Firstly, kudos to Earthlink for standing up to the FBI. I'm not a US citizen, but we all know this sort of activity goes on all over the world (can anyone say Echelon?). Ultimately though, what we have to remember is that email is an incsecure medium in its standard form. How do we protect our privacy? Well, using GNU Privacy Guard is a good place to start. If we all encrypted all our emails governments wouldn't be tempted to try this sort of thing - because they'd know it wouldn't work.
I am with you in that I like an upgrade path for stuff I buy, but when have console systems ever been upgradable?
The N64 was probably the first, it allowed you to upgrade its memory (which as it happens uses Rambus). The Dreamcast has a modem port which is completely expandable, presumably in the hope that that xDSL will become more affordable and they can sell you an upgrade to that (although AFAIK they've not even got their modem service sorted in the US; it's just gone online here in Europe). Finally the PS2 has a USB port and has been designed so that it can be upgraded for broadband when (if) that comes about.
All of which pales into comparisson with a PC of course, but there's certainally a precident for console upgradability.
But surely don't all programs depend on free software if they're written for Linux?
By this token shouldn't products like Star Office and Corel Draw be GPL'd?
Actually, to be honest with you in a way I wish this were the case - if StarOffice were to be GPL'd something could probably be done to make it run acceptably. Unfortunately, according to my reading of the GPL a program doesn't have to be GPL'd unless it is a derivative work. The way I see it goes as far as this : if you writen arseware v1.0 and release it under the GPL, then completely re-write all the code for arseware v2.0 even if it looks pretty much exactly the same and does a lot of things the same way it doesn't have to be GPLd. Of course, IANAL.
Install a copy of LinuxPPC and KDE with a 'MacOS' theme. Until they actually run a free operating system how can you expect them to believe in free software?
The Apple 'open-source' license isn't free, and as such running Mac OS is out of the question.
If only it were just 60p a litre. In fact it's currently at 85p/litre and most forecourts are upgrading their pumps so they can display prices over 99p/litre in expectation of further price rises.
Interesting to learn that you can't use standard American petrol(gas) in the UK, but somehow I doubt the increased quality is worth the massive increase in price...
The Cyrix III's biggest competitors may turn out to be National Semiconductor's Geode, Transmeta's Crusoe, Rise's newest products and even Intel's impressive StrongArm. Have there been buyouts I haven't heard about? I'm pretty sure that it's Cambridge(UK)-based Acorn that manufacture the StrongARM chips, not Intel. Of course, IANAL. Not that it would matter if I was, but that acronym is fast becoming a pre-requisite for a slashdot post.;))
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Firstly, kudos to Earthlink for standing up to the FBI. I'm not a US citizen, but we all know this sort of activity goes on all over the world (can anyone say Echelon?). Ultimately though, what we have to remember is that email is an incsecure medium in its standard form. How do we protect our privacy? Well, using GNU Privacy Guard is a good place to start. If we all encrypted all our emails governments wouldn't be tempted to try this sort of thing - because they'd know it wouldn't work.
I am with you in that I like an upgrade path for stuff I buy, but when have console systems ever been upgradable?
The N64 was probably the first, it allowed you to upgrade its memory (which as it happens uses Rambus). The Dreamcast has a modem port which is completely expandable, presumably in the hope that that xDSL will become more affordable and they can sell you an upgrade to that (although AFAIK they've not even got their modem service sorted in the US; it's just gone online here in Europe).
Finally the PS2 has a USB port and has been designed so that it can be upgraded for broadband when (if) that comes about.
All of which pales into comparisson with a PC of course, but there's certainally a precident for console upgradability.
But surely don't all programs depend on free software if they're written for Linux?
By this token shouldn't products like Star Office and Corel Draw be GPL'd?
Actually, to be honest with you in a way I wish this were the case - if StarOffice were to be GPL'd something could probably be done to make it run acceptably. Unfortunately, according to my reading of the GPL a program doesn't have to be GPL'd unless it is a derivative work. The way I see it goes as far as this : if you writen arseware v1.0 and release it under the GPL, then completely re-write all the code for arseware v2.0 even if it looks pretty much exactly the same and does a lot of things the same way it doesn't have to be GPLd. Of course, IANAL.
Install a copy of LinuxPPC and KDE with a 'MacOS' theme. Until they actually run a free operating system how can you expect them to believe in free software?
The Apple 'open-source' license isn't free, and as such running Mac OS is out of the question.
If only it were just 60p a litre. In fact it's currently at 85p/litre and most forecourts are upgrading their pumps so they can display prices over 99p/litre in expectation of further price rises.
Interesting to learn that you can't use standard American petrol(gas) in the UK, but somehow I doubt the increased quality is worth the massive increase in price...
The Cyrix III's biggest competitors may turn out to be National Semiconductor's Geode, Transmeta's Crusoe, Rise's newest products and even Intel's impressive StrongArm. ;))
Have there been buyouts I haven't heard about? I'm pretty sure that it's Cambridge(UK)-based Acorn that manufacture the StrongARM chips, not Intel. Of course, IANAL. Not that it would matter if I was, but that acronym is fast becoming a pre-requisite for a slashdot post.
Move over Scientologists, because the church of Linux is the next big religion.
:)
Think about it, Linus has just been using excellent code and the GPL to lure movie stars into joining his new religion!
Sign me up - I always thought being a cult member might be kind of kool anyways