The reason Clinton can't get this passed is because Congress is controlled by the Republicans and the offer came from a Democrat.
Congress refusing this offer has nothing to do with the issues. It has everything to do with the upcoming Presidential election.
The Republicans have been spanked in the last two Presidential elections. The Democrats are sending out Gore as their champion - basically an incumbent. Granting Clinton anything at this stage would simply provide Gore with more ammo for the upcoming battle, and this is something the Republicans refuse to do. The Republicans do not want to give Gore any kind of momentum.
Let's keep in mind that the primary goal of the American politician is to get (re-)elected. That's it.
Actually, politicians only court the middle ground, with just a hint of a slant in either direction separating them. Its far too dangerous, politically, to embrace any kind of extreme.
For example, think about the current issues in the next election: abortion, gun control, crime, technology, or religion in schools. You'll note none of those are extremes likely shared by your peers.
Yet these are the issues that our politicians have chosen to emphasize. These are the issues that the average american does care about. People have killed over some of these issues.
The group that our politicians do not care about are the extremes. Why worry about the far right-wingers? They're too busy declaring their back-water town the "Independent United Nation of Rednecks" and the only vote they're interested in is the one that elects Billy Joe Bob as supreme commander.
Check the list of topics under the "Recent" heading on the right hand column of the Ars-Technica home page. That's where/. gets its list, not the current article headers.
I apologize for not being more clear regarding the use of Gnutella. I did not mean that it can be used to bypass any type of copy protection. What I meant was that there will always be effective means to distribute material. Back in the day, if I wanted to copy a tape, I had to trek over to my buddies place and borrow it. Now I can "visit" as many friends as I wish, never having to leave my desk.
As far as hardware level copy protection, I don't think the difficulty here would be implementing such a solution. I think the problem would be with getting anyone other than those with a vested interest in it to accept such restrictions. How many people are going to be willing to buy a new sound card just to be able to play the latest music format? Not me. And you'd have to forget about upgradeable firmware - somebody would just hack the copy protection out.
In short, I think its time for the music industry to take a look at how it does business at a fundamental level - all of the new laws are just fingers stuck in a leaky dam.
It seems to me that the music industry is trying to swim upstream - fighting a losing battle. They may have the strength of the legal system on their side, but what are the odds that they'll ever be able to shut down free music swapping? Back in high school, I'd just borrow somebody's tape and copy it. There's always a way around copy protection. Hence programs like Gnutella. And copying files is a whole lot easier and quicker than copying tapes.
If I were a musician, I'd like to see some kind of service where consumers could purchase my songs online for, say, $0.25 a shot. That's probably a whole lot more per track than they make off of current CD sales due to the incredible chunk the recording studios are taking off the top.
The SR-71 is a fabulous example of engineering for the task at hand. Friction against the atmosphere (even the thin atmosphere at 80,000 feet) causes so much heat that the plane actually grows by 6 inches during flight. The engineers at the ol' Skunk Works took this into consideration when designing it. As an unfortunate side-effect, the plane fits together so poorly when not in flight that it leaks fuel like a sieve on the runway!
I'm not sure, but even if they could they would have to make an awful big expenditure up front just for the right to stand pat on their right to publish rumors.
Through questionable marketing, Apple managed to turn one of the truly cool products of the 20th century into an also-ran. But Apple/Macintosh fans are rabid in their support. Why alienate this support base?
But I can't be sued by the person/entity that paid for my screenname unless what I said was also HARMFUL.
For instance, I can say the B. Gates is a fine, upstanding citizen who wouldn't dream of taking advantage of our legal/economic system. It isn't true, but he can't sue me for saying it because he hasn't been harmed by my statement.
It's an uphill battle to sue for liable (how many times has the National Enquirer gotten off?), and getting the name of the person you feel wronged you is just the first step.
Who says a program has to have a beginning and an end? Who says that because you write your program in an object-oriented language that it is no longer a program? Does this only occur once the source is compiled? Are you trying to create some distinction between an application a daemon and a program?
My point is that there should be nothing wrong with saying that computers run programs, whether that program was written in C++ or assembler, in 1950 or 1999. That's what they do! Before you say they don't, you ought to revisit the definition of a computer as well...
Hailing grandeous, sweeping paradigm shifts for entities like file storage and user interaction always strike me as being optomistic at best. Inevitably, the person on the soapbox doesn't have any tangible ideas of how to get from here to there, yet they are quite sure that these changes must be made.
At times like these, I feel like reminding that person of what computers have been, currently are, and for the foreseeable future will be used for by the average user: games and word processing. When slashdotters state why the average Joe can't move from Windows to Linux, it isn't because Linux doesn't represent enough of a philosophical change for them. It's because Linux can't run Microsoft Word and doesn't have enough games available.
