Users do read dialogue boxes, when presented in a decent UI instead of the abysmal situation we have with most programs today. First, they have to be presented sparingly; not a problem going forward as most apps should never need to elevate privileges, especially since those distributed by the manufacturer through controlled channels can be vetted and signed with an ACL. This only applies to unsigned apps downloaded outside the main channels. It will take time to overcome the conditioning most users of Windows have been subjected to their whole lives.
Second, you have to present information that the user can understand and then give them actual choices about what to do. The buttons should be verbs. If your buttons are OK/Cancel you have failed.
It's called the Dancing Pigs Problem [wikipedia.org]. The user will NOT care about security - they will do whatever it takes to run the app.
It presents false dichotomy. Users will do what they need to to run an app, but there is no reason you have to compromise security to do so. Whether a user trusts or does not trust an app should almost never, ever effect what the app does. You can give apps fake data, fake network, fake anything inside a sandbox or VM. If it's testing to see if it is in a VM, it's almost certainly malware. Once users learn that 99.99% of the time they can choose not to trust something and it will still work fine, they will actually start to pay attention to the.01% of the time where there is a real issue. All the false positives in modern software *cough* Windows, are detrimental.
All of your arguments are predicated on a system that keeps all the really shitty flaws of current, lousy attempts to implement protection against trojans.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
The resource fork can hold MIME types?
It's not technically a MIME type (I used that term because it is actually familiar to a significant number of people), but it serves the same purpose, assuming the allusion in the article is correct. You can set the file type, system icon to use, and store a custom icon. Alternately they may be referring to similar functionality in an openstep bundle, which they refer to incorrectly as a fork. But yes, OS X can and will read this type of data stored in several formats.
But how do you prevent stupidity? To stop this attack, you'd need to remove the ability for the user to execute programs of their choosing. A mitigating factor would be preventing applications from setting their own icon. Which do you propose?
You don't need to prevent a user from being able to run apps, you just need to restrict default behaviors for apps, provide the user with information on how much an "expert" thinks they should trust software, and tell the user in clear and simple terms when the app wants more privileges and exactly what those privileges are. Finally, you need to present this in a usable interface. Apple is already heading down this route with both iOS and OS X. In OS X 10.7 apps are sandboxed by default, although I haven't seen a single report as to if this trojan works within the sandbox, breaks out of the sandbox, or simply fails entirely on Lion.
Title, summary and article all fail. It's an executable who's name ends with ".pdf" and has a pdf icon.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
I saw reference to this trojan the other day, but my research turned up only vague descriptions such as the one linked in the summary. From all the reading I did it seems like this is an executable of some sort, with no extension that is being e-mailed to people. None of the descriptions I've read have described how it infects the machine, but I assume the user has to run it and then agree to allow the unsigned program to run for the first time. At this point it drops a PDF on the hard drive, opens it, and then installs a bare bones apache server, which doesn't actually work as far as anyone can tell. There was some indication that this was a cross platform trojan, but no one has been able to confirm this.
So if anyone is actually in a lab with a copy of this could you please enlighten us on the following points:
How is this being distributed in the wild?
Does this somehow run automatically and does it bypass the user having to authorize the executable to run for the first time?
On 10.6 does it require an admin password to install?
Does it attempt to do something about the firewall settings?
On 10.7 does this attempt to escape the sandbox?
Does the best case install actually get an Apache server running well enough to listen to a control channel, update itself, or perform actions?
So as far as I can tell this is a failed attempt to create a trojan that was released into the wild, possibly as part of testing or as an experiment. It's not really much in the way of news, but for security geeks it is quite interesting; which is why the complete failure of the security companies to provide a decent description is so frustrating. Does anyone have real information about this trojan?
I know that there are those of us who like to learn, and therefore use efficient memory techniques, and that there are those who ridicule those of us who learn. On a website for geeks, I had expected to find the former, not the latter.
Even on a site for geeks you have to understand the signal to noise ratio is not wonderful. There certainly are actual geeks and nerds here who appreciate mnemonic techniques and sympathize with your desire for prefab technology to make those techniques easier. I read your post and thought, "huh, interesting, but I don't know of any off the shelf calculators with that arrangement." Then I kept my mouth shut and moved on until I had something to say.
Ignore the idiots and the haters and chalk the lack of useful feedback up to the paucity of solutions.
But here's the question - if your raw materials costs rose by 5x from one financial year to the next, how would you handle it?
