Um. Are you reading the same sentence I'm reading?
"Implementations of the secure hash algorithms in this standard may be covered by U.S. or foreign patents." (emphasis mine)
All evidence indicates that the SHA algorithms themselves are not patented. Specific implementations of them may be; there's no restriction on that.
And as far as that goes, I have no problem at all licensing algorithms for things like this. In many cases-- not all, but many-- your choices are (1) license-free or (2) secure, and the two are mutually exclusive.
Would it be absurd to imagine broadcast companies cushioning the blow of hdtv recording equip by inserting ads on the sides of the screen for 16:9 viewers on a 4:3 program?
That's actually a pretty good idea (good in the sense of creative and neat, not good in the sense of, well, good), but it'd be absurdly expensive. Wanna know why?
Regular old analog SDTV programs get upconverted to HDTV with a box that takes SDI* in and outputs HD-SDI at 1080i (or 720p). It's a fairly simple box, usually one rack unit high. Snell & Wilcox makes several models.
To upconvert a composited picture, though, would be a much more complex task. The device would have to take in SDI for the main picture, like it does now, and also a number of additional SDI inputs for the ad windows. The upconverter would have to scale and position the ad windows on the unused part of a 704 x 480 raster, then upconvert the whole thing. That's a much harder job than just upconverting 640 x 480 to 1920 x 1080, meaning the upconverters would have to be much more expensive, offsetting any revenue gains to be had from selling the new ads.
So I wouldn't worry about it too much.
*SDI = Serial Digital Interface, a digital signal standard for SDTV. HD-SDI is the same thing, basically, but for HD. Both are uncompressed and run over coaxial cables.
Lets define technical merit basing our opinions in something objective like aesthetic beauty.
Well, after all, beauty is truth.
This, of course, is the fundamental difference between people who like Linux and related open source software and people who don't. The people who use open source software-- and who don't understand why it's not taking the world by storm-- don't seem to grasp the idea that in order for something, be it a device or merely software, to be "good," in any meaningful sense, it must not be unpleasant to use. Linux is unpleasant to use, which is why hardly anybody (as a proportion of all computer users) uses it. This PDA looks unpleasant, so it's clear that it will be unpleasant to use. Hell, it's unpleasant to even be around. So this PDA can't possibly be considered "good" by any sensible criteria.
Fine. I amend my statement. That's a judgment call that you are not qualified to make correctly.
Far be it from me to challenge your right to make an ass out of yourself.
The act of judgement itself is protected, and expressed through the election of Congressional members who in turn pass laws. A little logical reasoning by even the most arrogant of egotistical pricks should make it abundantly clear that every American is fundamentally qualified to pass judgement on any and all laws enacted in this country.
Hmm. See, though, if you think about it for just a second, you'll see that the legislature does not and cannot pass judgment on the law. Only the judiciary has the power to do that. Congress can't find a law to be unconstitutional. Congress can't review the application of a law. All Congress can do is make laws, which is an entirely different thing.
Who passes judgment on the law? The Federal judiciary. Which, in this country, is appointed, not elected. The connection between the voting populace at large and the Federal judges is a tenuous one at best; the Framers made that controversial decision quite deliberately.
So if you, maxpublic, or you, pla, happen to be, or happen to become, a Federal judge, I'll retract my statement. Until then, I stand behind it without a doubt in my mind: you are not qualified to decide whether the legal and legitimate laws of the land are excessive or not.
Of course, you've made your opinion clear. And you know what opinions are like, don't you?
Oh, you're so wrong. History tells us that sometimes circumstances arise that cannot be resolved peacefully. Sometimes an injustice is so great, or a tyranny so absolute, that men and women of good conscience must respond with organized disobedience, violence, or even war.
But remember well the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes." To think that there are men and women-- but, evidently, mostly men-- who believe that the ability to make copies of computer software and the ability to duplicate CDs and DVDs are causes worth invoking the memories of such great conflicts past gives me pause.
No, the law is not absolute. But it's all we have. Only the law separates us from tyranny, at the one end, and anarchy at the other. Do not disregard it so lightly.
get over your money grubbing and realize that if you want to call yourself a true artist then it should be about the art, and not about the money... whether you are a muscian whining about copyright violations or a director...
Beware any man who invokes higher principles. He's probably trying to slip his hand into your pocket.
When you create your art, you're free to give it away if you like. When others create theirs, they're free to ask whatever they want for it. If you take without giving the asked-for price, you're stealing. And stealing is against the law.
In a marketplace, if you don't approve of the seller's asking price, or, for that matter, if you disapprove of the whole process ("capitalism only works when you participate... therefore, don't," indeed), then you're free to simply walk away. But it's not okay for you to take the goods anyway on your way out. No principle, no matter how high, could possibly justify that.
It is when the media in question is computer software, which DVDs most clearly are. Hollywood and big-bidness advocates typically like to ignore that fact.
