On the other hand there is a tax to be paid for watching television.
There's one here in the states, too. Only people who watch TV here pay it to a cable company. Which is why the audacious stupidity of the Turner weenie's statement amazes me so. I could just as well say that inserting commercials is theft because their customers pay for cable.
OBDisclaimer: I don't have cable. I refuse to pay for TV that contains commercials.
If you put it on the web, it's open for anyone to use it. And has it occured to you that maybe since your data defends their "twisted views" that perhaps there is some truth to them? Or is it that your data are inaccurate?
OK, yeah, you're right--but he did say it was "before he became a geek," and those peripherals are sold with the implication that they're end-user installable, whether they really are or not.
That said, it's been my (hearsay) experience with non-technical friends and acquaintences that the rep at the other end is awfully quick with that "system recovery disk" trigger finger, even in situations like this one where it would be clearly obvious that there was nothing wrong with the hard disk to a tech with any clue and a small capacity for listening.
Perhaps the people using those vulgar words are shills for the other side? Since this is for all intents and purposes an anonymous forum, that's exactly the argument I'd make if the threads were printed out and presented in the manner you describe. There are lots of ways to astroturf--just reading some of the shills for the intellectual property lobby and Microsoft make it pretty obvious that's happening right now.
That's a nice rebuttal! I like the analogy to money, physical property, and particularly marriage. (Of course, the last person I saw use marriage tried to use it as an analogy to a EULA as a binding contract--that didn't work so well.)
I'm sure your projects are worthwhile, and please don't take anything I say as an insult to you or your work.
That said, money, physical property, and spouses could not be property if they were as easily copied as what is called "intellectual property." Imagine if food, cars, jewelry (and all the other physical stuff people try to draw analogies to when they erroneously call copyright infringement "theft") could be reproduced at will for almost no cost. They would be worthless (unless Congress created something like copyright for those items)!
I agree with you that we as a society can live with copyright and patents, but they are not property. They are temporary franchises granted by the people of a nation in return for innovation (apologies to Jesse Jackson).
The franchises themselves have some of the attributes of property: they can be sold, assigned, and inherited. But the ephemeral things the franchises grant temporary rights to are not property. That's one reason those who attempt to limit our rights to use software say their software is licensed, not sold. What they're really saying is that they're licensing you a piece of their franchise, not selling it to you.
What intellectual property have you created in your lifetime?
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts." Unfortunately, this limited fiction has been perverted into a "property" "right" by the RIAA/SPA/MPAA/BSA, &c.
It's time for them to take a reality check, because without DMCA death squads, the degree of enforcement of their so-called "rights" they desire will never come to pass. And if it does, it will be at the cost of some of thier lives.
Yep. Has all the irony of shareware console emulators that whine about cracked versions propagating (e.g. iNES, Liberty) and CD copy programs whose authors trojan horse that dare infringe their "intellectual property" (e.g. CDRWin).
One would think that if one were intelligent enough to write a useful program, that one would understand that ROM downloaders and CD rippers probably aren't the best paying audience:).
But you stole your employer's network bandwidth and electricity in using your computer during lunch, when, by your own admission you weren't under their employ. The fact is, your rules for others are inconsistent with your rules for yourself. And that's OK, so long as you don't pretend otherwise.
Keep in mind that users in environments like that tend to complain very loudly to managers when their work is inhibited by computer systems, since they have no loyalty to the admin staff that treats them like you do. So if you screw up, expect to have your head jumped straight over.
Simply because you are incapable of handling a vehicle at speed doesn't imply that other aren't either. But then, your posting history reveals you as a blatant troll.
So the only solution to this would have been to push them to the edge of bankruptcy?
Yes, that would have been an appropriate punishment, or at least the most appropriate one short of violence.
That doesn't seem realistic in the case of Adobe. Killing off the unit that sold the technology that got us in this mess would surely seem sufficient, no? If you're going to force Photoshop to die, you'll have a whole bunch of angry graphic artists crying for blood:-).
I'm sure such an attractive piece of property would prove irresistible for an enterprising capitalist or competitor who would want to take over that market. Photoshop wouldn't have died, though it might have been renamed to eliminate the taint of its prior assocaiation with Adobe. I'm sure the bloodlust of the graphic artists, along with their cash, would have kept the feature set available:).
Do you know the fate of the technology he reverse-engineered?
AFAIK, it's still available for sale, though not widely adopted. Same as before.
