This is a classic example of why we should have competition. It only takes a bit of competition thrown in and suddenly our Linux platform is supported. Consumer lock-in is great for business but bad for consumers. I wonder just how long this platform embracing will last though?
Why on earth would you want to watch it live? It's like watching the outcome of a cockroach race. Someone's gonna win and it doesn't really matter who.
That's the key point. I haven't come across many customers of software who are actually pro-DRM. They are easily divided between ignorant DRM customers, detesting DRM customers and those that say "whatever" because they have cracked their favourite piece of software. This imbalance isn't good..
But I've just put it down to old age/getting bored/getting frustrated with incompatible software.
I tend to get frustrated with things that take a long time to implement. As if the last 30 years of IT hasn't given us anything that is EASY to implement. There are some good examples, however, the vast majority of software is a pain in the ass to implement whether free or not.
After more than 30 years we should have more modularized software - ie drop in/take out software, that has no dependancies, or if it does auto-install.
Each O/S has it's ups and downs, and do things either better or worse. But, IMHO, it's time for a revolution. We're already seeing the signs of software becoming a commodity - let's hope it continues, because it'll end up with software that interacts and works well with each other.
I agree. Just because a company produces over 5000 patents, doesn't mean they are innovative. It also doesn't mean that they can create a marketable product out of it. This is, IMHO, the issue with patents. "Back in the day" patents could be directly translatable to a marketable product. These days they define sub-components of sub-products, or even non-products that haven't even been thought of yet. (A 'just in case' patent.)
There are some great patents, (and Microsoft does have it's share of them), but only a few see the light of day, (look at Sun's ZFS - good example there).
This is an interesting point. I used to be pretty much "Meh" when it came to DRM and Windows, because I never use Windows, (thankfully Debian doesn't have anything remotely DRM in it). However, DRM is like the Police saying "We've just put these handcuffs on you because we don't trust you. We can't trust you not to disobey the law."
You're right. DRM is like this. It's putting the penalty ahead of the crime. It's a poor excuse to manage 'theft', (MPAA's term not mine).
The UK isn't the only country that suffers this issue. A huge amount of inventions have come out of Australia only to be gobbled up by the US. One, extremely important one recently is the Wifi patent. yes we managed to get a patent on something, however it's being contested in court by IBM, Intel, and MS. So, even when we do come up with some good stuff - it just gets gobbled up.
You can get them to work under Linux. What I've done for my kids is to install vmware server, install Windows 98SE as a client, (smallest footprint - lowest requirements), and run the games in that with ripped CDs and daemontools. If it's not a fully blown 3D app, (which I've found a lot of those games aren't), you can run it easily with this setup. I have around 40 to 50 games setup this way. The best thing about it? I've set it up in read only mode, so that any changes made get wiped when vmware client reboots. So, no spyware, no worms, no problems. They can trash the Windows box for all I care - it comes right back up again the way it was before.
It's good that you know so much about where I live from a couple of sentences. I'm impressed. Where I live, (which isn't where you live - obviously), there is a huge amount of pressure for school kids to have a hotmail account. I have four kids in school now, and they are all being pressured by their friends to 'own' a hotmail account. Don't know why that is, but it is. So, in my area I am correct - it is the default tool for communication. Even Optus is quietly forcing us to 'own' a Windows Live account. It's going to become the only way we can manage our Optus broadband account soon.
And M$ dominance - the fact that it's treated as a default communication tool with the current teen generation. Sorta like: everyone has hotmail! Why can't I dad? >groan
I agree with this. Linux MD for ultimate flexibility. You can transport drives around if a system dies. This is fantastic for home use, but there's nothing like hardware RAID when you've got great gobs of money.In a corporate setting. Mind you. I've just recently revamped my raid setup with solaris and ZFS. Now that is ultimate flexibility! Endianless. I can grow the raid just by adding a disk. Perfect!.
Am I the only one who is mildly concerned about Novell being bought out by Microsoft? Just think about it: M$ injects money into a failing company, (SCO), to test in a court of law the 'ownership' of UNIX.Once that is established M$ buys out Novell in one fell swoop. Then declares Linux illegal and demands immediate withdrawal. Guys. The fate of Linux rests with Novell! (Before all the M$ flamethrowers appear - yes we DO need choice. Yes we do need alternatives.)
Bloody M$ FUD. The real story is that Lucent filed for patent violation before it merged with Alcatel. The filing continued after the merger. The reason why M$ won was because they weren't even in violation of anything. They had indeed already licensed the technology. There's no 'victory' for the consumer in it at all.