If you think that Title 17 somehow applies differently to computer software than to other forms for copyrighted material, then you're going to have to back that up with some kind of citation. In other words, you're wrong.
And the reducto ad absurdum argument just doesn't fly here. For the same reasons you claim that a DVD is computer software, I could say a CD is computer software. Or, for that matter, a DAT tape. None of these things can be played back without a computer. But that doesn't mean that they are no longer copyrighted materials protected by law. In short, wrong again.
The law currently protects copyright holders to an excessive degree.
That's a judgment call that you are not qualified to make.
But our fair use has slowly eroded over time, to the point where we can no longer practically (thanks to "corrupt" CDs) or legally (thanks to to DMCA making it illegal to "fix" "corrupt" CDs) make archival backups of most media we purchase. We cannot even post stills on websites, even though that has *always* counted as fair-use in the past (for newspapers, not websites, but the technology doesn't change the issues involved).
First of all, making "archival backups" (i.e., copies) is not covered by fair use. Title 17 clearly spells out the criteria for a use of copyrighted material to be considered fair, and one of those criteria involves the portion of the material used as a fraction of the whole. In other words, if you use ten seconds of a song, you're much more likely to be engaging in fair use than if you use a minute. Using the whole thing is right out. So making bit-for-bit copies of copyrighted media may or may not be legal, depending on the circumstances, but it is definitely not covered by the definition of fair use.
Furthermore, all you have to do to get a still for fair use is to contact the publisher of the media. Let's say you're writing a review of a new DVD for your web site. You want to include a still from the disc for purposes of illustration. Just pick up the phone and call the publicity department of Warner Bros., or Paramount, or, yes, Disney. They have entire divisions of their corporations just for the purpose of providing the news media with publicity materials. I know this from personal experience; I have worked with various publicity departments on many occasions, and they have been uniformly enthusiastic and helpful.
Hell, people could get off of 99% of crimes by justifying them with the 1st amendment
The fact that you would make such a statement demonstrates that you fundamentally misunderstand the first amendment and, by extension, the law. I'm not interested in pursuing this discussion with anybody who doesn't have at least a working understanding of the law, because it's just such a huge waste of time. Conversation's over now.
Deep down you know it is not about copyright violation, but about the right for privacy and the advancement of technology.
Deep down I know that this argument has nothing to do with either privacy or whatever you mean by "the advancement of technology." This is about crime, and the rightful and lawful prosecution of that crime.
Why can't you people* realize that a device that has an ugly user interface can't possibly be "better" in any meaningful sense of the word than any other device? I don't care if it runs off of the moral power of virginity and ends world hunger. If it's ugly to look at, it sucks.
Sometimes it seems like the Linux community would love to see a truly egalitarian world in which all software is free for everybody, but nobody wants to use it.
*By which, of course, I mean Linux advocates. I feel safe addressing the Slashdot population at large, because I'd guess that roughly three out of four of you are Linux advocates, for some reason.
since you have stated otherwise, I believe YANAL too
Believe what you like.
the megacorporations who control the content production and distribution are willing to make a copyright violation as serious a crime as murder
You can't just make a statement like that and expect me to accept it. You're going to have to back that up with some kind of evidence. Please show me where any corporation, anywhere, has lobbied to make copyright violation as serious a crime as murder.
Who, exactly, are you talking about?
I'm talking about you, you idiot. I'm talking about people who try again and again to argue that copyright violation isn't a crime, and that stealing isn't wrong because only the big, faceless corporations suffer. This is a foolish argument, and those of us with sense see right through it.
And this, naturally, without even beginning to discuss the problem of how to deal with unfair, unjust laws.
The criminal always claims that the law is unfair. That aside, though, we already have a perfectly good system for dealing with unjust laws. First, we have a legislative system that makes it difficult-- admittedly not impossible, but difficult-- for unjust laws to ever come into existence. However, if they should, we have a judicial system that can review applications of the law and, when necessary, strike down laws or entire classes of laws. There are certainly circumstances under which one's rights are so grievously violated that one has no choice but to openly defy the makers and enforcers of the law, peacefully when possible and violently when necessary. But if you seriously think this is one of those times, if you seriously think that your right to free stuff is being violated, then you need to spend some time reevaluating your life.
You are aware that sometime in the past the law used to say women couldn't vote, ain't you?
You are aware that you sound like an idiot comparing media piracy to women's suffrage or civil rights, aren't you?
Thanks to Apple, they want you to "switch" but don't want to make it possible for you to "switch back" by preventing OSX from burning cd's from the finder that can be read on PC's. In 10.1 you could make ISO9660 disks, now in 10.2 all you can make are HFS disks.
1. Wrong. Mac OS X burns hybrid CDs that can be read under either Mac OS or Windows. I have verified this personally. I even did a quick check just this minute to make sure that nothing changed behind my back. It works perfectly.
2. Roxio Toast is an excellent tool for burning discs of all sorts. It'll burn a plain-Jane ISO 9660 disc if you want, and it's absurdly easy to use. It can be yours for the low, low price of $89.95. So quitcher bitchin.