People fear change. If Linux, BeOS, or some other as-of-yet unnamed operating system provided all of the things that our wonderful prognosticator deemed important, it would still not sell (until, of course, the model was embraced and extended by Windows).
50 years ago, people predicted flying cars, the elimination of disease, and world peace for the year 2000. It's great to predict, but in reality, the human race just doesn't change that quickly.
There are lots of sandwhich shops from which you can buy your lunch. However, there are only a few brands of potato chips available. Microsoft Chips are the most popular chips in the world.
Microsoft Chips signs deals with every major sandwhich chain in the world. This deal allows the individual sandwhich shops to buy Microsoft Chips at a great discount - but only if they agree to only: (1) sell sandwhiches packaged with Microsoft Chips (2) don't sell Microsoft Chips by themselves (3) don't sell sandwhiches by themselves (i.e. sans chips) (4) Never EVER sell any other brand of chip.
Personally, I'd rather pay a bit more and have a choice!
...If our political figureheads here in the US could understand this principle, rather than promoting the exact opposite by passing legislation like the DCMA. And what the hell is up with geographically locking DVDs? Don't get me started...
I must agree with a few other comments posted above as well: it looks like a European court can figure out simple things that we have such a hard time with here in the good 'ol US of A.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about games. If I want to play games, I'll wait for the PS2. And if some of the existing office suites can provide capable MS Office filters, then I can live without MS Office as well.
The one application I can't live without that only exists in the Windows universe right now is Quicken. Yeah, I know about Gnucash, or whatever they're calling it these days, but it has about 10% of the functionality of Quicken.
Make Quicken work in Linux and I'll never look back.
All this talk of "physical security" made me think of the movie Water World.
Picture a dozen Mad-Max looking dudes attacking this thing with Sea-Doo mounted rocket launchers. And the brave SeaWorld defenders are protecting free speach for the masses, instead of a tomatoe plant.
Don't forget the Pathfinder mission. Its hard to beat the ground-level 3-D color photos National Geographic published. And that little Sojourner was just way cool.
I would think that if one wanted public awareness increased, they would not hold demos in the most god-forsaken spots on earth. Maybe we can fly the channel 9 news chopper over there...
On a more positive note, I have to applaud any effort to get more space exploration going. The earth is pretty played out for explorers...
First of all, Disclaimer: IANAL. Now, on to the good stuff...
Sony is suing on the grounds of theft of intellectual property. They own the intellectual property required to write the emulator, and therefore can sit around writing emulators for their own stuff until the cows come home.
They are attempting to stop anyone who does not have license to use their intellectual property from doing the same.
I'm just waiting for someone to take a case like this and try the attractive nuisance approach.
The analogy here would be a swimming pool (your web page). If you have a swimming pool, and this swimming pool is protected by a gate, and the gate has a large sign saying "stay the heck out" and a neighborhood kid climbs your fence, jumps in your pool and drowns, you can be sued by the kid's parents. Your pool represented an attractive nuisance, an entity that wasn't dangerous in and of itself, but could be dangerous if used in an unsafe manner. As long as a kid can overcome your precautions, you are responsible for that kid's behavior. And what kid doesn't love a swimming pool?
In this case, the web site had minimal security, and some kid came along and used it for other than its intended purpose. But is the owner of the site still responsible for the consequences?
It doesn't sound like the bozo doing the suing is thinking of this ploy, but it will probably just be a matter of time...
Slashdot Mirror
Where would Linux be without GNU?
Congress refusing this offer has nothing to do with the issues. It has everything to do with the upcoming Presidential election.
The Republicans have been spanked in the last two Presidential elections. The Democrats are sending out Gore as their champion - basically an incumbent. Granting Clinton anything at this stage would simply provide Gore with more ammo for the upcoming battle, and this is something the Republicans refuse to do. The Republicans do not want to give Gore any kind of momentum.
Let's keep in mind that the primary goal of the American politician is to get (re-)elected. That's it.
For example, think about the current issues in the next election: abortion, gun control, crime, technology, or religion in schools. You'll note none of those are extremes likely shared by your peers.
Yet these are the issues that our politicians have chosen to emphasize. These are the issues that the average american does care about. People have killed over some of these issues.
The group that our politicians do not care about are the extremes. Why worry about the far right-wingers? They're too busy declaring their back-water town the "Independent United Nation of Rednecks" and the only vote they're interested in is the one that elects Billy Joe Bob as supreme commander.
...Jerry Garcia as a Republican?
Check the list of topics under the "Recent" heading on the right hand column of the Ars-Technica home page. That's where /. gets its list, not the current article headers.
I knew you could.
As far as hardware level copy protection, I don't think the difficulty here would be implementing such a solution. I think the problem would be with getting anyone other than those with a vested interest in it to accept such restrictions. How many people are going to be willing to buy a new sound card just to be able to play the latest music format? Not me. And you'd have to forget about upgradeable firmware - somebody would just hack the copy protection out.
