They do? They don't with the free version, and their site suggests that the same restrictions apply to the paid version. In any case, you can't, say, listen to a whole album or make your own playlist. Listening to randomly chosen music is different from listening to music you've specifically chosen, and Pandora, although a nice service, isn't a substitute for Spotify.
what you can and also what you can't do with them has a lot to do with the popularity
Really? I'm sure people buy iPhones because the App Store provides a convenient way to get apps, but does anyone buy an iPhone because it prevents them from using anything other than the App Store to get apps? The restriction may well be irrelevant to most users, but how is it a positive selling point?
How in the hell is that not giving up rights to your patents?
Because it's not giving up all rights to all patents - it's giving up specific rights to specific patents. By using GPLv3'ed Samba, Apple would be allowing use of any patents that Apple has that apply to Samba, by other people in their use of GPLed Samba. If Apple isn't willing to do that, i.e., it's not willing to let other people use Samba, then it damn well shouldn't have the right to use Samba itself.
Citation needed on the "need" for code signing. But in any case, allowing users to install their own certificates alongside the manufacturer's would allow signed binaries and also allow the user to run software compiled by themselves; that is, it would allow users to control their own hardware.
Unlike Spotify, Pandora doesn't let you listen to specific songs, so it's not really comparable. Spotify is more like an (ad-supported, if you don't buy a subscription) version of Rhapsody, but Rhapsody costs $120 a year, which is in the same ballpark as the paid version of Spotify, but significantly more than the radio-station like services, like Pandora or Last.fm
I don't see how it does that; if the NYT stop tweeting things, there'll be nothing to show up on these lists or to be retweeted, so if the NYT wants to restrict what it tweets in the future, the FreeNYT Twitter account will do nothing to stop that.
I agree with you that "free speech" doesn't mean getting access to everything for free. But it does mean that a business shouldn't be able to stop you doing something that isn't illegal, just because the business thinks it interferes with their business model.
I don't see how this is abusing the NYT's system. If you want to read all NYT articles for free, you can do it already by subscribing to all the NYT's twitter feeds; more likely, if you want to, say, read all of the NYT's articles on politics for free, subscribe to their politics related twitter accounts, or whatever. How does somebody automating this already trivial process hurt the NYT?
Interesting. I have a Vibrant that runs on T-Mobile's US network, and I could only get 2G/EDGE while I was in the UK recently. Perhaps that was because I was in rural areas most of the time, or maybe for some reason Orange's 3G network (which I was trying to use) doesn't work with the phone.
I guess the carriers might be thinking that, but it doesn't make any sense. You've signed a contract, you're going to pay the carrier whatever happens. Having a SIM-unlocked cellphone doesn't change that, and having a rooted cellphone just has nothing to do with changing carriers, as far as I can tell.
You usually have to sign up for a minimum term of 1-2 years, and in return for that they throw in a free or heavily discounted phone that you can upgrade for free at the end of that 1 or 2 years. This is a very different business model to the one you bought your home PC under, so expecting it to give you the same freedom is not very realistic.
The thing is, though, that you've signed a contract - you're going to be paying the carrier for two years no matter what you do with the phone, so why do the carriers care?
Clearly, averaging the bandwidth cap over the entire time isn't really terribly useful unless you're using your bandwidth 24/7, which almost no-one is (I did go over the 250GB cap the first few months Comcast introduced it here, because I was leaving torrents running indefinitely; I now have them set to stop automatically after I reach a 2:1 ratio, and I don't come close to the cap any more). However, treating 150GB/month as a measure of bandwidth does dramatize the difference between the peak bandwidth ISPs ar advertising and the overall bandwidth they are actually willing to supply. That there is such a big difference is not necessarily a problem (because, as you say, people aren't using their connections 24/7), but I thought presenting it in such a stark way was kind of funny.
150GB/month is a measure of bandwidth, though, not a measure of quantity. It would amuse me if ISPs with a cap had to advertise their bandwidth on the basis of the cap: 150GB/month works out (I think) at about 7Kbps, so that's some real high-speed internet AT&T is offering.
If by "heart of the matter" you mean "a continuing misunderstanding on Slashdot." This isn't about linking to copyright content - it's about linking to content that infringes copyright, and that's a big difference.
