Are you being serious?
1) Open Source has nothing to do with 'let's do everything over the internet'.
2) All OSS authors do not live in the US, believe it or not.
3) What's 'close door' about this? It's not like it's in remote Siberia. it's not like it's HARD to go to Europe...
4) Have you considered all the people in Europe who can't go to all the meetings in the US for the same reasons?
5) Have you considered that just *maybe* some in the open-source movement are tired of US capitalist attitudes, and find Europeans more open and accepting?
Is that linux isn't something that any of their traditional corporate methods of attack work on. You can't slander it, you can't sue it, you can't really do much of anything. You can get a bunch of people worked up and arguing over what's true and what's not, but none of that changes the development process... namely, people work on linux because they want to, not because of some corporaet reason. That won't change.
MS can bash it all they like... they are the ones wasting their energy.
1) Better scientists judge than polticians.
2) It's gonna happen ANYWAY, so deal with it.
People have the right to create life.
Don't take it so literally.
on
eWeek on Linux
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· Score: 2
The real point, and this has nothing really to do with technical issues...
When you are rolling out an application worth, say, a million dollars, and you have a multi-million dollar budget.. you don't fuck around. If Sun tells you 'we can spec teh equipment, install it, and it WILL work, adn our company will stand behind that 100%, and they have a PROVEN track record of such things.. THAT is a safe decision for a CTO guy.
If someone says 'Linux is reliable, lots of people use it.. blah-blah.. ' it's not the same thing.
If redhat were the size of sun, and was backing their distro, and their own hardware, then *maybe* it would be that way.
I'm referring to DVD as an example. Software that breaks it's encryption, to allow you to make a 'legal' copy under fair use is in itself illegal.. so there is no way to make a legal copy.
So rather than attack the right of people to record at home, they make it technically hard, then make it illegal to break that technology, effectively doing the same thing.
That's what I'm trying to say. This had little to do with DirecTV.
And how many of those users are doing anything serious? How many are deploying servers for business? On the Internet? How many are just sitting in their basement doing nothing?
Yeah, Linux has some huge numbers. I've been one of those numbers for almost 9 years.... but seriously.
The billion sheep who run linux because 'it's cool', well, who cares. I mean, it's great that they jumped off the windows bandwagon and are learning something else.. but they don't represent real business.
The point is, they should learn something outside of just 'linux linux linux'. Use those neurons to expand their horizons.
I mentioned Sol x86 because I doubted a lot of kids in their basements would have a sparc laying around... and sol x86 is basically free ($20).
Oh. And experience with it might really help them if they ever actually have to use solaris/sparc.
I'd go on a tear about the 'parents basement' thing.. but it's not worth it;)
Just because it's in a contract and has a signatuer does *NOT* mean, in any way, it's absolute. Not even close.
In your case, your heart-beating scenario wuold probably be illegal, as would a clause stating 'you must give us your firstborn child' or 'if you play for more than a year you must give us your house'. Neither is enforceable in any way whatsoever.
Now.. if lawyers, notaries, and witnesses were invovled, and it could be irrefutable that everyone understood all the terms of the contract in great detail before signging, and it wasn't signed under duress... that might be different. But that isn't the case here.
I could see it happening exactly as you say.
The real issue, though, is that there are not, and never have been, definitive laws saying what is allowed to have 'value' and what doesn't. Some people pay to get the shit beat out of them because it turns them on... to others, that would be almost criminal.
When you sell something in an online game to someone else, you are not selling 'property' in any strict sense of the word, and we should quit pretending it is. You are simply agereing to transfer control of something, be it an item in a game, or a character, or account, or whatever, to them.
In other words, it's all about selling control of data.
I personally think, with online games ilke, this, (the ones where you have to pay by the month, as well as for the game in the first place), they should *have* to guarantee fairness and consistency in their game, because yuo are PAYING them for it. It would be different if online play was free, like diablo... if diablo loses a character, i'll have trouble suing them over it.
Just my note to all those burgeoning 'linux admins' out there..... especially those who argue over what the 'best' distro is all the time, or what one they will use 'forever' or 'from now on'.
Some facts:
1) There have been several linux distros over the years, and have had a rise and fall (and rise and fall etc...) in popularity. lsl. mcc. slackware. debian. redhat. Suse. + all the spinoffs/oneoffs...