In short, I think its time for the music industry to take a look at how it does business at a fundamental level - all of the new laws are just fingers stuck in a leaky dam.
If I were a musician, I'd like to see some kind of service where consumers could purchase my songs online for, say, $0.25 a shot. That's probably a whole lot more per track than they make off of current CD sales due to the incredible chunk the recording studios are taking off the top.
The SR-71 is a fabulous example of engineering for the task at hand. Friction against the atmosphere (even the thin atmosphere at 80,000 feet) causes so much heat that the plane actually grows by 6 inches during flight. The engineers at the ol' Skunk Works took this into consideration when designing it. As an unfortunate side-effect, the plane fits together so poorly when not in flight that it leaks fuel like a sieve on the runway!
I'm not sure, but even if they could they would have to make an awful big expenditure up front just for the right to stand pat on their right to publish rumors.
Through questionable marketing, Apple managed to turn one of the truly cool products of the 20th century into an also-ran. But Apple/Macintosh fans are rabid in their support. Why alienate this support base?
For instance, I can say the B. Gates is a fine, upstanding citizen who wouldn't dream of taking advantage of our legal/economic system. It isn't true, but he can't sue me for saying it because he hasn't been harmed by my statement.
It's an uphill battle to sue for liable (how many times has the National Enquirer gotten off?), and getting the name of the person you feel wronged you is just the first step.
My point is that there should be nothing wrong with saying that computers run programs, whether that program was written in C++ or assembler, in 1950 or 1999. That's what they do! Before you say they don't, you ought to revisit the definition of a computer as well...
I've got to compliment comments that make me laugh out loud here at work! The folks on the other side of the cube are looking at me funny...
At times like these, I feel like reminding that person of what computers have been, currently are, and for the foreseeable future will be used for by the average user: games and word processing. When slashdotters state why the average Joe can't move from Windows to Linux, it isn't because Linux doesn't represent enough of a philosophical change for them. It's because Linux can't run Microsoft Word and doesn't have enough games available.
People fear change. If Linux, BeOS, or some other as-of-yet unnamed operating system provided all of the things that our wonderful prognosticator deemed important, it would still not sell (until, of course, the model was embraced and extended by Windows).
50 years ago, people predicted flying cars, the elimination of disease, and world peace for the year 2000. It's great to predict, but in reality, the human race just doesn't change that quickly.
Microsoft Chips signs deals with every major sandwhich chain in the world. This deal allows the individual sandwhich shops to buy Microsoft Chips at a great discount - but only if they agree to only: (1) sell sandwhiches packaged with Microsoft Chips (2) don't sell Microsoft Chips by themselves (3) don't sell sandwhiches by themselves (i.e. sans chips) (4) Never EVER sell any other brand of chip.
Personally, I'd rather pay a bit more and have a choice!
I must agree with a few other comments posted above as well: it looks like a European court can figure out simple things that we have such a hard time with here in the good 'ol US of A.
The one application I can't live without that only exists in the Windows universe right now is Quicken. Yeah, I know about Gnucash, or whatever they're calling it these days, but it has about 10% of the functionality of Quicken.
Make Quicken work in Linux and I'll never look back.
Picture a dozen Mad-Max looking dudes attacking this thing with Sea-Doo mounted rocket launchers. And the brave SeaWorld defenders are protecting free speach for the masses, instead of a tomatoe plant.
So do the good guys wear Red Hats in this story?
Don't forget the Pathfinder mission. Its hard to beat the ground-level 3-D color photos National Geographic published. And that little Sojourner was just way cool.
On a more positive note, I have to applaud any effort to get more space exploration going. The earth is pretty played out for explorers...
Sony is suing on the grounds of theft of intellectual property. They own the intellectual property required to write the emulator, and therefore can sit around writing emulators for their own stuff until the cows come home.
They are attempting to stop anyone who does not have license to use their intellectual property from doing the same.
Besides Linux, what operating systems support a 64 bit CPU that could realistically be used on a desktop?
I hope all suits like these are simply discarded by the courts before they waste too much of our time & money! :)
The analogy here would be a swimming pool (your web page). If you have a swimming pool, and this swimming pool is protected by a gate, and the gate has a large sign saying "stay the heck out" and a neighborhood kid climbs your fence, jumps in your pool and drowns, you can be sued by the kid's parents. Your pool represented an attractive nuisance, an entity that wasn't dangerous in and of itself, but could be dangerous if used in an unsafe manner. As long as a kid can overcome your precautions, you are responsible for that kid's behavior. And what kid doesn't love a swimming pool?
In this case, the web site had minimal security, and some kid came along and used it for other than its intended purpose. But is the owner of the site still responsible for the consequences?
It doesn't sound like the bozo doing the suing is thinking of this ploy, but it will probably just be a matter of time...