Considering all the brainpower that seems to be concentrated(?) at the/.-ers PCs when it comes to more or less mindless trivia like asteroids threatening Earth, new ways to make ultra-thin condoms or whatever, it's rather scary to see all the glibness and plain ignorance at a moment like this.
The fact that a tremendous lot of historical data will be acessible is, in it self, fantastic news. Of course, it will be selected and skewed, and no, the p)0(rn will not be there, but that's not the point. It will be THERE, to help all those interested to learn more. Like any great museum, if you will.
I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a bit religious, but I think things like this make the Net something great!
Question is, whom will they protect in this case? Agfa is rather a big corporation itself, quite a bit bigger than Adobe (if I read the 2001 figures correctly - I find Adobe's statement a bit convoluted).
Even if you're right, it doesn't affect the value of the post you were commenting - namely the *meaning* of patent laws. They STILL weren't meant to be abused in the way that is being done today. Namely that you don't use the protection util something has already become standard.
On the other hand, of course I agree that you should usen open standards to begin with, but actually that is (or should be, anyway) another issue.
> 3. The people in the middle who believe in fair use rights but also know that for good or > bad, sharing copyrighted material without the copyright holders permission is just plain > stealing.
This is simply not true. Although I've seen quite a few posts like this on/., I've yet to meet a real person with such a view.
The people I know (VERY regular, VERY law-abiding people, VERY in the middle - not like me) don't think of it as anything else than a commodity. They dl a lot of music, and they also buy a lot of records. Actually, they dl everything they can find that's free, but they also buy loads of stuff. If anything, they're amoral - morality just don't come into it.
> Then that's a choice they've made. No censorship involved.
Exceptional comment. This is almost exactly how movie censorship works in Sweden. If you want to show your movie on big cinemas, you have to have it approved by the censorship board. If not, you can show it anyway, for example on satellite channels. It's your choice.
If you don't think the Walmart system (since they are so dominating) is censorship, then you are either blind or otherwise challenged.
Although I don't run Windows (and as far as I've found out the virus doesn't infect anything else) I'm sure as hell *affected* by this massive spread.
I get 10 - 20 infected messages a day, which in fact makes my mail less valuable. It is a big problem for me, and potentially for everyone using email.
I use the biggest ISP in Sweden (Telia) and if they can't protect their users, I don't know who can. Maybe the ISPs (or some of them, anyway) just don't care?
> Unfortunately, this isn't what this means.
> What the government has said they're doing
> is defering prosecution until a later date.
In a way. But basically, what the agreement says,
is that the govt has no case at all, but if there
was something in there, they keep the option of
getting back to it open. Which they can't (if they could've,
they would've done it now), but they haven't admitted that.
This means, of course, that DMCA is not dead - it
just hasn't been tested yet. And, maybe, nobody
will ever want to get it tested.
Unless, of course, it's all a conspiracy to keep
the Russians on the American side during the current
terrorist hunt. (Not a joke).
There's no reason at all to change kWord or kPaint, since there's been similar names since early times. Neither is there any reason to change kOffice - what about ClarisOffice (which today is known as AppleOffice)?
As a matter of fact, there is a long tradition of naming computer programs after earlier programs. But I think that KIllustrator might be a bit too close. I don't think anyone would accept kPhotoshop, kExcel or kPowerpoint without reacting.
kIllustrator might be renamed as KDE Illustrator or something like it, but it should be a minor change.
As for the rest of the discussion, I think
a) some of it is a load of Gnomer b*****t (I've never seen so many "insightful" comments before) and
b) I don't believe in the complaint from the Adobe lawyer in the first place. 2.500 euros? Hell, even I could almost pay that...
Free software has infinite supply and negligible costs. Any first year Economics textbook will tell you that its perceived value should be (near) zero.
But that's not the point at all. The point is that any government can tax you for any value at all, be it real or perceived (and the perceived value in this case has nothing at all to do with any actual costs, but with the theoretical value you might gain by using the software) as long as you let it.
I think it's very common, yes. But not the norm. In the UK there is nothing like the tax we have in Sweden - and I'm not talking about the level of tax (which may differ wildly, of course), but the principle.
It all goes to show that it's quite feasible to tax you for using free software, though. If they can't take the money when you buy the stuff, they will try to take it later. But take it, they will.
The concept is rather similar to several of the taxes we have in Sweden.
You are often taxed by the perceived value of something that you own or have the use of. For example, we pay a property tax that is related to what our house MAY bring IF we sell it.
That is, if you own a small house by the seaside, you are taxed by what similar houses have been sold for - even if you have owned your house for 50 years, and never made a penny out of it.
In such a context, it's not at all hard to understand the Polish reasoning: the value of StarOffice is about the same as the value of MS Office (which is true, btw), so you should pay a similar amount for having the use of it.
Of course, it's absurd, but many taxes are...
Slashdot Mirror
File it with the Smart Homes and Smart Cars. Interesting but irrelevant.
I must be missing something. What, exactly, at www.iht.com, doesn't work in Konqueror?
It looks very good in my Konqi 3.1.0 (Kde 3.1 RC5).
Strange that it might be considered as "insightful" not to know anything. Ever heard about a search engine?
Considering all the brainpower that seems to be concentrated(?) at the /.-ers PCs when it comes to more or less mindless trivia like asteroids threatening Earth, new ways to make ultra-thin condoms or whatever, it's rather scary to see all the glibness and plain ignorance at a moment like this.