2) There's more to unix on the x86 than Linux... and more platforms than x86.
Now.. really, instead of all these efforts.. why not put some effort into some actual computing instead of arguing about what's a better distro, or tweaking your desktop for the 1000th time? Do a bit of code. Ever installed FreeBSD before? OpenBSD? NetBSD? Go scam a copy of Solaris x86 and learn what it's all about... I'm not saying any are as 'good' as linux at the things you probably expect them to be.. but...
What I'm saying is.. it seems to me a lot of pro-linux people nowadays are getting to be as bad as any other OS-worship crowd.. they paint themselves into a little corner instead of looking at computing in general. You think it's a big linux world.. but it's not.. there is a lot more out there.
Seriously... can't you already get pay-as-you-go phones without giving your name or anything else in the US? Because you can in Canada, or all of Europe, and probably most other places too. It's no big deal at all...
In Canada, the merchants still ask....
In Europe, you just buy what's called an 'open' gsm phone, and you put a phonecard in it.. a smartcard that has your phone# and stuff on it... and it's prepaid. You can buy cards anywhere.. and phoens anywhere... you can keep the same number, or just buy a new one whenever you want. No names are ever asked for... it's not relevant.
You can borrow someone's phone because yours got stepped on and as soon as you insert your card, it becomes your phone number... the phone is just an interface.
Most places in the world now, you can just go buy a pay-as-you-go cellphone for cheap, especially as far as drug-lord budgets go. And you don't have to give your name, at all.
In Canada, anyway, they will always ask for your name and address, but I told the guy 'It's pay as you go, yuo don't need to know', and he just put in 'john doe'.
And in Europe, where wireless is wayyy bigger, nobody ever even asks unless you want a contract... you walk into the store, pick a phone, and walk out 5 minutes later with a working phone and new phone number, and absolutely no record of who bought what.
Unions bad/good? It all depends.. they can be both.
What bothers me, these days, is how often a perfectly happy workplace is interrupted by 'outsider' union organizers who come in to try to convince the staff that they should unionize, under their guidance, because it will benefit them.
We aren't talking about several employees getting together and saying 'we need solidarity, so we can change things, because we don't like what's going on here', we're talking about outsiders coming in and brainwashing (or propagandizing) the staff into thinking that it's GOOD for them to unionize.
THAT is my problem with it...
If I ever own a shop, and people try to unionize, I *WILL* shut it down.
I'm anti-union, or at least, that's my stance. I've seen the crap they pull... but of course, I don't know everything.
Folks, Unionization in some trades is different than in others. In some trades, it can have a huge effect on the economy, in others, it doesn't.
For instance.... I would hate to be viewed as 'non-union' labour, just for offering my services. I don't want some union to turn into a monster that dictates (for the good of it's members) how and when and what those people are permitted to do for a living. I'm sorry.. that's not what it's supposed to be about.
Now.. if I look more at something like the union that, say, supermarket employees for a chain of supermarkets belong to, it makes more sense. The employees organize so they can have some muscle with the equally-organized company employing them.
If you work for a megacorp.. maybe this is what you want.
If you work for a dot-com startup with only a hundred or so employees, get real. You can organize your own revolt if you really want to.
1) If all programmers, as a union demanded that, tehre would be less programing jobs.
2) Tech companies screw employees usually only because the employees are young (or rather, if they were a little wiser, it wouldn't have happened).
3) Of course. Companies can always screw their employees. But I want to see big companies first. If MS Employees unionize, I can understand that. But I don't want to be labelled badly as 'non-union labor' just because I don't want to play in your club.
You know.. all too often, all the pro-union stuff sounds great at first. I mean, it does. Fairness across the board, benefits, etc.
I watched a supermarket go union. The promoters came in, and over a year and a bit, took a place where everyoen *liked* the boss, adn everyone was treated fairly, pretty much all would agree... and different people had different non-official benefits.. like the lady with her crazy sister who had to go take care of her all the time.. bos cut her LOTS of slack, gladly.. she was part of his community. Boss kept some peopel in who could only work a couple hours a week, because they tried, and needed the money. Boss did LOTS of things, like giving people extra days off, rewarding good work....
Once the union came in.. sure.. everyone got a little raise... the boss no longer had say in seniority, could no longer decide who or what should be in charge of what (not to the same degree anyway)... and.. no longe rhad the freedom to be generous with certain employees. Sorry... lady, yuo can't work enough hours. No job for you anymore...