Now, if you start jailing their sons and daughters, confiscating their properties and suing them into poverty for the sake of Disney, Sony and such other oh so poor companies, I believe we will see a backslash these guys won't forget for generations.
I don't know what country you're from, friend, but a fundamental tenet of American law is that the seriousness of a crime is not influenced by the nature of the victim. Jack Ruby was convicted of murder even though his victim assassinated the President of the United States. A crime is a crime, no matter who the victim is.
If you steal a movie, you've violated copyright law. Of course, that's not nearly as serious a crime as murder, and I would never try to imply that it is. But it is a crime, after all, no matter who the wronged party is. It could be the little old lady down the block, or it could be an international mega-corporation. It doesn't matter at all.
If some kids pirate a movie, or even part of a movie, then they deserve to be punished to the extent prescribed by the law. If the law says they need to go to jail, then they deserve to go to jail. The only backlash here is the one against the anti-intellectual-property camp and their constant disregard for the laws and treaties under which we live.
After that we will probably see the tide that will finnaly make some young executives sit back and start thinking about a new business model capable of keeping the money flowing instead of new laws.
There's no need for new laws. These little punks will be prosecuted under the laws that we already have.
Given the fact that the article you quoted, which dates back to 1999, refers to Mac OS X Server 1.0, I'd say, "probably."
And given the fact that the script included with the article which can allegedly crash a Mac OS X system did absolutely nothing of interest on my machine, I'd say, "definitely."
And, finally, given the fact that this post is clearly intended to spread FUD about Mac OS X, I'd say, "troll."
IT'S SOOOOOOOO 3DGY AND ORIGINAL TO DO THE FIVE THOUSANDTH MUSICAL PARODY EPISODE!
Yeah... uh, about that. The musical episode-- wait for it-- wasn't a parody. It was a full-blown CinemaScope musical with an overture, themes, book numbers, and a big ensemble piece at the end. It had character development, and a plot, and it advanced the story of the season in an important way, forcing the characters to deal with a lot of stuff that had previously been only internalized. Of course, musicals-- as you'd know if you'd ever even seen one-- are all about externalizing the internal, so it actually made a ton of sense.
If the musical episode had been a parody, or too self-aware for its own good, then you'd have been right. But that wasn't it at all. They didn't say, "We're going to do a clever parody of musicals." They said, "By God, we're going to do a musical." And they did. Like it or dislike it, you've gotta respect the accomplishment.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking it was a parody.
And you were using Linux on these USB-serial devices because? Oh, yeah, OS/400 doesn't support USB and you didn't have source for Windows to modify the drivers for this purpose.
What? No. I would have loved to have used Windows for this. But I only get so much discretionary budget every year, and a license for Windows plus the software I'd have needed was money I didn't want to spend, even though it would only have set us back a couple thousand bucks. (The fast majority of that, obviously, was the software I wanted to use.)
Like everybody else, I chose Linux because I had more time than money. That situation has since changed, so we (just this week, in fact) replaced the Linux box with a dedicated terminal server appliance from Nortel. It's much, much better. But the Linux box got us through a lean time, and it was fine for that.
I realize that this isn't what you were doing but as I pointed out, you were likely breaking new ground.
Which is the problem really. I don't want to break new ground. I've got better things to do with my time than break new ground. If you're talking about something like a financial institution, or maybe a large manufacturing business, they've definitely got better things to do than to break new ground. Which is why I would never recommend Linux to anybody unless their needs were simple.
Not even vaguely - this is a clear generalisation.
Well, that's refreshing.;-)
I would contend that Linux as an operating system - not all of the junk on top, just the basics - is a proven, stable and reliable system.
I don't agree, but my reason is pretty specific. The 2.4 series has been an absolute disaster as far as stability and reliability goes. The decision to make major changes to the VM system, among other things, to a point release of the kernel was unwise in the extreme.
Now, that's not to say that Linux can't be made stable and reliable. I had a server at the office, for instance, that just sat there and ran peacefully for months and months, until the point where I literally forgot it was there. (It was running Conserver with some USB-serial devices.) But that was only after weeks of building kernels, downloading patches, trying again, and kernel panic after kernel panic after kernel panic. And all I was trying to do was to use more than one USB-serial device!
If what you're looking for is an out-of-the-box Red Hat install on fully supported hardware, to run Samba or Apache/Tomcat or PostgreSQL or something, then I have no doubts that Linux will serve you well. But for anything more complex, I'd be very humble in recommending it. Because when it's right, it's right, but when it's wrong, it sucks.
This is all, of course, in contrast to AS/400 or iSeries or whatever they're calling it now. The OS/400 operating system has been, in my extremely limited experience, a picture of reliability for years now. That kind of contrast makes it hard to talk about using Linux for the same jobs you'd choose AS/400-slash-OS/400 for. Of course, somebody upthread mentioned using Linux for low-cost development systems and AS/400s as the production platform, which sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Not replacing AS/400 with Linux, but complementing it.