Mod parent up please. This is exactly the issue with 'safe' online MMPOGs. Every parent's level of what's "safe for their child" varies greatly. None of the MMPOGs I've seen give parents ANY ability to limit what their child sees or does. It's a case of some parents having to sit there and watch what happens.
Case in point: my 8 year old daughter likes these MMPOGs, which is fine I had no issue with it. Until I walked in one day and found my daughter talking to someone, (probably a "child" IE read 50 year old pedo), on IMVU. The other "child" had just said "Want to Cyber sex?". WTF? Where's the parental control? I searched on IMVU - none.
So, it's banned in our house until they come up with a way to give parents the ability to limit what goes on, or ensure that children are safe.
The thing is what works for one parent won't for others, and I BET anything that someone will respond to this post saying "What's wrong with that?". Well, yeah you might want to let your daughter do that, but I don't, and MMPOGs don't provide any ability to limit what goes on or provide parents with the ability to.
What I'd like to see is a way of gradually limiting what the player can do. All the way from full access to just logging in. Trouble is, (as the parent post said), there will always be a way around it.
Yep, I agree with this. I am the senior sysadmin for 120+ UNIX servers. That's just two people managing 120+ servers. There's 8 people managing roughly the same number of Windows boxes. The Windows guys install spyware programs, anti-keyloggers, windows defender, anti-virus, yabbida, yabbida. We don't. Why bother? We do however run security scanners periodically, because we have users logging in to those boxes and we don't trust them.
That's what I do and it works well. Since I have my own domain I just setup a new alias with random letters in it and use that email address to register. If I get SPAM, or I no longer want that to have anything to do with that registry, I just dump the alias. Much easier than having to de-register for something. In fact you should try to find THAT option - you won't be able to.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree. On YOUR system more is actually less.
Well, I didn't know about him releasing this album DRM free until I heard it here. Because it's DRM free, I'll go buy it.
So, I think Paul likes the free publicity where-ever he can get it.
Typical. That's censoring for you.
If you're now just using a spreadsheet, then why not use openoffice?
Bob's your uncle
He is! But... how did *you* know that?
What a stupid question. I never boot my computer.
This is a classic example of why we should have competition. It only takes a bit of competition thrown in and suddenly our Linux platform is supported. Consumer lock-in is great for business but bad for consumers.
I wonder just how long this platform embracing will last though?
Why on earth would you want to watch it live? It's like watching the outcome of a cockroach race. Someone's gonna win and it doesn't really matter who.
That's the key point. I haven't come across many customers of software who are actually pro-DRM.
They are easily divided between ignorant DRM customers, detesting DRM customers and those that say "whatever" because they have cracked their favourite piece of software.
This imbalance isn't good..
LOL. As a sysadmin I reckon I could do a pretty good job at brain surgery. Not as good, mind you, but I'd get great results.
Thanks for the heads up.
/sbin/iptables -t filter -A EXTIN -s ! 134.17.0.0/16 -j DROP
%
But I've just put it down to old age/getting bored/getting frustrated with incompatible software.
I tend to get frustrated with things that take a long time to implement. As if the last 30 years of IT hasn't given us anything that is EASY to implement. There are some good examples, however, the vast majority of software is a pain in the ass to implement whether free or not.
After more than 30 years we should have more modularized software - ie drop in/take out software, that has no dependancies, or if it does auto-install.
Each O/S has it's ups and downs, and do things either better or worse. But, IMHO, it's time for a revolution. We're already seeing the signs of software becoming a commodity - let's hope it continues, because it'll end up with software that interacts and works well with each other.
I agree. Just because a company produces over 5000 patents, doesn't mean they are innovative. It also doesn't mean that they can create a marketable product out of it. This is, IMHO, the issue with patents. "Back in the day" patents could be directly translatable to a marketable product. These days they define sub-components of sub-products, or even non-products that haven't even been thought of yet. (A 'just in case' patent.)
There are some great patents, (and Microsoft does have it's share of them), but only a few see the light of day, (look at Sun's ZFS - good example there).
This is an interesting point. I used to be pretty much "Meh" when it came to DRM and Windows, because I never use Windows, (thankfully Debian doesn't have anything remotely DRM in it).
However, DRM is like the Police saying "We've just put these handcuffs on you because we don't trust you. We can't trust you not to disobey the law."