I'd bring legal challenge against the cartel controlling prices and use my popularity to drive yet another antitrust conviction against them. I'd use my other business to continue to undercut their competing products and make the first market unprofitable and a niche market until such a time as the courts resolved the issue or I could get popular opinion behind legal reform.
I'll tell you what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't abandon my leverage in the hopes that said criminal cartel would play nice and not slit my throat at a later date.
DVD rentals are a dead end. Within the next couple of decades they will be gone and all video will be distributed via the internet (sometimes through ISP provided boxes that also provide TV). Those of us that like and want streaming to be something decent feel that is much less likely now. Netflix's DVD rental club was the best chance of getting good streaming video contracts out of the media cartels.
Aside from that, going to two different places means no one place has the info needed to make the best rental recommendations and for those things I want to watch regardless, I now have to check if they are on streaming then go check when they're on DVD for rent and keep checking back in case it reaches the former before my rental for the latter reaches the top of my queue. That's obnoxious and inconvenient. It seems likely the streaming service will only get worse over time as they have less leverage to negotiate good deals and legal streaming in general is going to get worse as competing with Netflix will no longer be a negotiating strategy that Amazon, Apple, etc. can employ.
Frankly, I see very little upside, aside from some autonomy to make things better for the DVD rental service in the short term.
No...., but it does have jurisdiction over companies based in Germany regardless of where they are operating, such as Samsung Germany, a subsidiary based in Germany.
yea thats fine but the article and summary both site that they are banning it from all of Europe, which last time I checked was not just Germany, nor do they have any say so in other countries.
They have a say in what Samsung Germany, a German company does in the rest of Europe. They haven't banned distribution by other subsidiaries of Samsung, based outside Germany.
So what if they ban it, Samsung just wont be making their tablets there...
The argument that the law should not be enforced because companies will simply do the same thing elsewhere and the money will leave the local economy is a foolish one. Would you apply the same concept to other laws? Should Germany not enforce child labor laws because companies will just go elsewhere and Germany will lose the money? Think it through.
Sorry it took me so long to respond, and likely you won't read this, but on the off chance you will and you're open to changing your mind I thought it important to respond to your points.
1) Doesn't work without copyright. I'll just visit your website once, make a copy of your works, and post them on my own site. People will visit mine because it's a "book aggregator" -- all the best books in one place! I get money, you get nothing. Thanks for all your hard work!
This is certainly a consideration, but it leaves out an important aspect of human culture, people want to reward the authors. People see creators as people to be looked up to and they want to be associated with them. A little advertising and guilt tripping and it can be easily made "uncool" to bypass an author's channel and go to someone who is leeching. Heck, there are people here on Slashdot who have the option of turning off ads but don't because they want to support the site financially. Authors can make a lot of money from such a site, especially because they will always be ahead of the game, not to mention they can still use trademark law to make copying a financial hole for an aggregator site.
2) Only works if you know exactly how much you expect to make from each work. Set your donations level too high, and it won't be reached and your fans will leave. Set it too low, and you're leaving money, perhaps a lot of money, on the table.
This is true of pretty much all real markets. You set the price and adjust as you learn the market better. You can even adjust one way in the middle of a run by lowering the bar. Your argument doesn't nothing to make this an unprofitable model and it's even been used by several authors in recent years, like Stephen King. Your argument is just that the logistics of pricing may take work, not that this model is unprofitable.
3) This method works, to be sure, but only if you're writing a very specific type of book. Authors of fiction wouldn't see a dime.
You've never gone to a paid signing or lecture by a fiction author? I distinctly remember listening to Vonnegut speak on more than one occasion.
In any case, you may have missed my main point, which was that I think copyright law would be the best solution, if it were re-engineered to be reasonable. Right now, it is worse for society than no copyright law at all. And no copyright law at all, does not stop the production of works nor make producing works an unprofitable career. Look at the music industry, both the low and middle part of the market makes basically nothing off of copyright and survives on live performances and memorabilia. Many of them lose money on copyright because they have to deal with RIAA which has a stranglehold on distribution chains and extracts more money from the artist than they make. Yet the artists still make money overall. Think about it.
With more competition, providers in the US are better at pretending to do good things for you.
I live in a typical small city just outside one of the largest cities. I don't really see a lot of this "competition" of which you speak. I have 2 real options, the local cable company or the local phone company, both of whom overcharge if you don't buy a bundle with a service I don't want; both of whom have horrible bureaucracies that result in some of the worst customer service of any industry. Neither the cable company nor the phone company pretended to do good things for me when I called for explanation of their obfuscated billing statements nor when their systems were malfunctioning or down. Their attitudes were both: "Well why don't you sit on hold for an hour and then we'll connect you to some random guy in India who can't help you and doesn't even comprehend your language very well. He won't do anything, but really we don't give a shit anyway because you don't have any better choices."