Well, I wouldn't say disparage. Linux is a young, upstart OS. And it's development is the result of a haphazard process that is shepherded by Linux, Alan, and the distro makers.
Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. That's why I said "appears to disparage."
One person's mature standard is another's legacy nightmare.
As usual, the specific comment that appears to disparage Linux sits quietly at 1, while the vague, practically meaningless comment that appears to disparage the commercial incumbent gets moderated up.
While of course your comment is true, in the most literal sense, it's about as insightful as the old saying, "One man's food is another man's garbage." Okay, but... so what?
Can you give an example of an AS/400 system being a legacy nightmare? I know a company that uses an AS/400 for their billing system, or some such similar app. While it's different and has to be learned-- as opposed to Windows or UNIX, which many people already know-- nobody there will go so far as to call it a nightmare. In fact, the reliability has been the subject of praise on more than one occasion.
Can you back your assertion up somehow?
Re:What do you expect?
on
Newton Won't Die
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Apple users are cultist fanatics who buy anything Jobs blesses.
Yes, that explains the phenomenal success of the Power Mac G4 Cube.
All you're doing is repeating yourself. You haven't actually made your case at any point.
You really ought to read this before getting your panties (even more) in a wad about the whole thing. Summary: people smarter than us have excellent reasons for believing it's a good thing.
That's about the dumbest statement of policy I've ever heard. Are you saying that all failures should be catastrophic failures? I can only assume that you were insufficiently caffeinated when you wrote this.
Would you intentionally run a network using the scheme for APIPA?
Matter of fact, I have. It's pretty pointless without mDNS, but now that Jaguar has mDNS support, self-assignment makes for easy ad hoc IP networking.
Tell me, when you can't print to your printer, does windows RANDOMLY find a printer with similar functions and print there instead?
Faulty analogy. When self-assigning an IP address, your computer doesn't actually do anything. It just configures its network ports and stops. That's all.
Give me a configuration option that says: NEVER SELF-ASSIGN ADDRESS and I'll quit bitching about it.
What is this, a hostage situation? "Stop self-assigning IP addresses and I'll let the nuns and orphans go, copper!" For crying out loud.
Why? There are lots of reasons, already discussed elsewhere, why this is a good thing. Can you give one reason why it isn't, please?
If a machine failes to get a DHCP address and the machine is not assigned a static address (and in no other way is it assigned an address from another machine) it has NO GOD DAMN BUSINESS ASSIGNING ITSELF ONE.
The people who wrote the RFC on self-assignment disagree with you. I do too, of course, but that's not important.
Although in this case it might be handy, in most cases it means that if you have a network problem the problem is masked when machines on your network can see each other, but not servers, etc.
Wrongo. Unless, of course, you're using a network that only has IP addressing, and no name resolution. Let's say I'm on machine X, and I want to FTP to machine Y. So I type "ftp Y," and I either get an IP address from the local DNS server or from my host table. My machine tries to connect to machine Y's defined IP address, and succeeds.
DHCP server fails. After our leases expire, machines X and Y self-assign 169.254 addresses. I sit down at X and type "ftp Y." What happens?
Nothing happens. Because there is no way for my machine to resolve "Y" to machine Y's self-assigned 169.254 address. I get an error. I call you, say "network's fucked." You reboot the DHCP server, which had somehow been allowed to stay down so long that leases started expiring.
Of course, if instead of typing "ftp Y" I had gotten on the phone to the guy who owns Y and asked, "What's your IP right now?" and guy Y had responded, "It's 169.254.quux.plugh," and I'd typed "ftp 169.254.quux.plugh," then I would have had no problem, and you would never have known that the DHCP server was down. Of course, if that's SOP on your network, I have to wonder why you have a DHCP server to begin with.
In other words, if self-assigned IP addressing is a problem on your network, then you, in the role of administrator, should drop what you're doing and post haste commit hari-kiri in front of your coworkers and their families.
Actually, it's a little different even from that. 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed on 65 mm film negative using the Super Panavision 70 process. Super Panavision 70, like CinemaScope and other formats, used an anamorphic lens to distort the image on the negative. If you look at a frame of the original camera negative-- good luck getting FotoKem to get it out of their vault for you-- you'll see a picture that seems too tall. You correct for that distortion by using a complementary lens, either when you project a print of the film, or when you transfer the negative to make a print. 2001 was printed in 35mm anamorphic (which used a cylindrical lens to restore the image during projection), 70mm anamorphic, and 70mm flat. Depending on which print you look at, the images are going to be pretty significantly different.
So it's not completely true to say that 2001 was 70mm wide. The dimensions of the actual film image and the dimensions at which it's projected have a complicated relationship.
Slashdot Mirror
Um. Are you reading the same sentence I'm reading?