You're right. DRM is like this. It's putting the penalty ahead of the crime. It's a poor excuse to manage 'theft', (MPAA's term not mine).
The UK isn't the only country that suffers this issue. A huge amount of inventions have come out of Australia only to be gobbled up by the US.
One, extremely important one recently is the Wifi patent. yes we managed to get a patent on something, however it's being contested in court by IBM, Intel, and MS.
So, even when we do come up with some good stuff - it just gets gobbled up.
You can get them to work under Linux. What I've done for my kids is to install vmware server, install Windows 98SE as a client, (smallest footprint - lowest requirements), and run the games in that with ripped CDs and daemontools.
If it's not a fully blown 3D app, (which I've found a lot of those games aren't), you can run it easily with this setup. I have around 40 to 50 games setup this way.
The best thing about it? I've set it up in read only mode, so that any changes made get wiped when vmware client reboots. So, no spyware, no worms, no problems. They can trash the Windows box for all I care - it comes right back up again the way it was before.
It's good that you know so much about where I live from a couple of sentences. I'm impressed.
Where I live, (which isn't where you live - obviously), there is a huge amount of pressure for school kids to have a hotmail account.
I have four kids in school now, and they are all being pressured by their friends to 'own' a hotmail account. Don't know why that is, but it is.
So, in my area I am correct - it is the default tool for communication. Even Optus is quietly forcing us to 'own' a Windows Live account. It's going to become the only way we can manage our Optus broadband account soon.
And M$ dominance - the fact that it's treated as a default communication tool with the current teen generation. Sorta like: everyone has hotmail! Why can't I dad? >groan
I agree with this. Linux MD for ultimate flexibility. You can transport drives around if a system dies. This is fantastic for home use, but there's nothing like hardware RAID when you've got great gobs of money.In a corporate setting.
Mind you. I've just recently revamped my raid setup with solaris and ZFS. Now that is ultimate flexibility! Endianless. I can grow the raid just by adding a disk. Perfect!.
Am I the only one who is mildly concerned about Novell being bought out by Microsoft? Just think about it: M$ injects money into a failing company, (SCO), to test in a court of law the 'ownership' of UNIX.Once that is established M$ buys out Novell in one fell swoop. Then declares Linux illegal and demands immediate withdrawal. Guys. The fate of Linux rests with Novell! (Before all the M$ flamethrowers appear - yes we DO need choice. Yes we do need alternatives.)
Probably likely to be written in Hardly C, or maybe Hearl. I can't imagine it being written in C# - that's for drug testing machines.
Bloody M$ FUD. The real story is that Lucent filed for patent violation before it merged with Alcatel. The filing continued after the merger. The reason why M$ won was because they weren't even in violation of anything. They had indeed already licensed the technology. There's no 'victory' for the consumer in it at all.
Mod parent up please. This is exactly the issue with 'safe' online MMPOGs. Every parent's level of what's "safe for their child" varies greatly. None of the MMPOGs I've seen give parents ANY ability to limit what their child sees or does. It's a case of some parents having to sit there and watch what happens.
Case in point: my 8 year old daughter likes these MMPOGs, which is fine I had no issue with it. Until I walked in one day and found my daughter talking to someone, (probably a "child" IE read 50 year old pedo), on IMVU. The other "child" had just said "Want to Cyber sex?". WTF? Where's the parental control? I searched on IMVU - none.
So, it's banned in our house until they come up with a way to give parents the ability to limit what goes on, or ensure that children are safe.
The thing is what works for one parent won't for others, and I BET anything that someone will respond to this post saying "What's wrong with that?". Well, yeah you might want to let your daughter do that, but I don't, and MMPOGs don't provide any ability to limit what goes on or provide parents with the ability to.
What I'd like to see is a way of gradually limiting what the player can do. All the way from full access to just logging in. Trouble is, (as the parent post said), there will always be a way around it.
Yep, I agree with this. I am the senior sysadmin for 120+ UNIX servers. That's just two people managing 120+ servers. There's 8 people managing roughly the same number of Windows boxes. The Windows guys install spyware programs, anti-keyloggers, windows defender, anti-virus, yabbida, yabbida. We don't. Why bother? We do however run security scanners periodically, because we have users logging in to those boxes and we don't trust them.
That's what I do and it works well. Since I have my own domain I just setup a new alias with random letters in it and use that email address to register. If I get SPAM, or I no longer want that to have anything to do with that registry, I just dump the alias.
Much easier than having to de-register for something. In fact you should try to find THAT option - you won't be able to.