Not to mention the Slashbot scaling factor that needs to be applied: when recording industries report increased sales, as they've been doing for the most part, it's proof that illegal file sharing is in the best interest of the labels. For that matter, we got a study about a week ago where self-reported data on whether a non-random sample of Napster users would pay a download fee was hailed as conclusive evidence. But when decreased sales are reported, it's time for from the statistics-never-lie dept.
Reminds me of the episode a year ago where Fred Moody claimed that Linux is inferior to NT because it has more BugTraq entries. Slashbot wisdom promptly declared that more bug reports were actually a positive sign because -- well, I can't remember how the logic went but it's here. Then a few days later it turned out that Moody had summed all bugs in all tracked Linux distros and that Linux has many fewer separate reports than Windows. Slashbots: Windoze sux! Look how many bugs it has!
I'm a little confused as to what the Slashdot party line is here:
If a culture cultivates or uses a certain plant, it should have rights to any derivative or research created by pharmaceutical or agritech companies. For instance, a cardiac drug that is a less toxic, more effective variant of a compound in a psychoactive plant used in a culture's ceremonies is the property of that culture. (We'll also repeat falsehoods about how patents can then bar the culture from continuing to use or cultivate traditional crops.)
Drugs or tests influenced by patient studies belong to the patients. If a diabetes susceptibility gene is identified in Pima Indians who consented to participate in a study, a therapy targetting that gene should belong to the tribe.
But selling a product based on the culture that these people actively created, that's fine!
Really, this sounds like different rules apply when Lego, computer games or other fun things are involved. Sort of like how the whole "Free! Open source! RMS! Napster! Gimme! Gimme!" line gives a games a total exemption from criticism. Hey, games are important.
Huh? I don't know about the rest of the article but nothing in the excerpt you quoted mentions anything about "tricks", anything I'd consider less than "honorable" or even anything particularly nasty.
Disparaging a competing product? Boy, it's a good thing we never get any of that around here. (If you can even describe the product used by 80% of Slashdot readers as "competing.") Honestly, I've read far too many "The KDE developers are CRIMINALS! They should be in JAIL!!" comments around here to get too excited about a little noise from Microsoft.
Honestly, themes.org (especially wm.themes.org) is so unusable nowadays the defacement would have to be pretty outrageous before I'd notice something is wrong.
I find that every change in a familiar site rubs me the wrong way, for a week or so. I try to give it a couple of months before complaining. But themes.org has been getting less usable with each update, and a couple of years later I continue to miss OctoberX's original design.
It's a shame - I used to check it out at least once a week, I downloaded a lot and contributed quite a few. But it's been months since I last looked at the site.
As long as I'm bitching, the Freshmeat facelift has been a step back for me, too. I hope the VA folks don't decide Slashdot neds improving. Better hosting (especially during the EST late afternoon/early evening) will be fine, thanks.
I think a better aproach would be for either the FSF, or some other umbrella organization, to be created with the express purpose of funneling donations to most any free project. Donors could specify who they wanted receive the donation..
That might be a good idea.
..or it could be spread about the entire collection of projects under the umbrella.
That makes me really uneasy. So the FSF or Eric Raymond or Cowboy Neal is going to be in charge of which project receives support from a huge pool of "Free Software" donations? Can you imagine the nightmare of nepotism and political squabbling that will create?
Perhaps, but I'm not aware of Mandrake contributing to open source projects in the way that other such as RedHat or SuSE do.
I'd agree with you if that were true but it isn't. See here.
They're not as good as VA or Red Hat at creating the image of Contributor To The Community, nor do they have a huge pile of IPO money but they do contribute a fair amount. To put it into context, David Faure just singlehandedly ran an $11 million (or 13, depending who you listen to) company into the ground as it tried to keep pace with him. I'd say that's a substantive contribution.
Honestly, I don't think this article was posted to inform us of anything, or to be interesting.
I was wondering the same thing. If there are factual errors in the article, let's hear about them but I don't see where snide comments about "Rump Swabbery" contribute anything meaningful.