Sorry billy.. you can't spend extra hours after work stocknig shelves.. you're a service clerk.. your contract says you can't do that unless I promote you adn give you a raise.. they say if I need shelves stocked, I should bring in a higher paid shelf stocker. I know you really simply want to work a few extra hours so you can save up to go to college.. but I'm sorry. The Union says no.
And now, everyone just bitches abou ttheir 'contract' instead of liking going to work every day, knowing that the owner of the shop, who is *responsible for the fact that everyone has a job there*, is their friend and respected community member. Now he is just 'management'.
Oh.. I'm not criticizing DirecTV whatsoever! What they did is commendable, for exactly the reasons you stated. They play the game right, they don't try to re-legislate it so that people get the death penalty for decrypting (so to speak).
I have no sympathy either for the hackers.... I'm not at all implying they have a 'right' to the TV broadcast... only implyign that they should be free to attempt to decrypt it if they want to.
Just like 'fair use' laws and copyright... see... what they've done is, insetad of making any and all copyign illegal, they simply said 'it's still legal', but managed to obscurely (at first) make it so that any technical means to defeat their encryption is illegal... which has the same effect as simply making copying illegal.
I think it's about time we had laws that actually state some things as irrevocably LEGAL, rather than simply the opposite.
I firmly believe that if you broadcast something on public airwaves, then you have no right to expect privacy. I *know* when I use my cordless phone that anyone who wants can listen in.
I also know that when I transmit cleartext data over the internet (like this slashdot post), it is going into a network that I have *no control* over, because I don't own it. I *assume* that someone is listening in. If I want nobody to listen to my conversations, I use encryption, hoping that deters them somewhat, though I'm still aware someone could be intercepting it and decrypting it if they are capable.
As for manipulation...
If I'm broadcasting through your network, and you want to sniff my info and manipulate/decrypt it, and there is no standing agreement that you won't ever do this... go right ahead. If you *DO* anything with that information outside your own brain/house.. THEN I'll have a problem with it, but not because you intercepted it.
I am not 'using' the public airwaves for anything. transmission is licensed.
I don't dispute that there are laws regarding crypted signals..
I'm saying that it's absurd that I am not permitted to, in my own home, receive a signal being broadcast to me and do *anything I want to it*.
1) yes. Actually, I am 100% allowed by law, in Canada, to listen to your analog cellular calls. Cellphone companies tried to change this, but the crtc was firm: you have no reasonable expectation of privacy by transmitting on public airwaves using standard modulation.
Now.. with Digital phones, and specifically, with Encryption this changes. Under Canadian law, encryption wrapping the conversation indicates that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and someone violating that woudl be violating your rights.
Note that the only reason it's protected is because it is encrypted AND because it is a conversation. Satellite broadcast is not the same thing.
Taking photographs, again. If what I see is visible from somewhere I'm legally allowed to be, I'm allowed to take photographs of it. I can photograph anything that can be seen from somewhere I'm allowed to be, especially a public street or my own property.
And regarding 'shotgun' mikes, it depends. If I can hear the conversation of you yelling at your wife, and I'm simply using the mike to amplify it, then I am within my rights to record it. If I can't hear you at all, and use the mike to snoop on you, then that's illegal, because you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Sorry... I have to draw a line here. Perhaps it's my Canadian blood talking.. but...
I respect that they put up the satellite, and started the TV service.. however....
THey are broadcasting signals over PUBLIC airspace, including INTO MY YARD. If I feel like putting up a dish to capture that signal and manipulate it *however I want* within my own property, that should be my absolute right (though the law may not agree). If they don't want me to receive the signal, don't broadcast it into my yard. PERIOD.
Both sides have to support it.
It doesn't increas bandwidth to one place, only across multiple hosts, as it uses the last 4 digits of a mac address to balance traffic over the ports.
it's good for a server on a lan.. if there's a router in front of it before anything else, you'll only end up using one port anyway.
Similar to EQL, but not the same. in EQL, you actually get double the throughput.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you being serious?
1) Open Source has nothing to do with 'let's do everything over the internet'.
2) All OSS authors do not live in the US, believe it or not.
3) What's 'close door' about this? It's not like it's in remote Siberia. it's not like it's HARD to go to Europe...