Absolutely not! The community needed to send, and did not send, a message to Adobe saying "Use the DMCA and die." The message Adobe received was "Use the DMCA, backpedal a little, get what you want, and we'll forgive you."
Little fine print that contradicts the big bold type tends to attract class action lawsuits and the attention of Attorneys General and the FTC. Was that news to you or something?
Sucks go be them, then--they shouldn't have made the claims, otherwise they're obligated to deliver what they advertised. Was that news to you or something?
and the idea of shifting large files around becomes a lot less attractive.
No less attractive, just offline with CDRs or DVD-RAM or online with ad hoc wireless networks that will displace the corporate mavens if this becomes widespread. Just like the death of Napster spawned Gnutella, the death of the flat-rate Internet will spawn loosely confederated wireless networks. If the governments and corporate whores think they have a problem controlling the flow of information now, they ain't see nuthin' yet.
I've always wondered that same thing. I'm probably not a GB/day user, but if my only alternative is to watch the bandwidth meter because it's no longer all-you-can-eat, I'm back to dialup. Why should I pay that much to read email and web pages?
Whether the "Waaaaah, you're using too much bandwith!" crowd realizes it or not, any kind of metering will be the death of the Internet as a populist phenomenon. Imagine putting all your company's information on the web, only to have people ask you to mail it to them, because they're damned if they're going to use their meager quota to download information about your products.
Besides, the "scarcity" in bandwidth is due mostly to the premium price for upstream bandwidth engineered to prevent the little guy from doing any significant publishing or file sharing.
Not slower than VMWare? I guess that's true for OS/2, since VMWare doesn't support it. But VMWare stomps all over Virtual PC on supported operating systems like Windows 2000 or Linux--but that's not because VMWare is particularly better, but because its architecture is different. VMWare doesn't do cycle emulation of the CPU, while Connectix's product does. This is why Connectix's product can run OS/2 (the host OS has nothing to do with it).
Once CPUs become faster, Connectix's stuff will be useful for legacy emulation, such as to replace the one or two OS/2 servers still limping along in some large organizations.
Unfortunately for those deluded into believing OS/2 has any kind of a future, VMWare stopped supporting OS/2 as a guest operating system because of the lack of a market.
Love all the caveats. OS/2 driver support, even for IBM hardware, has never been up to the par that Windows driver support has been. That's because Mastrianni, the only guy who seems to know how to write a device driver, can't write them all.
ATMs. Now there's a lucrative target for software manufacturers. That dead horse has been beaten since the first OS/2 PSP Technical Conference. Got anything currently being developed using OS/2? Gawd, I'm surprised you didn't bring up that fine point of sale system Salepoint, which runs OS/2. The chief advantage of that? That the clerks can't install their own software, because there isn't any!
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There's one here in the states, too. Only people who watch TV here pay it to a cable company. Which is why the audacious stupidity of the Turner weenie's statement amazes me so. I could just as well say that inserting commercials is theft because their customers pay for cable.
OBDisclaimer: I don't have cable. I refuse to pay for TV that contains commercials.
If you put it on the web, it's open for anyone to use it. And has it occured to you that maybe since your data defends their "twisted views" that perhaps there is some truth to them? Or is it that your data are inaccurate?
That said, it's been my (hearsay) experience with non-technical friends and acquaintences that the rep at the other end is awfully quick with that "system recovery disk" trigger finger, even in situations like this one where it would be clearly obvious that there was nothing wrong with the hard disk to a tech with any clue and a small capacity for listening.
Perhaps the people using those vulgar words are shills for the other side? Since this is for all intents and purposes an anonymous forum, that's exactly the argument I'd make if the threads were printed out and presented in the manner you describe. There are lots of ways to astroturf--just reading some of the shills for the intellectual property lobby and Microsoft make it pretty obvious that's happening right now.
I'm sure your projects are worthwhile, and please don't take anything I say as an insult to you or your work.
That said, money, physical property, and spouses could not be property if they were as easily copied as what is called "intellectual property." Imagine if food, cars, jewelry (and all the other physical stuff people try to draw analogies to when they erroneously call copyright infringement "theft") could be reproduced at will for almost no cost. They would be worthless (unless Congress created something like copyright for those items)!
I agree with you that we as a society can live with copyright and patents, but they are not property. They are temporary franchises granted by the people of a nation in return for innovation (apologies to Jesse Jackson).
The franchises themselves have some of the attributes of property: they can be sold, assigned, and inherited. But the ephemeral things the franchises grant temporary rights to are not property. That's one reason those who attempt to limit our rights to use software say their software is licensed, not sold. What they're really saying is that they're licensing you a piece of their franchise, not selling it to you.
