The WinAmp plugin would have to be installed by default for it to gain ground. Apparently having to go download additional files is a huge barrier to adoption of anything. It sucks, but its a fact. Probably less than 10% of the population doesn't mind going off to download additional files. I can find an install for WinAmp just about anywhere, it's on servers at work, all my buddies have it, it's on a number of my software CDs. But nobody I know has the vorbis plugin, and I don't know off the top of my head where to go get it. Despite being physically an incredibly minor barrier, its what is colloquially known as a "psychological barrier". Never underestimate the power of a psychological barrier.
Sorry, but I think thats crap. The internet is not too big to effectively police, not by a long shot. Firstly, the "population" on the Internet smaller than the population of Earth by a factor of about 50, and I don't see the "real world" as being too big to "effectively police". Secondly, the Internet is far far far easier to monitor. As opposed to real life, where the logistics and costs still make it very difficult to do, on the Internet you can monitor anything and everything that goes on, and for relatively cheap. Just look how cheaply and easily the FBI has gained the power to monitor virtually any Internet traffic in the USA. The vast majority of Internet traffic goes through the equipment of a very small number of telecomms companies and ISPs. Most internet activities are either already logged, or are very easy to log. The problem with logging requiring way too much data to store has quickly become a non-issue thanks to cheap data storage (really, if dejanews can archive the entire usenet (apart from binaries), do you *really* think the FBI and other authorities can't? Get real. And it's only getting cheaper and easier to do it. The techically illiterate public might see the Internet as some huge, mysterious place, but technical people should know better.
The argument that law enforcement officials are not clueful enough to track "cybercriminal" probably has some truth in it, but it's incredibly shortsighted and naive to just brush off the authorities completely as being too ignorant to be useful. This is a double-edged sword. Firstly, there are many clued up law enforcement officials, and there will only be more and more in future. Secondly, law enforcement officials who are clueless, of which there are many of these too, are also incredibly dangerous to have policing the online world - do you want somebody who doesn't even know what "source code" is prosecuting you for some cybercrime that you did not commit?
Jurisdiction is "often" a problem? Well if you're falsely accused of something you did not do, or if you're being prosecuted but it's effectively a violation of your human rights, you better "just hope" that jurisdiction "just happens" to be a problem wherever you are. Sounds like a crapshoot to me. Why not just not have stupid laws and treaties to begin with?
Really, to just casually brush off dangerous treaty's and laws by making a few broad statements about the Internet (with no evidence, arguments or proof to back them up, as well as no attempts whatsoever to try to see what technology will be like in the next ten or twenty years) is incredibly dangerous, shortsighted and naive. The fact that these claims come from a law "professor" might fool some people into thinking the arguments carry a lot of weight, but hopefully not enough people to be duped. I know it isn't really the 'american way' for the sheeple, but try to think for yourselves rather than letting some appointed "expert" on TV do all the thinking for the majority of the population.
"Games that don't use it, such as WuakeIII, are very dificult to install."
Wooaaah. If you think Quake3 is difficult to install, you shouldn't be anywhere near a computer, never mind boldly pretending to make technical arguments on technical issues in a discussion group. Holy shit. I suggest you find a job that doesn't involve computers at all. Shame.
That's funny. You may want to check with one of the 36 Democrats who voted for that bill about the Republican's ethical issues
That's funny, I can't remember sheldon saying whether or not he thought it was a sensible bill, only that he thought that the existence of the link was "interesting". Seems you just made an assumption that sheldon was saying the bill was unethical. He didn't say that at all. The bill certainly does not seem unreasonable to me by any means.
So you don't think that Mastercard ever has to write off chunks of debt from credit card companies that can't pay and go bankrupt? I probably also don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm guessing that they do.
Yup. I've been hearing that exact same argument for nearly 10 years now - since I got into computers, in fact. "386 is fast enough to run blah blah word processor blah blah software blah blah". It's crap of course. A fair segment of the market always has been, and still is, starved for speed. As you point out, the academic community is a good example, always wanting to 'crunch' more numbers than ever before.
I would expect somebody like a/. editor to know better than to make stupid comments about how "computers are now fast enough and are likely to stop progressing in the mainstream market". It's incredibly shortsighted, and probably most commonly stems from the fact that it is usually a valid argument that "computers are fast enough for today's software". Well duh. Does anyone actually think software has gotten as good as it can get? I sure hope not.
