It seems to me that the author of the cited article as well as the referenced publication are missing a few salient facts.
1). In the US anyway all treaties must be ratified by Congress. It's specified as such in the US Constitution. Anything WIPO does cannot have force of law in the US without ratification by the US Congress. The last time I looked the US Congress was both accountable and elected.
2). The article clearly states that the WIPO treaty does not override national laws.
Any way you look at it, seasoned perl programmers can produce more usable code in a shorter time than seasoned java programmers. At least when it comes to server side apps.
Usable? Maybe. Scalable, readable, documentable, maintainable, re-usable? Nope. No Way. Not even close. You might get your project up faster with Perl. But that first significant functional change, or site redesign will leave the Perl programmer with a mass of spaghetti code, and trailing far behind the Java based site in cost.
And performance? Not bloody likely. Just loading commonly used data into a servlet context, or pooling database connections guarantees Java will stomp all over Perl in server side performance.
Perl is a shell scripting tool on steroids. It's great for that application. It should never be used for server side programming.
Perhaps it seemed like there wasn't much because you only looked at the reloaded section?
I looked around, but I didn't get much past the home page because of the crummy navigation and heavy use of plugins. If this is better than most movie sites, than the genre as a whole is very lacking.
Criminy, that was one of the worst web sites I've seen.
Marketting seems to have devolved to pretty pictures, and has nothing to do with useful information.
Well, get a clue - the reason I buy something is because I have some information that makes me believe that my life will be improved in some fashion as a result of the purchase. This site does nothing to give me the information I need to make a purchase decision. And NO, I am NOT going to download 5 plug-ins either!
Sure, the record companies are ripping off the artists. But isn't that exactly what happens with filesharing, only more so? How does that make filesharing acceptable? To me it looks like people engaging in filesharing are just as bad, if not worse than the record labels. And hypocritical about it too. After all, at least the artists can try to negotiate with the record labels (as this article describes). Not mention that the artists are free to set up a co-operative or their own labels, or whatever. Of course the filesharers will just rip the product of the cooperative too.
Now, I value my right to free speach as much as you, but I don't feel I have the right to critisize the Chinese way of doing things. After all, China is the oldest state in the world -- they must have been doing something right.
That is totally ridiculous. China has a horrible human rights record; every person on the planet should criticize them for the way they treat their own citizens. The fact is that nations that do not grant their citizens basic human rights need to be pulled down for the simple reason that as human beings we all share a common responsibility for the welfare of our fellow man.
So, let me get this straight: Microsoft leveraged their power for "good", while the others all fell down and capitulated to the Chinese government to get the easy money... what is that telling us...
It's telling us that Microsoft is more powerful than even governments. As far as leverging it's power for good. NAH, it leveraged it's power to protect it's self interest.
It is quite possible to have a non-capitalist democracy and a capitalist dictatorship.
I don't buy it. A non-capitalist democracy requires centralized control of the economy. This means that the individual has no say in the function of the economic system. This is fundamentally opposite to the principal of democracy.
A capitalist dictatorship is also a self-contradiction. A dictatorship means rule of man instead of rule of law. This means the invisible hand of the market cannot operate.
The reason the Wright brothers are given the credit for the first real heavier than air aircraft is because their design principles turned out to be scalable - they were able to take the Flyer and turn it into an airplane capable of sustained, controllable flight. None of the other designs were capable of being turned into something that was really usable for more than a flight of a few seconds.
We are approaching the end of Moore's law for silicon
Based on what? We have seen plenty of reports of technologies that are in real development that will keep Moore's 'Law' valid for at least another 10 years.
Re:Good for some, nightmare for others
on
Peek-a-Boo(ty)
·
· Score: 2
TExplain to the workers that if you see them with porn there will be meetings on the problem.
Unfortuantely merely having a policy is not enough. You also must enforce it to protect yourself against lawsuits.
Re:Good for some, nightmare for others
on
Peek-a-Boo(ty)
·
· Score: 2
I could care less if my employees look at porn as long as no one complains
I guess you haven't been sued under the "creating a hostile work environment" sexual harrasment theory. Yet.
Personally I could care less what my employees do so long as they produce. However the governement makes me liable for certain on the job employee activities. Unfortunately that mean I have to keep a lid on things.
The first powered flight was conducted by John Stringfellow in 1848, more than 50 years before the Wright Bros. And well before other claimants light Pearse and Adler.
Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more.
Costs more, or costs more per shot? Missles may be less per weapon, but presumably a laser could be reused. There is the prospect that this is merely the first implementation, and as such the likelihood of major improvement is large.
In addition there is the prospect that R&D into lasers could benefit other, peaceful uses as well. After all, improvements in laser power handling could translate into many other uses.