4) Have you considered all the people in Europe who can't go to all the meetings in the US for the same reasons?
5) Have you considered that just *maybe* some in the open-source movement are tired of US capitalist attitudes, and find Europeans more open and accepting?
Is that linux isn't something that any of their traditional corporate methods of attack work on. You can't slander it, you can't sue it, you can't really do much of anything. You can get a bunch of people worked up and arguing over what's true and what's not, but none of that changes the development process... namely, people work on linux because they want to, not because of some corporaet reason. That won't change.
MS can bash it all they like... they are the ones wasting their energy.
1) Better scientists judge than polticians.
2) It's gonna happen ANYWAY, so deal with it.
People have the right to create life.
The real point, and this has nothing really to do with technical issues...
When you are rolling out an application worth, say, a million dollars, and you have a multi-million dollar budget.. you don't fuck around. If Sun tells you 'we can spec teh equipment, install it, and it WILL work, adn our company will stand behind that 100%, and they have a PROVEN track record of such things.. THAT is a safe decision for a CTO guy.
If someone says 'Linux is reliable, lots of people use it.. blah-blah.. ' it's not the same thing.
If redhat were the size of sun, and was backing their distro, and their own hardware, then *maybe* it would be that way.
A couple months ago, I would have said you made all that up using big words...
But having just moved to Europe.. it's totally true!
What do you mean?
I'm referring to DVD as an example. Software that breaks it's encryption, to allow you to make a 'legal' copy under fair use is in itself illegal.. so there is no way to make a legal copy.
So rather than attack the right of people to record at home, they make it technically hard, then make it illegal to break that technology, effectively doing the same thing.
That's what I'm trying to say. This had little to do with DirecTV.
And how many of those users are doing anything serious? How many are deploying servers for business? On the Internet? How many are just sitting in their basement doing nothing?
Yeah, Linux has some huge numbers. I've been one of those numbers for almost 9 years.... but seriously.
The billion sheep who run linux because 'it's cool', well, who cares. I mean, it's great that they jumped off the windows bandwagon and are learning something else.. but they don't represent real business.
The point is, they should learn something outside of just 'linux linux linux'. Use those neurons to expand their horizons.
;)
I mentioned Sol x86 because I doubted a lot of kids in their basements would have a sparc laying around... and sol x86 is basically free ($20).
Oh. And experience with it might really help them if they ever actually have to use solaris/sparc.
I'd go on a tear about the 'parents basement' thing.. but it's not worth it
Just because it's in a contract and has a signatuer does *NOT* mean, in any way, it's absolute. Not even close.
In your case, your heart-beating scenario wuold probably be illegal, as would a clause stating 'you must give us your firstborn child' or 'if you play for more than a year you must give us your house'. Neither is enforceable in any way whatsoever.
Now.. if lawyers, notaries, and witnesses were invovled, and it could be irrefutable that everyone understood all the terms of the contract in great detail before signging, and it wasn't signed under duress... that might be different. But that isn't the case here.
I could see it happening exactly as you say.
The real issue, though, is that there are not, and never have been, definitive laws saying what is allowed to have 'value' and what doesn't. Some people pay to get the shit beat out of them because it turns them on... to others, that would be almost criminal.
When you sell something in an online game to someone else, you are not selling 'property' in any strict sense of the word, and we should quit pretending it is. You are simply agereing to transfer control of something, be it an item in a game, or a character, or account, or whatever, to them.
In other words, it's all about selling control of data.
I personally think, with online games ilke, this, (the ones where you have to pay by the month, as well as for the game in the first place), they should *have* to guarantee fairness and consistency in their game, because yuo are PAYING them for it. It would be different if online play was free, like diablo... if diablo loses a character, i'll have trouble suing them over it.
The kernel is GPL.. so..
The developers work with linus' version of the tree by choice. What else is there to say?
Anyone doesn't like it, they are free to do their own thing.
Just my note to all those burgeoning 'linux admins' out there..... especially those who argue over what the 'best' distro is all the time, or what one they will use 'forever' or 'from now on'.
Some facts:
1) There have been several linux distros over the years, and have had a rise and fall (and rise and fall etc...) in popularity. lsl. mcc. slackware. debian. redhat. Suse. + all the spinoffs/oneoffs...
2) There's more to unix on the x86 than Linux... and more platforms than x86.