A lot of people seemed to think The Matrix was deep and meaningful. The impression I get is that to the majority of "Joe Public"s out there, the ideas portrayed in the movie *are* deep and "like wow man", as most people have actually never thought about the obvious possibilities the movie depicts (i.e., our perception of reality may be something created artificially).
But to anyone out there who has ever bothered to think about stuff, and to anyone who has even been even vaguely interested in philosophy for at least a single day in their lives, all the "like wow man" concepts portrayed in the movie are old hat, and all thats left is some good action.
I put in a similar mental category as Forrest Gump and Twelve Monkeys - really simple movies that are aimed at the mainstream market, but somehow manage to lead the mainstream market into thinking they've just seen something really deep and meaningful.
Mostly only the cheapest, bottom-of-the-range switches don't support IGMP-snooping. I know the one in our office doesn't, but its the only one of about a dozen in its range from 3com that doesn't support it. Of course, the majority of small businesses probably buy the cheapest switches.
As for TCP/IP 'not supporting it', thats hardly valid. TCP/IP stacks of more than 99% of OS's in use support it. It's implemented on UDP, by the way, so it has nothing to do with TCP itself, it's UDP/IP, with addresses in the 224.x.x.x range. For LANs, this is mapped to a certain range of special MAC addresses. The multicast group management uses IGMP protocol, these packets are what switches need to monitor to keep track of the MAC addresses in the sessions.
I know of some fairly major networking communications libraries that *do* make use of IP multicast, e.g. HLA.
"3. Applications - Under windows there are a couple applications available that will distribute applications across a campus (or any multicast network) to remote users. Broadcast once, receive many. I haven't used this function much but for file distribution that happens on a schedule to the desktop or to multiple servers it could be useful."
This sounds a little bit strange to me. Multicast on IP uses UDP, which is unreliable. IP Multicast is usually used for stuff like video/audio, where it does not matter if the odd frame gets lost. But distributing an application? Lose just a couple of bytes from the middle of a zip file and the zip file is stuffed.
"multicasting has fuck all to do with servers".. next sentence.. "the server sends out a SINGLE data stream"
Everything else you've said is pretty accurate, but I'm not sure what you meant by "has fuck all to do with servers". Multicast apps tpyically involve a single server casting out to n clients.
also if you check all the machines are plugged into a singe 24-port switch. Where does the multi-casting come into play
Explain exactly what the hell having a 24-port switch has to do with multicasting, and why (as you imply) he can't do multicasting if he has it? Or are you just trying to get modded up by trying to sound like you know what you are talking about by throwing in a few technical terms? What exactly is your argument? Are you trying to say that the switch will somehow prevent him from multicasting? I'm not sure how this could possibly be. If its a cheapo switch it doesn't support IGMP snooping, and the machines will hog bandwidth, assuming each is multicasting out on a different multicast session. But most switches support IGMP snooping. Do *you* know if his does? Either way, your point doesn't seem to make any sense, unless you already have some idea how the system is going to be used and why it won't work because there is a switch? WTF are you trying to say man?
Come on, *make your argument*. Don't throw in a technical term or two and just hope we're going to just assume that you know what you're talking about and that we just don't understand. If you do have a point, I'm all for hearing it, go for it, explain it.
is how long it presumable took for this to be discovered - Hotmail must be one of the most used services on the Internet, and these stupid ToS agreements are supposed to be the things that (DMCA assumption) all the users have read and agreed to? If this doesn't prove beyond a doubt that "(virtually) nobody reads the EULAs" and that these things should not swing the legal weight that they do, then nothing will.
I don't have a problem with Microsoft wanting to make money off their software. So many Microsoft execs seem to jump on the defensive quickly about them 'just wanting to make money off their software'.
What I do have a problem with, and what I would have liked to seen answered here, was how MS can justify having such huge profit margins? It's not "just making money", its outright extortion/gouging. How do they justify/explain a profit margin which is more than ten times (percentage-wise) what is standard in other industries? If their rates were fair I'd buy his arguments (and their software). But they're not.
Think about a company called WindOS, which is similar sounding to Windows (to a non savvy tech person), now their business is making an OS
There is one small difference though. The primary market for Windows(TM2) is non-tech-savvy people. The primary market for OpenGL(TM3) is tech-savvy people - particularly, people who are already capable of telling an OpenGL from an OpenAL. IANAL, but AFAIK a trademark infringement is typically measured in the potential market for possible clients of the company with the trademark. I think the majority of people using OpenGL have to already have some knowledge of what OpenGL is, and are not likely to be confused and tricked into using something with a similar name.
(TM) "Windows" is a registered trademark of Microsoft (TM2) corporation.