Like it or not, much of the technical progress that we have enjoyed since WWII has come out of R&D originally targeted for military applications. Hell, the first electronic computer was first built for a military application.
To me, R&D into lasers, even if the initial justification is a military use seems like one of the best uses of tax dollars that one could concieve of.
But Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to Compaq et al to make their PC clones.
Hmmm... Microsoft did not have an exclusive ownership to "DOS" at that time. They bought a license to something called QDOS from Seattle Computing, and resold it to IBM in one of the greatest coups in history. IBM then customized it, and supplied it with their PC's as IBM PC-DOS. One of the burning questions at the time was whether you were better off running PC-DOS or MS-DOS on your clone system. Many people I knew preferred PC-DOS.
Seattle Computing still held a license to QDOS, so it would have been quite possible for Compaq to go to Seattle Computing as well.
The fact of the matter is that without the deal with IBM to supply DOS for the PC, Microsoft would probably have been a low-end language shop that petered out around 1984 or so. IBM made Microsoft, but unfortunately did not have the corporate vision to keep the evil genie in the bottle.
The day Gary Kildall went flying is the saddest day in the history of the computer industry.
Um, hello? Did you buy a Microsoft Presario? It sounds like Compaq bent you over and now you want sympathy on/. for it by complaining about M$.
I didn't buy it - my employer did. Like most companies they feel some crazy need to kowtow to MS. Personally I find I can do everything I need to without paying a fee to MS. Except perhaps buy a computer without MS installed on it - and if this digital content protection stuff goes any farther, it may well become illegal to buy and run a computer without MS Windows installed on it.
As far as the Microsoft Presario, it might as well be. Microsoft is the one that sets the licensing terms - they won't even let the OEM change the layout of icons on the desktop. Compaq and so on are stuck with whatever MS demands of them.
I really am amazed by the level of Microsoft Love that is surfacing on/. Criminy, some of the more recent posts have made comments like "Microsoft Popularized the PC" BULLSHIT. It was IBM that developed and standardized the PC. Compaq had MUCH more to do with popularizing the PC via the clones they produced than Microsoft ever did.
All Microsoft did was stamp out all their competition from the early days of the PC. Now the are trying to rewrite history - 'Microsoft invented the internet' (yes there are people who believe that) and 'Microsoft invented the GUI'. Makes me feel like upchucking.
Now that Microsoft has all their desktop competition stamped out, and the DOJ put to bed they are turning the screws with XP. Soon Hailstorm will kick in and you won't be able to pay for anything on the Internet without MS getting a percentage.
I'm glad my kids are the ages they are now. I can see a future where every baby born is immediately signed up for Passport from which an annual MS Windows license fee is automatically deducted.
George Orwell may have been a few years early, and he didn't anticipate that it would be a corporation that would be watching.
A last year the company I work for bought a couple of Presarios with 4 GB drives. 1.5 of that rather limited space was set up as a recovery partion. While you did get a recovery CD, the first thing that the CD did was to install that recovery partition.
The fact is that Microsoft has a monopoly, and one of the first things that this means is that Microsoft can do whatever it wants to crew their customers.
In its early days, before Java use was as widespread as it is now, such 'protect the young' efforts were needed. Java's been around for a while now, and attempts by MS to do what they did before would run up against a Substantial installed base.
So, what's the reason for not opening these days?..
The same reason as before. J# and C# are essentially efforts by Microsoft to take over the same niche that is occupied by Java. If Microsoft could slap the Java logo on one of those products, Microsoft could still use it's market dominance to take over Java.
Re:Those opening paragraphs...
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 2
William Henry Gates arrived on the planet in 1951.
This is REALLY scary. According to Bill's bio on his home page, Bill was born on Oct 28, 1955. So if he arrived on the planet in 1951, he clearly learns to time travel some time in the future. Thus we have the spectre that Bill was working as early as 1951 with foreknowledge of the coming computer revolution to cement Microsoft's place as the dominant force in the PC revolution.
What chance does humankind have now? Are we truly DOOMED?
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that the author of the cited article as well as the referenced publication are missing a few salient facts.
1). In the US anyway all treaties must be ratified by Congress. It's specified as such in the US Constitution. Anything WIPO does cannot have force of law in the US without ratification by the US Congress. The last time I looked the US Congress was both accountable and elected.
2). The article clearly states that the WIPO treaty does not override national laws.
Any way you look at it, seasoned perl programmers can produce more usable code in a shorter time than seasoned java programmers. At least when it comes to server side apps.
