Right. You can. I'm not trying to take that away from you.
I'm just pointing out... that the very freedom you talk about is why every unix desktop app doesn't work with every other one, why drag and drop doesn't work as transparently and full-featured as it does on windows or a mac, and why we have so many different desktop standards, and hence, why potential developers are wary of using anything but good old Xlib.
I'm not saying we should abandan this freedom.. it's great.. it's what it's all about... but there are consequences as far as marketability. Linux doesn't exist to be marketed... that's the difference between Linux and OS-X. Apple needs to market it, which means they need to be more careful. They hae to be accountable.
I'm not saying that Gnome or KDE or (insert new desktop project here) sucks, or that it's not good enough. I use both, and they are fantastic. Yes, you can get your users to use them. They are good.
But there is still too much variation in the unix world for the desktop to be truly standard. Yes, there are lots of great potential standards.. but the community at-large doesn't pick one. I mean.. in linux, it looks like gnome will be it eventually, maybe... but still. What should a linux developer use for his apps? Gnome? Kde? All? How do you pick?
I'm also not saying that Apple isn't being a bully.. I'm not speaking as to whether, legally, they have a leg to stand on with their 'look and feel' stuff.
What I'm saying is that I agree wtih the concept that certain things, if dicatated properly, should be controlled centrally. If they say these are the widgets you should use for writing apps, it keeps the playing field level and fair. Apple doesn't hide things from you, or keep some secret for themselves so they can make better apps than you.. that's Microsoft's ballgame...The devloper kits are free.. and Apple has a very good GUI.
To the guy who talks about apple telling people to upgrade their apps to the new OS for the new hardware? GOOD. Otherwise, you end up with the god-awful mess we have with windows, where nobody is sure exactly what will run where.. or exactly what a new upgrade will do to their application.
And if you use their API's, such requests are easy.
If apple can exert a bit of pressure, no matter which way, and get people to stick to the same desktop interface.. good for them.
As I said.. I'm not knocking it. Sure... gnome or kde are decent desktops. Sure they are. But they are not A STANDARD. There are TOO MANY STANDARDS for unix.. and that's why the desktop is just not as friendly as it could be. Sure... gnome is great.. but does *everyone* write gnome apps? No, hardly. Same for kde.
I'm not saying a particular desktop is no good.. only that, in general, there is no proper standardization. There are plenty available, yes.. but the community does not agree.
Anyone online... I've seen people paying each other via paypal... websites taking fees...
Online Casinos & Sportsbooks, for sure, use paypal a great deal now.
Paypal is in a position that previous to the net, only banks & amex, visa, & Mastercard occupied: they are acting successfully as a financial transaction broker.
In some cases, the private owners of a company want to GET OUT. They have a successful business, but they don't want to run it their whole lives.. they want to move on. SO.. they sell it.
You can either sell the company privately... or.. PUBLICLY.. which means an IPO.
And an IPO is generally more profitable.
Doing an IPO so you can get money so you can build a dotcom is one thing.. going public when you have a company that's actually worth something is a different matter.
Or javascript... but noting is stopping a proxy from making them THINK they downloaded it, but block it.
Really... you know... who cares.
Sites that are *free*, that don't use my content or efforts to make the site work (as opposed to say, napster or CDDB or slashdot...)... I couldn't care less if they put up banners, or want to 'force' me to read their banners.
For the most part, I don't *care* if there is a simple, normal banner (a-la slashdot). They don't bother me one bit.
I vote with my money...
And you know what else? Those x-10 pop-under ads? As much as they annoyed me.. they DO Make me want to go buy some of those cameras..
You know.. some things just don't work that well in an anarchy. Witness the failure of the unix desktop. Now.. I'm not slamming it, or trolling, I use it every day, and have for years... but unix still lacks a coherent desktop, even one as poor as Windows has. Why? Because nobody dictates what anyone else has to use. Now.. I'm not a fan of dictatorship.. however...
Apple has a point. They have *always* insisted on using proper API's for the Mac. Why? Because it ensure things WORK, and ensures they can bring out future versions of their OS without breaking stuff. IT's a GOOD thing.
Unlike MS, they don't use their proprietary widgets to corner the application market; the information on how to use them is free to all, no royalties.... no licenses (afiak).. nothing.
All they insist upon is that you use them. AND YOU SHOULD.
You do good on the soapbox.. feel free to borrow it anytime!
It strikes me as odd, sometimes, how little people understand their rights as far as returning products.