(TM2) "Microsoft" is a trademark of Microsoft corporation.
is quite conceivable that people could confuse OpenGL and Open[ICA]L, esp. as all are graphics libraries, and you should not fight this, because you will quite legitimately lose
Firstly, it is fairly inconceivable that anyone with some experience with graphics libraries is going to confuse the two. IANAL, but AFAIK, it does not matter if Joe Farmer who milks cows for a living might confuse the two; it has to be confusing to people "in the market", which in this case is graphics programmers. Anybody who claims to be a "graphics programmer" who might download OpenIL mistaking it for OpenGL does not qualify, I'm afraid, as a graphics programmer. Sure, they might download OpenIL. But if they can't tell the moment they unzip it that it ain't the OpenGL they were looking for, then they clearly have zero experience in graphics. Moreover, OpenIL apparently *uses* OpenGL, so you need GL to run IL in the first place. Hardly a threat to SGI.
AFAIK, there also has to be an intent to actually profit from the success of others when using their name, i.e. it would have to be shown that the author of OpenIL is attempting to mis-use the OpenGL name to get business away from. I highly doubt this can be shown, given that OpenIL is a GPL'd project. And given that it runs on top of OpenGL.
RH: (Attempts to) make a profit off of the philanthropic efforts of thousands of developers. UD: Attempts to make a profit off of the philanthropic efforts of thousands of screensaver-runners.
all the while doing free work for a for-profit corporation
That sounds like many of the Linux developers in the world. Some people want to give away their code, and it doesn't bother them that others might get rich off of it. Perhaps some people might want to give away their CPU cycles, and it doesn't bother them that others might get rich off of it?
I guess the main difference is that this company is not being entirely upfront about their intentions, and are using deliberately misleading marketing to trick people into using the software. This seems to be a general thing with American (US) companies though. Myself I can't stand it.
You could always uninstall their software if you don't want others to make money off your CPU cycles (or if you're afraid that it's going to damage your computer). If your computer isn't busy working on curing cancer anymore, uninstall the software.
Quite frankly I think you're being a little ridiculous - almost every piece of software I've ever installed has disclaimed that the producers are not responsible for damage it might cause to me or my PC. Why should this piece of software suddenly come under fire? Is there something about it that makes it more likely than others to damage stuff? Really. A linux distro is probably equally likely to cause damage to a system (if not more so given the nature of the system, its an OS), and you won't be able to hold anyone responsible either. Be fair; if you're going to complain about UD's software, complain about Linux too. Or almost any software for that matter which could "destroy your computer". Myself, I can't see that UD would want to destroy any computers. That just doesn't sound like a sustainable business model (i.e. it would be fucking stupid).
So some key remapping software utility for Windows is more important to mankind than the ethical issues relating to the (possibly inevital) future contact of mankind with intelligent alien life forms? God, I sure hope history doesn't see it that way 1000 years from now.
OK, just joking around, don't get too upset. Perhaps this goes under "stuff that matters" rather than "news for nerds"? Man has done so many major things in the past without 'thinking it through' properly. It would be nice if, when we do first encounter intelligent aliens, we had actually thought it through some. It is pretty important stuff actually. But slashdot is probably not the most appropriate forum.
I think that in general, in Western civilizations, the cuter an animal is, the less likely it is to get eaten. Fish are ugly. I don't know anyone who feels sorry for fish when they get eaten. Even many vegetarians think its OK to eat fish because "the meat is white". I'm sure fish go through a lot of suffering when being caught, they just don't have the facial expressions to show it (and they don't scream), so I guess that makes it OK to eat them. Health reasons, that I could probably understand.
Of course, as you say, the poster you are replying to has a completely Western perspective (and doesn't like cats, on top of that). Cats were sacred to the ancient Egyptians. He's right about one thing though, that our ideas of who "belongs" are very diverse.
This isn't funny:) (*) Look at mankinds history of colonization and/or exploration of other countries - there is one common thread that runs through almost all of them. In almost every case, there are (roughly) three things that have been done to natives found living there: (1) kill them (2) enslave them, and (3) try convert them to Christianity.
I keep wondering what we are going to do when we start exploring other planets and we find native life forms there. I can't think of a single reason why it is going to be any different.
((*) For the semi-illiterate out there, I do actually think its funny and yes I can take a joke, all I'm saying is that this is actually funny probably because it is so close to the truth, and that itself could be quite unfunny.)
