you will ban at the same time the GPL that let you go beyond copyright
I have thought about the GPL.
What the GPL could do is use a splash screen that displayed a URL that had the source code. Or the splash screen could say "source code available. See "about this program" under help for more information".
Either of which would be enough to satisfy the requirements of the GPL woithout forcing an EULA on the end user.
I think the biggest problem with EULA's is that they can be agreed to without being fully displayed to or read by the end user.
Maybe the biggest problem with EULAS is the fact that they exist at all.
The only thing an application should have is a copyright notice.
EULAs are only used to try and take away a user's rights (illegaly) that go beyond copyright.
Do you know of any store that will take back a piece of opened software and give a refund that you disagree with the EULA ??
EULAs are immoral in the extreme. This has to be the first issue that a computer rights group should take up.
And the statement printed on software boxes (like microsoft's) that state "You must agree to the end user license to the software" or other such statement is so much poo smelling malarky that it's not funny.
Also, you should be able to do anything with the software that you legally obtained anyway.
For an instance, many applications feel the necessity to phone home everytime at startup. Maybe I don't want a software maker keeping tabs on when and how I use their product.
Not to mention that those tiny bulbs that projectors use are probably engineered to run cooler than a standard halogen (even though they do still run hot).
I imagine that using a standard halogen would melt the LCD in a short amount of time.
no, It wouldn't force any OS to have to incorporate the Win32APIs. The government doesn't have to be limited to one standard. The POSIX standard is still there if anybody wants to use that. And besides, it would actually make it easier for an OS to have Win32 if they wanted to, because what they need to have to be compatible would be documented, whereas now it is not (I don't count what MS or books put out, as they are not complete).
What it would do is force software makers to write applications that would compile to this set of APIs.
Microsoft continually adds undocumented features to their codebase. That's one of the tactics they use to break compatibility with other competitors. They have been doing that since the DOS days. Having or not having a standard is not going to change that.
I have been thinking all week why the NIST should standardize the windows API.
I think that NIST would be better than ISO/ANSI/IEEE, and they have a working agreement with ANSI. Also the specification would cost less (if at all) than an ANSI/ISO version.
By standardizing the API, you immediately have the government buy the software that uses this standard. It would make our country secure not to be dependent upon one single supplier of an OS (as much as Microsoft thinks otherwise).
It also means that Windows stops being the moving target that it is.
Before you troll me with free enterprise/right to innovate/unnecessary/linux blah blah blah, anything that lessens the cost for everybody is a good idea. The OS is the only thing that has increased in cost as compared to other parts to the computer.
I know linux is free, but the fact remains that the vast majority of computer users use a Microsoft product, and wants to keep their software investment minimal (even though all the software companies want us to continually upgrade).
Actually the laser beam will be invisible (unlike the the one in the movie Real Genius), as it is in the infrared range of light. This particular frequency of light also lends itself to good transmission through the atmosphere. More info here
Another interesting thing about the laser is that it's a chemical laser that genrates energy through the reaction of oxygen and iodine.
Which means that the plane will have a limited number of shots (I believe three or four) before it has to go and refuel.
The power of this laser would not heat up and pop the popcorn like in the movie, but would vaporize a nice hole right to the ground.
I hear the green ones burn out your eye
Looking into a laser or letting laser light into your eyes is a very bad idea, no matter how low the power may seem. Even for the pen lasers that are everywhere. You do not know what the consequences may be, and harm to your eyesight is not worth it.
I wonder why they would place the circuit breakers outside the space station
I think the larger question is why they didn't engineer the breakers so they could be reset with servos or other electromechanical means.
Still, I wonder why the circuit breaker is not in a place easy to get to
Space is a difficult enviroment to engineer for. They probably put the circuit breakers outside thinking that they would rarely need to be used, if at all. By placing them outside they made more space inside the station.
I wonder if they have a special escape pod attached to the space station
There is actually a Soyuz spacecraft attached to the station to act as a kind of lifeboat if need be.
