Believe it or not, she's trying to write a *thesis* in *Word*! Crazy, I know. I'm banned from mentioning BibTeX whenever she starts complaining about citation management. And she's already wasted days thanks to proprietary formats. It's a wonder people manage to get any work done in Windows...
I just wrote a novel in Word, and the only problems were due to my (18 months ago, when I started) inexperience with Word on such big documents. Trust me--it's a tool that will get her job done, provided she takes the time to figure it out. (http://www.mvps.org/word for more info.)
If you want to move to a proprietary-free format from Word, save to HTML. Even with all of the buggy formatting, any competent web browser should be able to read it. (And if you want to scrub the HTML page of the office-code, Microsoft has a downloadable tool to do just that.)
He's obviously a troll. He even contradicts himself. [slashdot.org] He uses the temptuous Internet, when he should remove it completely from his life, right?
Nope. Assuming that he's not a troll, he seems consistent in considering himself a "strong willed" person who can withstand things that lead to sin.
Pornography and the internet, in and of themselves, are not sin; they are condusive to sin. There's a distinct technical difference, and some Catholics do believe that the difference bewteen eternal damnation and lack thereof can be a technicality.
Still, it seems odd that someone would spend so much of their time where they're apparantly not wanted, and not leave realiable contact information. If he's trolling under a false persona, it's an extremly well done false persona.
(And, of course, if he's just "speaking the good word," he could still be considered trolling...;) )
In my parenting workgroups, I tell parents to get rid of chatting clients; AIM, jabber, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL. I tell the same things in my engagement workshops. While the children and couples protest at first, years later they thank me. You will to.
There's a much, much easier solution. Removing a thing from your life, especially a communication medium, deprives others of help. It's better to reform the system, unless a system proves itself beyond help (IM clients, btw, have not.)
Instead of banishing the client, simply:
1: Ensure that the non-casual relationships of an IM are based on more than the IM. Have real names, real addresses, and real working phone numbers. Use voice chat if the rest are unavaliable--or better yet, video chat.
2: Use an IM client with a permanent log function. If a record of the transmissions exists, it's psychologically harder to fall prey to the "anonymous and unseen" concept that the internet offers so many.
Now, I don't know if you're a troll or just a catholic--so I'm going to take your words at face value.;) I am a happily married man who has emotional attachments to many people outside of my marriage--these people are called friends, and I share these relationships with my wife. There are some people whom one of us is closer to than the other, but we both know all of each other's friends.
Feel free to respond, either via journal, reply, or e-mail.
Windows' monopoly will not, should not, and shall not be compromised by this judgement alone. However, the monopoly that IE, Outlook, and Office have is now, rightfully, possible to challenge within the next five years.
However, I think a myriad of good things can come from this. Off the top of my head:
Mozilla can get the specs to properly replace the IE/Outlook debacle
OpenOffice, AbiWord, and all the rest can get at every trick and cheat that MS Office uses
The new AIM/ICQ client can be made to kick MSN off, and reside as quietly and seamlessly as before
Look at this as smacking MS for abusing their monopoly, not the courts doing by fiat what Red Hat, Apple, and IBM have failed to do so far. You've got five years to out-do the "most bloated system in the world". I look foward to the results of this, even as I dread the/. bitching.
Ultimately the only serious competition Microsoft faces at this time is from Linux.
No. If MS had serious competiton, they wouldn't be a monopoly and they could do whatever the heck they wanted.
This settlement takes MS's monopoly as a given--just like the monopoly of AC power, cable companies, or gasoline is a given--and blocks MS from interfering with companies that want to compete with MS's non-OS products.
Windows' monopoly will not, should not, and shall not be compromised by this judgement alone. However, the monopoly that IE, Outlook, and Office have is now, rightfully, possible to challenge within the next five years.
Yeah just go down the projects and talk to normal people
If we're going to generalize, people in the projects aren't "normal" people. No one blinks if you tell them that you live in the country or the city--if you say "I live in the projects", they do.
'sides which, you're showing evidence of a bias based soley on grammar.
Unless 2 people are present when the T&Cond is given, I can always tell the Judge that the guy physically assaulted me and signed it himself and/or forced me to sign under threat of my life. Or I can deny that I signed it.
And then you'd have to prove it. If it's just your word against theirs, and there's a signed document (or clearly displayed "click through" on everything), I'd expect (again, IANAL) that you'd lose.
The *entire industry*, including free software and OSS folks, governs software by licenses, and the personal-level licenes are "click through" or "agree on use". Claims of ignorance will stand up about as well as a claim to not understanding basic property rights or traffic codes--you could claim to not understand them, but you'd likely wind up examined by a pscyhiatrist, and either found to be lying or deamed legally incompetent.