If your "right" to make money conflicts with society's interest in preserving this content for future generations, which wins out?
Well, you compromise. That's why copyrights and patents do and should expire.
Perhaps you misrepresented your position, but why should we compromise between what a special interest wants and what is best for society. Shouldn't laws just be what is best for society?
Without copyright, an author doesn't have spit unless they can negotiate a really really good deal with the very first reader.
Now look, I've made my living primarily as a writer for many years. The idea that copyright is the only viable business model for a writer is just bunk; especially in the internet age. You can post works for free and make money on ads. You can set up a fund whereby you only issue the next episode/issue/chapter when donations reach a certain level. You can use writing to promote a profitable business lecturing.
I'm not opposed to reasonable copyright law and certainly benefit from copyright laws on the books, but I'm of the very strong opinion that our current laws do more harm than good to society; and that is a trend that is only getting worse. Our society is run by big businesses and in that light the laws being passed make perfect sense. If you think what is good for big business is implicitly good for society, well I'm not sure rational discourse is even possible. We need to stand up and be clear about this complex issue; otherwise the majority will never care and the special interests will destroy what rightfully belongs to our descendants. Many works have vanished and every day the last copy of something gets destroyed. It is intolerable to me, and should be to you and everyone else. Please, think deeply on this topic.
Germany, you do not have jurisdiction over the entire EU, k thanks.
No...., but it does have jurisdiction over companies based in Germany regardless of where they are operating, such as Samsung Germany, a subsidiary based in Germany.
trivial. these patents would all be invalidated if they were ever tested in a sane court.
No sane court would rule a patent granted on a new type of rocker switch was enforceable? What an, umm, novel opinion you have.
also, how much are you being paid for your comments?
Nothing. I'm just trying to add some educated and knowledgable, reasoned opinion to the debate. Why how much are you paid for your unsupported nonsense? Were you going to make an offer?
i say this all the time, but i think it's deceptive if you are being paid, and plain sad if you're shilling for free.
I say you should be paying people to read your wretched grammar and spelling (not to mention lack of reason). But hey, it's a free country. Sadly one with an under-par educational system. Your writing is funky indeed.
But I'll take a step back: if you currently own a Mac, I'm not entirely sure why you'd be so eager to hack on the Cosmos operating system.
I'm not, but because it is tied to a Windows only environment. That's the point. As on OS it is still wholly beholden to a single, rival OS vendor, thus rendering it fairly crippled and unsustainable in the long term. The fact that the project has gone so far as to have running code seems astonishing; possibly astonishingly idiotic.
My latest Macbook Pro is a 64 bit PC capable of running Windows but did not come with it. Where can I get this free Windows of which you speak, legally, without buying something?
Because one I knew that there was some need to 'hint' the next action depending on the previous when decoding gestures, I could implement the same thing without knowing how Apple did it.
Ahh, but you and no one else knew it obvious that in order to implement pinch to zoom well, that you'd have to use hinting from previous attempts, thus one could just as easily argue that what Apple patented was not the idea of pinch to zoom on a touchscreen but a specific implementation thereof. The courts seem to be buying this interpretation, and it certainly seems just as valid as yours. But then we've wandered far afield from the original topic.
There existed a very healthy, competitive marketplace around software development without software patents... and now we have chaos and lawyers and an environment fostered largely by the beneficiaries of a PC revolution in which it's hard to imagine that revolution ever having taken place.
Well, you can certainly argue patents, or classes of patents like software patents are harmful to innovation, that doesn't mean any software company can afford to ignore them. Google has plenty of software patents and they've gone to court over them. But even if you neglect software patents altogether, in this case Samsung seems to have violated real, hardware patents. I guess I don't see how you can still justify your original statements as reasoned.
What does your comment have to do with anything? You don't even address the points I made. As for your assertion and support, it seems quite spurious since it is derived from extrapolating from a current ecosystem without regard for that ecosystem being changed in the case described. Weak tea. Off topic weak tea.
Sounds an awful lot like the timer used to distinguish a doubleclick from a second click. Sure, it's a little different, since 'pinch to zoom' detection doesn't depend on hitting a specific screen element.
