These guys were as close a role model as I could find on television as a kid
I'm as sad as the next guy to see them killed off like this, but "role models"?? These were thirty-somethings living in a basement playing with computers. Sure, it wasn't their parent's basement, but still...
Just to clarify: the Deutsche Bahn hasn't won in the case against xs4all yet. A preliminary verdict was issued that forced xs4all to close down the website in question for the time being, but the final ruling won't be available until april 25th. Given that the material is NOT copyrighted by Deutsche Bahn, and is NOT illegal in the Netherlands, I would expect the preliminary verdict to be overturned in favor of xs4all.
However, this is not in the CLAIMS of the patent, and therefore the patent is ONLY valid for a swing that is suspended by chains from a treebranch. In addition, the treebranch should be substantially horizontal. This patent is (purposely?) very narrow.
It is clear to me that this patent was filed as a joke, and/or to show that the USPTO is really not up to the task of reviewing the patents that it receives. Maybe if we get enough "drops" like this, the bucket will finally overflow, and the whole patent-system will be reviewed and restructured.
Something that works really well is to make
the dot of light go up to something that's standing on the floor (a box, a loudspeaker, or a sofa will do), and then just as it hits it, turn it off. The cat will think the "critter" went underneath the object, and will sit there for a long time waiting for it to come back out. Call it a MENTAL extercise:)
I don't care WHAT operating system it runs, a hideous contraption like that doesn't belong in anyone's living room. Locked up in the basement, perhaps, but for God's sake keep it out of sight!
Tell me how its any diffrent than using your computer to do the same thing?
Oh i get it, so if you manually copy something, its alright and legal, but if
you used an automated process or machine to do it, its illegal?
Technically, yes. Your right to speak is protected by the first amendment. Your computer has no such rights under the first amendment.
But Supply and Demand are concepts that don't apply in this case. A CD is distributed from only one company
- there is no competition selling the same CD (expect at the retail level). If you want a given CD, it is only
available from one source. This is different from say, a car.
This is EXACTLY THE SAME as with a car. If you want a Ford Explorer, you can only get it from one company: Ford. That company largely sets the price of the vehicle, though you may get different prices from different dealers. This is the same for CDs. Your Pearl Jam CD comes from only one source (Sony Music, I believe), but you can get different prices at different retailers.
Saying that cars are interchangeable but music is not is short-sighted. To purists, cars are not interchangeable. To others, music is interchangeable. If you absolutely have to have that Pearl Jam CD, but think it is too expensive, then this is no different from me absolutely wanting that Ferrari, but not being able to afford it. In your case another CD is not acceptable as a substitute, just like a cheaper car would be an unacceptable substitute for the Ferrari.
No, it's not. You are free to sing any song yourself, or recite from any book. In those cases, it is YOU that is doing the speaking, and your right to speak is protected. Making copies of someone else's recorded speech is a different matter altogether, and is not covered by the first amendment at all.
While I'm sure all of them include some novel concepts by now, at their core they are all rip-offs of existing ideas. None of the things you mentioned are entirely new, and all of them were created because somebody didn't want to pay for the existing products.
Now, in a perfect world, I would happily hand over the royalties to the song owners/producers/artists and
everyone would be happy.
One of the standard excuses of the "music pirate". Unfortunately for you, the Sony and Bertelsmann that you mentioned are the song owners. The artists signed contracts with them transferring their rights to them, so you should be perfectly happy to fork over your money to Sony et al.
Now, your next line of defense is probably going to be something like "CDs are too expensive because of the greedy record industry". Granted, CDs cost relatively much compared to their manufacturing cost. Physical manufacturing cost isn't everything though, in fact it's the smallest of costs in this case.
More importantly though, it is not up to you to determine what is a good price. Well, it is, indirectly: if you don't like the price, you don't buy the product! If enough people do it, then the recording industry will "get it" and be forced to lower the price. If not enough people do it, then that's a sure sign that CDs are currently "priced to market". Supply and demand still determine price, and the current price of around $15 is what supply and demand have agreed upon.
It is the principle of disobeying a law which is unjust that
they and others have used to better the ways of the world.