Micro$oft should try this: Microsoft EULA 1. You hereby allow Micro$oft herein forthwith to rape your children and take your house away from you to use our software 2. At Micro$oft's discretion, you hereby allow Micro$oft to seize your house, and Bill Gates to take your wife for her own at his own whim. 3. You hereby sign over all your possessions and money to Micro$oft (including any money you have in Bank accounts and stored in 401k)
A contract must have a legal purpose and legal terms--and the terms you stated were rather illegal. Rape and slavery are illegal, I believe that marriage contracts aren't enforceable (they might be, but only between families if they are)--and the ability to sieze property has to be based on a fiscal debt... and there are laws against outrageous punitive fees in contracts, as well.
(And all this ignores the international concerns that might arise. To go after a UK citizen, MS would have to deal with US and EU laws--which any/. reader knows can get rather contradictory.)
So would this be enforcable in law, eh? Everyone gonna lose their houses now, eh?
Not a chance in hell, actually.
Even if MS successfully changed their EULAs to read like what you stated, news would get out within a month, and MS would either change or die rather quickly. Plus, it'd only be applicable on those that agree to the new EULA, by buying new software--which means that you'd get a chance to read the terms before you agree to them.
If Microsoft wanted to own you, they'd probably just buy all debts you have and your contract from your employer. And they wouldn't even do that unless there was some way that they could make back all of that money, plus the dollar value of the goodwill they'd lose, plus a good 20% on top of that for a good profit margin.
(Any task I can think of that you'd be qualified for--code monkey, HTML parser, manual servant, software engineer, raw muscle, janitor,/. astroturfer--could be filled cheaper and easier by someone who actually likes MS.)
Whatever this judge may say tomorrow is irrelevant and will not affect MS in the slightest way.
You mean being forced to split up (like AT&T was) won't have a single effect? Man, what was I thinking...
The government, if it decides do, can easily break up MS. All of this--every single legal minutes spent by lawyer or judge since Jackson's ruling--is just the government asking itself "how hard do we want to smack them?"
MS is hoping that its crying and grimmacing will let it get off with a severe warning, rather than a charter-breaking slap.
"Joe Sixpack" is not the standard of the "Reasonable Man."
A "reasonable man" reads everything that he agrees to, in full, and doesn't break the law.
Joe Sixpack does indeed know about EULAs--either they're there when he installs the PC, when he turns on the PC, or the person who set up the PC tells him about them. It's probably something on the order of "here's the license", and while the terms are arcane and bizzare, they're much easier to find and understand that, oh, the traffic code that we all have to obey, on penalty of liabilty & fines.
So it's illegal not to read Micro$oft's website? And then my cat walks on the keyboard
No, it's perfectly legal to never speak with MS.
But an argument from ignorance, that anyone using a PC had no idea about the terms that bind that PC, is a longer shot than a challenge to the basic validity of the EULA.
I don't know about you, but the average person I've met is moderately intelligent and fully capable of grasping such decade-old mass media concepts as "save file" or "software license." This is 2002, not 1982.
The original post was in reference to GAIM. Are you telling me you've completely missed all the furvor about Desktop Linux? You don't really think end users are having admins install it do you? Red Hat 8.0 is being touted as their first good step towards Desktop Linux.
I was just booted in RH8, and it was a PITA. Sure, if my entire PC was RH it might work, but it isn't.
That said, Linux is by-nature a thing for "admins", even if it's a lonely amatuer just installing the OS for the first time. They're not a user, they're an admin--and admins should know what they're doing.
Like it or not, end users coming, and some of them are incompetant, AND want to submit bug reports.
No end user is without an admin in Linuxland. By deciding to go to Linux, they're either a wannabe hacker or a business choosing the cheaper deal.
Please don't flame them and send them back to Windows.
Absolutely not. I plan on flaming red hat for making such an irritating system. (How can the system be HARDER to use than XP? I mean, really!)
That, in and of itself, disqualifies your evidence as relevant.
Tech Support for non-OSS* is written for people who cannot / are not allowed to / are never expected to understand what's going on.
Bug reports, (especially in OSS), on the other hand, are intended for an audience that can be (and often is) assumed to know what's going on, and how the system works. Any descent bug reporting system tells the reporter to document everything, to reproduce it, and only gives them the ability to submit a bug after they've gone through a UI at least as complex as that of the help documentation for the program.
Or in other words... OSS folks don't deal with dumb users, they deal with dumb admins**--who are often flamed away so quickly that only the halfway competent admins remain.
_________________________
*: OSS: Open Source Software ("OSS Software" would be redundant.)