"Implementations of the secure hash algorithms in this standard may be covered by U.S. or foreign patents." (emphasis mine)
All evidence indicates that the SHA algorithms themselves are not patented. Specific implementations of them may be; there's no restriction on that.
And as far as that goes, I have no problem at all licensing algorithms for things like this. In many cases-- not all, but many-- your choices are (1) license-free or (2) secure, and the two are mutually exclusive.
Would it be absurd to imagine broadcast companies cushioning the blow of hdtv recording equip by inserting ads on the sides of the screen for 16:9 viewers on a 4:3 program?
That's actually a pretty good idea (good in the sense of creative and neat, not good in the sense of, well, good), but it'd be absurdly expensive. Wanna know why?
Regular old analog SDTV programs get upconverted to HDTV with a box that takes SDI* in and outputs HD-SDI at 1080i (or 720p). It's a fairly simple box, usually one rack unit high. Snell & Wilcox makes several models.
To upconvert a composited picture, though, would be a much more complex task. The device would have to take in SDI for the main picture, like it does now, and also a number of additional SDI inputs for the ad windows. The upconverter would have to scale and position the ad windows on the unused part of a 704 x 480 raster, then upconvert the whole thing. That's a much harder job than just upconverting 640 x 480 to 1920 x 1080, meaning the upconverters would have to be much more expensive, offsetting any revenue gains to be had from selling the new ads.
So I wouldn't worry about it too much.
*SDI = Serial Digital Interface, a digital signal standard for SDTV. HD-SDI is the same thing, basically, but for HD. Both are uncompressed and run over coaxial cables.
Lets define technical merit basing our opinions in something objective like aesthetic beauty.
Well, after all, beauty is truth.
This, of course, is the fundamental difference between people who like Linux and related open source software and people who don't. The people who use open source software-- and who don't understand why it's not taking the world by storm-- don't seem to grasp the idea that in order for something, be it a device or merely software, to be "good," in any meaningful sense, it must not be unpleasant to use. Linux is unpleasant to use, which is why hardly anybody (as a proportion of all computer users) uses it. This PDA looks unpleasant, so it's clear that it will be unpleasant to use. Hell, it's unpleasant to even be around. So this PDA can't possibly be considered "good" by any sensible criteria.
Fine. I amend my statement. That's a judgment call that you are not qualified to make correctly.
Far be it from me to challenge your right to make an ass out of yourself.
The act of judgement itself is protected, and expressed through the election of Congressional members who in turn pass laws. A little logical reasoning by even the most arrogant of egotistical pricks should make it abundantly clear that every American is fundamentally qualified to pass judgement on any and all laws enacted in this country.
Hmm. See, though, if you think about it for just a second, you'll see that the legislature does not and cannot pass judgment on the law. Only the judiciary has the power to do that. Congress can't find a law to be unconstitutional. Congress can't review the application of a law. All Congress can do is make laws, which is an entirely different thing.
Who passes judgment on the law? The Federal judiciary. Which, in this country, is appointed, not elected. The connection between the voting populace at large and the Federal judges is a tenuous one at best; the Framers made that controversial decision quite deliberately.
So if you, maxpublic, or you, pla, happen to be, or happen to become, a Federal judge, I'll retract my statement. Until then, I stand behind it without a doubt in my mind: you are not qualified to decide whether the legal and legitimate laws of the land are excessive or not.
Of course, you've made your opinion clear. And you know what opinions are like, don't you?
Oh, you're so wrong. History tells us that sometimes circumstances arise that cannot be resolved peacefully. Sometimes an injustice is so great, or a tyranny so absolute, that men and women of good conscience must respond with organized disobedience, violence, or even war.
But remember well the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes." To think that there are men and women-- but, evidently, mostly men-- who believe that the ability to make copies of computer software and the ability to duplicate CDs and DVDs are causes worth invoking the memories of such great conflicts past gives me pause.
No, the law is not absolute. But it's all we have. Only the law separates us from tyranny, at the one end, and anarchy at the other. Do not disregard it so lightly.
get over your money grubbing and realize that if you want to call yourself a true artist then it should be about the art, and not about the money... whether you are a muscian whining about copyright violations or a director...
Beware any man who invokes higher principles. He's probably trying to slip his hand into your pocket.
When you create your art, you're free to give it away if you like. When others create theirs, they're free to ask whatever they want for it. If you take without giving the asked-for price, you're stealing. And stealing is against the law.
In a marketplace, if you don't approve of the seller's asking price, or, for that matter, if you disapprove of the whole process ("capitalism only works when you participate... therefore, don't," indeed), then you're free to simply walk away. But it's not okay for you to take the goods anyway on your way out. No principle, no matter how high, could possibly justify that.
It is when the media in question is computer software, which DVDs most clearly are. Hollywood and big-bidness advocates typically like to ignore that fact.
If you think that Title 17 somehow applies differently to computer software than to other forms for copyrighted material, then you're going to have to back that up with some kind of citation. In other words, you're wrong.