Double click is an interface where there is a time between two actions that determines whether the overall action taken is case A or case B. This is a case of an interface action being used as hinting for subsequent actions in the same timeframe. They are quite different.
And, not having read the description, I guess I can't speak definitively on its 'inventiveness'.
Why haven't you read it? I mean if you're going to take the time to post about it and express your opinions to others, you clearly seem invested and are investing time. Is it that forming an opinion from an educated perspective is just too hard so you punt and just take a guess and try to convince others you are correct?
"The user did a pinch to zoom, if it's still really close to when we detected that, assume they're still trying to zoom'. Brilliant. Execpt it's been done before - albeit not in the specific case of the precious pinch to zoom - because pinch to zoom is a new case.
Where has it been done before that is similar?
Essentially 'since we did pinch to zoom first, we own everything about it' - a good reason not to make it patentable.
And now you're equivocating trying to get back to your previous, well destroyed point. Apple didn't patent what you thought they did. They did patent something where there isn't any known prior art, and Android does infringe. So now you're trying to justify your prejudiced opinions and rationalize why even though Samsung did rip off UI elements and violate patents and Apple isn't suing over spurious patents you still believe they are in the wrong because you feel that way and are making decisions based upon those feelings. It sure is a lot easier than changing your opinions I suppose.
What good is an open source OS if it requires me to purchase proprietary products to change or compile it?
The express version of visual studio is free. You do not have to pay anything.
Are you implying Windows is free now, or Visual Studio runs on other OS's? Or is it that you just did not think through the dependencies?
Are you implying Windows is free now
Are you implying that the computer, the desk it's on, the building it's in and the electricity it uses to run were all free too?
No, but the computer is not proprietary and you can build you own and compile things on any computer you want. You can buy or not buy any desk you want and buy or produce any electricity you want. With this project you have to buy Windows from Microsoft; one vendor, no choice. But then, I'm sure you knew that and are just being intentionally obtuse because you don't want to comprehend the point.
Windows Home Premium (OEM version) is subsidized by trialware publishers, making it free as in beer to home users.
Free as in beer? Is that sort of like a free drink when you pay $50 to go to a show? I'll tell you a secret, when something is free with the purchase of something else, it's a bundled cost. You're still paying for it. Your computer is that much more expensive than it would be if there were no such thing as Windows and only free OS's.
What good is an open source OS if it requires me to purchase proprietary products to change or compile it? that's not freedom, that's just extension of Microsoft marketing campaign. And what about threat of Microsoft someday saying things built with their tools have Microsoft IP in them?
The express version of visual studio is free. You do not have to pay anything.
Are you implying Windows is free now, or Visual Studio runs on other OS's? Or is it that you just did not think through the dependencies?
Lets consider the Phone as three separate parts: case, hardware (internal components), and software.
Case: could be considered similar - but they are different sizes and have different shapes in the back.
Agreed. It is similar enough that some users might be confused, but by itself not enough.
Hardware: *I think* (I'm not even close to a legal expert here, but comments are for opinions right;) the Galaxy line of products could only be considered copies if they actually copied the layout of components inside the case. Hopefully this was not done and Samsung choose a better location for the antenna.
Apple claims Samsung copied Apple's patented new rocker switch (the volume switch), in addition to the design patents.
Software: Samsung provides some apps - but mostly this is just Android. That's a whole other set of patent bs.
Samsung is liable for any infringement by Android because Samsung is shipping the device. This is Samsung's legal responsibility. You can't just dismiss these violations because other companies are also using Android. Additionally, Samsung customized the UI such that there was a row of icons along the bottom and about a dozen icons that were very, very similar to those on iOS. On top of that re the specific software patents in Android's interface that are fairly trivial to demonstrate as violations unless those patents can be invalidated by prior art; things like mapping capacitive touches to ellipses and using touch and zoom to hint to the OS that subsequent actions will be the same.
And then there are some other things you missed from the filing, including similar packaging and marketing. So when you add up the hardware, the case, the software, the packaging, and the marketing, you get what may or may not be a strong design patent case where Samsung is trying to confuse users into thinking their device is what they saw in Apple's ads and what they saw when they saw people using iPads. I mean, seriously, is there any other reason for making icons with the exact same color scheme, gradient, and icon? It's not a matter of Samsung copying Apple exactly (except for the hardware and software patents). For the design patents they just have to be confusingly similar enough, overall such that consumers are misled. The claims of salespeople referring to it as a Samsung iPad doesn't exactly bolster Samsung's case either.
Slashdot Mirror
Users do not read dialog boxes.