Remember in the original Star Trek on how Scotty never had enough dilithium crystals? I always thought that was kind of funny that they couldn't find a way to stash a couple of extra boxes of crystals somewhere.
I won't buy it simply because it's ridiculous that the content expires in two months. What's the point of being able to load up to 500 books on that device if they expire 60 days later????
Especially when the product dies due to lack of market interest.
Any content you did "own" will be unusable, and if you could crack the drm to transfer to another format, you would breaking the law. So you are left with nothing.
for the e-paper thing to take off we need multi format e-stationar
Well it won't happen here. Sony has been pushing their proprietary "memory stick" which uses heavy drm called "magicgate" in all of their products hoping that the sheer number of devices they can put it in will give it a valid/default market base.
Personnaly I just discovered 6 audio cassettes with the voice of my late grandfather.....I was thinking about digitizing everything, do a little noise reduction, and burning this on CD's, for my childrens and great grand-childrens enjoyment
Go ahead and digitize everything. Then get yourself a couple of accounts at Gmail when it becomes available. Then email the audio to yourself. You will have it forever then.
Of course you will see a lot of google adwords for Geritol and Ben Gay, but nothing is perfect.
It is wrong for them to do that, but it is much more in line with the hundreds of governments over the years that do not allow free speech, do irreasonable search and seizure, and consider the perpetrator guilty until proven innocent.
And that's what the Nazis did.
There have been very few governments that are any where near the Nazis. The Nazis killed millions of innocent people, in case you've forgotten. And BTW, it's Holocaust Rememberence Week.
Stalin's Russia, khmer rouge of Cambodia, Chile's Pinochet come to mind. I believe the Nazi's killed 6 million jews.
So I see you haven't a common knowledge education. Here's what I suggest: go to the bar and learn to say the word "fuck". Once you can get past that small injustice, you can see how small it is, and how much it pales in comparision to being ignorant of the Nazis and their massive assault on the Jews
I am sorry to see that you haven't a common knowledge of the cultural vernacular of the word "Nazi". Like when they used it on the TV show "Seinfeld" to describe the "Soup Nazi" in a humorous context. The context I was implying was that of an unforgiving, unbending enforcement of law, in particular copyright law. Not in relation to the fact that they killed a lot of jews.
The world is filled with injustices. Some large, many small. I wish to contribute to neither.
Maybe you could forsake your self-righteousness for a little more politeness.
We really do not know what crime, if any, has happened here.
At this point it is pretty much rampant speculation.
But assuming that it is file sharing, what is troubling is the manner that the law is being enforced.
Can you really not discern the moral, legal and ethical differences lending someone a book to read and manufacturing a verbatim copy of that book for that person.
What I can discern is how morally wrong, legally questionable, and unethical current copyright law is.
So if we have a nation of lawbreakers, maybe the law needs to be changed, rather than throw everybody in jail. Which the RIAA and friends seem to be earnestly trying to do.
From the article;
"The raids came on the same day that Justice Department officials in Washington announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force to step up copyright enforcement."
I think it is a natural progression of the ever expanding copyright law to have a per-use-permission on copyrighted information. In which case you have the FBI raiding schools if they haven't paid for all the times they may have read something electronically.
So much as it being morally wrong to make a verbatim copy to give a friend, it's unfortunate that there is not some compulsory licensing model in place that would allow me to do so without being a "lawbreaker". It does not show my moral deficiency, but the deficiency of lawmakers who are unable to think for the larger public interest.
Just because it has been going on for centuries doesn't make it right.
Also, I think the degree is a magnitude worse than it was in the middle of the last century.
I agree with you, I don't see the problems of special interests lessening anytime soon, if at all.
So much as corporations go, it seems they have more rights than the individual. Certainly they need to make a buck, but they don't need to make obscene amounts of money at the expense of everything else around them.