I often think about how fundamental a concept it is to our society that you only have *one* partner in a relationship with the opposite sex. Even *looking* at another girl can land you in a lot of trouble, as if you've done some incredible, absolute *wrong*. But this is such an arbitrary thing: many other cultures (even many still around today - the King of Swaziland has 8 wives) it is very normal to have (e.g) multiple wives. And those women don't get petty and jealous, because it is simply normal for them, it doesn't bother them. Hard for us to imagine maybe. But it shows how arbitrary some of our most basic moral principles really are, they are not founded on anything absolute (unless of course you're a Christian). Many of what we consider to be "absolute" morals are incredibly arbitrary, and many are derived from religions such as Christianity - but when you analyze them from a non-Christian viewpoint, they appear arbitrary and ridiculous (e.g. no sex before marriage). This notion of "only one partner" is so ingrained into our consciousnesses from birth we find it very difficult to imagine that this isn't some absolute universal moral principle.
If a woman's husband has an affair in our society, it causes such incredible amounts of pain to her that the relationship will probably never recover, and will most likely end in a divorce. Yet had the same woman been born into a a different culture, she could easily have ended up sharing her husband with many other women - and not experience a day's pain from it.
Those hypothetical aliens had better become Christians fast, or they're going to have a hard time living here on Earth amongst Western cultures - most "modernized" countries legal systems are based to a fair degree on Christian morals.
I wasn't really commenting on the security of RedHat (or security at all for that matter), just the ability to install from the same installation media as either "server" or "workstation" (and of course "custom"). And to be fair to them, do remember that part of the reason there are so many insecure RH boxes out there is that many people out there just trying out linux install server, or do a custom install and install everything (rather than choosing workstation install), which *will* leave you with a whole bunch of daemons running, which if you don't know what you're doing will leave you with an insecure box. But if you're admin and you're installing workstations for all the users, you're just plain stupid if you don't do something along the lines of the "workstation" install. As for the server class install, well I should hope that somebody running an actual server knows to keep up to date with security notices and patches, and should bloody well know to turn off unused services.
I wasn't trying to defend or advocate either Linux or RedHat, although it seems I appear to have come across as doing so. As I said I was just referring to the ability of the installation program to choose the configuration, since the poster seemed to be under the impression that the only possible way to do this was for these configurations to be hard-coded at the time the installation CDs are burned. Which is (approximately) the MS way, so I can understand an MS user having gotten this impression, but somebody with RHLinux experience should know better..
You're right of course, MS may do license the stuff exactly as they wish (actually thats not completely correct, there are legal limitations on what a monopoly may or may not do under Sherman laws, but lets assume for the sake of argument that they can do what they want).. it, quite simply, still doesn't mean that I have to like it. I am sure as hell going to complain about what I believe are manipulative and unfair tactics. And it sure as hell doesn't mean that I'm not going to complain about it. What exactly should I be doing, should I just accept everything in life that I disagree with? Is that how you live, do you simply accept everything in life you don't agree with? Sorry, but I have never understood that attitude. I don't like the way MS licenses their stuff because they end up leaving thousands of people (e.g. the poster) with the impression that there is some specific thing about an OS that makes it a server OS. Its mis-education, e.g. trying to keep your consumers ignorant. And my whole other problem with this thing is, you keep saying "use something else" - well, what exactly is this "everything else"? Solaris is priced far outside my wallet, and that leaves BSD and Linux. Big whoop, I can either fork out loads of bucks to MS for a "server OS", or I can install an overly complex Unix-derivative that cannot run the majority of the applications I need to use every day. And all I wanted to do was run a lowly web server.. sheeze, you call that choice? When there are roughly the same number of OS's to choose from as there are car manufacturers, we'll speak again about "choice". MS has one of the highest profit margins of the fortune 500's, margins which are way, way higher than almost all other industries. If this wasn't the case I might have been a lot more understanding that they might be doing it to make back their money fairly. But as it stands its plain and simple gouging, they are not making their money "fair and sqaure" at all. You're right, my main argument is that it shouldn't be that way, should be cheaper etc. Are you implying I shouldn't complain then?
Oh, I see it was your post. I was responding to your own statements about being a bunch of pathetic dorks because you weren't inside drinking beer. I'm surprised you didn't, like, get the connection, you know, having been the person who actually like made that statement. Wow. How do you manage that?
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The WinAmp plugin would have to be installed by default for it to gain ground. Apparently having to go download additional files is a huge barrier to adoption of anything. It sucks, but its a fact. Probably less than 10% of the population doesn't mind going off to download additional files. I can find an install for WinAmp just about anywhere, it's on servers at work, all my buddies have it, it's on a number of my software CDs. But nobody I know has the vorbis plugin, and I don't know off the top of my head where to go get it. Despite being physically an incredibly minor barrier, its what is colloquially known as a "psychological barrier". Never underestimate the power of a psychological barrier.
