Ok, stop driving on public roads, stop calling the police, don't use a hospital. Don't use anything invented by/during the space program (basically, any modern plastics, or alloys). Don't consider getting any modern prosthetics, or artificial organs. The list goes on. Don't read any books, they were all written by authors who went to public schools or used other publicly funded infrastructure.
These things are publicly funded because we're much better off with them, the number of people who could afford these things on their own is very small (could even Bill Gates have funded all the research that NASA did?) And those who could afford these things are that rich through theft (ie. hereditary rulers, offspring of the 'rober barons', etc.)
If you want to cough up the bill for your share of all the publicly funded works, throughout the ages, that you rely on to be where you are, we'll let you out of paying any taxes.
Well, I'm completely against CD taxes, BUT... If they are going to collect them, do id Software, and Epic, and Planet Moon, etc, get their cut? The only thing I use CDs for other than backups, etc, is games. I actually own Giant, Q3, and UT, but I know many people who've pirated them - more people than have burned MP3s...
So, to be fair, the RIAA has got to step back and let that tax be fairly divided. And now with DiVX, the MPAA is going to be involved. (And they seem to think movies are more important than music...)
Perhaps there would be less people using the web, but you ignore Apple, Amiga, and all the other companies that would have been here had MS not. You assume that MS exists in a vacumm. Computers would be no less than two years behind where they are now. Commodity hardware is nice, but Apple had allowed clones before, stopping only when they were losing money. If their apps sold to more people they'd probably have gotten out of the hardware market, controlling it only through 'Apple Approved' programs, like MS through their 'Made for Windows' program.
Similarly, Apple was the leader in usability and had they had more of a market share, they would doubtlessly have kept improving. If not, some other company could have done it.
How great would the web be if only geeks were on it? That's not just theoretical. Many of us here remember how great it was. No banners, no 'free registration', no spam bots, free information easily arranged to be shared with other academics. I doubt begrude anyone the right to be on the net, but the crass commercialization of it sucks. Mainly thanks to big companies like MS making sure that any idiot could connect. (Though I realize that had MS and AOL not done this, others would have.)
Finally, for your idea that MS should be forgiven all their illegal acts, putting other companies out of business, and forming a monopoly to the detriment of the consumer. What? Are you mad? Should we start forgiving crimes simply because it's been a while and the victim isn't around to complain anymore?
MS and their upgrade-itis (the refusal to patch products, only release a new version) have cost the public *much* more than it has helped them.
I'm all for not bashing big companies just because they're big but MS really is a scum lord, they really did compete only through illegal actions.
Actually a lot of poor countries are poor while they have a fair bit of trade. It's not specifically because of government corruption, it's because they allow unrestrained capitalism. Some guy whose family was a little more ruthless, or who fenced off a huge piece of land, has many more resources than the poor living around him. That allows him to get cheap labour, producing cheap goods, and to keep the money to himself.
Reagan's trickle-down theory didn't work in most areas. If there are limited options for workers they basically have to take the jobs given, at the wages offered, or starve. In the USA/Canada we've got enough jobs to allow people a choice of low-level jobs which prevents their being trapped and exploited. In poor countries that are often few choices, or agreements between factory/plantation owners exist to keep the wages down low enough to deny the workers a real choice.
Here we have the choice of striking (a protected action) to remove a whole labour force, we also have cheap enough food that we can keep from starving while exerting pressure on the management. Workers in poor countries can't strike (or the management can violently strike break) and often can't afford enough food without their wages. Yet their wages are kept low enough to not give them the ability to better their lives, merely to stay alive.
Just because a lot of money is flowing, and trade does benefit both parties, doesn't mean that anyone around the two traders is profiting. And it doesn't mean that one of the parties isn't looting their country to supply those trade goods, hurting everyone else.
Just like NAFTA. It "created" wealth, if you listen to the wealthy, but that wealth didn't raise the standard of living for the poor and middle classes. Wow, the rich got richer. I'm so glad I could contribute to that.
It's not news that MS doesn't like Open Source/Linux/etc. What is news is that MS is lying, yet again, to a bunch of execs.