As far as the way our political system working being a crime or not, I would agree it's not. Just the people who participate in it.
The bribing of a congressman during the 3 hour vote (rules say 15 minutes, it was the longest in history) for the medicare act comes to mind.
What I meant is something like the Right to Read, which seems somewhat prescient given today's news.
It's true that summary executions are not taking place, but the FBI, Justice department, and the government at large seems increasingly hostile torwards the citizens it's supposed to serve.
I'm just guessing, too, but since the FBI isn't normally running around dragging filesharers out of study hall, I'm thinking this isn't about some illegal copy of In_Da_Club.mp3. It's about some warez crew using the school's computers for heavy-duty sharing, either by an insider (a la the Boston arrests a couple of years ago) or by compromise.
That's an interesting thought. Windows computers can be horribly comprimised with trojans. Which means the actual lawbreakers may not be even on the campus!
We all know how underfunded and overworked sysadmins don't get around to patching the machines, so they could be confiscating these machines purely for evidence. Not that anyone at the schools are committing a crime.
We all might be jumping to conclusions here. Not that slashdotters would ever do such a thing.
Another thought, I wonder what role "carnivore" is playing in this.
Slashdot Mirror
you will ban at the same time the GPL that let you go beyond copyright
I have thought about the GPL.
What the GPL could do is use a splash screen that displayed a URL that had the source code. Or the splash screen could say "source code available. See "about this program" under help for more information".
Either of which would be enough to satisfy the requirements of the GPL woithout forcing an EULA on the end user.
I think the biggest problem with EULA's is that they can be agreed to without being fully displayed to or read by the end user.
Maybe the biggest problem with EULAS is the fact that they exist at all.
The only thing an application should have is a copyright notice.
EULAs are only used to try and take away a user's rights (illegaly) that go beyond copyright.
Do you know of any store that will take back a piece of opened software and give a refund that you disagree with the EULA ??
EULAs are immoral in the extreme. This has to be the first issue that a computer rights group should take up.
And the statement printed on software boxes (like microsoft's) that state "You must agree to the end user license to the software" or other such statement is so much poo smelling malarky that it's not funny.
Some people (aka myself) don't like to be continually reminded by an application that they have to purchase/download an upgrade for the software.
If there is a patch/upgrade available, they can let me know by email.
The application does not need to "phone home" for any reason.
Yes, take for instance my setup;
Number of functional computers (even though it is out of its case and cables are everywhere); 1
Number of computers if I were to actually put all the pieces of computers together and have actual computers: 10
Number of computers if I were to use all the CPUs I have laying around: 25
Also, you should be able to do anything with the software that you legally obtained anyway.
For an instance, many applications feel the necessity to phone home everytime at startup. Maybe I don't want a software maker keeping tabs on when and how I use their product.
If linux and bsd are blond and brunett, which o.s. is the redhead
That would be FreeDos obviously.
Windows would be a 300 pound guy with lots of stubble chomping on a cigar.
Yes, but neither Microsoft Office nor Quicken run on posix.
Not to mention that those tiny bulbs that projectors use are probably engineered to run cooler than a standard halogen (even though they do still run hot).
I imagine that using a standard halogen would melt the LCD in a short amount of time.
no, It wouldn't force any OS to have to incorporate the Win32APIs. The government doesn't have to be limited to one standard. The POSIX standard is still there if anybody wants to use that. And besides, it would actually make it easier for an OS to have Win32 if they wanted to, because what they need to have to be compatible would be documented, whereas now it is not (I don't count what MS or books put out, as they are not complete).
What it would do is force software makers to write applications that would compile to this set of APIs.
Microsoft continually adds undocumented features to their codebase. That's one of the tactics they use to break compatibility with other competitors. They have been doing that since the DOS days. Having or not having a standard is not going to change that.
I have been thinking all week why the NIST should standardize the windows API.