Of course, Jon Katz and others have written things about how the Microsoft era is over so maybe this really is news for some people.
The article reminds me of Linus' comment to a reporter who asked him what would happen if Microsoft came out with a superior product that could outcompete Linux. "If that happens, then I've already won."
According to a New York Times article, some uses of "dirty Jap" and such were excised and some first person pronouns ("we" "us") in the voiceover were changed to "Americans." None of the alterations affected the plot. Japanese-American groups vetted the script and I would guess that they (not unreasonably) are more sensitive about slights than Japanese would be.
As long as I'm posting, let me join the people who are praising "Tora! Tora! Tora!" That was a superb movie -- historically meticulous and excellent effects for its time.
I don't want to switch to a desktop environment whose developers don't care one bit about its users license concerns.
You mean that they don't care about every one of your license concerns, right? Their users are obviously satisfied.
Look, I think your idea of how the developers feel is accurate.Their concern was to create the best possible GPL/LGPL desktop for Unix users, according to their understanding of what the licenses allow. Their concern is not to pander to everyone who raises an objection against them.
The free software world has no shortage of people, groups and companies who are eager to assure you that your claiming membership in "The Community" gives you some incredible moral authority. The KDE developers don't do that and it seems to really piss people off.
The reality is that today's KDE is licensed in a manner everyone (as far as I know) agrees is "Free" and "Open." At the same time, nothing is ever going to undo 1997-1999. If you're going to take the attitude that situations in the past make KDE apps permanently unacceptable for you, that's your call, but I can't imagine what you think could possibly be changed. Except for the devs groveling and asking your forgiveness.
A standardized office suite, compatible across distributions, and platforms is the boat Linux needs, and it will decide, possibly for good, whether we are all on that boat, or it sails without us because of pride or short-sightedness.
I'm a (very) minor KSpread contributor and can't speak for why the major decision makers made the choices they did. I can tell you, though, why I have no interest in working on Star Office.
I don't get paid for my work either way, and I'd much rather work with a toolkit I love and with people I know. Furthermore, I'd much rather contribute to a hacker project than do unpaid labor for work that Sun is going to claim as its own. That may not be the "right" thing to do for Linux, but I honestly don't feel that I have any obligations governing where I choose to pitch in.
Anyway, press reports had it that Sun has, what was it, 50 paid developers on Star Office? Either they have the project well in hand, in which case they don't need me, or they don't, in which case I think it would be unwise for everyone to drop what they're doing and join it.
Now, that's two of my convictions Mozilla has recently caused me to rethink:
Mozilla irreparably sucks.
Free software development is hopelessly unprofitable. (I said developing software is, not packaging or supporting other people's work, which is obviously plausible.)
Now, Mozilla still isn't replacing IE or Konqueror on my desktops, but it's definitely climbed out of "sucks" territory. And now AOL may be showing us a novel angle to making free software development profitable -- as a bargaining chip you can't directly earn revenue from anyway. Now that the "We'll make money from our automatic update service!" Eazel/Ximian mentality is collapsing, hopefully there'll be more clever angles like this to work.
There's always talk about how "we" certainly aren't going to pay but "Joe Sixpack" will cover the cost of our free lunch. (It was never clear why Joe Sixpack was so hungry for updates of libtermcap that he'd spend money on such a service but..) In this case, it looks like Joe really is going to pick up the tab for Mozilla and Galeon users.
Of course, it helps if you're AOL, or IBM or Sun and you can afford to throw millions at a minor strategic maneuver.
If you're kinda slow, then you might not notice the difference between 150 and 200ms, simply becasue your body doesn't work like that. On the other hand, i know some squirril-people that may be able to detect network latency differences within a few ms no problem.
I'm not a gamer (I own Quakes 1 and 3, but on the occasions when I'm in the mood for an FPS, I usually go back to Doom II instead) so correct me if I'm way off base but...
What was tested here isn't what latency people can really feel but what reported time causes them to look for another server. It may well be that people have been conditioned to avoid > 150 ping times even if they wouldn't notice anything different at 175. Like people will insist on the fastest available Pentium III for their AOL/E-Bay platform even though their dialup connection is the limiting factor for performance.