Usable? Maybe. Scalable, readable, documentable, maintainable, re-usable? Nope. No Way. Not even close. You might get your project up faster with Perl. But that first significant functional change, or site redesign will leave the Perl programmer with a mass of spaghetti code, and trailing far behind the Java based site in cost.
And performance? Not bloody likely. Just loading commonly used data into a servlet context, or pooling database connections guarantees Java will stomp all over Perl in server side performance.
Perl is a shell scripting tool on steroids. It's great for that application. It should never be used for server side programming.
I don't think of spreadsheet files as software, because you can't edit or execute a saved spreadsheet without it's associated application.
There are spreadsheet compilers around that can turn a spreadheet into a standalone application.
Most Java programs run in a virtual machine.
What is the difference? Not much that I can see.
Perhaps it seemed like there wasn't much because you only looked at the reloaded section?
I looked around, but I didn't get much past the home page because of the crummy navigation and heavy use of plugins. If this is better than most movie sites, than the genre as a whole is very lacking.
Pretty pictures does not equal usability.
Criminy, that was one of the worst web sites I've seen.
Marketting seems to have devolved to pretty pictures, and has nothing to do with useful information.
Well, get a clue - the reason I buy something is because I have some information that makes me believe that my life will be improved in some fashion as a result of the purchase. This site does nothing to give me the information I need to make a purchase decision. And NO, I am NOT going to download 5 plug-ins either!
Interesting that cnnfn reports today the significant media mergers are unlikely to actually occur due to financial problems in the industry.
i a/
http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/20/investing/q_med
When I download music from Napster/Gnutella for free, listen to it, and then buy CDs with the music I like, I'm helping the artist.
I think that the artists whose music you didn't buy would have a very different opinion about what you are doing.
Sure, the record companies are ripping off the artists. But isn't that exactly what happens with filesharing, only more so? How does that make filesharing acceptable? To me it looks like people engaging in filesharing are just as bad, if not worse than the record labels. And hypocritical about it too. After all, at least the artists can try to negotiate with the record labels (as this article describes). Not mention that the artists are free to set up a co-operative or their own labels, or whatever. Of course the filesharers will just rip the product of the cooperative too.
Now, I value my right to free speach as much as you, but I don't feel I have the right to critisize the Chinese way of doing things. After all, China is the oldest state in the world -- they must have been doing something right.
That is totally ridiculous. China has a horrible human rights record; every person on the planet should criticize them for the way they treat their own citizens. The fact is that nations that do not grant their citizens basic human rights need to be pulled down for the simple reason that as human beings we all share a common responsibility for the welfare of our fellow man.
So, let me get this straight: Microsoft leveraged their power for "good", while the others all fell down and capitulated to the Chinese government to get the easy money... what is that telling us...
It's telling us that Microsoft is more powerful than even governments. As far as leverging it's power for good. NAH, it leveraged it's power to protect it's self interest.
It is quite possible to have a non-capitalist democracy and a capitalist dictatorship.
I don't buy it. A non-capitalist democracy requires centralized control of the economy. This means that the individual has no say in the function of the economic system. This is fundamentally opposite to the principal of democracy.
A capitalist dictatorship is also a self-contradiction. A dictatorship means rule of man instead of rule of law. This means the invisible hand of the market cannot operate.
The reason the Wright brothers are given the credit for the first real heavier than air aircraft is because their design principles turned out to be scalable - they were able to take the Flyer and turn it into an airplane capable of sustained, controllable flight. None of the other designs were capable of being turned into something that was really usable for more than a flight of a few seconds.
We are approaching the end of Moore's law for silicon
Based on what? We have seen plenty of reports of technologies that are in real development that will keep Moore's 'Law' valid for at least another 10 years.
TExplain to the workers that if you see them with porn there will be meetings on the problem.
Unfortuantely merely having a policy is not enough. You also must enforce it to protect yourself against lawsuits.
I could care less if my employees look at porn as long as no one complains
I guess you haven't been sued under the "creating a hostile work environment" sexual harrasment theory. Yet.
Personally I could care less what my employees do so long as they produce. However the governement makes me liable for certain on the job employee activities. Unfortunately that mean I have to keep a lid on things.
The first powered flight was conducted by John Stringfellow in 1848, more than 50 years before the Wright Bros. And well before other claimants light Pearse and Adler.
s .h tml
http://www.somerset.zynet.co.uk/attract/char_mu
So there.
Give Me A Break. Richard Pearse says in his own letter that he never achieved true flight and that he did not beat the Wright brothers.
So essentially you are saying that we should use only the most efficient weapons to kill people?
Isn't that what war is all about?
That infers that we should only use nukes since they are by far the most efficient......