No, it doesn't. The issue isn't about linking to copyright content - it's about linking to sites that distribute copyrighted content without permission, and furthermore, doing so knowingly and benefiting from it. Generally, websites have permission to distribute their copyright content (e.g., the New York Times website has permission to distribute the copyrighted content of the New York Times), so there's no copyright infringement on the website, and so no contributory infringement in linking to it.
Anyone linking to or embedding YouTube videos which the copyright holder has not authorized to be on YouTube, in a way which is likely to induce others to infringe the copyright on the videos, and who benefits from this linking or embedding, probably has committed contributory copyright infringement, yes. That's much less than 80% of the net.
Now, how about posting the physical address of a flea market (where you know there are physical "pirated" CDs, not to mention usually some real stolen merchandise) and posting a link to a "pirated" song or video on the net? Both are a pointer to where the "illegal" stuff is. But one gets you arrested and your domain taken and the other isn't a problem at all?
Why do you think running a service where you direct people to places where they can take part in illegal activities wouldn't get you in legal difficulties? People have been found liable for copyright infringement for promoting events in which copyright infringement took place, even when they themselves were not infringing the copyright. A site specifically designed to allow people to access infringing copies of works seems similar, and illegal for the same reasons.
Now, that this domain was seized apparently without an opportunity for the operator to defend himself in court is definitely a problem, but the idea that there is something terrible about holding some links to copyright content to be illegal is silly.
When did we all turn into a bunch of pussies who are unable to shrug off this sort of bullshit?
According to Wikipedia, 130AD. Or, possibly, the 17th century, when the law of libel was codified. Penalties for using words to damage someone's reputation are ancient, there's nothing new here.
You drag your songs from your music library to your portable device, and your music player automatically converts them if it needs to. I'm not sure what hassle is involved here.
Your Service may be an application or client that provides major components of a Twitter-like end user experience (a "Client"). An example of a Client is a downloadable application that displays user timelines and allows users to create and search for tweets.
They do place restrictions on these clients, a few of which are potentially objectionable (particularly, you aren't allowed to use "data collected from end users of your Client to create or maintain a separate status update or social network database or service," which sounds like it might prevent, say, a client posting to Facebook and Twitter at the same time), but they're not banning them entirely.
At the time that movie was released, being on a skateboard wasn't as badass as they intended to mean...
Isn't that the point, though? The bad guy is bad because he is an old dude who used to be a hacker, but is now an uncool corporate sell-out. So the skateboard is a mark of how embarrassing his idea of what is "cool" is.
The screens in Hackers are obviously a visual metaphor, and a good one at that. The technological nit that did annoy me is that the film doesn't seem to understand the difference between a username and a password.
Actually, this complaint only exists with the post-b12 UI, because now the URL preview shows up within the page content area, and can be spoofed. Previously, the URL was in the location bar, and so couldn't be spoofed (although there was a different problem with this, in that there wasn't always enough space to show the whole URL).
I'm not convinced this is a real problem, though; I'm struggling to see what harm a malicious page could actually do tricking you into thinking that a link goes to somewhere other than it really does.
Not if you're using Firefox, you didn't - Firefox is written in Javascript, so speeding up the Javascript engine should speed up Firefox itself, as well as JS on webpages.
But just let people work how they want to instead of removing features.
The thing is, though, that the GNOME devs can't possibly optimize for everyone's different workflow. They have to make decisions about how their software is going to work, and sometimes that might mean choosing between two incompatible options. The GNOME Shell devs have made various decisions which improve the multiple-workspace workflow, but as a consequence, they make the minimizing workflow worse. I think it's a good idea that they've de-emphasized minimizing by removing the button, rather than leaving in a crappy implementation of minimization that won't really "let people work how they want" either.
"I think the first thing to realize is that minimization doesn't make sense if you maximize everything," It just proves they don't know shit about UI. Hint: The larger & higher res my monitor, the less shit I maximize.
Did you notice the if in that quote? The GNOME dev isn't saying that everyone maximizes everything, he's describing the role minimize plays in two different usage patterns. One is the "maximize everything" pattern (which I use on my fairly-small screened laptop, and lots of less technical users use even on large screens). So, everything he says about this usage pattern is irrelevant to your usage pattern; that's why he goes on to the "else" branch of the "if," and talks about how minimize is used by other users, who don't maximize anything.