As far as the law goes (in general, dunno about each state)... a store is not really required to have ANY return policy. A sale is a sale is a sale.. with the following exception:
A product must be fit for purposes sold.. there cannot be deception. If the salesman tells you 'this pipe-bender, sir, can bend pipe up to 3/4 inch thick' and you try, and it can't.. then they MUST take it back, as they sold it fraudulently. Similarly, with software....
If a store clerk tells you 'Sir, this works under windows 2000' and it doesn't.. they MUST take it back, they have no choice.
But as for stores simply accepting returns.. it's really a courtesy that they do so at all, in order to please their customers. They could quite legally say 'All sales are final', and as long as they don't deceive people.... not have to take returns, ever.
I just meant, the danger associated with hydrogen is generally due to the Hindenberg disaster.. which was not caused by the use of hydrogen. Sure, the H2 burned.. and fueled the fire.. but it was not the cause of the disaster.
What do you mean, coating the skin would encourage piercing? It was coated in a paint that contained, amongh other things, aluminum powder (sorry, not oxide.. my bad).. in order to reflect sunlight to keep the gas inside from expanding too much.
the hydrogen most definately burned.. that's not the issue..
But the reason the whole things started is now thought to be due to the coating on the skin... not the hydrogen itself.
Spark ignites skin, which caused flame to literally rip across the surface of the craft from end to end (would burn similar to free gunpowder.. like a fuse). This ruptured and ignited the inner cells of hydrogen eventually, of course.
The hour long episode on Discovery seemed rather concise and definite. They tested a sample of the hindenberg covering.. they checked the formula used... etc.
It's not an urban myth.
As for diesel.. the diesel fuel is at the *bottom* of the ship.. nowehre near where the huge, orange flames were shooting from.
I'm not saying Hydrogen can't explode.. it certainly does. But the Hindenberg didn't explode. It burned.
Hydrogen is no more dangerous... probably LESS dangerous than a normal fuel tank or propane tank or.. the gas pipe coming in to your house.
It is NOT a higly volatile chemical... it just burns when it reaches the correct fuel/air mixture, like anything else.
Yes, Hydrogen can burn, when it reaches appropriate fuel/air mixture.. just like many other chemicals.
Propane or Natural gas are more dangerous than hydrogen.
Everyone thinks hydrogen is severely dangerous because of the Hindenberg disaster... which modern science attributes NOT to the hydrogen in the blimp.. but to the canvas covering of the ship that was, unbeknownst to them at the time, coated in a reflective paint made of SOLID ROCKET FUEL (they did not know that aluminum-oxide and some other chemicals were explosive)
The hindenberg got screwed up because a spark ignited the coating... which quickly spread across the whole ship.
Another fact.. people report seeing huge orange flames billowing from it.. but hydrogen burns as an almost invisible blue flame.... of course, the hydrogen added to the fire... but wasn't the cause.
Uhh.. Dmitry was prosecuted because some companies complained about it.
If Record Copmanies don't complain.. I'd think nobody can charge you with a violation. (If those who hold the copyright choose not to complain, they are, in effect, giving you 'permission' to copy it. IT' sup to them whether they want to let you do it, or have you charged. Please don't read that sentence the wrong way, though)
If your website is important to your business, and is hosted somewhere, then by definition, the financial stability of that 'somewhere' is something you have to pay attention to.
Just as with manufacturing, where not only do you source your parts, but you find a second-source for them as well, and also verify that THOSE sources are not using the same supplier... etc, etc. You find two sources that are as independent as possible, even going out to making sure the raw materials are coming from different parts of the world. Why? So a disaster somewhere along the line doesn't stop your business.
Running a website is no different. You need to be able to move to a new location, or even have a second location set up already, in case of a problem.
TCP is designed to deal with loss, yes, but only loss due to congestion. When it encounters loss, it backs off. The problem is, if you get loss due to some other reason, like radio noise or a faulty unit, where congestion isn't the cause, tcp will just keep slowing down trying to fix the problem, when in fact, the best solution would be to just keep retrying without changing parameters.
UDP, on the other hand.. just means they didn't want to rely on TCP's flow control. UDP does have error checking; there is a checksum in the IP header.
It doesn't mean there is necessarily no error chekcing or retransmission.. it just means they did it their own way. OF course, I have no idea how the Everquest protocol actually works...
And, although I can't speak to licencing issues...
When I buy the win2k kit at London Drugs.... I *OWN* the media, books, everything else I just purchased. The clickwrap 'license' only appears when I use it.
Ergo.. I have a de-facto right to RE-SELL what I initially purchased.
Right.