Users do read dialogue boxes, when presented in a decent UI instead of the abysmal situation we have with most programs today. First, they have to be presented sparingly; not a problem going forward as most apps should never need to elevate privileges, especially since those distributed by the manufacturer through controlled channels can be vetted and signed with an ACL. This only applies to unsigned apps downloaded outside the main channels. It will take time to overcome the conditioning most users of Windows have been subjected to their whole lives.
Second, you have to present information that the user can understand and then give them actual choices about what to do. The buttons should be verbs. If your buttons are OK/Cancel you have failed.
It's called the Dancing Pigs Problem [wikipedia.org]. The user will NOT care about security - they will do whatever it takes to run the app.
It presents false dichotomy. Users will do what they need to to run an app, but there is no reason you have to compromise security to do so. Whether a user trusts or does not trust an app should almost never, ever effect what the app does. You can give apps fake data, fake network, fake anything inside a sandbox or VM. If it's testing to see if it is in a VM, it's almost certainly malware. Once users learn that 99.99% of the time they can choose not to trust something and it will still work fine, they will actually start to pay attention to the .01% of the time where there is a real issue. All the false positives in modern software *cough* Windows, are detrimental.
All of your arguments are predicated on a system that keeps all the really shitty flaws of current, lousy attempts to implement protection against trojans.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
The resource fork can hold MIME types?
It's not technically a MIME type (I used that term because it is actually familiar to a significant number of people), but it serves the same purpose, assuming the allusion in the article is correct. You can set the file type, system icon to use, and store a custom icon. Alternately they may be referring to similar functionality in an openstep bundle, which they refer to incorrectly as a fork. But yes, OS X can and will read this type of data stored in several formats.
It's a trojan, and it likely wouldn't even be sandboxed due to the ball-dropping there on Apple's part.
What makes you think it wouldn't be sandboxed on OS X 10.7 by default, the same as every other app you download?
But how do you prevent stupidity? To stop this attack, you'd need to remove the ability for the user to execute programs of their choosing. A mitigating factor would be preventing applications from setting their own icon. Which do you propose?
You don't need to prevent a user from being able to run apps, you just need to restrict default behaviors for apps, provide the user with information on how much an "expert" thinks they should trust software, and tell the user in clear and simple terms when the app wants more privileges and exactly what those privileges are. Finally, you need to present this in a usable interface. Apple is already heading down this route with both iOS and OS X. In OS X 10.7 apps are sandboxed by default, although I haven't seen a single report as to if this trojan works within the sandbox, breaks out of the sandbox, or simply fails entirely on Lion.
Title, summary and article all fail. It's an executable who's name ends with ".pdf" and has a pdf icon.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
I saw reference to this trojan the other day, but my research turned up only vague descriptions such as the one linked in the summary. From all the reading I did it seems like this is an executable of some sort, with no extension that is being e-mailed to people. None of the descriptions I've read have described how it infects the machine, but I assume the user has to run it and then agree to allow the unsigned program to run for the first time. At this point it drops a PDF on the hard drive, opens it, and then installs a bare bones apache server, which doesn't actually work as far as anyone can tell. There was some indication that this was a cross platform trojan, but no one has been able to confirm this.
So if anyone is actually in a lab with a copy of this could you please enlighten us on the following points:
So as far as I can tell this is a failed attempt to create a trojan that was released into the wild, possibly as part of testing or as an experiment. It's not really much in the way of news, but for security geeks it is quite interesting; which is why the complete failure of the security companies to provide a decent description is so frustrating. Does anyone have real information about this trojan?
I know that there are those of us who like to learn, and therefore use efficient memory techniques, and that there are those who ridicule those of us who learn. On a website for geeks, I had expected to find the former, not the latter.
Even on a site for geeks you have to understand the signal to noise ratio is not wonderful. There certainly are actual geeks and nerds here who appreciate mnemonic techniques and sympathize with your desire for prefab technology to make those techniques easier. I read your post and thought, "huh, interesting, but I don't know of any off the shelf calculators with that arrangement." Then I kept my mouth shut and moved on until I had something to say.
Ignore the idiots and the haters and chalk the lack of useful feedback up to the paucity of solutions.
But here's the question - if your raw materials costs rose by 5x from one financial year to the next, how would you handle it?
I'd bring legal challenge against the cartel controlling prices and use my popularity to drive yet another antitrust conviction against them. I'd use my other business to continue to undercut their competing products and make the first market unprofitable and a niche market until such a time as the courts resolved the issue or I could get popular opinion behind legal reform.