And the reducto ad absurdum argument just doesn't fly here. For the same reasons you claim that a DVD is computer software, I could say a CD is computer software. Or, for that matter, a DAT tape. None of these things can be played back without a computer. But that doesn't mean that they are no longer copyrighted materials protected by law. In short, wrong again.
The law currently protects copyright holders to an excessive degree.
That's a judgment call that you are not qualified to make.
But our fair use has slowly eroded over time, to the point where we can no longer practically (thanks to "corrupt" CDs) or legally (thanks to to DMCA making it illegal to "fix" "corrupt" CDs) make archival backups of most media we purchase. We cannot even post stills on websites, even though that has *always* counted as fair-use in the past (for newspapers, not websites, but the technology doesn't change the issues involved).
First of all, making "archival backups" (i.e., copies) is not covered by fair use. Title 17 clearly spells out the criteria for a use of copyrighted material to be considered fair, and one of those criteria involves the portion of the material used as a fraction of the whole. In other words, if you use ten seconds of a song, you're much more likely to be engaging in fair use than if you use a minute. Using the whole thing is right out. So making bit-for-bit copies of copyrighted media may or may not be legal, depending on the circumstances, but it is definitely not covered by the definition of fair use.
Furthermore, all you have to do to get a still for fair use is to contact the publisher of the media. Let's say you're writing a review of a new DVD for your web site. You want to include a still from the disc for purposes of illustration. Just pick up the phone and call the publicity department of Warner Bros., or Paramount, or, yes, Disney. They have entire divisions of their corporations just for the purpose of providing the news media with publicity materials. I know this from personal experience; I have worked with various publicity departments on many occasions, and they have been uniformly enthusiastic and helpful.
Hell, people could get off of 99% of crimes by justifying them with the 1st amendment
The fact that you would make such a statement demonstrates that you fundamentally misunderstand the first amendment and, by extension, the law. I'm not interested in pursuing this discussion with anybody who doesn't have at least a working understanding of the law, because it's just such a huge waste of time. Conversation's over now.
Deep down you know it is not about copyright violation, but about the right for privacy and the advancement of technology.
Deep down I know that this argument has nothing to do with either privacy or whatever you mean by "the advancement of technology." This is about crime, and the rightful and lawful prosecution of that crime.
Worst. Interface. Ever.
Why can't you people* realize that a device that has an ugly user interface can't possibly be "better" in any meaningful sense of the word than any other device? I don't care if it runs off of the moral power of virginity and ends world hunger. If it's ugly to look at, it sucks.
Sometimes it seems like the Linux community would love to see a truly egalitarian world in which all software is free for everybody, but nobody wants to use it.
*By which, of course, I mean Linux advocates. I feel safe addressing the Slashdot population at large, because I'd guess that roughly three out of four of you are Linux advocates, for some reason.
since you have stated otherwise, I believe YANAL too
Believe what you like.
the megacorporations who control the content production and distribution are willing to make a copyright violation as serious a crime as murder
You can't just make a statement like that and expect me to accept it. You're going to have to back that up with some kind of evidence. Please show me where any corporation, anywhere, has lobbied to make copyright violation as serious a crime as murder.
Who, exactly, are you talking about?
I'm talking about you, you idiot. I'm talking about people who try again and again to argue that copyright violation isn't a crime, and that stealing isn't wrong because only the big, faceless corporations suffer. This is a foolish argument, and those of us with sense see right through it.
And this, naturally, without even beginning to discuss the problem of how to deal with unfair, unjust laws.
The criminal always claims that the law is unfair. That aside, though, we already have a perfectly good system for dealing with unjust laws. First, we have a legislative system that makes it difficult-- admittedly not impossible, but difficult-- for unjust laws to ever come into existence. However, if they should, we have a judicial system that can review applications of the law and, when necessary, strike down laws or entire classes of laws. There are certainly circumstances under which one's rights are so grievously violated that one has no choice but to openly defy the makers and enforcers of the law, peacefully when possible and violently when necessary. But if you seriously think this is one of those times, if you seriously think that your right to free stuff is being violated, then you need to spend some time reevaluating your life.
You are aware that sometime in the past the law used to say women couldn't vote, ain't you?
You are aware that you sound like an idiot comparing media piracy to women's suffrage or civil rights, aren't you?
Thanks to Apple, they want you to "switch" but don't want to make it possible for you to "switch back" by preventing OSX from burning cd's from the finder that can be read on PC's. In 10.1 you could make ISO9660 disks, now in 10.2 all you can make are HFS disks.
1. Wrong. Mac OS X burns hybrid CDs that can be read under either Mac OS or Windows. I have verified this personally. I even did a quick check just this minute to make sure that nothing changed behind my back. It works perfectly.
2. Roxio Toast is an excellent tool for burning discs of all sorts. It'll burn a plain-Jane ISO 9660 disc if you want, and it's absurdly easy to use. It can be yours for the low, low price of $89.95. So quitcher bitchin.