And to compare yourself to those people is pretentious to the extreme. You are not protesting an unjust law by leeching off of Napster in the privacy of your home. If you want to be like those civil rights activists, be an ACTIVIST: go sit in front of city hall or the library of congress with your computer and offer "free music" to passers-by. As it stands, you're no better than every other 15 year old who rather spends his money on new sneakers and cigarettes than on music.
Sure, the author is free to write whatever he wants. I just don't think that his rant merits being called "excellent", let alone "well
worth reading, and bookmarking, and referring newbies to in order to get them up
to speed in the digital content wars". The article was poorly written drivel, regardless of whether or not you're on the same side as the author on these issues.
I don't think this is an excellent piece at all. It is a one-sided view of the issue, with the author basically going off on a rant against everything that he doesn't like. Not only is the author extremely biased (an objective article would not have referred to "crappy music"), he is also plain wrong in some cases. For example, he says: "copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated by the Constitution". What he says here is that it is mandatory (under the constitution, even!) to make copies of copyrighted material. Not optional, mandatory. As in: NOT making copies is unconstitutional. I have not made a copy of Windows XP yet. Am I violating the constitution? Clearly not.
The GNOME team page lists 89 developers. Some of those are "big names" that are also working on other projects, so there's already some overlap there. You might be able to list close to a thousand developers, but I doubt it'll be much higher.
Let's figure developers into that. How many developers does linux have? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
Hundreds. At most. It may have millions of users (although even that is highly debatable), but the number of people who actually write software for it (let alone contribute to linux itself) is a very small percentage of that. Note: recompiling your own kernel does not make you a developer:)
it's generally recognised to have
latencies of 2.5ms
You're off by a factor of 10. As you can read in this interview, the scheduling latency in BeOS was around 250 microseconds back in july 1999, when a Pentium III 550 was the fastest Pentium CPU you could get. I'm pretty sure latency didn't get 10 times worse since then, in fact I'd be suprised if wasn't much better on current hardware.
If open source development continues to be a race to see who can stab the other person in the back and take credit for his/her work it WILL NOT improve quality
I don't see it like that at all. I see someone who took advantage of the rights given to him by the author through the GPL, and bringing an obviously stagnant project (6 months of no development, apparently) back to life, while fully acknowledging the original author's work.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm as sad as the next guy to see them killed off like this, but "role models"?? These were thirty-somethings living in a basement playing with computers. Sure, it wasn't their parent's basement, but still...
Just to clarify: the Deutsche Bahn hasn't won in the case against xs4all yet. A preliminary verdict was issued that forced xs4all to close down the website in question for the time being, but the final ruling won't be available until april 25th. Given that the material is NOT copyrighted by Deutsche Bahn, and is NOT illegal in the Netherlands, I would expect the preliminary verdict to be overturned in favor of xs4all.
However, this is not in the CLAIMS of the patent, and therefore the patent is ONLY valid for a swing that is suspended by chains from a treebranch. In addition, the treebranch should be substantially horizontal. This patent is (purposely?) very narrow. It is clear to me that this patent was filed as a joke, and/or to show that the USPTO is really not up to the task of reviewing the patents that it receives. Maybe if we get enough "drops" like this, the bucket will finally overflow, and the whole patent-system will be reviewed and restructured.
Something that works really well is to make the dot of light go up to something that's standing on the floor (a box, a loudspeaker, or a sofa will do), and then just as it hits it, turn it off. The cat will think the "critter" went underneath the object, and will sit there for a long time waiting for it to come back out. Call it a MENTAL extercise :)
How long will they remain cashflow-positive though? Will more user-charity be needed in the future?
I don't care WHAT operating system it runs, a hideous contraption like that doesn't belong in anyone's living room. Locked up in the basement, perhaps, but for God's sake keep it out of sight!
You've been watching too many X-files, or reading too much von Daniken...
Toilet-"humor", sex-"humor", what's next? How much lower can slashdot sink?
Technically, yes. Your right to speak is protected by the first amendment. Your computer has no such rights under the first amendment.
This is EXACTLY THE SAME as with a car. If you want a Ford Explorer, you can only get it from one company: Ford. That company largely sets the price of the vehicle, though you may get different prices from different dealers. This is the same for CDs. Your Pearl Jam CD comes from only one source (Sony Music, I believe), but you can get different prices at different retailers.