I'll tell you what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't abandon my leverage in the hopes that said criminal cartel would play nice and not slit my throat at a later date.
DVD rentals are a dead end. Within the next couple of decades they will be gone and all video will be distributed via the internet (sometimes through ISP provided boxes that also provide TV). Those of us that like and want streaming to be something decent feel that is much less likely now. Netflix's DVD rental club was the best chance of getting good streaming video contracts out of the media cartels.
Aside from that, going to two different places means no one place has the info needed to make the best rental recommendations and for those things I want to watch regardless, I now have to check if they are on streaming then go check when they're on DVD for rent and keep checking back in case it reaches the former before my rental for the latter reaches the top of my queue. That's obnoxious and inconvenient. It seems likely the streaming service will only get worse over time as they have less leverage to negotiate good deals and legal streaming in general is going to get worse as competing with Netflix will no longer be a negotiating strategy that Amazon, Apple, etc. can employ.
Frankly, I see very little upside, aside from some autonomy to make things better for the DVD rental service in the short term.
No...., but it does have jurisdiction over companies based in Germany regardless of where they are operating, such as Samsung Germany, a subsidiary based in Germany.
yea thats fine but the article and summary both site that they are banning it from all of Europe, which last time I checked was not just Germany, nor do they have any say so in other countries.
They have a say in what Samsung Germany, a German company does in the rest of Europe. They haven't banned distribution by other subsidiaries of Samsung, based outside Germany.
So what if they ban it, Samsung just wont be making their tablets there...
The argument that the law should not be enforced because companies will simply do the same thing elsewhere and the money will leave the local economy is a foolish one. Would you apply the same concept to other laws? Should Germany not enforce child labor laws because companies will just go elsewhere and Germany will lose the money? Think it through.
Sorry it took me so long to respond, and likely you won't read this, but on the off chance you will and you're open to changing your mind I thought it important to respond to your points.
1) Doesn't work without copyright. I'll just visit your website once, make a copy of your works, and post them on my own site. People will visit mine because it's a "book aggregator" -- all the best books in one place! I get money, you get nothing. Thanks for all your hard work!
This is certainly a consideration, but it leaves out an important aspect of human culture, people want to reward the authors. People see creators as people to be looked up to and they want to be associated with them. A little advertising and guilt tripping and it can be easily made "uncool" to bypass an author's channel and go to someone who is leeching. Heck, there are people here on Slashdot who have the option of turning off ads but don't because they want to support the site financially. Authors can make a lot of money from such a site, especially because they will always be ahead of the game, not to mention they can still use trademark law to make copying a financial hole for an aggregator site.
2) Only works if you know exactly how much you expect to make from each work. Set your donations level too high, and it won't be reached and your fans will leave. Set it too low, and you're leaving money, perhaps a lot of money, on the table.
This is true of pretty much all real markets. You set the price and adjust as you learn the market better. You can even adjust one way in the middle of a run by lowering the bar. Your argument doesn't nothing to make this an unprofitable model and it's even been used by several authors in recent years, like Stephen King. Your argument is just that the logistics of pricing may take work, not that this model is unprofitable.
3) This method works, to be sure, but only if you're writing a very specific type of book. Authors of fiction wouldn't see a dime.
You've never gone to a paid signing or lecture by a fiction author? I distinctly remember listening to Vonnegut speak on more than one occasion.
In any case, you may have missed my main point, which was that I think copyright law would be the best solution, if it were re-engineered to be reasonable. Right now, it is worse for society than no copyright law at all. And no copyright law at all, does not stop the production of works nor make producing works an unprofitable career. Look at the music industry, both the low and middle part of the market makes basically nothing off of copyright and survives on live performances and memorabilia. Many of them lose money on copyright because they have to deal with RIAA which has a stranglehold on distribution chains and extracts more money from the artist than they make. Yet the artists still make money overall. Think about it.
With more competition, providers in the US are better at pretending to do good things for you.
I live in a typical small city just outside one of the largest cities. I don't really see a lot of this "competition" of which you speak. I have 2 real options, the local cable company or the local phone company, both of whom overcharge if you don't buy a bundle with a service I don't want; both of whom have horrible bureaucracies that result in some of the worst customer service of any industry. Neither the cable company nor the phone company pretended to do good things for me when I called for explanation of their obfuscated billing statements nor when their systems were malfunctioning or down. Their attitudes were both: "Well why don't you sit on hold for an hour and then we'll connect you to some random guy in India who can't help you and doesn't even comprehend your language very well. He won't do anything, but really we don't give a shit anyway because you don't have any better choices."