**: Everyone who uses OSS is or works with or is an admin, even if it's just someone on their own machine in their own basement.
It occurs to me as a plausibility that certain "warp field designs" would have a collapsing field where space moves internally at near-c velocities, thus prompting accelleration even within the warp...
still, "inertial dampeners" aren't any harder to swallow than "Gravity fields." In fact, I think the "star trek technical mannuals" even list them as the same system...
I'm going to have to spend my entire time opening and retracting it as I use grafitti a lot - which means it'll break quickly.
Just leave it open when you're writing something, or when you have it out and aren't just looking something up.
I suspect that the engineers are well aware that in the typical "30 minutes use per day" that the graffitti area will be opened and closed at least ten times; it's probably designed to stand up to a lot, which means that it won't break as quickly as you think it will.
IANAL--well, duh. Lawyers get paid more than I do.
My dog tore up the software box, and only the CD remained, whilst I was installing it a screen came up but my cat jumped on the keyboard and pressed the Enter key.
The courts (which is where the applicability of all contracts are inevitably settled) in the USA are based on a "resonable man" standard for a lot of things. I suspect this is the same in the UK, considering that our contractual legal systems were identical up until about 225 years ago.
It would be rather farcical to try and claim that you did not know that Microsoft uses EULAs to sell a license to make copies of their software for use. It's written on the box, talked about on slashdot, and even mentioned in the "about" box of every single MS windows app; some even include the EULA online.
However, if we assume that you've got enough proof that you didn't know that MS sells their software this way, and that you unintentionally hit the "I agree" button without reading (or even seeing) the window, you'd probably wind up in a position to reverse the sale of the license--instead of being forced to pay the license costs + extra, you'd be given the option of "buy a license or delete the software."
(Oh, and violating an EULA isn't breaking a law, so it isn't illegal. It's the breach of a contract. The COPYRIGHT VIOLATION you'd probably commit is probably a crime, but it'd probably be on the scale of stealing pens when you're breaking your employment contract.)
Huh? An obvious example would be Warp Drive (wormholes are not FTL travel). Unless I haven't seen it, I haven't seen any viable theories about usurping Einstein.
Warp Drive doesn't. It's a bend in space-time, which would nicey get around that FTL barrier--instead they'd be limited by the speed at which they can bend space.
Odditty: Since they're not "really" travelling at Xc, but rather 0.Xc inside a pseudo-wormhole, doesn't it seem likely that they could dispense iwth the "inertial compensators" and just rely simply on the folding of space?
Anyway...
Also as far as I know, there is no viable theory as to how to make a transporter work (quantum-level effects notwithstanding).
Just because something's "quantum level" or "macro level" doesn't mean that it doesn't effect the other. If I pick up the glass next to me and move it, the set of molecules that could make up the glass are now somewhere else, even if I'm not at all sure which particular molecules there are.
(In trek's defense, they originally didn't want the transporter to be a part of the show, but budget & time restraints made some shortcut necessary, unless they re-did the ship so it could land...)
All that said... "viable theory" is probably the wrong word. "Scientficially plausible concept" is probably a better term.
This would probably have no additional effects, as there are already self-contradictions within the bible.
Can you name one?
Most of the so-called contradictions are either translation errors or time differentials. (Ex: During WWII, "Germans are Bad." In 2000: "Germans are just peachy.")
I've been wrestling with Linux the entire week so far--and what it gains in "libre" it loses in simplicity.
Windows XP hasn't even hiccuped throughout the entire process--and the only problem that came up (Lycoris stealing the MBR) was fixed so easily I laughed when I discovered it.
[Open Disk Manager, right-click windows partiion, select "make active" or equivalent.]
For OSS, the only part that matters to me is gratis. I'm libre enough by the law the extant software licenses, thank you very much.
OK, so if you're being pedantic, you can say that I got it wrong, because the Apple difference does mean that Open Source is a superset of Free Software, but that was an intentional move on my part, because it was bound to catch the attention of people like you who have totally failed to understand that the two terms refer to the same thing (pretty much).
Two terms that mean the same thing are worthless terms for a discussion--and not the sort of thing that people have flame wars over.
See the FSF's page on the issue for a better take on it. Especially, see Neal Stephenson's informal definition.
(On a side note, am I the only one who's irritated that both the FSF and the OSS people try to define by declaration and not exploration? Language evolves on its own--it does not do what special intrests want it to.)
Anyway, with all of that said--no, I'm not wrong. Let's look at my statements again:
Open Source is not a subset of Free Software; Free Software is a subset of Open Source.