Sing? You mean like this? Why don't we start with just a lawsuit and escalate from there?
But anyway, the site doesn't even say the FSF is officially getting involved, let alone that the case is going before a judge anytime soon. I'm thinking "enforce" means "Send a cease-and-desist letter and explain their interpretation in more detail."
the developer is planning to file suit with the aid of the Free Software Foundation
Where does it say that Avery Lee is planning to sue, with or without the help of the FSF? The closest thing I see on the linked page is "As many have suggested, I've contacted the Free Software Foundation and asked them for help in enforcing the GPL." Is there more information anywhere else?
And the "recently" links to a 9 month old story. Come on guys, we've had plenty of false alarms more recently than that --like yesterday!
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Re:Maybe we need a standard GPL-violation Form Let
on
AOL And The GPL
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for pointing that out. (Also thanks to the AC who mentioned Gentus.) In the Vidomi case, I'm certainly sympathetic to Lee although I wonder how his case would fare in court. It sounds like Vidomi's lawyers think they're clear and, of course, it's not at all clear what happens when the GPL lands in court.
Anyway, I wasn't suggesting that other cases of premeditated infringement didn't exist, but that the vast majority of the "incidents" that get hyped around here should be settled in a far less confrontational way. And as it turns out, the AOL case is just another example. Whether there may be some technical GPL violation that needs to be remedied is unclear but it's clear that AOL is intending to comply with the relevant licenses. (As should have been obvious from the begining -- why else would they conspicuously comply with the other free licenses affecting them?)
A publicity hound got his site linked, the zealots got to rant about suing and the free software world got a little less friendly.
By the way, what the hell is up with moderation? Naturally the Slashdot editors would never bother to tell us what's going on but the troll sites (that I have to read to keep up on Slashdot's status) aren't talking about anything unusual affecting moderation, except for a campaign to target Michael Sims.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Re:Maybe we need a standard GPL-violation Form Let
on
AOL And The GPL
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· Score: 4
With the exception of the guy misusing the Quake source, has there been a single instance where one of these "Possible GPL Violation!!!" stories involved genuine malice? I think every one of them (excepting, again the Quake case) involved a simple oversight. Usually a legal department unfamilar with free software licenses throws in some boilerplate that conflicts with the license, sometimes a company neglects to post some source, sometimes the complainant is simply wrong.
I think your idea would be great if the goal were to settle these matters in a polite, cooperative way that builds the free software community and makes companies want to involve themselves with it. In fact, the goal is to launch one jihad after another, boosting Slashdot's page hits and building the profile of whatever "advocate" started yelling first. Actually calling the company involved and finding out what they plan to do about the problem always gets postponed until, at the earliest, the Slashdot article has 150 rabid posts calling for blood.
Ah yes, the OS where you inuitively drag everything to the trash when you never want it to be used again, except for removable media, where dragging it to the trash means "pop it out so I can use it later".
Ignoring the facts that the "Eject disk" behavior made sense in the context of the original Macs and that Apple fixed it years ago, that offsets..what? That tar accepts arguments in the opposite order of that used by every other Unix command? The "Continue, Cancel, Abort" box that appears when you quit xfm, where you hit "Continue" to quit and "Cancel" or "Abort" to continue, with no apparent difference between them?
How many times are people going to keep complaining about ejecting disks in MacOS as though that's the entirety of the system?
Publishers, movie studios, record companies and other content owners -- especially rich ones -- successfully got laws enacted that use technology to ensure they get paid whenever their works are used or transmitted. These new laws, Litman argues, are not only invasive, they corrupt the purpose of copyright and damage the free flow of ideas.
Unless Katz utterly missed the point, which I'll admit is hardly inconceivable, I'm thinking the author is less than totally committed to "the free flow of ideas" with respect to her own work. Same with Jon Katz, for that matter.
