ahead of the rest of the world.
I tried learning Windows programming a few years ago, and it didn't take me long to realize the kind of game they had set up for me. I looked around, and Unix looked pretty stable, and Linux had a lot more books than FreeBSD. It wasn't until much later that I realized it's stable because the user community is in charge and nobody can muck around with things for their sole benefit.
------
My copy of The Mythical Man-Month is unfortunately not available, but I remember that Brooks mentioned the system that was in place at IBM when he was there.
The general idea was that you could advance as a manager, or as a technologist. There were equivalent parallel positions at each level, with similarly impressive-sounding names. If someone was transferred from the technology track to the same level on the management track, it was with no increase in salary; but the reverse move did get a raise. The idea was to offset the "management mystique" and remind everyone that the "technologists" were just as important as the "managers".
It may be that some companies are using a similar system today. IBM may still be using it, for that matter, if you want to work for them. This would seem to be a solution to your dilemma. HTH.
------
So, Microsoft buys some time. And, I suppose, more chances for the ruling to be overturned.
Does it really matter?
Let's suppose Microsoft is split in two and restrained from its usual dirty tricks. Let's even go way out on a limb and suppose that the restraints will actually work. Great. Microsoft can no longer reach for market domination.
Of course, they already have market domination.
So let's suppose that something else happens. There's another suit and Microsoft gets liquidated. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer die in the same plane crash. Whatever.
Still doesn't matter. Because there are plenty of other companies out there that still believe in proprietary code, closed source, restrictive licenses and all the rest. Microsoft was merely the most successful and aggressive player of that game. And lots of people have learned from them.
And the simple fact is, as long as people continue to buy proprietary software and click on those licenses, the closed-source people will continue to make money and exert control over the computing world.
The U.S. federal government is a big lumbering elephant, very powerful, but very slow. Look how long it took them to notice all the things Microsoft was doing. Remember the other suit, back in the early 90's IIRC, the one that didn't accomplish anything? We certainly can't count on the Feds to keep the software business competitive.
That's our job.
This case does no more than give Microsoft a black eye. We can destroy Microsoft, and all the rest of the closed-source world, and their paradigm. Just by continuing to make free software.
And on that note, I'm gonna log off and do some hacking...
------
But if I want to be on Mars ASAP, which technology is going to get me there first? Conventional, tried-and-true, already-exists rockets? Or untested, not-yet-mature, haven't-built-one-yet technology?
Just launch a damn ship NOW.
You are advocating precisely the same approach that took us to the moon six times...and then no more, in almost thirty years.
Why? Because they were in a hurry. Because they wanted to hit Kennedy's arbitrary deadline. Because it was a stunt, strictly for prestige value. So instead of investing in infrastructure, they slapped together the quickest solution they could.
If you want to go to Mars once, use conventional solutions and launch now. If you want to keep going there, over and over without end...if you want to make it more than a stunt...be patient, develop the technology to support it, do it right.
Furthermore, conventional solutions, which accelerate only at the beginning and end, take time proportional to the distance. Constant-acceleration takes time proportional to the square root of the distance. This allows you to go not only to Mars but anywhere in the solar system.
------
Several people have already pointed out that ClearType does not represent innovation on Microsoft's part. Here is a related point for your consideration.
When the Free Software / Open Source community creates something innovative, anyone can use it in any way, improve upon it, incorporate it into any kind of tool. Everyone benefits. This is the paradigm of science.
When a corporation such as Microsoft creates something innovative and keeps it proprietary, no one can use it in any way except as the corporation permits. The lion's share of the benefit goes to the corporation, and further innovation is stifled. This is the paradigm of intellectual property.
Anyone, including a corporation, has the right to handle their creations as they see fit...but where do you want to go today?
------
There's a collection of easter eggs at the Easter Egg Archive. It lists a couple for Linux and one for gcc.
------
OK, one more time:
This is rms. [www.gnu.org]
This is rms on drugs. [The lamer on /.]
Any questions?
------
Computer: Welcome to Microsoft Windows 2005! Please enter your password using your normal rhythm.
User: i-a-m-a-l-u-s-e-r [enter]
Computer: I'm sorry, that rhythm did not match. Please try again.
User: i-a-m-a-l-u-s-e-r [enter]
(Three tries later...)
Computer: I'm sorry, you have failed login too many times. Your account has been locked. Please call Microsoft Tech Support at 1-900-SCREWME for assistance. Only $5 a minute!
------
Well, if it's only a few km away, you could try the link proposed in RFC1149.
------