Slashdot Mirror
They do? They don't with the free version, and their site suggests that the same restrictions apply to the paid version. In any case, you can't, say, listen to a whole album or make your own playlist. Listening to randomly chosen music is different from listening to music you've specifically chosen, and Pandora, although a nice service, isn't a substitute for Spotify.
what you can and also what you can't do with them has a lot to do with the popularity
Really? I'm sure people buy iPhones because the App Store provides a convenient way to get apps, but does anyone buy an iPhone because it prevents them from using anything other than the App Store to get apps? The restriction may well be irrelevant to most users, but how is it a positive selling point?
How in the hell is that not giving up rights to your patents?
Because it's not giving up all rights to all patents - it's giving up specific rights to specific patents. By using GPLv3'ed Samba, Apple would be allowing use of any patents that Apple has that apply to Samba, by other people in their use of GPLed Samba. If Apple isn't willing to do that, i.e., it's not willing to let other people use Samba, then it damn well shouldn't have the right to use Samba itself.
Citation needed on the "need" for code signing. But in any case, allowing users to install their own certificates alongside the manufacturer's would allow signed binaries and also allow the user to run software compiled by themselves; that is, it would allow users to control their own hardware.
Unlike Spotify, Pandora doesn't let you listen to specific songs, so it's not really comparable. Spotify is more like an (ad-supported, if you don't buy a subscription) version of Rhapsody, but Rhapsody costs $120 a year, which is in the same ballpark as the paid version of Spotify, but significantly more than the radio-station like services, like Pandora or Last.fm
I don't see how it does that; if the NYT stop tweeting things, there'll be nothing to show up on these lists or to be retweeted, so if the NYT wants to restrict what it tweets in the future, the FreeNYT Twitter account will do nothing to stop that.
I agree with you that "free speech" doesn't mean getting access to everything for free. But it does mean that a business shouldn't be able to stop you doing something that isn't illegal, just because the business thinks it interferes with their business model.
I don't see how this is abusing the NYT's system. If you want to read all NYT articles for free, you can do it already by subscribing to all the NYT's twitter feeds; more likely, if you want to, say, read all of the NYT's articles on politics for free, subscribe to their politics related twitter accounts, or whatever. How does somebody automating this already trivial process hurt the NYT?
Interesting. I have a Vibrant that runs on T-Mobile's US network, and I could only get 2G/EDGE while I was in the UK recently. Perhaps that was because I was in rural areas most of the time, or maybe for some reason Orange's 3G network (which I was trying to use) doesn't work with the phone.
I guess the carriers might be thinking that, but it doesn't make any sense. You've signed a contract, you're going to pay the carrier whatever happens. Having a SIM-unlocked cellphone doesn't change that, and having a rooted cellphone just has nothing to do with changing carriers, as far as I can tell.
You usually have to sign up for a minimum term of 1-2 years, and in return for that they throw in a free or heavily discounted phone that you can upgrade for free at the end of that 1 or 2 years. This is a very different business model to the one you bought your home PC under, so expecting it to give you the same freedom is not very realistic.
The thing is, though, that you've signed a contract - you're going to be paying the carrier for two years no matter what you do with the phone, so why do the carriers care?
Clearly, averaging the bandwidth cap over the entire time isn't really terribly useful unless you're using your bandwidth 24/7, which almost no-one is (I did go over the 250GB cap the first few months Comcast introduced it here, because I was leaving torrents running indefinitely; I now have them set to stop automatically after I reach a 2:1 ratio, and I don't come close to the cap any more). However, treating 150GB/month as a measure of bandwidth does dramatize the difference between the peak bandwidth ISPs ar advertising and the overall bandwidth they are actually willing to supply. That there is such a big difference is not necessarily a problem (because, as you say, people aren't using their connections 24/7), but I thought presenting it in such a stark way was kind of funny.
150GB/month is a measure of bandwidth, though, not a measure of quantity. It would amuse me if ISPs with a cap had to advertise their bandwidth on the basis of the cap: 150GB/month works out (I think) at about 7Kbps, so that's some real high-speed internet AT&T is offering.
If by "heart of the matter" you mean "a continuing misunderstanding on Slashdot." This isn't about linking to copyright content - it's about linking to content that infringes copyright, and that's a big difference.