Sorry, but I think thats crap. The internet is not too big to effectively police, not by a long shot. Firstly, the "population" on the Internet smaller than the population of Earth by a factor of about 50, and I don't see the "real world" as being too big to "effectively police". Secondly, the Internet is far far far easier to monitor. As opposed to real life, where the logistics and costs still make it very difficult to do, on the Internet you can monitor anything and everything that goes on, and for relatively cheap. Just look how cheaply and easily the FBI has gained the power to monitor virtually any Internet traffic in the USA. The vast majority of Internet traffic goes through the equipment of a very small number of telecomms companies and ISPs. Most internet activities are either already logged, or are very easy to log. The problem with logging requiring way too much data to store has quickly become a non-issue thanks to cheap data storage (really, if dejanews can archive the entire usenet (apart from binaries), do you *really* think the FBI and other authorities can't? Get real. And it's only getting cheaper and easier to do it. The techically illiterate public might see the Internet as some huge, mysterious place, but technical people should know better.
The argument that law enforcement officials are not clueful enough to track "cybercriminal" probably has some truth in it, but it's incredibly shortsighted and naive to just brush off the authorities completely as being too ignorant to be useful. This is a double-edged sword. Firstly, there are many clued up law enforcement officials, and there will only be more and more in future. Secondly, law enforcement officials who are clueless, of which there are many of these too, are also incredibly dangerous to have policing the online world - do you want somebody who doesn't even know what "source code" is prosecuting you for some cybercrime that you did not commit?
Jurisdiction is "often" a problem? Well if you're falsely accused of something you did not do, or if you're being prosecuted but it's effectively a violation of your human rights, you better "just hope" that jurisdiction "just happens" to be a problem wherever you are. Sounds like a crapshoot to me. Why not just not have stupid laws and treaties to begin with?
Really, to just casually brush off dangerous treaty's and laws by making a few broad statements about the Internet (with no evidence, arguments or proof to back them up, as well as no attempts whatsoever to try to see what technology will be like in the next ten or twenty years) is incredibly dangerous, shortsighted and naive. The fact that these claims come from a law "professor" might fool some people into thinking the arguments carry a lot of weight, but hopefully not enough people to be duped. I know it isn't really the 'american way' for the sheeple, but try to think for yourselves rather than letting some appointed "expert" on TV do all the thinking for the majority of the population.
"Games that don't use it, such as WuakeIII, are very dificult to install."
Wooaaah. If you think Quake3 is difficult to install, you shouldn't be anywhere near a computer, never mind boldly pretending to make technical arguments on technical issues in a discussion group. Holy shit. I suggest you find a job that doesn't involve computers at all. Shame.
That's funny. You may want to check with one of the 36 Democrats who voted for that bill about the Republican's ethical issues
That's funny, I can't remember sheldon saying whether or not he thought it was a sensible bill, only that he thought that the existence of the link was "interesting". Seems you just made an assumption that sheldon was saying the bill was unethical. He didn't say that at all. The bill certainly does not seem unreasonable to me by any means.
So you don't think that Mastercard ever has to write off chunks of debt from credit card companies that can't pay and go bankrupt? I probably also don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm guessing that they do.
Yup. I've been hearing that exact same argument for nearly 10 years now - since I got into computers, in fact. "386 is fast enough to run blah blah word processor blah blah software blah blah". It's crap of course. A fair segment of the market always has been, and still is, starved for speed. As you point out, the academic community is a good example, always wanting to 'crunch' more numbers than ever before.
I would expect somebody like a /. editor to know better than to make stupid comments about how "computers are now fast enough and are likely to stop progressing in the mainstream market". It's incredibly shortsighted, and probably most commonly stems from the fact that it is usually a valid argument that "computers are fast enough for today's software". Well duh. Does anyone actually think software has gotten as good as it can get? I sure hope not.
who has ICBM's targeted at our cities
Uh, right, and America doesn't have ICBM's aimed at Chinese cities. But wait, thats different, right? Cause "WE'RE AMERICANS dammit". Riiight ..
A lot of people seemed to think The Matrix was deep and meaningful. The impression I get is that to the majority of "Joe Public"s out there, the ideas portrayed in the movie *are* deep and "like wow man", as most people have actually never thought about the obvious possibilities the movie depicts (i.e., our perception of reality may be something created artificially).