But I walk into a store, And I *purchase* something from them. Nobody tells me about any 'licence', and nobody tells me anything otherwise. I take the item I'm buying to the cashier, and give her/him money, and they give me my receipt for my purchase, and my product.
Then AFTER I open it up.. I get this 'click here to say you agree to these terms to continue'...
Of course, the store has a 'no refunds on open software' policy...
Software contracts regarding the original purchase & support & software for that Cray were not shrinkwrapped click-through agreements sold in a box at computer-city. They were agreed to by lawyers, principals of the university, accountants, etc.. there were negotiations, and a contract was agreed upon for the use of the software.
This is what MS is trying to claim happens when you walk into the store and buy MS Windows.
The problem is... although the contract might be there.. the perception to joe average is that he bought a product off the shelf.. and the click-through is really deceptive.
To Microsoft, you are not 'purchasing' a product. You are *licencing* software. This is fundamentally different than buying a car, or a book, or anything else, where there is a definite product. This is how they try to tell you you can't re-sell it.
Now.. the problem is, according to the average consumer.. it LOOKS like a product, you can walk into the store and buy it off the shelf.. there are no negotiations, no lawyers involved... just a click-wrap agreement that we all know nobody reads.
Stores *Treat* it like a product.....
This doesn't put a different spin on events.. it's all interpretation.
I don't knwo what really happened.. but what I recall reading was that:
He HAD access to the site.. he was working on some stuff for them.
He discovered he had access to MUCH MORE than he should have, which he tested by downloading a couple files he shouldn't have.
He told them about it.
They called the Cops/FBI/whatever...
He got arrested.
He *DID* knowingly download something he knew he wasn't supposed to have access to.. so it IS a crime.. however... where did he get the password?
This is interesting.
In Canada, the board of directors will be held personally liable for employee wages, if they aren't paid. I don't know if this follows for all creditors (I doubt it... otherwise what's the point of incorporating).. but wages, definately. The employee is #1.. they are the first-paid creditor.
As for taking equipment for wages owed.... it IS theft... that's something for a bankrupcy court to decide.. but I have trouble seeing it as 'wrong'.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. You can. I'm not trying to take that away from you.
I'm just pointing out... that the very freedom you talk about is why every unix desktop app doesn't work with every other one, why drag and drop doesn't work as transparently and full-featured as it does on windows or a mac, and why we have so many different desktop standards, and hence, why potential developers are wary of using anything but good old Xlib.
I'm not saying we should abandan this freedom.. it's great.. it's what it's all about... but there are consequences as far as marketability. Linux doesn't exist to be marketed... that's the difference between Linux and OS-X. Apple needs to market it, which means they need to be more careful. They hae to be accountable.
I'm not saying that Gnome or KDE or (insert new desktop project here) sucks, or that it's not good enough. I use both, and they are fantastic. Yes, you can get your users to use them. They are good.
But there is still too much variation in the unix world for the desktop to be truly standard. Yes, there are lots of great potential standards.. but the community at-large doesn't pick one. I mean.. in linux, it looks like gnome will be it eventually, maybe... but still. What should a linux developer use for his apps? Gnome? Kde? All? How do you pick?
I'm also not saying that Apple isn't being a bully.. I'm not speaking as to whether, legally, they have a leg to stand on with their 'look and feel' stuff.
What I'm saying is that I agree wtih the concept that certain things, if dicatated properly, should be controlled centrally. If they say these are the widgets you should use for writing apps, it keeps the playing field level and fair. Apple doesn't hide things from you, or keep some secret for themselves so they can make better apps than you.. that's Microsoft's ballgame...The devloper kits are free.. and Apple has a very good GUI.
To the guy who talks about apple telling people to upgrade their apps to the new OS for the new hardware? GOOD. Otherwise, you end up with the god-awful mess we have with windows, where nobody is sure exactly what will run where.. or exactly what a new upgrade will do to their application.
And if you use their API's, such requests are easy.
If apple can exert a bit of pressure, no matter which way, and get people to stick to the same desktop interface.. good for them.
As I said.. I'm not knocking it. Sure... gnome or kde are decent desktops. Sure they are. But they are not A STANDARD. There are TOO MANY STANDARDS for unix.. and that's why the desktop is just not as friendly as it could be. Sure... gnome is great.. but does *everyone* write gnome apps? No, hardly. Same for kde.
I'm not saying a particular desktop is no good.. only that, in general, there is no proper standardization. There are plenty available, yes.. but the community does not agree.
Anyone online... I've seen people paying each other via paypal... websites taking fees...
Online Casinos & Sportsbooks, for sure, use paypal a great deal now.