I think that NIST would be better than ISO/ANSI/IEEE, and they have a working agreement with ANSI. Also the specification would cost less (if at all) than an ANSI/ISO version.
By standardizing the API, you immediately have the government buy the software that uses this standard. It would make our country secure not to be dependent upon one single supplier of an OS (as much as Microsoft thinks otherwise).
It also means that Windows stops being the moving target that it is.
Before you troll me with free enterprise/right to innovate/unnecessary/linux blah blah blah, anything that lessens the cost for everybody is a good idea. The OS is the only thing that has increased in cost as compared to other parts to the computer.
I know linux is free, but the fact remains that the vast majority of computer users use a Microsoft product, and wants to keep their software investment minimal (even though all the software companies want us to continually upgrade).
I wonder what color the laser is...
I hear the green ones burn out your eye
Actually the laser beam will be invisible (unlike the the one in the movie Real Genius), as it is in the infrared range of light. This particular frequency of light also lends itself to good transmission through the atmosphere. More info here
Another interesting thing about the laser is that it's a chemical laser that genrates energy through the reaction of oxygen and iodine.
Which means that the plane will have a limited number of shots (I believe three or four) before it has to go and refuel.
The power of this laser would not heat up and pop the popcorn like in the movie, but would vaporize a nice hole right to the ground.
I hear the green ones burn out your eye
Looking into a laser or letting laser light into your eyes is a very bad idea, no matter how low the power may seem. Even for the pen lasers that are everywhere. You do not know what the consequences may be, and harm to your eyesight is not worth it.
I wonder why they would place the circuit breakers outside the space station
I think the larger question is why they didn't engineer the breakers so they could be reset with servos or other electromechanical means.
Still, I wonder why the circuit breaker is not in a place easy to get to
Space is a difficult enviroment to engineer for. They probably put the circuit breakers outside thinking that they would rarely need to be used, if at all. By placing them outside they made more space inside the station.
I wonder if they have a special escape pod attached to the space station
There is actually a Soyuz spacecraft attached to the station to act as a kind of lifeboat if need be.
Remember in the original Star Trek on how Scotty never had enough dilithium crystals? I always thought that was kind of funny that they couldn't find a way to stash a couple of extra boxes of crystals somewhere.
It seems to be that way with NASA and gyros.
You need a license for the other formats, they are not free
What about one of those USB flash pen/thumb drives that are showing up everywhere? Universal in nature and not proprietary.
Their DRM is barely used
But yet it lies in wait.
which is a kickaround portable whiteboard that I cannot live without
I find an etch-a-sketch really useful myself.
I won't buy it simply because it's ridiculous that the content expires in two months. What's the point of being able to load up to 500 books on that device if they expire 60 days later????
Especially when the product dies due to lack of market interest.
Any content you did "own" will be unusable, and if you could crack the drm to transfer to another format, you would breaking the law. So you are left with nothing.
In other words, another useless ebook.
for the e-paper thing to take off we need multi format e-stationar
Well it won't happen here. Sony has been pushing their proprietary "memory stick" which uses heavy drm called "magicgate" in all of their products hoping that the sheer number of devices they can put it in will give it a valid/default market base.
Good question.
Also, what about China and the far east?
They don't have some teenage kid with warez on his drive, they have massive factories stamping out bootlegs.
If they go after one lawbreaker, they should go after them all - looks like selective enforcement to me.
Personnaly I just discovered 6 audio cassettes with the voice of my late grandfather.....I was thinking about digitizing everything, do a little noise reduction, and burning this on CD's, for my childrens and great grand-childrens enjoyment
Go ahead and digitize everything. Then get yourself a couple of accounts at Gmail when it becomes available. Then email the audio to yourself. You will have it forever then.
Of course you will see a lot of google adwords for Geritol and Ben Gay, but nothing is perfect.
One second late is an eternity in slashdot time. Too bad you're not a faster typist.
Read the post just before yours.