Now, if you start jailing their sons and daughters, confiscating their properties and suing them into poverty for the sake of Disney, Sony and such other oh so poor companies, I believe we will see a backslash these guys won't forget for generations.
I don't know what country you're from, friend, but a fundamental tenet of American law is that the seriousness of a crime is not influenced by the nature of the victim. Jack Ruby was convicted of murder even though his victim assassinated the President of the United States. A crime is a crime, no matter who the victim is.
If you steal a movie, you've violated copyright law. Of course, that's not nearly as serious a crime as murder, and I would never try to imply that it is. But it is a crime, after all, no matter who the wronged party is. It could be the little old lady down the block, or it could be an international mega-corporation. It doesn't matter at all.
If some kids pirate a movie, or even part of a movie, then they deserve to be punished to the extent prescribed by the law. If the law says they need to go to jail, then they deserve to go to jail. The only backlash here is the one against the anti-intellectual-property camp and their constant disregard for the laws and treaties under which we live.
After that we will probably see the tide that will finnaly make some young executives sit back and start thinking about a new business model capable of keeping the money flowing instead of new laws.
There's no need for new laws. These little punks will be prosecuted under the laws that we already have.
does anyone know if this "bug" is fixed yet?
Given the fact that the article you quoted, which dates back to 1999, refers to Mac OS X Server 1.0, I'd say, "probably."
And given the fact that the script included with the article which can allegedly crash a Mac OS X system did absolutely nothing of interest on my machine, I'd say, "definitely."
And, finally, given the fact that this post is clearly intended to spread FUD about Mac OS X, I'd say, "troll."
IT'S SOOOOOOOO 3DGY AND ORIGINAL TO DO THE FIVE THOUSANDTH MUSICAL PARODY EPISODE!
Yeah... uh, about that. The musical episode-- wait for it-- wasn't a parody. It was a full-blown CinemaScope musical with an overture, themes, book numbers, and a big ensemble piece at the end. It had character development, and a plot, and it advanced the story of the season in an important way, forcing the characters to deal with a lot of stuff that had previously been only internalized. Of course, musicals-- as you'd know if you'd ever even seen one-- are all about externalizing the internal, so it actually made a ton of sense.
If the musical episode had been a parody, or too self-aware for its own good, then you'd have been right. But that wasn't it at all. They didn't say, "We're going to do a clever parody of musicals." They said, "By God, we're going to do a musical." And they did. Like it or dislike it, you've gotta respect the accomplishment.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking it was a parody.
And you were using Linux on these USB-serial devices because? Oh, yeah, OS/400 doesn't support USB and you didn't have source for Windows to modify the drivers for this purpose.
What? No. I would have loved to have used Windows for this. But I only get so much discretionary budget every year, and a license for Windows plus the software I'd have needed was money I didn't want to spend, even though it would only have set us back a couple thousand bucks. (The fast majority of that, obviously, was the software I wanted to use.)
Like everybody else, I chose Linux because I had more time than money. That situation has since changed, so we (just this week, in fact) replaced the Linux box with a dedicated terminal server appliance from Nortel. It's much, much better. But the Linux box got us through a lean time, and it was fine for that.
I realize that this isn't what you were doing but as I pointed out, you were likely breaking new ground.
Which is the problem really. I don't want to break new ground. I've got better things to do with my time than break new ground. If you're talking about something like a financial institution, or maybe a large manufacturing business, they've definitely got better things to do than to break new ground. Which is why I would never recommend Linux to anybody unless their needs were simple.
Not even vaguely - this is a clear generalisation.
;-)
Well, that's refreshing.
I would contend that Linux as an operating system - not all of the junk on top, just the basics - is a proven, stable and reliable system.
I don't agree, but my reason is pretty specific. The 2.4 series has been an absolute disaster as far as stability and reliability goes. The decision to make major changes to the VM system, among other things, to a point release of the kernel was unwise in the extreme.
Now, that's not to say that Linux can't be made stable and reliable. I had a server at the office, for instance, that just sat there and ran peacefully for months and months, until the point where I literally forgot it was there. (It was running Conserver with some USB-serial devices.) But that was only after weeks of building kernels, downloading patches, trying again, and kernel panic after kernel panic after kernel panic. And all I was trying to do was to use more than one USB-serial device!
If what you're looking for is an out-of-the-box Red Hat install on fully supported hardware, to run Samba or Apache/Tomcat or PostgreSQL or something, then I have no doubts that Linux will serve you well. But for anything more complex, I'd be very humble in recommending it. Because when it's right, it's right, but when it's wrong, it sucks.
This is all, of course, in contrast to AS/400 or iSeries or whatever they're calling it now. The OS/400 operating system has been, in my extremely limited experience, a picture of reliability for years now. That kind of contrast makes it hard to talk about using Linux for the same jobs you'd choose AS/400-slash-OS/400 for. Of course, somebody upthread mentioned using Linux for low-cost development systems and AS/400s as the production platform, which sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Not replacing AS/400 with Linux, but complementing it.