It is possible to have OSS that is not Free Software. On the other hand, is it possible to have Free Software where you don't get the source code? (See freedom 1 from the FSF)
Free Software: Software that follows GNU's "software freedoms," including source code and redistribution rights, and sticky copyleft.
Let's see, "including source code" is freedom 1, and "redistribution rights" is freedom 2. I'll admit to being partially incorrect on the "sticky copyleft" line...
Open Source: Software that gives you the source code for the system. Mac OS's Darwin kernel is "Open Source", even though Aqua (and thus the OS as a whole) and most Mac apps aren't.
Why, that's Neil's exact wording.... and since by your own admission Darwin is OSS, the whole statement's correct, if possibly incorrect.
Unless YaST doesn't include code, it's OSS. If YaST doesn't include code, but doesn't do anything more than setup the software, it (the OS) might still be OSS.
This statement can get tricky depending on what literal definition of OSS you mean... but, again, that's hardly enough for me to be uneqivocabbly "wrong."
The polarization between "muslim" and "christian" is there, and has been there for a good 1500 years now.
Halfway measures in everything we do will not change this. The only method I can concieve to alter this disparity is to have a "one world" view--and for the west to settle the problems it has created.
Saddam Hussen would not be in power if not for our aid during the Cold War. The Taliban would not have taken power if not for the US's aid to the Afghans against the USSR. We have created these "monsters," and we need to deal with them.
On a side note, "use of military power to solve issues" is a time-honored tradition, in the Muslim and Christian worlds. Petty dictator starving a country's people? The surest way to fix the problem is to remove the petty dictator, not to negotiate with him. If we (the West) are percieved as not being willing to fight, then those that are willing to fight will have an advantage over us.
I eagerly await the day when the Muslim world returns to a height of learning and civilization--but I'd be willing to go to war (me, personally, leaving my job and my wife and joining a military that I won't do all that well in) to make that day come sooner.
United Linux, like SuSE, is not Free Softwae, so it is not Open Source.
You've got it backwards.
Open Source is not a subset of Free Software; Free Software is a subset of Open Source.
Free Software: Software that follows GNU's "software freedoms," including source code and redistribution rights, and sticky copyleft.
Open Source: Software that gives you the source code for the system. Mac OS's Darwin kernel is "Open Source", even though Aqua (and thus the OS as a whole) and most Mac apps aren't.
Unless YaST doesn't include code, it's OSS. If YaST doesn't include code, but doesn't do anything more than setup the software, it (the OS) might still be OSS.
Anything anyone else would 'miss' from the Office Suite?
em dashes.
To date, every Linux word processor I've tried has looked at an em-dash (the single character that word puts in when you use two dashes--that is, two hyphens--like I'm using them in this sentence) as a letter in a word, and not a punctuation mark.
If I ever get a word processor working the way I want it in Linux that isn't word on wine, I'll post a journal about it.
bound by the paper contracts that you signed with Microsoft when you set up your enterprise agreements with them as a major purchaser of softwarek, and THOSE are legally binding without question.
True.
(To those who don't know, he's referring to the "if it looks like a duck..." argument, that since there's no negotiation and almost impossible return on MS software, it could be construed as a "sale" and not a license--and, thus, no more restricted than any other copywritten work.)
Do you think an enterprise like K-mart just buys it's software of the shelf at best-buy?
You MUST contact Microsoft and establish that the license can be transfered. Period.
No. You are bound ONLY by the terms of the EULA that shows up when the software is installed (or that's included with the box when you buy your computer.)
Read the license, understand its terms, and all will be well. The license is "permission" to make copies of the software--and if the license is voided, you no longer have permission and need to talk to MS all over again. (Or just buy a stock license.)
That's truth. Not FUD.
Let's look at the statement:
" No - this is an attempt to pass on the truth. You are obfuscating the point of the story - Microsoft is FINALLY pointing out that your software licenses are THEIR property, not yours."
Sounds like FUD to me. The SOFTWARE is MS's property, but the LICENSE is whomever paid money for it. If you get a "license" that the person who originally aqquired it is not allowed to transfer, then you don't have permission.
You are guilty of spreading FUD, the same as someone who claims that code compiled with gcc needs to be GPL'd is. MS cannot surprise you with unforseen terms--not unless there's a "MS may modify this" clause in the license.
Slashdot Mirror
Believe it or not, she's trying to write a *thesis* in *Word*! Crazy, I know. I'm banned from mentioning BibTeX whenever she starts complaining about citation management. And she's already wasted days thanks to proprietary formats. It's a wonder people manage to get any work done in Windows...
I just wrote a novel in Word, and the only problems were due to my (18 months ago, when I started) inexperience with Word on such big documents. Trust me--it's a tool that will get her job done, provided she takes the time to figure it out. (http://www.mvps.org/word for more info.)