Actually nukes are extremely inefficient. They kill people, but unselectively, and they make the area around their deployment unusable.
If you are going to engage in war, you want to be efficient at it - just like in every other human endeavor.
Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more.
Costs more, or costs more per shot? Missles may be less per weapon, but presumably a laser could be reused. There is the prospect that this is merely the first implementation, and as such the likelihood of major improvement is large.
In addition there is the prospect that R&D into lasers could benefit other, peaceful uses as well. After all, improvements in laser power handling could translate into many other uses.
Like it or not, much of the technical progress that we have enjoyed since WWII has come out of R&D originally targeted for military applications. Hell, the first electronic computer was first built for a military application.
To me, R&D into lasers, even if the initial justification is a military use seems like one of the best uses of tax dollars that one could concieve of.
But Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to Compaq et al to make their PC clones.
Hmmm... Microsoft did not have an exclusive ownership to "DOS" at that time. They bought a license to something called QDOS from Seattle Computing, and resold it to IBM in one of the greatest coups in history. IBM then customized it, and supplied it with their PC's as IBM PC-DOS. One of the burning questions at the time was whether you were better off running PC-DOS or MS-DOS on your clone system. Many people I knew preferred PC-DOS.
Seattle Computing still held a license to QDOS, so it would have been quite possible for Compaq to go to Seattle Computing as well.
The fact of the matter is that without the deal with IBM to supply DOS for the PC, Microsoft would probably have been a low-end language shop that petered out around 1984 or so. IBM made Microsoft, but unfortunately did not have the corporate vision to keep the evil genie in the bottle.
The day Gary Kildall went flying is the saddest day in the history of the computer industry.
Um, hello? Did you buy a Microsoft Presario? It sounds like Compaq bent you over and now you want sympathy on /. for it by complaining about M$.
/. Criminy, some of the more recent posts have made comments like "Microsoft Popularized the PC" BULLSHIT. It was IBM that developed and standardized the PC. Compaq had MUCH more to do with popularizing the PC via the clones they produced than Microsoft ever did.
I didn't buy it - my employer did. Like most companies they feel some crazy need to kowtow to MS. Personally I find I can do everything I need to without paying a fee to MS. Except perhaps buy a computer without MS installed on it - and if this digital content protection stuff goes any farther, it may well become illegal to buy and run a computer without MS Windows installed on it.
As far as the Microsoft Presario, it might as well be. Microsoft is the one that sets the licensing terms - they won't even let the OEM change the layout of icons on the desktop. Compaq and so on are stuck with whatever MS demands of them.
I really am amazed by the level of Microsoft Love that is surfacing on
All Microsoft did was stamp out all their competition from the early days of the PC. Now the are trying to rewrite history - 'Microsoft invented the internet' (yes there are people who believe that) and 'Microsoft invented the GUI'. Makes me feel like upchucking.
Now that Microsoft has all their desktop competition stamped out, and the DOJ put to bed they are turning the screws with XP. Soon Hailstorm will kick in and you won't be able to pay for anything on the Internet without MS getting a percentage.
I'm glad my kids are the ages they are now. I can see a future where every baby born is immediately signed up for Passport from which an annual MS Windows license fee is automatically deducted.
George Orwell may have been a few years early, and he didn't anticipate that it would be a corporation that would be watching.
A last year the company I work for bought a couple of Presarios with 4 GB drives. 1.5 of that rather limited space was set up as a recovery partion. While you did get a recovery CD, the first thing that the CD did was to install that recovery partition.
The fact is that Microsoft has a monopoly, and one of the first things that this means is that Microsoft can do whatever it wants to crew their customers.
In its early days, before Java use was as widespread as it is now, such 'protect the young' efforts were needed. Java's been around for a while now, and attempts by MS to do what they did before would run up against a Substantial installed base.
So, what's the reason for not opening these days?..
The same reason as before. J# and C# are essentially efforts by Microsoft to take over the same niche that is occupied by Java. If Microsoft could slap the Java logo on one of those products, Microsoft could still use it's market dominance to take over Java.
William Henry Gates arrived on the planet in 1951.
This is REALLY scary. According to Bill's bio on his home page, Bill was born on Oct 28, 1955. So if he arrived on the planet in 1951, he clearly learns to time travel some time in the future. Thus we have the spectre that Bill was working as early as 1951 with foreknowledge of the coming computer revolution to cement Microsoft's place as the dominant force in the PC revolution.
What chance does humankind have now? Are we truly DOOMED?
the real reason that Microsoft dropped support for Java in XP was Sun's refusal to open up Java (as in "open to a standards body").
And why do you think Sun refused to submit Java to an open standards body? Can you say embrace, extend and extinguish?