Well, I wouldn't say disparage. Linux is a young, upstart OS. And it's development is the result of a haphazard process that is shepherded by Linux, Alan, and the distro makers.
Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. That's why I said "appears to disparage."
One person's mature standard is another's legacy nightmare.
As usual, the specific comment that appears to disparage Linux sits quietly at 1, while the vague, practically meaningless comment that appears to disparage the commercial incumbent gets moderated up.
While of course your comment is true, in the most literal sense, it's about as insightful as the old saying, "One man's food is another man's garbage." Okay, but... so what?
Can you give an example of an AS/400 system being a legacy nightmare? I know a company that uses an AS/400 for their billing system, or some such similar app. While it's different and has to be learned-- as opposed to Windows or UNIX, which many people already know-- nobody there will go so far as to call it a nightmare. In fact, the reliability has been the subject of praise on more than one occasion.
Can you back your assertion up somehow?
Apple users are cultist fanatics who buy anything Jobs blesses.
Yes, that explains the phenomenal success of the Power Mac G4 Cube.
If MacOS is so great, why does Apple use Solaris?
Akamai. Apple's web site is distributed. When you connect to apple.com, you're actually getting www.apple.com.akadns.net, which runs on Solaris.
All you're doing is repeating yourself. You haven't actually made your case at any point.
You really ought to read this before getting your panties (even more) in a wad about the whole thing. Summary: people smarter than us have excellent reasons for believing it's a good thing.
Failure modes should not be otherwise functional.
That's about the dumbest statement of policy I've ever heard. Are you saying that all failures should be catastrophic failures? I can only assume that you were insufficiently caffeinated when you wrote this.
Would you intentionally run a network using the scheme for APIPA?
Matter of fact, I have. It's pretty pointless without mDNS, but now that Jaguar has mDNS support, self-assignment makes for easy ad hoc IP networking.
Tell me, when you can't print to your printer, does windows RANDOMLY find a printer with similar functions and print there instead?
Faulty analogy. When self-assigning an IP address, your computer doesn't actually do anything. It just configures its network ports and stops. That's all.
Give me a configuration option that says: NEVER SELF-ASSIGN ADDRESS and I'll quit bitching about it.
What is this, a hostage situation? "Stop self-assigning IP addresses and I'll let the nuns and orphans go, copper!" For crying out loud.
It's a GOD DAMN HEADACHE.
Why? There are lots of reasons, already discussed elsewhere, why this is a good thing. Can you give one reason why it isn't, please?
If a machine failes to get a DHCP address and the machine is not assigned a static address (and in no other way is it assigned an address from another machine) it has NO GOD DAMN BUSINESS ASSIGNING ITSELF ONE.
The people who wrote the RFC on self-assignment disagree with you. I do too, of course, but that's not important.
Although in this case it might be handy, in most cases it means that if you have a network problem the problem is masked when machines on your network can see each other, but not servers, etc.
Wrongo. Unless, of course, you're using a network that only has IP addressing, and no name resolution. Let's say I'm on machine X, and I want to FTP to machine Y. So I type "ftp Y," and I either get an IP address from the local DNS server or from my host table. My machine tries to connect to machine Y's defined IP address, and succeeds.
DHCP server fails. After our leases expire, machines X and Y self-assign 169.254 addresses. I sit down at X and type "ftp Y." What happens?
Nothing happens. Because there is no way for my machine to resolve "Y" to machine Y's self-assigned 169.254 address. I get an error. I call you, say "network's fucked." You reboot the DHCP server, which had somehow been allowed to stay down so long that leases started expiring.
Of course, if instead of typing "ftp Y" I had gotten on the phone to the guy who owns Y and asked, "What's your IP right now?" and guy Y had responded, "It's 169.254.quux.plugh," and I'd typed "ftp 169.254.quux.plugh," then I would have had no problem, and you would never have known that the DHCP server was down. Of course, if that's SOP on your network, I have to wonder why you have a DHCP server to begin with.
In other words, if self-assigned IP addressing is a problem on your network, then you, in the role of administrator, should drop what you're doing and post haste commit hari-kiri in front of your coworkers and their families.
Actually, it's a little different even from that. 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed on 65 mm film negative using the Super Panavision 70 process. Super Panavision 70, like CinemaScope and other formats, used an anamorphic lens to distort the image on the negative. If you look at a frame of the original camera negative-- good luck getting FotoKem to get it out of their vault for you-- you'll see a picture that seems too tall. You correct for that distortion by using a complementary lens, either when you project a print of the film, or when you transfer the negative to make a print. 2001 was printed in 35mm anamorphic (which used a cylindrical lens to restore the image during projection), 70mm anamorphic, and 70mm flat. Depending on which print you look at, the images are going to be pretty significantly different.
So it's not completely true to say that 2001 was 70mm wide. The dimensions of the actual film image and the dimensions at which it's projected have a complicated relationship.