If your "right" to make money conflicts with society's interest in preserving this content for future generations, which wins out?
Well, you compromise. That's why copyrights and patents do and should expire.
Perhaps you misrepresented your position, but why should we compromise between what a special interest wants and what is best for society. Shouldn't laws just be what is best for society?
Without copyright, an author doesn't have spit unless they can negotiate a really really good deal with the very first reader.
Now look, I've made my living primarily as a writer for many years. The idea that copyright is the only viable business model for a writer is just bunk; especially in the internet age. You can post works for free and make money on ads. You can set up a fund whereby you only issue the next episode/issue/chapter when donations reach a certain level. You can use writing to promote a profitable business lecturing.
I'm not opposed to reasonable copyright law and certainly benefit from copyright laws on the books, but I'm of the very strong opinion that our current laws do more harm than good to society; and that is a trend that is only getting worse. Our society is run by big businesses and in that light the laws being passed make perfect sense. If you think what is good for big business is implicitly good for society, well I'm not sure rational discourse is even possible. We need to stand up and be clear about this complex issue; otherwise the majority will never care and the special interests will destroy what rightfully belongs to our descendants. Many works have vanished and every day the last copy of something gets destroyed. It is intolerable to me, and should be to you and everyone else. Please, think deeply on this topic.
Germany, you do not have jurisdiction over the entire EU, k thanks.
No...., but it does have jurisdiction over companies based in Germany regardless of where they are operating, such as Samsung Germany, a subsidiary based in Germany.
trivial. these patents would all be invalidated if they were ever tested in a sane court.
No sane court would rule a patent granted on a new type of rocker switch was enforceable? What an, umm, novel opinion you have.
also, how much are you being paid for your comments?
Nothing. I'm just trying to add some educated and knowledgable, reasoned opinion to the debate. Why how much are you paid for your unsupported nonsense? Were you going to make an offer?
i say this all the time, but i think it's deceptive if you are being paid, and plain sad if you're shilling for free.
I say you should be paying people to read your wretched grammar and spelling (not to mention lack of reason). But hey, it's a free country. Sadly one with an under-par educational system. Your writing is funky indeed.
But I'll take a step back: if you currently own a Mac, I'm not entirely sure why you'd be so eager to hack on the Cosmos operating system.
I'm not, but because it is tied to a Windows only environment. That's the point. As on OS it is still wholly beholden to a single, rival OS vendor, thus rendering it fairly crippled and unsustainable in the long term. The fact that the project has gone so far as to have running code seems astonishing; possibly astonishingly idiotic.
No, but the computer is not proprietary
Really cause Intel would say otherwise.
Heard of AMD, ARM vendors? Hey buying a computer does not tie you to one vendor. Buying something dependent upon Windows does.
My latest Macbook Pro is a 64 bit PC capable of running Windows but did not come with it. Where can I get this free Windows of which you speak, legally, without buying something?
Because one I knew that there was some need to 'hint' the next action depending on the previous when decoding gestures, I could implement the same thing without knowing how Apple did it.
Ahh, but you and no one else knew it obvious that in order to implement pinch to zoom well, that you'd have to use hinting from previous attempts, thus one could just as easily argue that what Apple patented was not the idea of pinch to zoom on a touchscreen but a specific implementation thereof. The courts seem to be buying this interpretation, and it certainly seems just as valid as yours. But then we've wandered far afield from the original topic.
There existed a very healthy, competitive marketplace around software development without software patents... and now we have chaos and lawyers and an environment fostered largely by the beneficiaries of a PC revolution in which it's hard to imagine that revolution ever having taken place.
Well, you can certainly argue patents, or classes of patents like software patents are harmful to innovation, that doesn't mean any software company can afford to ignore them. Google has plenty of software patents and they've gone to court over them. But even if you neglect software patents altogether, in this case Samsung seems to have violated real, hardware patents. I guess I don't see how you can still justify your original statements as reasoned.
What does your comment have to do with anything? You don't even address the points I made. As for your assertion and support, it seems quite spurious since it is derived from extrapolating from a current ecosystem without regard for that ecosystem being changed in the case described. Weak tea. Off topic weak tea.
Sounds an awful lot like the timer used to distinguish a doubleclick from a second click. Sure, it's a little different, since 'pinch to zoom' detection doesn't depend on hitting a specific screen element.