Paypal is in a position that previous to the net, only banks & amex, visa, & Mastercard occupied: they are acting successfully as a financial transaction broker.
In some cases, the private owners of a company want to GET OUT. They have a successful business, but they don't want to run it their whole lives.. they want to move on. SO.. they sell it.
You can either sell the company privately... or.. PUBLICLY.. which means an IPO.
And an IPO is generally more profitable.
Doing an IPO so you can get money so you can build a dotcom is one thing.. going public when you have a company that's actually worth something is a different matter.
Or javascript... but noting is stopping a proxy from making them THINK they downloaded it, but block it.
Really... you know... who cares.
Sites that are *free*, that don't use my content or efforts to make the site work (as opposed to say, napster or CDDB or slashdot...)... I couldn't care less if they put up banners, or want to 'force' me to read their banners.
For the most part, I don't *care* if there is a simple, normal banner (a-la slashdot). They don't bother me one bit.
I vote with my money...
And you know what else? Those x-10 pop-under ads? As much as they annoyed me.. they DO Make me want to go buy some of those cameras..
You know.. some things just don't work that well in an anarchy. Witness the failure of the unix desktop. Now.. I'm not slamming it, or trolling, I use it every day, and have for years... but unix still lacks a coherent desktop, even one as poor as Windows has. Why? Because nobody dictates what anyone else has to use. Now.. I'm not a fan of dictatorship.. however...
Apple has a point. They have *always* insisted on using proper API's for the Mac. Why? Because it ensure things WORK, and ensures they can bring out future versions of their OS without breaking stuff. IT's a GOOD thing.
Unlike MS, they don't use their proprietary widgets to corner the application market; the information on how to use them is free to all, no royalties.... no licenses (afiak).. nothing.
All they insist upon is that you use them. AND YOU SHOULD.
You do good on the soapbox.. feel free to borrow it anytime!
It strikes me as odd, sometimes, how little people understand their rights as far as returning products.
As far as the law goes (in general, dunno about each state)... a store is not really required to have ANY return policy. A sale is a sale is a sale.. with the following exception:
A product must be fit for purposes sold.. there cannot be deception. If the salesman tells you 'this pipe-bender, sir, can bend pipe up to 3/4 inch thick' and you try, and it can't.. then they MUST take it back, as they sold it fraudulently. Similarly, with software....
If a store clerk tells you 'Sir, this works under windows 2000' and it doesn't.. they MUST take it back, they have no choice.
But as for stores simply accepting returns.. it's really a courtesy that they do so at all, in order to please their customers. They could quite legally say 'All sales are final', and as long as they don't deceive people.... not have to take returns, ever.
Sorry. Did I say it was an explosion?
I just meant, the danger associated with hydrogen is generally due to the Hindenberg disaster.. which was not caused by the use of hydrogen. Sure, the H2 burned.. and fueled the fire.. but it was not the cause of the disaster.
What do you mean, coating the skin would encourage piercing? It was coated in a paint that contained, amongh other things, aluminum powder (sorry, not oxide.. my bad).. in order to reflect sunlight to keep the gas inside from expanding too much.
Umm....
no.
the hydrogen most definately burned.. that's not the issue..
But the reason the whole things started is now thought to be due to the coating on the skin... not the hydrogen itself.
Spark ignites skin, which caused flame to literally rip across the surface of the craft from end to end (would burn similar to free gunpowder.. like a fuse). This ruptured and ignited the inner cells of hydrogen eventually, of course.
The hour long episode on Discovery seemed rather concise and definite. They tested a sample of the hindenberg covering.. they checked the formula used... etc.
It's not an urban myth.
As for diesel.. the diesel fuel is at the *bottom* of the ship.. nowehre near where the huge, orange flames were shooting from.
I'm not saying Hydrogen can't explode.. it certainly does. But the Hindenberg didn't explode. It burned.
Hydrogen is no more dangerous... probably LESS dangerous than a normal fuel tank or propane tank or.. the gas pipe coming in to your house.
It is NOT a higly volatile chemical... it just burns when it reaches the correct fuel/air mixture, like anything else.
Why do people think hydrogen is so dangerous?
Yes, Hydrogen can burn, when it reaches appropriate fuel/air mixture.. just like many other chemicals.
Propane or Natural gas are more dangerous than hydrogen.
Everyone thinks hydrogen is severely dangerous because of the Hindenberg disaster... which modern science attributes NOT to the hydrogen in the blimp.. but to the canvas covering of the ship that was, unbeknownst to them at the time, coated in a reflective paint made of SOLID ROCKET FUEL (they did not know that aluminum-oxide and some other chemicals were explosive)
The hindenberg got screwed up because a spark ignited the coating... which quickly spread across the whole ship.