But to anyone out there who has ever bothered to think about stuff, and to anyone who has even been even vaguely interested in philosophy for at least a single day in their lives, all the "like wow man" concepts portrayed in the movie are old hat, and all thats left is some good action.
I put in a similar mental category as Forrest Gump and Twelve Monkeys - really simple movies that are aimed at the mainstream market, but somehow manage to lead the mainstream market into thinking they've just seen something really deep and meaningful.
Mostly only the cheapest, bottom-of-the-range switches don't support IGMP-snooping. I know the one in our office doesn't, but its the only one of about a dozen in its range from 3com that doesn't support it. Of course, the majority of small businesses probably buy the cheapest switches.
As for TCP/IP 'not supporting it', thats hardly valid. TCP/IP stacks of more than 99% of OS's in use support it. It's implemented on UDP, by the way, so it has nothing to do with TCP itself, it's UDP/IP, with addresses in the 224.x.x.x range. For LANs, this is mapped to a certain range of special MAC addresses. The multicast group management uses IGMP protocol, these packets are what switches need to monitor to keep track of the MAC addresses in the sessions.
I know of some fairly major networking communications libraries that *do* make use of IP multicast, e.g. HLA.
"3. Applications - Under windows there are a couple applications available that will distribute applications across a campus (or any multicast network) to remote users. Broadcast once, receive many. I haven't used this function much but for file distribution that happens on a schedule to the desktop or to multiple servers it could be useful."
This sounds a little bit strange to me. Multicast on IP uses UDP, which is unreliable. IP Multicast is usually used for stuff like video/audio, where it does not matter if the odd frame gets lost. But distributing an application? Lose just a couple of bytes from the middle of a zip file and the zip file is stuffed.
"multicasting has fuck all to do with servers" .. next sentence .. "the server sends out a SINGLE data stream"
Everything else you've said is pretty accurate, but I'm not sure what you meant by "has fuck all to do with servers". Multicast apps tpyically involve a single server casting out to n clients.
also if you check all the machines are plugged into a singe 24-port switch. Where does the multi-casting come into play
Explain exactly what the hell having a 24-port switch has to do with multicasting, and why (as you imply) he can't do multicasting if he has it? Or are you just trying to get modded up by trying to sound like you know what you are talking about by throwing in a few technical terms? What exactly is your argument? Are you trying to say that the switch will somehow prevent him from multicasting? I'm not sure how this could possibly be. If its a cheapo switch it doesn't support IGMP snooping, and the machines will hog bandwidth, assuming each is multicasting out on a different multicast session. But most switches support IGMP snooping. Do *you* know if his does? Either way, your point doesn't seem to make any sense, unless you already have some idea how the system is going to be used and why it won't work because there is a switch? WTF are you trying to say man?
Come on, *make your argument*. Don't throw in a technical term or two and just hope we're going to just assume that you know what you're talking about and that we just don't understand. If you do have a point, I'm all for hearing it, go for it, explain it.
is how long it presumable took for this to be discovered - Hotmail must be one of the most used services on the Internet, and these stupid ToS agreements are supposed to be the things that (DMCA assumption) all the users have read and agreed to? If this doesn't prove beyond a doubt that "(virtually) nobody reads the EULAs" and that these things should not swing the legal weight that they do, then nothing will.
I don't have a problem with Microsoft wanting to make money off their software. So many Microsoft execs seem to jump on the defensive quickly about them 'just wanting to make money off their software'.
What I do have a problem with, and what I would have liked to seen answered here, was how MS can justify having such huge profit margins? It's not "just making money", its outright extortion/gouging. How do they justify/explain a profit margin which is more than ten times (percentage-wise) what is standard in other industries? If their rates were fair I'd buy his arguments (and their software). But they're not.
Think about a company called WindOS, which is similar sounding to Windows (to a non savvy tech person), now their business is making an OS
There is one small difference though. The primary market for Windows(TM2) is non-tech-savvy people. The primary market for OpenGL(TM3) is tech-savvy people - particularly, people who are already capable of telling an OpenGL from an OpenAL. IANAL, but AFAIK a trademark infringement is typically measured in the potential market for possible clients of the company with the trademark. I think the majority of people using OpenGL have to already have some knowledge of what OpenGL is, and are not likely to be confused and tricked into using something with a similar name.
(TM) "Windows" is a registered trademark of Microsoft (TM2) corporation.
(TM2) "Microsoft" is a trademark of Microsoft corporation.