Double click is an interface where there is a time between two actions that determines whether the overall action taken is case A or case B. This is a case of an interface action being used as hinting for subsequent actions in the same timeframe. They are quite different.
And, not having read the description, I guess I can't speak definitively on its 'inventiveness'.
Why haven't you read it? I mean if you're going to take the time to post about it and express your opinions to others, you clearly seem invested and are investing time. Is it that forming an opinion from an educated perspective is just too hard so you punt and just take a guess and try to convince others you are correct?
"The user did a pinch to zoom, if it's still really close to when we detected that, assume they're still trying to zoom'. Brilliant. Execpt it's been done before - albeit not in the specific case of the precious pinch to zoom - because pinch to zoom is a new case.
Where has it been done before that is similar?
Essentially 'since we did pinch to zoom first, we own everything about it' - a good reason not to make it patentable.
And now you're equivocating trying to get back to your previous, well destroyed point. Apple didn't patent what you thought they did. They did patent something where there isn't any known prior art, and Android does infringe. So now you're trying to justify your prejudiced opinions and rationalize why even though Samsung did rip off UI elements and violate patents and Apple isn't suing over spurious patents you still believe they are in the wrong because you feel that way and are making decisions based upon those feelings. It sure is a lot easier than changing your opinions I suppose.
What good is an open source OS if it requires me to purchase proprietary products to change or compile it?
The express version of visual studio is free. You do not have to pay anything.
Are you implying Windows is free now, or Visual Studio runs on other OS's? Or is it that you just did not think through the dependencies?
Are you implying Windows is free now
Are you implying that the computer, the desk it's on, the building it's in and the electricity it uses to run were all free too?
No, but the computer is not proprietary and you can build you own and compile things on any computer you want. You can buy or not buy any desk you want and buy or produce any electricity you want. With this project you have to buy Windows from Microsoft; one vendor, no choice. But then, I'm sure you knew that and are just being intentionally obtuse because you don't want to comprehend the point.
Are you implying Windows is free now
Windows Home Premium (OEM version) is subsidized by trialware publishers, making it free as in beer to home users.
Free as in beer? Is that sort of like a free drink when you pay $50 to go to a show? I'll tell you a secret, when something is free with the purchase of something else, it's a bundled cost. You're still paying for it. Your computer is that much more expensive than it would be if there were no such thing as Windows and only free OS's.
What good is an open source OS if it requires me to purchase proprietary products to change or compile it? that's not freedom, that's just extension of Microsoft marketing campaign. And what about threat of Microsoft someday saying things built with their tools have Microsoft IP in them?
The express version of visual studio is free. You do not have to pay anything.
Are you implying Windows is free now, or Visual Studio runs on other OS's? Or is it that you just did not think through the dependencies?
Lets consider the Phone as three separate parts: case, hardware (internal components), and software. Case: could be considered similar - but they are different sizes and have different shapes in the back.
Agreed. It is similar enough that some users might be confused, but by itself not enough.
Hardware: *I think* (I'm not even close to a legal expert here, but comments are for opinions right ;) the Galaxy line of products could only be considered copies if they actually copied the layout of components inside the case. Hopefully this was not done and Samsung choose a better location for the antenna.
Apple claims Samsung copied Apple's patented new rocker switch (the volume switch), in addition to the design patents.
Software: Samsung provides some apps - but mostly this is just Android. That's a whole other set of patent bs.
Samsung is liable for any infringement by Android because Samsung is shipping the device. This is Samsung's legal responsibility. You can't just dismiss these violations because other companies are also using Android. Additionally, Samsung customized the UI such that there was a row of icons along the bottom and about a dozen icons that were very, very similar to those on iOS. On top of that re the specific software patents in Android's interface that are fairly trivial to demonstrate as violations unless those patents can be invalidated by prior art; things like mapping capacitive touches to ellipses and using touch and zoom to hint to the OS that subsequent actions will be the same.
And then there are some other things you missed from the filing, including similar packaging and marketing. So when you add up the hardware, the case, the software, the packaging, and the marketing, you get what may or may not be a strong design patent case where Samsung is trying to confuse users into thinking their device is what they saw in Apple's ads and what they saw when they saw people using iPads. I mean, seriously, is there any other reason for making icons with the exact same color scheme, gradient, and icon? It's not a matter of Samsung copying Apple exactly (except for the hardware and software patents). For the design patents they just have to be confusingly similar enough, overall such that consumers are misled. The claims of salespeople referring to it as a Samsung iPad doesn't exactly bolster Samsung's case either.