Geez, I wasn't going to complain about one downward moderation, or even two, but how did I manage to get three for that? Is there another global moderation screwup? Not that the Slashdot editors would ever let us know but a glance at the troll sites doesn't indicate anything unususal happening.
Well, like I said in my initial post, it depends on the model. I knew the current models have a VGA port; I didn't realize the G3's do too. Older models did need an adaptor, though. [That's why they make them .;-) ]
Nonetheless, it's probably a waste of time to explain this to people. There'll be 20 posts talking about SCSI, IEEE 1394, PCI, AGP, PC100 and all the rest of the hardware in a Mac and the next Apple story will still be full of posts complaining about non-standard components.
...and, wait a minute, SCSI? Macs had SCSI across the board way before it was common on PCs. Newer models don't ship with it because Apple has moved to that other "non-commodity component" USB.
The "Macs use non-standard components" complaint has been obsolete for ages - everything since the Power Macs has shipped uses standard components just about everywhere -- with the exception of the monitor jack, which, as I said, requires only a cheap adaptor to work with VGA.
Of course, you can still buy any old VGA monitor and use that. (You may need to get an adaptor, too, depending on the Mac model.) That's what any price-conscious customer was doing anyway so Apple's not losing anything. The Apple police won't arrest you for using a ViewSonic with your G4, any more than they'll send you to jail for using a 3 button mouse...
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Re:At last! now I can ditch Linux and all the bigo
on
Shared Source?
·
· Score: 2
When I'm adding parameters in a function dialog box in Excel, have a question and click the help button, I want it to open the documentation for that particualr function. I do _not_ want to have that stupid dancing computer* pop up to ask me if I want basic assistance and forcing me to click through multiple boxes before playing its song and disappearing. Especially since I've already specified in my prefs that I can't stand the thing.
If I had access to the source, I could fix it for myself. Sure, I'd rather be able to distribute the patched version. But as long as there isn't a realistic free alternative (I tried KSpread from CVS last night and it's getting there but not yet there), fixing it on my own box is better than nothing.
Come to think of it, isn't that what RMS wanted to do with that printer driver in the first place?
* Max, Clippy's slightly less annoying MacOS cousin.
Slashdot Mirror
Reminds me of the episode a year ago where Fred Moody claimed that Linux is inferior to NT because it has more BugTraq entries. Slashbot wisdom promptly declared that more bug reports were actually a positive sign because -- well, I can't remember how the logic went but it's here. Then a few days later it turned out that Moody had summed all bugs in all tracked Linux distros and that Linux has many fewer separate reports than Windows. Slashbots: Windoze sux! Look how many bugs it has!
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
- If a culture cultivates or uses a certain plant, it should have rights to any derivative or research created by pharmaceutical or agritech companies. For instance, a cardiac drug that is a less toxic, more effective variant of a compound in a psychoactive plant used in a culture's ceremonies is the property of that culture. (We'll also repeat falsehoods about how patents can then bar the culture from continuing to use or cultivate traditional crops.)
- Drugs or tests influenced by patient studies belong to the patients. If a diabetes susceptibility gene is identified in Pima Indians who consented to participate in a study, a therapy targetting that gene should belong to the tribe.
- But selling a product based on the culture that these people actively created, that's fine!
Really, this sounds like different rules apply when Lego, computer games or other fun things are involved. Sort of like how the whole "Free! Open source! RMS! Napster! Gimme! Gimme!" line gives a games a total exemption from criticism. Hey, games are important.Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Disparaging a competing product? Boy, it's a good thing we never get any of that around here. (If you can even describe the product used by 80% of Slashdot readers as "competing.") Honestly, I've read far too many "The KDE developers are CRIMINALS! They should be in JAIL!!" comments around here to get too excited about a little noise from Microsoft.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I find that every change in a familiar site rubs me the wrong way, for a week or so. I try to give it a couple of months before complaining. But themes.org has been getting less usable with each update, and a couple of years later I continue to miss OctoberX's original design.
It's a shame - I used to check it out at least once a week, I downloaded a lot and contributed quite a few. But it's been months since I last looked at the site.