(TM3) "OpenGL" is a trademark of SGI corporation.
Yeah, and it's based on that really poor GUI toolkit called GTK. One day when QT and GTK grow up they will be as good as Motif (maybe...).
Not a bad troll. Here's a better one though: "One day when QT and GTK grow up they will be as good as the Win32 SDK (maybe)" .. hehe ..
is quite conceivable that people could confuse OpenGL and Open[ICA]L, esp. as all are graphics libraries, and you should not fight this, because you will quite legitimately lose
Firstly, it is fairly inconceivable that anyone with some experience with graphics libraries is going to confuse the two. IANAL, but AFAIK, it does not matter if Joe Farmer who milks cows for a living might confuse the two; it has to be confusing to people "in the market", which in this case is graphics programmers. Anybody who claims to be a "graphics programmer" who might download OpenIL mistaking it for OpenGL does not qualify, I'm afraid, as a graphics programmer. Sure, they might download OpenIL. But if they can't tell the moment they unzip it that it ain't the OpenGL they were looking for, then they clearly have zero experience in graphics. Moreover, OpenIL apparently *uses* OpenGL, so you need GL to run IL in the first place. Hardly a threat to SGI.
AFAIK, there also has to be an intent to actually profit from the success of others when using their name, i.e. it would have to be shown that the author of OpenIL is attempting to mis-use the OpenGL name to get business away from. I highly doubt this can be shown, given that OpenIL is a GPL'd project. And given that it runs on top of OpenGL.
RH: (Attempts to) make a profit off of the philanthropic efforts of thousands of developers.
UD: Attempts to make a profit off of the philanthropic efforts of thousands of screensaver-runners.
all the while doing free work for a for-profit corporation
That sounds like many of the Linux developers in the world. Some people want to give away their code, and it doesn't bother them that others might get rich off of it. Perhaps some people might want to give away their CPU cycles, and it doesn't bother them that others might get rich off of it?
I guess the main difference is that this company is not being entirely upfront about their intentions, and are using deliberately misleading marketing to trick people into using the software. This seems to be a general thing with American (US) companies though. Myself I can't stand it.
You could always uninstall their software if you don't want others to make money off your CPU cycles (or if you're afraid that it's going to damage your computer). If your computer isn't busy working on curing cancer anymore, uninstall the software.
Quite frankly I think you're being a little ridiculous - almost every piece of software I've ever installed has disclaimed that the producers are not responsible for damage it might cause to me or my PC. Why should this piece of software suddenly come under fire? Is there something about it that makes it more likely than others to damage stuff? Really. A linux distro is probably equally likely to cause damage to a system (if not more so given the nature of the system, its an OS), and you won't be able to hold anyone responsible either. Be fair; if you're going to complain about UD's software, complain about Linux too. Or almost any software for that matter which could "destroy your computer". Myself, I can't see that UD would want to destroy any computers. That just doesn't sound like a sustainable business model (i.e. it would be fucking stupid).
So some key remapping software utility for Windows is more important to mankind than the ethical issues relating to the (possibly inevital) future contact of mankind with intelligent alien life forms? God, I sure hope history doesn't see it that way 1000 years from now.
OK, just joking around, don't get too upset. Perhaps this goes under "stuff that matters" rather than "news for nerds"? Man has done so many major things in the past without 'thinking it through' properly. It would be nice if, when we do first encounter intelligent aliens, we had actually thought it through some. It is pretty important stuff actually. But slashdot is probably not the most appropriate forum.
I think that in general, in Western civilizations, the cuter an animal is, the less likely it is to get eaten. Fish are ugly. I don't know anyone who feels sorry for fish when they get eaten. Even many vegetarians think its OK to eat fish because "the meat is white". I'm sure fish go through a lot of suffering when being caught, they just don't have the facial expressions to show it (and they don't scream), so I guess that makes it OK to eat them. Health reasons, that I could probably understand.
Of course, as you say, the poster you are replying to has a completely Western perspective (and doesn't like cats, on top of that). Cats were sacred to the ancient Egyptians. He's right about one thing though, that our ideas of who "belongs" are very diverse.
This isn't funny :) (*) Look at mankinds history of colonization and/or exploration of other countries - there is one common thread that runs through almost all of them. In almost every case, there are (roughly) three things that have been done to natives found living there: (1) kill them (2) enslave them, and (3) try convert them to Christianity.
I keep wondering what we are going to do when we start exploring other planets and we find native life forms there. I can't think of a single reason why it is going to be any different.