Another fact.. people report seeing huge orange flames billowing from it.. but hydrogen burns as an almost invisible blue flame.... of course, the hydrogen added to the fire... but wasn't the cause.
Profits are not affected by share price. it's the other way around..
Uhh.. Dmitry was prosecuted because some companies complained about it.
If Record Copmanies don't complain.. I'd think nobody can charge you with a violation. (If those who hold the copyright choose not to complain, they are, in effect, giving you 'permission' to copy it. IT' sup to them whether they want to let you do it, or have you charged. Please don't read that sentence the wrong way, though)
If your website is important to your business, and is hosted somewhere, then by definition, the financial stability of that 'somewhere' is something you have to pay attention to.
Just as with manufacturing, where not only do you source your parts, but you find a second-source for them as well, and also verify that THOSE sources are not using the same supplier... etc, etc. You find two sources that are as independent as possible, even going out to making sure the raw materials are coming from different parts of the world. Why? So a disaster somewhere along the line doesn't stop your business.
Running a website is no different. You need to be able to move to a new location, or even have a second location set up already, in case of a problem.
TCP is designed to deal with loss, yes, but only loss due to congestion. When it encounters loss, it backs off. The problem is, if you get loss due to some other reason, like radio noise or a faulty unit, where congestion isn't the cause, tcp will just keep slowing down trying to fix the problem, when in fact, the best solution would be to just keep retrying without changing parameters.
UDP, on the other hand.. just means they didn't want to rely on TCP's flow control. UDP does have error checking; there is a checksum in the IP header.
It doesn't mean there is necessarily no error chekcing or retransmission.. it just means they did it their own way. OF course, I have no idea how the Everquest protocol actually works...
And, although I can't speak to licencing issues...
When I buy the win2k kit at London Drugs.... I *OWN* the media, books, everything else I just purchased. The clickwrap 'license' only appears when I use it.
Ergo.. I have a de-facto right to RE-SELL what I initially purchased.
Right.
But I walk into a store, And I *purchase* something from them. Nobody tells me about any 'licence', and nobody tells me anything otherwise. I take the item I'm buying to the cashier, and give her/him money, and they give me my receipt for my purchase, and my product.
Then AFTER I open it up.. I get this 'click here to say you agree to these terms to continue'...
Of course, the store has a 'no refunds on open software' policy...
So I'm fucked.
Software contracts regarding the original purchase & support & software for that Cray were not shrinkwrapped click-through agreements sold in a box at computer-city. They were agreed to by lawyers, principals of the university, accountants, etc.. there were negotiations, and a contract was agreed upon for the use of the software.
This is what MS is trying to claim happens when you walk into the store and buy MS Windows.
The problem is... although the contract might be there.. the perception to joe average is that he bought a product off the shelf.. and the click-through is really deceptive.
And here's the root of the problem.
To Microsoft, you are not 'purchasing' a product. You are *licencing* software. This is fundamentally different than buying a car, or a book, or anything else, where there is a definite product. This is how they try to tell you you can't re-sell it.
Now.. the problem is, according to the average consumer.. it LOOKS like a product, you can walk into the store and buy it off the shelf.. there are no negotiations, no lawyers involved... just a click-wrap agreement that we all know nobody reads.
Stores *Treat* it like a product.....
So it's a deception.
I desreve to be modded down. I didn't read the article fully. He deserves what he gets.
This doesn't put a different spin on events.. it's all interpretation.
I don't knwo what really happened.. but what I recall reading was that:
He HAD access to the site.. he was working on some stuff for them.
He discovered he had access to MUCH MORE than he should have, which he tested by downloading a couple files he shouldn't have.
He told them about it.
They called the Cops/FBI/whatever...
He got arrested.
He *DID* knowingly download something he knew he wasn't supposed to have access to.. so it IS a crime.. however... where did he get the password?
Actually.... the phone book IS under copyright. Databases made up of individual non-copyrightable information can still be copywritten.
A struct is NOT just 'a list of things'. It's source code.
You cannot take a phone book, copy it, and sell your own phone book.. it's a violation of copyright.
This is interesting.
In Canada, the board of directors will be held personally liable for employee wages, if they aren't paid. I don't know if this follows for all creditors (I doubt it... otherwise what's the point of incorporating).. but wages, definately. The employee is #1.. they are the first-paid creditor.
As for taking equipment for wages owed.... it IS theft... that's something for a bankrupcy court to decide.. but I have trouble seeing it as 'wrong'.