The fact that a tremendous lot of historical data will be acessible is, in it self, fantastic news.
Of course, it will be selected and skewed, and no, the p)0(rn will not be there, but that's not the point. It will be THERE, to help all those interested to learn more. Like any great museum, if you will.
I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a bit religious, but I think things like this make the Net something great!
Question is, whom will they protect in this case?
Agfa is rather a big corporation itself, quite a bit bigger than Adobe (if I read the 2001 figures correctly - I find Adobe's statement a bit convoluted).
Even if you're right, it doesn't affect the value of the post you were commenting - namely the *meaning* of patent laws. They STILL weren't meant to be abused in the way that is being done today. Namely that you don't use the protection util something has already become standard.
On the other hand, of course I agree that you should usen open standards to begin with, but actually that is (or should be, anyway) another issue.
> 3. The people in the middle who believe in fair use rights but also know that for good or
/., I've yet to meet a real person with such a view.
> bad, sharing copyrighted material without the copyright holders permission is just plain
> stealing.
This is simply not true. Although I've seen quite a few posts like this on
The people I know (VERY regular, VERY law-abiding people, VERY in the middle - not like me) don't think of it as anything else than a commodity. They dl a lot of music, and they also buy a lot of records.
Actually, they dl everything they can find that's free, but they also buy loads of stuff. If anything, they're amoral - morality just don't come into it.
> Then that's a choice they've made. No censorship involved.
Exceptional comment. This is almost exactly how movie censorship works in Sweden. If you want to show your movie on big cinemas, you have to have it approved by the censorship board. If not, you can show it anyway, for example on satellite channels. It's your choice.
If you don't think the Walmart system (since they are so dominating) is censorship, then you are either blind or otherwise challenged.
Although I don't run Windows (and as far as I've found out the virus doesn't infect anything else) I'm sure as hell *affected* by this massive spread.
I get 10 - 20 infected messages a day, which in fact makes my mail less valuable. It is a big problem for me, and potentially for everyone using email.
I use the biggest ISP in Sweden (Telia) and if they can't protect their users, I don't know who can. Maybe the ISPs (or some of them, anyway) just don't care?
Try 641d. 641c didn't work for me either, but
641d does.
> Unfortunately, this isn't what this means.
> What the government has said they're doing
> is defering prosecution until a later date.
In a way. But basically, what the agreement says,
is that the govt has no case at all, but if there
was something in there, they keep the option of
getting back to it open. Which they can't (if they could've,
they would've done it now), but they haven't admitted
that.
This means, of course, that DMCA is not dead - it
just hasn't been tested yet. And, maybe, nobody
will ever want to get it tested.
Unless, of course, it's all a conspiracy to keep
the Russians on the American side during the current
terrorist hunt. (Not a joke).
:This is the same thing as making xerox
: copies out of a book to hand out to their
: students, as far as most of them are concenred.
A good point. But, exactly what IS the difference??
Yes! I agree!
> knowing Apple's track record I'm sure
> it'll be amazing.
Of course it will amaze you. And a few others, but who cares?
This is true, actually. IBM is a VERY large company, much bigger than M$. What they say - and actually does!! - really counts for something.
I really, really, really agree with this. This is not the way you spread inormation; it's just the way you spread rumours.
I'm NOT a friend of Bill's but the post is just disinformation of the stupidiest kind!
I guess you're an American? In that case, write to your Congressman - this should show everyone what monopoly is all about...
There's no reason at all to change kWord or kPaint, since there's been similar names since early times. Neither is there any reason to change kOffice - what about ClarisOffice (which today is known as AppleOffice)? As a matter of fact, there is a long tradition of naming computer programs after earlier programs. But I think that KIllustrator might be a bit too close. I don't think anyone would accept kPhotoshop, kExcel or kPowerpoint without reacting. kIllustrator might be renamed as KDE Illustrator or something like it, but it should be a minor change. As for the rest of the discussion, I think a) some of it is a load of Gnomer b*****t (I've never seen so many "insightful" comments before) and b) I don't believe in the complaint from the Adobe lawyer in the first place. 2.500 euros? Hell, even I could almost pay that...
Free software has infinite supply and negligible costs. Any first year Economics textbook will tell you that its perceived value should be (near) zero.
But that's not the point at all. The point is that any government can tax you for any value at all, be it real or perceived (and the perceived value in this case has nothing at all to do with any actual costs, but with the theoretical value you might gain by using the software) as long as you let it.
I think it's very common, yes. But not the norm. In the UK there is nothing like the tax we have in Sweden - and I'm not talking about the level of tax (which may differ wildly, of course), but the principle.
It all goes to show that it's quite feasible to tax you for using free software, though. If they can't take the money when you buy the stuff, they will try to take it later. But take it, they will.
The concept is rather similar to several of the taxes we have in Sweden. You are often taxed by the perceived value of something that you own or have the use of. For example, we pay a property tax that is related to what our house MAY bring IF we sell it. That is, if you own a small house by the seaside, you are taxed by what similar houses have been sold for - even if you have owned your house for 50 years, and never made a penny out of it. In such a context, it's not at all hard to understand the Polish reasoning: the value of StarOffice is about the same as the value of MS Office (which is true, btw), so you should pay a similar amount for having the use of it. Of course, it's absurd, but many taxes are...