If you want to move to a proprietary-free format from Word, save to HTML. Even with all of the buggy formatting, any competent web browser should be able to read it. (And if you want to scrub the HTML page of the office-code, Microsoft has a downloadable tool to do just that.)
He's obviously a troll. He even contradicts himself. [slashdot.org] He uses the temptuous Internet, when he should remove it completely from his life, right?
;) )
Nope. Assuming that he's not a troll, he seems consistent in considering himself a "strong willed" person who can withstand things that lead to sin.
Pornography and the internet, in and of themselves, are not sin; they are condusive to sin. There's a distinct technical difference, and some Catholics do believe that the difference bewteen eternal damnation and lack thereof can be a technicality.
Still, it seems odd that someone would spend so much of their time where they're apparantly not wanted, and not leave realiable contact information. If he's trolling under a false persona, it's an extremly well done false persona.
(And, of course, if he's just "speaking the good word," he could still be considered trolling...
In my parenting workgroups, I tell parents to get rid of chatting clients; AIM, jabber, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL. I tell the same things in my engagement workshops. While the children and couples protest at first, years later they thank me. You will to.
;) I am a happily married man who has emotional attachments to many people outside of my marriage--these people are called friends, and I share these relationships with my wife. There are some people whom one of us is closer to than the other, but we both know all of each other's friends.
There's a much, much easier solution. Removing a thing from your life, especially a communication medium, deprives others of help. It's better to reform the system, unless a system proves itself beyond help (IM clients, btw, have not.)
Instead of banishing the client, simply:
1: Ensure that the non-casual relationships of an IM are based on more than the IM. Have real names, real addresses, and real working phone numbers. Use voice chat if the rest are unavaliable--or better yet, video chat.
2: Use an IM client with a permanent log function. If a record of the transmissions exists, it's psychologically harder to fall prey to the "anonymous and unseen" concept that the internet offers so many.
Now, I don't know if you're a troll or just a catholic--so I'm going to take your words at face value.
Feel free to respond, either via journal, reply, or e-mail.
Windows' monopoly will not, should not, and shall not be compromised by this judgement alone. However, the monopoly that IE, Outlook, and Office have is now, rightfully, possible to challenge within the next five years.
However, I think a myriad of good things can come from this. Off the top of my head:
Look at this as smacking MS for abusing their monopoly, not the courts doing by fiat what Red Hat, Apple, and IBM have failed to do so far. You've got five years to out-do the "most bloated system in the world". I look foward to the results of this, even as I dread the /. bitching.
Ultimately the only serious competition Microsoft faces at this time is from Linux.
No. If MS had serious competiton, they wouldn't be a monopoly and they could do whatever the heck they wanted.
This settlement takes MS's monopoly as a given--just like the monopoly of AC power, cable companies, or gasoline is a given--and blocks MS from interfering with companies that want to compete with MS's non-OS products.
Windows' monopoly will not, should not, and shall not be compromised by this judgement alone. However, the monopoly that IE, Outlook, and Office have is now, rightfully, possible to challenge within the next five years.
Yeah just go down the projects and talk to normal people
/. reader knows can get rather contradictory.)
/. astroturfer--could be filled cheaper and easier by someone who actually likes MS.)
If we're going to generalize, people in the projects aren't "normal" people. No one blinks if you tell them that you live in the country or the city--if you say "I live in the projects", they do.
'sides which, you're showing evidence of a bias based soley on grammar.
Unless 2 people are present when the T&Cond is given, I can always tell the Judge that the guy physically assaulted me and signed it himself and/or forced me to sign under threat of my life. Or I can deny that I signed it.
And then you'd have to prove it. If it's just your word against theirs, and there's a signed document (or clearly displayed "click through" on everything), I'd expect (again, IANAL) that you'd lose.
The *entire industry*, including free software and OSS folks, governs software by licenses, and the personal-level licenes are "click through" or "agree on use". Claims of ignorance will stand up about as well as a claim to not understanding basic property rights or traffic codes--you could claim to not understand them, but you'd likely wind up examined by a pscyhiatrist, and either found to be lying or deamed legally incompetent.
Micro$oft should try this:
Microsoft EULA
1. You hereby allow Micro$oft herein forthwith to rape your children and take your house away from you to use our software
2. At Micro$oft's discretion, you hereby allow Micro$oft to seize your house, and Bill Gates to take your wife for her own at his own whim.