It is wrong for them to do that, but it is much more in line with the hundreds of governments over the years that do not allow free speech, do irreasonable search and seizure, and consider the perpetrator guilty until proven innocent.
And that's what the Nazis did.
There have been very few governments that are any where near the Nazis. The Nazis killed millions of innocent people, in case you've forgotten. And BTW, it's Holocaust Rememberence Week.
Stalin's Russia, khmer rouge of Cambodia, Chile's Pinochet come to mind. I believe the Nazi's killed 6 million jews.
So I see you haven't a common knowledge education. Here's what I suggest: go to the bar and learn to say the word "fuck". Once you can get past that small injustice, you can see how small it is, and how much it pales in comparision to being ignorant of the Nazis and their massive assault on the Jews
I am sorry to see that you haven't a common knowledge of the cultural vernacular of the word "Nazi". Like when they used it on the TV show "Seinfeld" to describe the "Soup Nazi" in a humorous context. The context I was implying was that of an unforgiving, unbending enforcement of law, in particular copyright law. Not in relation to the fact that they killed a lot of jews.
The world is filled with injustices. Some large, many small. I wish to contribute to neither.
Maybe you could forsake your self-righteousness for a little more politeness.
Sorry, but I refuse to worship at the shrine that has become copyright.
We really do not know what crime, if any, has happened here.
At this point it is pretty much rampant speculation.
But assuming that it is file sharing, what is troubling is the manner that the law is being enforced.
Can you really not discern the moral, legal and ethical differences lending someone a book to read and manufacturing a verbatim copy of that book for that person.
What I can discern is how morally wrong, legally questionable, and unethical current copyright law is.
So if we have a nation of lawbreakers, maybe the law needs to be changed, rather than throw everybody in jail. Which the RIAA and friends seem to be earnestly trying to do.
From the article;
"The raids came on the same day that Justice Department officials in Washington announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force to step up copyright enforcement."
I think it is a natural progression of the ever expanding copyright law to have a per-use-permission on copyrighted information. In which case you have the FBI raiding schools if they haven't paid for all the times they may have read something electronically.
So much as it being morally wrong to make a verbatim copy to give a friend, it's unfortunate that there is not some compulsory licensing model in place that would allow me to do so without being a "lawbreaker". It does not show my moral deficiency, but the deficiency of lawmakers who are unable to think for the larger public interest.
Just because it has been going on for centuries doesn't make it right.
Also, I think the degree is a magnitude worse than it was in the middle of the last century.
I agree with you, I don't see the problems of special interests lessening anytime soon, if at all.
So much as corporations go, it seems they have more rights than the individual. Certainly they need to make a buck, but they don't need to make obscene amounts of money at the expense of everything else around them.
As far as the way our political system working being a crime or not, I would agree it's not. Just the people who participate in it.
The bribing of a congressman during the 3 hour vote (rules say 15 minutes, it was the longest in history) for the medicare act comes to mind.
What I meant is something like the Right to Read, which seems somewhat prescient given today's news.
It's true that summary executions are not taking place, but the FBI, Justice department, and the government at large seems increasingly hostile torwards the citizens it's supposed to serve.
Also, don't forget that the US government helped put this man in power.
I'm just guessing, too, but since the FBI isn't normally running around dragging filesharers out of study hall, I'm thinking this isn't about some illegal copy of In_Da_Club.mp3. It's about some warez crew using the school's computers for heavy-duty sharing, either by an insider (a la the Boston arrests a couple of years ago) or by compromise.
That's an interesting thought. Windows computers can be horribly comprimised with trojans. Which means the actual lawbreakers may not be even on the campus!
We all know how underfunded and overworked sysadmins don't get around to patching the machines, so they could be confiscating these machines purely for evidence. Not that anyone at the schools are committing a crime.
We all might be jumping to conclusions here. Not that slashdotters would ever do such a thing.
Another thought, I wonder what role "carnivore" is playing in this.