That means that IT types need to know what they say so that we can refute it when our bosses panic about us running Apache instead of IIS.
It's "Know your enemy", they're my enemy because they're trying to convince my employers to use less workable "solutions" (if they can be called that) to already solved problems.
If MS was concerned Open Source wouldn't work, they'd shut up about it and watch Corel, IBM, Redhat, and all the other companies, big and small, take a huge hit. Then they'd rake in more money.
The reason do they have for their throwing away PR guys (what value do they have left after the lose all credability?)
They're afraid Open Source will work, for everyone else, and they're desperately telling people that the emperor looks simply divine in his clothes. To look just like the emperor (simply divine, I remind you) you should rush out and buy MS Clothes 2.0, and not take those free clothes everyone is willing to give you...
Simply put, quality sells itself. If they had anything that would sell itself, they'd let it.
They'd stay friendly with IT types who went to other alternatives, knowing they'd be back. Instead of how it is now, knowing that anyone who investigates a unix-based alternative for a server is never going back to NT...
(The only reason to stay with an NT server is to support clients who demand Outlook/Exchange/Active Directory. I'm not into the MS stuff, so I don't know how much of that can be done ala Samba...)
If Microsoft really questioned the Open Source business model they'd just sit back and watch competitors die. The only reason they're spreading all the FUD is that they know Open Source will kill them.
Look at what companies say about issues they don't care about, or wish to remain silent on... nothing. They certainly don't sacrifice the credability of their PR guys over unimportant issues.
Had MS quietly continued their business, I wouldn't think they cared. As is, it's pretty well a sign that they know they're tanking and they can't stop it.
Of course, it might take a while, and a Microsoft that tanked might still be more powerful than many other companies, but it'd be essentially dead, no matter what they call it.
Based on suggests, to me, code that is reliant on GPLed code. It doesn't suggest that the code is derived from, that's different.
As for the 'translation'... To me, that says that mere translation doesn't create a new work. This fits with general copyright law.
I can't take Star Trek and simply translate it into German and sell it as my own. But I could take the idea of a spaceship of people from a similar society exploring the galaxy, etc, and write a story about them as long as it wasn't identical with the names files off.
I think RMS's comments of code being speech back this up... Translation is (mostly) a mechanical thing, "Oui" is "Yes", "ferme" is "close", etc. Much the same as "x++;" is "x:= x + 1;", etc.
Direct translation doesn't involve any creative work, thus it's the same work (from a creation POV) as the original.
But, if you took the code and liked what it did, and came up with a new way to do it... that'd be like deciding you liked science-fiction stories with spaceships after watching Star Trek, then writing your own.
Price fixing is when two (or more) companies agree to set certain prices for their products instead of letting market forces decide them.
This is what the oil companies are doing. They know customers have to buy, so they agree to limit production enough to drive prices to their ideal spot of the price-elasticity curve, rather than having open production and open consumption set a price.
'Dumping' refers to selling something below cost. Some of this is allowed - loss leaders at the supermarket for example, but other things are not. The law is designed to prevent companies from doing a MS, giving away one product (supported by the income from other products) just to force competitors out of the market.
The good thing about the GPL is that independant discovery is completely acceptable. The GPL is a copyright device, not a patent device.
You'll always be able to write non-GPLed software. Even better, you'll be able to use GPLed software as a learning tool to do so. In fact, as long as you paraphrase, you can pretty well use code snippets as well.
Contrast this to most companies attempts to patent obvious things, keeping anyone else from implementing that thing, independently or not.
You're perfectly free to take the available Bison code and integrate it into YACC. Go for it.
If you don't like the license, then look at the changes and rewrite the fixes, it's barely slower than cutting and pasting (it'd be required for anything non-trivial anyway) and it gets around copyright problems.
And because Bison can't be closed, you know anyone using a Bison derivative in the future will keep contributing bug-fixes indirectly to YACC. Of course, most YACC users will be companies who've taken it and closed the source...
I like the GPL. I don't just want to help a specific coder on a time crunch who decides to snag my code, I want to help future generations who want to get into programming by being able to peek under the hood of the OS and programs they use.
I started on an Apple// back in the early 80s and I learned to program by LISTing various programs on the system disk.