3. You hereby sign over all your possessions and money to Micro$oft (including any money you have in Bank accounts and stored in 401k)
A contract must have a legal purpose and legal terms--and the terms you stated were rather illegal. Rape and slavery are illegal, I believe that marriage contracts aren't enforceable (they might be, but only between families if they are)--and the ability to sieze property has to be based on a fiscal debt... and there are laws against outrageous punitive fees in contracts, as well.
(And all this ignores the international concerns that might arise. To go after a UK citizen, MS would have to deal with US and EU laws--which any
So would this be enforcable in law, eh? Everyone gonna lose their houses now, eh?
Not a chance in hell, actually.
Even if MS successfully changed their EULAs to read like what you stated, news would get out within a month, and MS would either change or die rather quickly. Plus, it'd only be applicable on those that agree to the new EULA, by buying new software--which means that you'd get a chance to read the terms before you agree to them.
If Microsoft wanted to own you, they'd probably just buy all debts you have and your contract from your employer. And they wouldn't even do that unless there was some way that they could make back all of that money, plus the dollar value of the goodwill they'd lose, plus a good 20% on top of that for a good profit margin.
(Any task I can think of that you'd be qualified for--code monkey, HTML parser, manual servant, software engineer, raw muscle, janitor,
Whatever this judge may say tomorrow is irrelevant and will not affect MS in the slightest way.
You mean being forced to split up (like AT&T was) won't have a single effect? Man, what was I thinking...
The government, if it decides do, can easily break up MS. All of this--every single legal minutes spent by lawyer or judge since Jackson's ruling--is just the government asking itself "how hard do we want to smack them?"
MS is hoping that its crying and grimmacing will let it get off with a severe warning, rather than a charter-breaking slap.
Please leave immediately.
;-). Plus I'm hoping that there's another interpretation that I don't see...)
/., what a license means in a real "legal opinion."
(For the humor impaired,
No, that's it. I'm a secretary currently, so being a lawyer is better in just about every way possible.
Plus, I could do all sorts of neat things that I can't do now--like make money, or tell folks on
If I ever do happen to pass the bar, I promise not to become unconcionable scum.
"Joe Sixpack" is not the standard of the "Reasonable Man."
A "reasonable man" reads everything that he agrees to, in full, and doesn't break the law.
Joe Sixpack does indeed know about EULAs--either they're there when he installs the PC, when he turns on the PC, or the person who set up the PC tells him about them. It's probably something on the order of "here's the license", and while the terms are arcane and bizzare, they're much easier to find and understand that, oh, the traffic code that we all have to obey, on penalty of liabilty & fines.
So it's illegal not to read Micro$oft's website? And then my cat walks on the keyboard
No, it's perfectly legal to never speak with MS.
But an argument from ignorance, that anyone using a PC had no idea about the terms that bind that PC, is a longer shot than a challenge to the basic validity of the EULA.
I don't know about you, but the average person I've met is moderately intelligent and fully capable of grasping such decade-old mass media concepts as "save file" or "software license." This is 2002, not 1982.
The original post was in reference to GAIM. Are you telling me you've completely missed all the furvor about Desktop Linux? You don't really think end users are having admins install it do you? Red Hat 8.0 is being touted as their first good step towards Desktop Linux.
I was just booted in RH8, and it was a PITA. Sure, if my entire PC was RH it might work, but it isn't.
That said, Linux is by-nature a thing for "admins", even if it's a lonely amatuer just installing the OS for the first time. They're not a user, they're an admin--and admins should know what they're doing.
Like it or not, end users coming, and some of them are incompetant, AND want to submit bug reports.
No end user is without an admin in Linuxland. By deciding to go to Linux, they're either a wannabe hacker or a business choosing the cheaper deal.
Please don't flame them and send them back to Windows.
Absolutely not. I plan on flaming red hat for making such an irritating system. (How can the system be HARDER to use than XP? I mean, really!)
Of course, I'm not an open source developer
That, in and of itself, disqualifies your evidence as relevant.
Tech Support for non-OSS* is written for people who cannot / are not allowed to / are never expected to understand what's going on.
Bug reports, (especially in OSS), on the other hand, are intended for an audience that can be (and often is) assumed to know what's going on, and how the system works. Any descent bug reporting system tells the reporter to document everything, to reproduce it, and only gives them the ability to submit a bug after they've gone through a UI at least as complex as that of the help documentation for the program.
Or in other words... OSS folks don't deal with dumb users, they deal with dumb admins**--who are often flamed away so quickly that only the halfway competent admins remain.
_________________________
*: OSS: Open Source Software ("OSS Software" would be redundant.)
**: Everyone who uses OSS is or works with or is an admin, even if it's just someone on their own machine in their own basement.
Yeah, I know.