As long as I'm bitching, the Freshmeat facelift has been a step back for me, too. I hope the VA folks don't decide Slashdot neds improving. Better hosting (especially during the EST late afternoon/early evening) will be fine, thanks.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
That might be a good idea.
That makes me really uneasy. So the FSF or Eric Raymond or Cowboy Neal is going to be in charge of which project receives support from a huge pool of "Free Software" donations? Can you imagine the nightmare of nepotism and political squabbling that will create?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I'd agree with you if that were true but it isn't. See here.
They're not as good as VA or Red Hat at creating the image of Contributor To The Community, nor do they have a huge pile of IPO money but they do contribute a fair amount. To put it into context, David Faure just singlehandedly ran an $11 million (or 13, depending who you listen to) company into the ground as it tried to keep pace with him. I'd say that's a substantive contribution.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I was wondering the same thing. If there are factual errors in the article, let's hear about them but I don't see where snide comments about "Rump Swabbery" contribute anything meaningful.
Of course, Jon Katz and others have written things about how the Microsoft era is over so maybe this really is news for some people.
The article reminds me of Linus' comment to a reporter who asked him what would happen if Microsoft came out with a superior product that could outcompete Linux. "If that happens, then I've already won."
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
As long as I'm posting, let me join the people who are praising "Tora! Tora! Tora!" That was a superb movie -- historically meticulous and excellent effects for its time.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
You mean that they don't care about every one of your license concerns, right? Their users are obviously satisfied.
Look, I think your idea of how the developers feel is accurate.Their concern was to create the best possible GPL/LGPL desktop for Unix users, according to their understanding of what the licenses allow. Their concern is not to pander to everyone who raises an objection against them.
The free software world has no shortage of people, groups and companies who are eager to assure you that your claiming membership in "The Community" gives you some incredible moral authority. The KDE developers don't do that and it seems to really piss people off.
The reality is that today's KDE is licensed in a manner everyone (as far as I know) agrees is "Free" and "Open." At the same time, nothing is ever going to undo 1997-1999. If you're going to take the attitude that situations in the past make KDE apps permanently unacceptable for you, that's your call, but I can't imagine what you think could possibly be changed. Except for the devs groveling and asking your forgiveness.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I'm a (very) minor KSpread contributor and can't speak for why the major decision makers made the choices they did. I can tell you, though, why I have no interest in working on Star Office.
I don't get paid for my work either way, and I'd much rather work with a toolkit I love and with people I know. Furthermore, I'd much rather contribute to a hacker project than do unpaid labor for work that Sun is going to claim as its own. That may not be the "right" thing to do for Linux, but I honestly don't feel that I have any obligations governing where I choose to pitch in.
Anyway, press reports had it that Sun has, what was it, 50 paid developers on Star Office? Either they have the project well in hand, in which case they don't need me, or they don't, in which case I think it would be unwise for everyone to drop what they're doing and join it.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
- Mozilla irreparably sucks.
- Free software development is hopelessly unprofitable. (I said developing software is, not packaging or supporting other people's work, which is obviously plausible.)
Now, Mozilla still isn't replacing IE or Konqueror on my desktops, but it's definitely climbed out of "sucks" territory. And now AOL may be showing us a novel angle to making free software development profitable -- as a bargaining chip you can't directly earn revenue from anyway. Now that the "We'll make money from our automatic update service!" Eazel/Ximian mentality is collapsing, hopefully there'll be more clever angles like this to work.There's always talk about how "we" certainly aren't going to pay but "Joe Sixpack" will cover the cost of our free lunch. (It was never clear why Joe Sixpack was so hungry for updates of libtermcap that he'd spend money on such a service but..) In this case, it looks like Joe really is going to pick up the tab for Mozilla and Galeon users.
Of course, it helps if you're AOL, or IBM or Sun and you can afford to throw millions at a minor strategic maneuver.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I'm not a gamer (I own Quakes 1 and 3, but on the occasions when I'm in the mood for an FPS, I usually go back to Doom II instead) so correct me if I'm way off base but...