Then when I got deeper into it, I used the assembly code listings for the OS, printed in the back of the manual. The OS came with BASIC and a 6502 mini-assembler.
How are you going to do that with Windows? There's no free compiler from MS (you have to hunt one down from a third-party) and you can't get source code to the OS or most programs you'll see.
That's what BSD code turns into - cheaper programs for MS, no benefits for users. GPLed code helps everyone. MS can learn from it, new programers can learn from it, other programmers can use it, still others can port it. With BSD code only the initial version is available in open source... Yay.
By the logic on competing in the 'great game'... You'd expect Apple to port that stuff to Linux (or allow it to be done) in an instant. But you'd also expect them to handicap the windows client. That way it'd be the dominant streaming video platform for non-MS platforms. (People may not love QT, but they hate Real.)
Apple could easily release QT and TT, etc, without being sued by shareholders. If the shareholders have sat through their real blunders they'd go for a goodwill building exercise. After all, that's the only reason Apple is alive - the goodwill of diehard users.
There have been random level-creation tools out since Doom, they take a library of pieces with standard connection points and build a level with them. For an angband-y feel, the combat would have to be RPG based, not quake-skill based. That's an interesting task, but not impossible.
The NPCs (as few as they are) have been done. Look at any of the Quake-engine based games that involve look at someone while their mouth moves and a sound is played - perhaps with subtitles to match.
I actually put some work into an RPG in quake, where the combat was based on your stats, but weighted by your performance in actual fighting. The number of shots that hit the target in a given time, and the number of his that hit you, are used to weight the damage rolls from the RPG element. It gives a good player an edge (customizable) and still makes it stat based.
It's not always perfect - with melee-attack creatures it looks funny if you dodge their attacks and still take damage. (This isn't a problem with distance attacks - the computer can cheat a bit, making some attacks perfect shots, to deal the ammount of damage it had rolled.)
If you went with either all twitch combat (FPS skill) or all random RPG combat, it'd be easier, but IMHO not as much fun.
If you're interested in this, feel free to drop me a line. I wouldn't mind working on this.
That doesn't prove it can't be cracked. If anything, it proves that 1) Nobody capable thought it was worth $20, or 2) The successful crackers waited until the program was used to crack it, to ensure they'd get something from it.
I know that if I was looking to crack something like SDMI that I'd try now, but wait to release anything until the format had a few billion invested in it to release the crack. After content providers get stung repeatedly with unsecure 'secure formats' enough they'll stop trying that method.
Taking a screenshot of that bill would be 'easy', in that it's easily said. You'd obviously have hooked all the screen viewing and capture routines but the video is still displayed by the graphics card. Overlays are harder to read, but can be done. And better yet, they can be done directly from the hardware. Maybe the hack would have to be written for each major video card, but it'd get around any level of OS-level protection.
And if that didn't work, there's always VMWare.
All your method would do is raise the bar. But it takes a lot longer to write a protection system than it does for an equally skilled person to break it.
When you signed up with your ISP did you sign a contract? I didn't. Not for any of my ISPs. One was five years ago - before this lawsuit mania. The cable ISP was two years ago and forgot to bring a contract when delivering the cable modem - I signed a receipt for the modem but that's it.
The other ISP I signed up for I did over the phone with a credit card. With them, all I was told was that time was unlimited. That's it. No mention of any limitations.
The Cable ISP's installer at least told me about some restrictions (no servers) but I could get around most of that because his wording was really vague. (He didn't read the contract, just said "We don't allow x, y, and z." Without any attempt at definition... ICQ can operate as a peer-to-peer server, is that covered?
The other ISP doesn't even have that to go on. They didn't tell me any restrictions. If they terminate my account without warning (ie, they can refuse to renew it, but little else) I can sue them for a few things. (All fairly small, related to the costs of lost business and finding a new ISP.)
Does anyone here actually have a binding contract with their ISP?
btw: Contracts that disclaim all responsibility and state that service may be terminated at any time, etc. are not valid. (A service that can be terminated at any time is of no value, and a contract for a service of no value isn't valid.)