((*) For the semi-illiterate out there, I do actually think its funny and yes I can take a joke, all I'm saying is that this is actually funny probably because it is so close to the truth, and that itself could be quite unfunny.)
I often think about how fundamental a concept it is to our society that you only have *one* partner in a relationship with the opposite sex. Even *looking* at another girl can land you in a lot of trouble, as if you've done some incredible, absolute *wrong*. But this is such an arbitrary thing: many other cultures (even many still around today - the King of Swaziland has 8 wives) it is very normal to have (e.g) multiple wives. And those women don't get petty and jealous, because it is simply normal for them, it doesn't bother them. Hard for us to imagine maybe. But it shows how arbitrary some of our most basic moral principles really are, they are not founded on anything absolute (unless of course you're a Christian). Many of what we consider to be "absolute" morals are incredibly arbitrary, and many are derived from religions such as Christianity - but when you analyze them from a non-Christian viewpoint, they appear arbitrary and ridiculous (e.g. no sex before marriage). This notion of "only one partner" is so ingrained into our consciousnesses from birth we find it very difficult to imagine that this isn't some absolute universal moral principle.
If a woman's husband has an affair in our society, it causes such incredible amounts of pain to her that the relationship will probably never recover, and will most likely end in a divorce. Yet had the same woman been born into a a different culture, she could easily have ended up sharing her husband with many other women - and not experience a day's pain from it.
Those hypothetical aliens had better become Christians fast, or they're going to have a hard time living here on Earth amongst Western cultures - most "modernized" countries legal systems are based to a fair degree on Christian morals.
I wasn't really commenting on the security of RedHat (or security at all for that matter), just the ability to install from the same installation media as either "server" or "workstation" (and of course "custom"). And to be fair to them, do remember that part of the reason there are so many insecure RH boxes out there is that many people out there just trying out linux install server, or do a custom install and install everything (rather than choosing workstation install), which *will* leave you with a whole bunch of daemons running, which if you don't know what you're doing will leave you with an insecure box. But if you're admin and you're installing workstations for all the users, you're just plain stupid if you don't do something along the lines of the "workstation" install. As for the server class install, well I should hope that somebody running an actual server knows to keep up to date with security notices and patches, and should bloody well know to turn off unused services.
I wasn't trying to defend or advocate either Linux or RedHat, although it seems I appear to have come across as doing so. As I said I was just referring to the ability of the installation program to choose the configuration, since the poster seemed to be under the impression that the only possible way to do this was for these configurations to be hard-coded at the time the installation CDs are burned. Which is (approximately) the MS way, so I can understand an MS user having gotten this impression, but somebody with RHLinux experience should know better ..
You're right of course, MS may do license the stuff exactly as they wish (actually thats not completely correct, there are legal limitations on what a monopoly may or may not do under Sherman laws, but lets assume for the sake of argument that they can do what they want) .. it, quite simply, still doesn't mean that I have to like it. I am sure as hell going to complain about what I believe are manipulative and unfair tactics. And it sure as hell doesn't mean that I'm not going to complain about it. What exactly should I be doing, should I just accept everything in life that I disagree with? Is that how you live, do you simply accept everything in life you don't agree with? Sorry, but I have never understood that attitude. I don't like the way MS licenses their stuff because they end up leaving thousands of people (e.g. the poster) with the impression that there is some specific thing about an OS that makes it a server OS. Its mis-education, e.g. trying to keep your consumers ignorant. And my whole other problem with this thing is, you keep saying "use something else" - well, what exactly is this "everything else"? Solaris is priced far outside my wallet, and that leaves BSD and Linux. Big whoop, I can either fork out loads of bucks to MS for a "server OS", or I can install an overly complex Unix-derivative that cannot run the majority of the applications I need to use every day. And all I wanted to do was run a lowly web server .. sheeze, you call that choice? When there are roughly the same number of OS's to choose from as there are car manufacturers, we'll speak again about "choice". MS has one of the highest profit margins of the fortune 500's, margins which are way, way higher than almost all other industries. If this wasn't the case I might have been a lot more understanding that they might be doing it to make back their money fairly. But as it stands its plain and simple gouging, they are not making their money "fair and sqaure" at all. You're right, my main argument is that it shouldn't be that way, should be cheaper etc. Are you implying I shouldn't complain then?
Oh, I see it was your post. I was responding to your own statements about being a bunch of pathetic dorks because you weren't inside drinking beer. I'm surprised you didn't, like, get the connection, you know, having been the person who actually like made that statement. Wow. How do you manage that?