What was tested here isn't what latency people can really feel but what reported time causes them to look for another server. It may well be that people have been conditioned to avoid > 150 ping times even if they wouldn't notice anything different at 175. Like people will insist on the fastest available Pentium III for their AOL/E-Bay platform even though their dialup connection is the limiting factor for performance.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
But anyway, the site doesn't even say the FSF is officially getting involved, let alone that the case is going before a judge anytime soon. I'm thinking "enforce" means "Send a cease-and-desist letter and explain their interpretation in more detail."
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
the developer is planning to file suit with the aid of the Free Software Foundation
Where does it say that Avery Lee is planning to sue, with or without the help of the FSF? The closest thing I see on the linked page is "As many have suggested, I've contacted the Free Software Foundation and asked them for help in enforcing the GPL." Is there more information anywhere else?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
And the "recently" links to a 9 month old story. Come on guys, we've had plenty of false alarms more recently than that --like yesterday!
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Anyway, I wasn't suggesting that other cases of premeditated infringement didn't exist, but that the vast majority of the "incidents" that get hyped around here should be settled in a far less confrontational way. And as it turns out, the AOL case is just another example. Whether there may be some technical GPL violation that needs to be remedied is unclear but it's clear that AOL is intending to comply with the relevant licenses. (As should have been obvious from the begining -- why else would they conspicuously comply with the other free licenses affecting them?)
A publicity hound got his site linked, the zealots got to rant about suing and the free software world got a little less friendly.
By the way, what the hell is up with moderation? Naturally the Slashdot editors would never bother to tell us what's going on but the troll sites (that I have to read to keep up on Slashdot's status) aren't talking about anything unusual affecting moderation, except for a campaign to target Michael Sims.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I think your idea would be great if the goal were to settle these matters in a polite, cooperative way that builds the free software community and makes companies want to involve themselves with it. In fact, the goal is to launch one jihad after another, boosting Slashdot's page hits and building the profile of whatever "advocate" started yelling first. Actually calling the company involved and finding out what they plan to do about the problem always gets postponed until, at the earliest, the Slashdot article has 150 rabid posts calling for blood.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Ignoring the facts that the "Eject disk" behavior made sense in the context of the original Macs and that Apple fixed it years ago, that offsets..what? That tar accepts arguments in the opposite order of that used by every other Unix command? The "Continue, Cancel, Abort" box that appears when you quit xfm, where you hit "Continue" to quit and "Cancel" or "Abort" to continue, with no apparent difference between them?
How many times are people going to keep complaining about ejecting disks in MacOS as though that's the entirety of the system?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Anyway, the last time Slashdot reviewed this book (do the editors ever read the site any more?) Jon Katz wrote:
Publishers, movie studios, record companies and other content owners -- especially rich ones -- successfully got laws enacted that use technology to ensure they get paid whenever their works are used or transmitted. These new laws, Litman argues, are not only invasive, they corrupt the purpose of copyright and damage the free flow of ideas.
Unless Katz utterly missed the point, which I'll admit is hardly inconceivable, I'm thinking the author is less than totally committed to "the free flow of ideas" with respect to her own work. Same with Jon Katz, for that matter.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Nonetheless, it's probably a waste of time to explain this to people. There'll be 20 posts talking about SCSI, IEEE 1394, PCI, AGP, PC100 and all the rest of the hardware in a Mac and the next Apple story will still be full of posts complaining about non-standard components.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
The "Macs use non-standard components" complaint has been obsolete for ages - everything since the Power Macs has shipped uses standard components just about everywhere -- with the exception of the monitor jack, which, as I said, requires only a cheap adaptor to work with VGA.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
If I had access to the source, I could fix it for myself. Sure, I'd rather be able to distribute the patched version. But as long as there isn't a realistic free alternative (I tried KSpread from CVS last night and it's getting there but not yet there), fixing it on my own box is better than nothing.
Come to think of it, isn't that what RMS wanted to do with that printer driver in the first place?
* Max, Clippy's slightly less annoying MacOS cousin.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I'm with you -- I think it was the best show since Get A Life.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.