Now.. really, instead of all these efforts.. why not put some effort into some actual computing instead of arguing about what's a better distro, or tweaking your desktop for the 1000th time? Do a bit of code. Ever installed FreeBSD before? OpenBSD? NetBSD? Go scam a copy of Solaris x86 and learn what it's all about... I'm not saying any are as 'good' as linux at the things you probably expect them to be.. but...
What I'm saying is.. it seems to me a lot of pro-linux people nowadays are getting to be as bad as any other OS-worship crowd.. they paint themselves into a little corner instead of looking at computing in general. You think it's a big linux world.. but it's not.. there is a lot more out there.
Seriously... can't you already get pay-as-you-go phones without giving your name or anything else in the US? Because you can in Canada, or all of Europe, and probably most other places too. It's no big deal at all...
In Canada, the merchants still ask....
In Europe, you just buy what's called an 'open' gsm phone, and you put a phonecard in it.. a smartcard that has your phone# and stuff on it... and it's prepaid. You can buy cards anywhere.. and phoens anywhere... you can keep the same number, or just buy a new one whenever you want. No names are ever asked for... it's not relevant.
You can borrow someone's phone because yours got stepped on and as soon as you insert your card, it becomes your phone number... the phone is just an interface.
Doesn't that make more sense?
I mean, is the US that paranoid? (yes)
Most places in the world now, you can just go buy a pay-as-you-go cellphone for cheap, especially as far as drug-lord budgets go. And you don't have to give your name, at all.
In Canada, anyway, they will always ask for your name and address, but I told the guy 'It's pay as you go, yuo don't need to know', and he just put in 'john doe'.
And in Europe, where wireless is wayyy bigger, nobody ever even asks unless you want a contract... you walk into the store, pick a phone, and walk out 5 minutes later with a working phone and new phone number, and absolutely no record of who bought what.
Unions bad/good? It all depends.. they can be both.
What bothers me, these days, is how often a perfectly happy workplace is interrupted by 'outsider' union organizers who come in to try to convince the staff that they should unionize, under their guidance, because it will benefit them.
We aren't talking about several employees getting together and saying 'we need solidarity, so we can change things, because we don't like what's going on here', we're talking about outsiders coming in and brainwashing (or propagandizing) the staff into thinking that it's GOOD for them to unionize.
THAT is my problem with it...
If I ever own a shop, and people try to unionize, I *WILL* shut it down.
I'm anti-union, or at least, that's my stance. I've seen the crap they pull... but of course, I don't know everything.
Folks, Unionization in some trades is different than in others. In some trades, it can have a huge effect on the economy, in others, it doesn't.
For instance.... I would hate to be viewed as 'non-union' labour, just for offering my services. I don't want some union to turn into a monster that dictates (for the good of it's members) how and when and what those people are permitted to do for a living. I'm sorry.. that's not what it's supposed to be about.
Now.. if I look more at something like the union that, say, supermarket employees for a chain of supermarkets belong to, it makes more sense. The employees organize so they can have some muscle with the equally-organized company employing them.
If you work for a megacorp.. maybe this is what you want.
If you work for a dot-com startup with only a hundred or so employees, get real. You can organize your own revolt if you really want to.
That goes absolutely both ways my friend...
Unions cross the line too.. you better believe it.
1) If all programmers, as a union demanded that, tehre would be less programing jobs.
2) Tech companies screw employees usually only because the employees are young (or rather, if they were a little wiser, it wouldn't have happened).
3) Of course. Companies can always screw their employees. But I want to see big companies first. If MS Employees unionize, I can understand that. But I don't want to be labelled badly as 'non-union labor' just because I don't want to play in your club.
You know.. all too often, all the pro-union stuff sounds great at first. I mean, it does. Fairness across the board, benefits, etc.
I watched a supermarket go union. The promoters came in, and over a year and a bit, took a place where everyoen *liked* the boss, adn everyone was treated fairly, pretty much all would agree... and different people had different non-official benefits.. like the lady with her crazy sister who had to go take care of her all the time.. bos cut her LOTS of slack, gladly.. she was part of his community. Boss kept some peopel in who could only work a couple hours a week, because they tried, and needed the money. Boss did LOTS of things, like giving people extra days off, rewarding good work....