It occurs to me as a plausibility that certain "warp field designs" would have a collapsing field where space moves internally at near-c velocities, thus prompting accelleration even within the warp...
still, "inertial dampeners" aren't any harder to swallow than "Gravity fields." In fact, I think the "star trek technical mannuals" even list them as the same system...
I'm going to have to spend my entire time opening and retracting it as I use grafitti a lot - which means it'll break quickly.
Just leave it open when you're writing something, or when you have it out and aren't just looking something up.
I suspect that the engineers are well aware that in the typical "30 minutes use per day" that the graffitti area will be opened and closed at least ten times; it's probably designed to stand up to a lot, which means that it won't break as quickly as you think it will.
The step for advocacy againsg illegal acts is:
1: Identify act
2: Confirm act is illegal
3: Publicice act as illegal.
One does not skip step 2, unless one wants to get slapped with a nasty slander / libel suit. (IANAL,BIWIWO)
IANAL--well, duh. Lawyers get paid more than I do.
My dog tore up the software box, and only the CD remained, whilst I was installing it a screen came up but my cat jumped on the keyboard and pressed the Enter key.
The courts (which is where the applicability of all contracts are inevitably settled) in the USA are based on a "resonable man" standard for a lot of things. I suspect this is the same in the UK, considering that our contractual legal systems were identical up until about 225 years ago.
It would be rather farcical to try and claim that you did not know that Microsoft uses EULAs to sell a license to make copies of their software for use. It's written on the box, talked about on slashdot, and even mentioned in the "about" box of every single MS windows app; some even include the EULA online.
However, if we assume that you've got enough proof that you didn't know that MS sells their software this way, and that you unintentionally hit the "I agree" button without reading (or even seeing) the window, you'd probably wind up in a position to reverse the sale of the license--instead of being forced to pay the license costs + extra, you'd be given the option of "buy a license or delete the software."
(Oh, and violating an EULA isn't breaking a law, so it isn't illegal. It's the breach of a contract. The COPYRIGHT VIOLATION you'd probably commit is probably a crime, but it'd probably be on the scale of stealing pens when you're breaking your employment contract.)
Huh? An obvious example would be Warp Drive (wormholes are not FTL travel). Unless I haven't seen it, I haven't seen any viable theories about usurping Einstein.
Warp Drive doesn't. It's a bend in space-time, which would nicey get around that FTL barrier--instead they'd be limited by the speed at which they can bend space.
Odditty: Since they're not "really" travelling at Xc, but rather 0.Xc inside a pseudo-wormhole, doesn't it seem likely that they could dispense iwth the "inertial compensators" and just rely simply on the folding of space?
Anyway...
Also as far as I know, there is no viable theory as to how to make a transporter work (quantum-level effects notwithstanding).
Just because something's "quantum level" or "macro level" doesn't mean that it doesn't effect the other. If I pick up the glass next to me and move it, the set of molecules that could make up the glass are now somewhere else, even if I'm not at all sure which particular molecules there are.
(In trek's defense, they originally didn't want the transporter to be a part of the show, but budget & time restraints made some shortcut necessary, unless they re-did the ship so it could land...)
All that said... "viable theory" is probably the wrong word. "Scientficially plausible concept" is probably a better term.
This would probably have no additional effects, as there are already self-contradictions within the bible.
Can you name one?
Most of the so-called contradictions are either translation errors or time differentials. (Ex: During WWII, "Germans are Bad." In 2000: "Germans are just peachy.")
Not to me.
I've been wrestling with Linux the entire week so far--and what it gains in "libre" it loses in simplicity.
Windows XP hasn't even hiccuped throughout the entire process--and the only problem that came up (Lycoris stealing the MBR) was fixed so easily I laughed when I discovered it.
[Open Disk Manager, right-click windows partiion, select "make active" or equivalent.]
For OSS, the only part that matters to me is gratis. I'm libre enough by the law the extant software licenses, thank you very much.
OK, so if you're being pedantic, you can say that I got it wrong, because the Apple difference does mean that Open Source is a superset of Free Software, but that was an intentional move on my part, because it was bound to catch the attention of people like you who have totally failed to understand that the two terms refer to the same thing (pretty much).
Two terms that mean the same thing are worthless terms for a discussion--and not the sort of thing that people have flame wars over.
See the FSF's page on the issue for a better take on it. Especially, see Neal Stephenson's informal definition.
(On a side note, am I the only one who's irritated that both the FSF and the OSS people try to define by declaration and not exploration? Language evolves on its own--it does not do what special intrests want it to.)
Anyway, with all of that said--no, I'm not wrong. Let's look at my statements again:
Open Source is not a subset of Free Software; Free Software is a subset of Open Source.