I can't imagine a game good enough to be worth sending money to those fascist DMCA wielding pig fuckers. But then, I'm not a gamer.
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts." Unfortunately, this limited fiction has been perverted into a "property" "right" by the RIAA/SPA/MPAA/BSA, &c.
It's time for them to take a reality check, because without DMCA death squads, the degree of enforcement of their so-called "rights" they desire will never come to pass. And if it does, it will be at the cost of some of thier lives.
One would think that if one were intelligent enough to write a useful program, that one would understand that ROM downloaders and CD rippers probably aren't the best paying audience :).
Yeah, I guess the managers write up the poor bastards he rats out with such pleasure.
Oh. So stealing time is wrong, but stealing bandwidth is OK. And I suppose you're on your lunch hour now? Hypocrite.
Keep in mind that users in environments like that tend to complain very loudly to managers when their work is inhibited by computer systems, since they have no loyalty to the admin staff that treats them like you do. So if you screw up, expect to have your head jumped straight over.
Simply because you are incapable of handling a vehicle at speed doesn't imply that other aren't either. But then, your posting history reveals you as a blatant troll.
Yes, that would have been an appropriate punishment, or at least the most appropriate one short of violence.
That doesn't seem realistic in the case of Adobe. Killing off the unit that sold the technology that got us in this mess would surely seem sufficient, no? If you're going to force Photoshop to die, you'll have a whole bunch of angry graphic artists crying for blood :-).
I'm sure such an attractive piece of property would prove irresistible for an enterprising capitalist or competitor who would want to take over that market. Photoshop wouldn't have died, though it might have been renamed to eliminate the taint of its prior assocaiation with Adobe. I'm sure the bloodlust of the graphic artists, along with their cash, would have kept the feature set available :).
Do you know the fate of the technology he reverse-engineered?
AFAIK, it's still available for sale, though not widely adopted. Same as before.
Absolutely not! The community needed to send, and did not send, a message to Adobe saying "Use the DMCA and die." The message Adobe received was "Use the DMCA, backpedal a little, get what you want, and we'll forgive you."
Little fine print that contradicts the big bold type tends to attract class action lawsuits and the attention of Attorneys General and the FTC. Was that news to you or something?
Sucks go be them, then--they shouldn't have made the claims, otherwise they're obligated to deliver what they advertised. Was that news to you or something?
No less attractive, just offline with CDRs or DVD-RAM or online with ad hoc wireless networks that will displace the corporate mavens if this becomes widespread. Just like the death of Napster spawned Gnutella, the death of the flat-rate Internet will spawn loosely confederated wireless networks. If the governments and corporate whores think they have a problem controlling the flow of information now, they ain't see nuthin' yet.
Whether the "Waaaaah, you're using too much bandwith!" crowd realizes it or not, any kind of metering will be the death of the Internet as a populist phenomenon. Imagine putting all your company's information on the web, only to have people ask you to mail it to them, because they're damned if they're going to use their meager quota to download information about your products.
Besides, the "scarcity" in bandwidth is due mostly to the premium price for upstream bandwidth engineered to prevent the little guy from doing any significant publishing or file sharing.
Once CPUs become faster, Connectix's stuff will be useful for legacy emulation, such as to replace the one or two OS/2 servers still limping along in some large organizations.
Unfortunately for those deluded into believing OS/2 has any kind of a future, VMWare stopped supporting OS/2 as a guest operating system because of the lack of a market.
Love all the caveats. OS/2 driver support, even for IBM hardware, has never been up to the par that Windows driver support has been. That's because Mastrianni, the only guy who seems to know how to write a device driver, can't write them all.
ATMs. Now there's a lucrative target for software manufacturers. That dead horse has been beaten since the first OS/2 PSP Technical Conference. Got anything currently being developed using OS/2? Gawd, I'm surprised you didn't bring up that fine point of sale system Salepoint, which runs OS/2. The chief advantage of that? That the clerks can't install their own software, because there isn't any!
Wow! Maybe I can buy some sub-standard, incompatible word processor that requires a call-home registration like DeScribe! Yay!
And you're a complete stick-in-the-mud prick with no sense of humor. Like the other OS/2 user.
Ah :). FYI, while it's not the fastest thing in the world, OS X on a G3-350 iMac with 256MB of RAM is serviceable.
Don't mind me folks, just burning off some karma.