Saying that cars are interchangeable but music is not is short-sighted. To purists, cars are not interchangeable. To others, music is interchangeable. If you absolutely have to have that Pearl Jam CD, but think it is too expensive, then this is no different from me absolutely wanting that Ferrari, but not being able to afford it. In your case another CD is not acceptable as a substitute, just like a cheaper car would be an unacceptable substitute for the Ferrari.
Someone in a country where the DMCA does not apply will do it for you, and you then make as many copies as you want of this de-protected work.
No, it's not. You are free to sing any song yourself, or recite from any book. In those cases, it is YOU that is doing the speaking, and your right to speak is protected. Making copies of someone else's recorded speech is a different matter altogether, and is not covered by the first amendment at all.
While I'm sure all of them include some novel concepts by now, at their core they are all rip-offs of existing ideas. None of the things you mentioned are entirely new, and all of them were created because somebody didn't want to pay for the existing products.
One of the standard excuses of the "music pirate". Unfortunately for you, the Sony and Bertelsmann that you mentioned are the song owners. The artists signed contracts with them transferring their rights to them, so you should be perfectly happy to fork over your money to Sony et al.
Now, your next line of defense is probably going to be something like "CDs are too expensive because of the greedy record industry". Granted, CDs cost relatively much compared to their manufacturing cost. Physical manufacturing cost isn't everything though, in fact it's the smallest of costs in this case.
More importantly though, it is not up to you to determine what is a good price. Well, it is, indirectly: if you don't like the price, you don't buy the product! If enough people do it, then the recording industry will "get it" and be forced to lower the price. If not enough people do it, then that's a sure sign that CDs are currently "priced to market". Supply and demand still determine price, and the current price of around $15 is what supply and demand have agreed upon.
And to compare yourself to those people is pretentious to the extreme. You are not protesting an unjust law by leeching off of Napster in the privacy of your home. If you want to be like those civil rights activists, be an ACTIVIST: go sit in front of city hall or the library of congress with your computer and offer "free music" to passers-by. As it stands, you're no better than every other 15 year old who rather spends his money on new sneakers and cigarettes than on music.
How's that? The verbatim copying of an entire 1500+ word copyrighted work is not "fair use". A few quotes, yes. The entire thing, no.
Can we have a "user was in too much of a hurry to get first post to actually read the article"-rating? This guy needs it...
Sure, the author is free to write whatever he wants. I just don't think that his rant merits being called "excellent", let alone "well worth reading, and bookmarking, and referring newbies to in order to get them up to speed in the digital content wars". The article was poorly written drivel, regardless of whether or not you're on the same side as the author on these issues.
I don't think this is an excellent piece at all. It is a one-sided view of the issue, with the author basically going off on a rant against everything that he doesn't like. Not only is the author extremely biased (an objective article would not have referred to "crappy music"), he is also plain wrong in some cases. For example, he says: "copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated by the Constitution". What he says here is that it is mandatory (under the constitution, even!) to make copies of copyrighted material. Not optional, mandatory. As in: NOT making copies is unconstitutional. I have not made a copy of Windows XP yet. Am I violating the constitution? Clearly not.
The GNOME team page lists 89 developers. Some of those are "big names" that are also working on other projects, so there's already some overlap there. You might be able to list close to a thousand developers, but I doubt it'll be much higher.
How about: "BeAtCH" ?
(we'll figure out later what the 'CH' stands for)
Hundreds. At most. It may have millions of users (although even that is highly debatable), but the number of people who actually write software for it (let alone contribute to linux itself) is a very small percentage of that. Note: recompiling your own kernel does not make you a developer :)
You're off by a factor of 10. As you can read in this interview, the scheduling latency in BeOS was around 250 microseconds back in july 1999, when a Pentium III 550 was the fastest Pentium CPU you could get. I'm pretty sure latency didn't get 10 times worse since then, in fact I'd be suprised if wasn't much better on current hardware.
continues to be a race to see who can stab the other person in the back and take credit for his/her work it WILL NOT improve quality
I don't see it like that at all. I see someone who took advantage of the rights given to him by the author through the GPL, and bringing an obviously stagnant project (6 months of no development, apparently) back to life, while fully acknowledging the original author's work.
I still don't agree with Katz' reviews, even when he uses a pseudonym.