No, it doesn't. The issue isn't about linking to copyright content - it's about linking to sites that distribute copyrighted content without permission, and furthermore, doing so knowingly and benefiting from it. Generally, websites have permission to distribute their copyright content (e.g., the New York Times website has permission to distribute the copyrighted content of the New York Times), so there's no copyright infringement on the website, and so no contributory infringement in linking to it.
Anyone linking to or embedding YouTube videos which the copyright holder has not authorized to be on YouTube, in a way which is likely to induce others to infringe the copyright on the videos, and who benefits from this linking or embedding, probably has committed contributory copyright infringement, yes. That's much less than 80% of the net.
Now, how about posting the physical address of a flea market (where you know there are physical "pirated" CDs, not to mention usually some real stolen merchandise) and posting a link to a "pirated" song or video on the net? Both are a pointer to where the "illegal" stuff is. But one gets you arrested and your domain taken and the other isn't a problem at all?
Why do you think running a service where you direct people to places where they can take part in illegal activities wouldn't get you in legal difficulties? People have been found liable for copyright infringement for promoting events in which copyright infringement took place, even when they themselves were not infringing the copyright. A site specifically designed to allow people to access infringing copies of works seems similar, and illegal for the same reasons.
Now, that this domain was seized apparently without an opportunity for the operator to defend himself in court is definitely a problem, but the idea that there is something terrible about holding some links to copyright content to be illegal is silly.
When did we all turn into a bunch of pussies who are unable to shrug off this sort of bullshit?
According to Wikipedia, 130AD. Or, possibly, the 17th century, when the law of libel was codified. Penalties for using words to damage someone's reputation are ancient, there's nothing new here.
You drag your songs from your music library to your portable device, and your music player automatically converts them if it needs to. I'm not sure what hassle is involved here.
Basically, they are saying, "Don't bother writing a Twitter client, ours is so much better than yours."
Their terms of service say quite the opposite, though:
Your Service may be an application or client that provides major components of a Twitter-like end user experience (a "Client"). An example of a Client is a downloadable application that displays user timelines and allows users to create and search for tweets.
They do place restrictions on these clients, a few of which are potentially objectionable (particularly, you aren't allowed to use "data collected from end users of your Client to create or maintain a separate status update or social network database or service," which sounds like it might prevent, say, a client posting to Facebook and Twitter at the same time), but they're not banning them entirely.
At the time that movie was released, being on a skateboard wasn't as badass as they intended to mean...
Isn't that the point, though? The bad guy is bad because he is an old dude who used to be a hacker, but is now an uncool corporate sell-out. So the skateboard is a mark of how embarrassing his idea of what is "cool" is.
The screens in Hackers are obviously a visual metaphor, and a good one at that. The technological nit that did annoy me is that the film doesn't seem to understand the difference between a username and a password.
Actually, this complaint only exists with the post-b12 UI, because now the URL preview shows up within the page content area, and can be spoofed. Previously, the URL was in the location bar, and so couldn't be spoofed (although there was a different problem with this, in that there wasn't always enough space to show the whole URL).
I'm not convinced this is a real problem, though; I'm struggling to see what harm a malicious page could actually do tricking you into thinking that a link goes to somewhere other than it really does.
Normally I deactivated all JS anyway
Not if you're using Firefox, you didn't - Firefox is written in Javascript, so speeding up the Javascript engine should speed up Firefox itself, as well as JS on webpages.
But just let people work how they want to instead of removing features.
The thing is, though, that the GNOME devs can't possibly optimize for everyone's different workflow. They have to make decisions about how their software is going to work, and sometimes that might mean choosing between two incompatible options. The GNOME Shell devs have made various decisions which improve the multiple-workspace workflow, but as a consequence, they make the minimizing workflow worse. I think it's a good idea that they've de-emphasized minimizing by removing the button, rather than leaving in a crappy implementation of minimization that won't really "let people work how they want" either.
"I think the first thing to realize is that minimization doesn't make sense if you maximize everything," It just proves they don't know shit about UI. Hint: The larger & higher res my monitor, the less shit I maximize.
Did you notice the if in that quote? The GNOME dev isn't saying that everyone maximizes everything, he's describing the role minimize plays in two different usage patterns. One is the "maximize everything" pattern (which I use on my fairly-small screened laptop, and lots of less technical users use even on large screens). So, everything he says about this usage pattern is irrelevant to your usage pattern; that's why he goes on to the "else" branch of the "if," and talks about how minimize is used by other users, who don't maximize anything.