I don't like it, not even a little bit. It even kinda makes my skin crawl. I think it's useless and scary to make a regulation or law that serves no useful purpose other than to impose additional restrictions on legitimate conduct.
People violating this law(surfing pr0n without good cause and justification) can be dealt with just fine under (almost, no longer)current regulations regarding the aforementioned goofing off on the job. All this serves to do is make that legitimate work harder.
After all that, I do have to agree with you that it is within the employers rights. I just can't see it as good sense though. Impeding your employees unnecessarily is not generally considered good business practice, and if we are speaking in context of employer/employee relationships, good business practice should be the priority.
You know, I think there may be more to this than is first apparent. With some of the silly business-model patents I've seen lately, this really isn't that much of a stretch. My real question is, if we're all so up in arms over patents, why hasn't something like this happened? It may well take a truly restrictive, ridiculous patent to make the patent office/corporacrats realize extending the reach of patents/IP law may not necessarily be in either their or the public's interest.
I should also say that I don't think that an optional windows help format should be used in place of the current linux docs, but alongside. Also the point isn't that Win docs are better, just that they are more familiar.
Everyone seems to respond to this issue as if people wanted to turn their beloved linux in to WinME or something. I keep seeing responses like "I disagree - I have never found windows help to be terribly well organized or helpful. " . Well, fine, but those who are coming from Windows know how to use Win help. They don't know how to navigate man pages nearly as well. The goal here is to get WINDOWS users comfortable on linux as quickly and easily as possible, not you. The Distro's need something like that included so WINDOWS users can get X and internet setup going without loads of pain. If that could be made easier, it would shorten the learning curve for transition from one to the other, and Win users would be more likely to experiment with other OS'es.
If worst comes to worst, and SDMI is secure, it's still not that bad. If it ever goes to a pair of speakers, it is converted from (hopefully) nice clean digital sound to analog audio at some point, which can be recorded and ripped to mp3 quite well by any number of things.
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it fits its description. I think he played R2D2's Leia scene to snare the techie types.
After all that, I do have to agree with you that it is within the employers rights. I just can't see it as good sense though. Impeding your employees unnecessarily is not generally considered good business practice, and if we are speaking in context of employer/employee relationships, good business practice should be the priority.
You know, I think there may be more to this than is first apparent. With some of the silly business-model patents I've seen lately, this really isn't that much of a stretch. My real question is, if we're all so up in arms over patents, why hasn't something like this happened? It may well take a truly restrictive, ridiculous patent to make the patent office/corporacrats realize extending the reach of patents/IP law may not necessarily be in either their or the public's interest.
we know you like solaris. now shut up about it already.
I should also say that I don't think that an optional windows help format should be used in place of the current linux docs, but alongside. Also the point isn't that Win docs are better, just that they are more familiar.
Everyone seems to respond to this issue as if people wanted to turn their beloved linux in to WinME or something. I keep seeing responses like "I disagree - I have never found windows help to be terribly well organized or helpful. " . Well, fine, but those who are coming from Windows know how to use Win help. They don't know how to navigate man pages nearly as well. The goal here is to get WINDOWS users comfortable on linux as quickly and easily as possible, not you. The Distro's need something like that included so WINDOWS users can get X and internet setup going without loads of pain. If that could be made easier, it would shorten the learning curve for transition from one to the other, and Win users would be more likely to experiment with other OS'es.
I agree that "copy control" does seem to fit best. It has all the appropriate connotations.
If worst comes to worst, and SDMI is secure, it's still not that bad. If it ever goes to a pair of speakers, it is converted from (hopefully) nice clean digital sound to analog audio at some point, which can be recorded and ripped to mp3 quite well by any number of things.
It's about time we saw a serious push at alternative energy sources. This isn't as pure as solar, but it's definately a step in the right direction.