Once the union came in.. sure.. everyone got a little raise... the boss no longer had say in seniority, could no longer decide who or what should be in charge of what (not to the same degree anyway)... and.. no longe rhad the freedom to be generous with certain employees. Sorry... lady, yuo can't work enough hours. No job for you anymore...
Sorry billy.. you can't spend extra hours after work stocknig shelves.. you're a service clerk.. your contract says you can't do that unless I promote you adn give you a raise.. they say if I need shelves stocked, I should bring in a higher paid shelf stocker. I know you really simply want to work a few extra hours so you can save up to go to college.. but I'm sorry. The Union says no.
And now, everyone just bitches abou ttheir 'contract' instead of liking going to work every day, knowing that the owner of the shop, who is *responsible for the fact that everyone has a job there*, is their friend and respected community member. Now he is just 'management'.
Tech union? no thanks.
Oh.. I'm not criticizing DirecTV whatsoever! What they did is commendable, for exactly the reasons you stated. They play the game right, they don't try to re-legislate it so that people get the death penalty for decrypting (so to speak).
I have no sympathy either for the hackers.... I'm not at all implying they have a 'right' to the TV broadcast... only implyign that they should be free to attempt to decrypt it if they want to.
Just like 'fair use' laws and copyright... see... what they've done is, insetad of making any and all copyign illegal, they simply said 'it's still legal', but managed to obscurely (at first) make it so that any technical means to defeat their encryption is illegal... which has the same effect as simply making copying illegal.
I think it's about time we had laws that actually state some things as irrevocably LEGAL, rather than simply the opposite.
Actually, no, I wouldn't care. Seriously.
I firmly believe that if you broadcast something on public airwaves, then you have no right to expect privacy. I *know* when I use my cordless phone that anyone who wants can listen in.
I also know that when I transmit cleartext data over the internet (like this slashdot post), it is going into a network that I have *no control* over, because I don't own it. I *assume* that someone is listening in. If I want nobody to listen to my conversations, I use encryption, hoping that deters them somewhat, though I'm still aware someone could be intercepting it and decrypting it if they are capable.
As for manipulation...
If I'm broadcasting through your network, and you want to sniff my info and manipulate/decrypt it, and there is no standing agreement that you won't ever do this... go right ahead. If you *DO* anything with that information outside your own brain/house.. THEN I'll have a problem with it, but not because you intercepted it.
No.. not the same thign as a public building.
I am not 'using' the public airwaves for anything. transmission is licensed.
I don't dispute that there are laws regarding crypted signals..
I'm saying that it's absurd that I am not permitted to, in my own home, receive a signal being broadcast to me and do *anything I want to it*.
Absolutely! NO argument here...
To answer your questions.
YES.
1) yes. Actually, I am 100% allowed by law, in Canada, to listen to your analog cellular calls. Cellphone companies tried to change this, but the crtc was firm: you have no reasonable expectation of privacy by transmitting on public airwaves using standard modulation.
Now.. with Digital phones, and specifically, with Encryption this changes. Under Canadian law, encryption wrapping the conversation indicates that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and someone violating that woudl be violating your rights.
Note that the only reason it's protected is because it is encrypted AND because it is a conversation. Satellite broadcast is not the same thing.
Taking photographs, again. If what I see is visible from somewhere I'm legally allowed to be, I'm allowed to take photographs of it. I can photograph anything that can be seen from somewhere I'm allowed to be, especially a public street or my own property.
And regarding 'shotgun' mikes, it depends. If I can hear the conversation of you yelling at your wife, and I'm simply using the mike to amplify it, then I am within my rights to record it. If I can't hear you at all, and use the mike to snoop on you, then that's illegal, because you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Sorry... I have to draw a line here. Perhaps it's my Canadian blood talking.. but...
I respect that they put up the satellite, and started the TV service.. however....
THey are broadcasting signals over PUBLIC airspace, including INTO MY YARD. If I feel like putting up a dish to capture that signal and manipulate it *however I want* within my own property, that should be my absolute right (though the law may not agree). If they don't want me to receive the signal, don't broadcast it into my yard. PERIOD.
THe airwaves are PUBLIC.
Both sides have to support it.
It doesn't increas bandwidth to one place, only across multiple hosts, as it uses the last 4 digits of a mac address to balance traffic over the ports.
it's good for a server on a lan.. if there's a router in front of it before anything else, you'll only end up using one port anyway.
Similar to EQL, but not the same. in EQL, you actually get double the throughput.