It is possible to have OSS that is not Free Software. On the other hand, is it possible to have Free Software where you don't get the source code? (See freedom 1 from the FSF)
Free Software: Software that follows GNU's "software freedoms," including source code and redistribution rights, and sticky copyleft.
Let's see, "including source code" is freedom 1, and "redistribution rights" is freedom 2. I'll admit to being partially incorrect on the "sticky copyleft" line...
Open Source: Software that gives you the source code for the system. Mac OS's Darwin kernel is "Open Source", even though Aqua (and thus the OS as a whole) and most Mac apps aren't.
Why, that's Neil's exact wording.... and since by your own admission Darwin is OSS, the whole statement's correct, if possibly incorrect.
Unless YaST doesn't include code, it's OSS. If YaST doesn't include code, but doesn't do anything more than setup the software, it (the OS) might still be OSS.
This statement can get tricky depending on what literal definition of OSS you mean... but, again, that's hardly enough for me to be uneqivocabbly "wrong."
I am an American, and proud of it.
The polarization between "muslim" and "christian" is there, and has been there for a good 1500 years now.
Halfway measures in everything we do will not change this. The only method I can concieve to alter this disparity is to have a "one world" view--and for the west to settle the problems it has created.
Saddam Hussen would not be in power if not for our aid during the Cold War. The Taliban would not have taken power if not for the US's aid to the Afghans against the USSR. We have created these "monsters," and we need to deal with them.
On a side note, "use of military power to solve issues" is a time-honored tradition, in the Muslim and Christian worlds. Petty dictator starving a country's people? The surest way to fix the problem is to remove the petty dictator, not to negotiate with him. If we (the West) are percieved as not being willing to fight, then those that are willing to fight will have an advantage over us.
I eagerly await the day when the Muslim world returns to a height of learning and civilization--but I'd be willing to go to war (me, personally, leaving my job and my wife and joining a military that I won't do all that well in) to make that day come sooner.
United Linux, like SuSE, is not Free Softwae, so it is not Open Source.
You've got it backwards.
Open Source is not a subset of Free Software; Free Software is a subset of Open Source.
Free Software: Software that follows GNU's "software freedoms," including source code and redistribution rights, and sticky copyleft.
Open Source: Software that gives you the source code for the system. Mac OS's Darwin kernel is "Open Source", even though Aqua (and thus the OS as a whole) and most Mac apps aren't.
Unless YaST doesn't include code, it's OSS. If YaST doesn't include code, but doesn't do anything more than setup the software, it (the OS) might still be OSS.
Anything anyone else would 'miss' from the Office Suite?
em dashes.
To date, every Linux word processor I've tried has looked at an em-dash (the single character that word puts in when you use two dashes--that is, two hyphens--like I'm using them in this sentence) as a letter in a word, and not a punctuation mark.
If I ever get a word processor working the way I want it in Linux that isn't word on wine, I'll post a journal about it.
With as many accounts as they have, and with the real AOL subscriber DB, thats a logistics nightmare....
Hardly. Just offer it as an option, set up a server, and boom.
The option to tie IM names together is a Good Thing, anyway... consolodation of redundant systems is always worthwhile.
bound by the paper contracts that you signed with Microsoft when you set up your enterprise agreements with them as a major purchaser of softwarek, and THOSE are legally binding without question.
:)
True.
(To those who don't know, he's referring to the "if it looks like a duck..." argument, that since there's no negotiation and almost impossible return on MS software, it could be construed as a "sale" and not a license--and, thus, no more restricted than any other copywritten work.)
Do you think an enterprise like K-mart just buys it's software of the shelf at best-buy?
Nah. They'd buy it off-the-shelf at K-mart.
You MUST contact Microsoft and establish that the license can be transfered. Period.
No. You are bound ONLY by the terms of the EULA that shows up when the software is installed (or that's included with the box when you buy your computer.)
Read the license, understand its terms, and all will be well. The license is "permission" to make copies of the software--and if the license is voided, you no longer have permission and need to talk to MS all over again. (Or just buy a stock license.)
That's truth. Not FUD.
Let's look at the statement:
" No - this is an attempt to pass on the truth. You are obfuscating the point of the story - Microsoft is FINALLY pointing out that your software licenses are THEIR property, not yours."
Sounds like FUD to me. The SOFTWARE is MS's property, but the LICENSE is whomever paid money for it. If you get a "license" that the person who originally aqquired it is not allowed to transfer, then you don't have permission.
You are guilty of spreading FUD, the same as someone who claims that code compiled with gcc needs to be GPL'd is. MS cannot surprise you with unforseen terms--not unless there's a "MS may modify this" clause in the license.