All the CEOs I have talked to understand this. They are usually well schooled and they understand the basis of contract law. They are perfectly aware that the *only* reason MS can make us jump through hoops is that MS can afford more lawyers than we have employees.
No, an EULA isn't binding just because MS says so. But if enough people act like it, and obey it, it makes it harder for everyone else to fight. Microsoft can afford to keep a few companies tied up in court until they fold.
However, if people weren't gutless (like you seem to be) there'd be enough companies fighting this crap that MS couldn't afford that many legal battles.
The "Select" agreement may be signed, but there are MS site licenses which are not. In those, copyright law applies unless a valid contract would say otherwise. Valid contracts don't often hide in boxes, or hold software hostage until you click through.
Just because MS says it's one way doesn't make it so. They wrote up a little EULA, which you're free to ignore (unless you live in a state which passed the UCITA) because it's not a valid contract.
You may sign away your rights, but if you simple buy 500 licenses for software, those can be transfered as much as you wish. Follow general copyright law, that's all. Microsoft wishes otherwise, and has bought a law (UCITA) which will say otherwise, but until then...
Then what they should do is send an informative letter to dealers explaining the site licenses, so that those dealers can better advise customers.
The reason there are so many articles about Microsoft's scummy practices is that Microsoft really IS that scummy.
They know that an audit can kill most companies if they press the issues. Installing the same copy of Windows on each new for testing - then wiping the HD is *perfectly legal*. However Microsoft will claim otherwise based on their EULA and tie you up in court until the end of time.
They're thieves, trying to force people to buy a product they're not using. They realized that they can't keep selling enough OSes to sustain their growth - by supply and demand means - so they're trying to force people to buy unused copies.
One of the replies (from Dirtside) makes a good point...
If the loser pays the costs, suing a corporation could stick an individual millions of dollars in the hole.
IMHO, you'd work on a sharing plan based on total wealth. If an individual with $10k sued a corp with $10M, the corp would foot $1000 of the bill for every $1 that the individual paid.
This way they'd both run out of money at the same time, when the trial cost $10,010,000... Neither one would be able to raise the price beyond the means of the other.
Canadian judges are fairly good about handing out reasonable settlements (no $5M for hot coffee, etc). I think they could also hand out reasonable penalties (in relation to the wealth of the participants) for frivolous lawsuits.
The French revolution was a wake-up call to the rich opressors.
At some point, you have to be willing to fight for your rights or you won't have any. Maybe the DMCA isn't that time, but that time will eventually come. It's only because the rich know this that they try to take our rights away in small steps, if they weren't afraid of the masses, we'd be in a much worse situation.
>What transpired in Europe 60 years ago has show to us that freespeech should not be abused to give
>speaking rights to those who would deny those rights to others.
If you just stayed the hell out and didn't censor anyone, or allow anyone to be censored, then nobody would be able to take away anyone's rights.
If you don't give nazis the power to supress the rights of the jews, then you don't have to censor the nazis. They'll just be another group of harmless idiots completely out of touch with reality.
Actually, you have to laugh, their idea of the master race is suicidal. They want to inbreed themselves until all differences are gone. That's a chuckle, they'll all be perfect 6' well-built blonde, blue-eyed, and dreadfully retarded. Much like collies or any other massively overbred dog. "Oh, eek. It's an attack of the nazi beach bunnies with the 60 point IQs, eek, eek."
If someone denies the holocaust, why don't you get off your little censorship powertrip and actually bother to refute what they say? Otherwise you'll end up throwing a real scholar into jail when they merely try to correct a historical innacuracy, just because their views don't fit with the politically correct ones. You certainly don't seem smart and well educated enough to understand where to draw the lines.
Windows 2000 simply didn't take billions to write. It's about as complex as other modern OSes, multi-million dollar projects, sure, but no more.
However, Microsoft has made billions from it (and NT 4.0 before it).
They do this at a moderately low unit cost, why? Because once the development costs have been paid, they simply dump bits onto a $.10 disk and throw a cardboard box around it. The hologram is probably the most expensive thing in the package.
Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and IBM have all written (and bought, etc) OSes, of varrying complexity. Microsoft's isn't better than all of those, and it didn't cost significantly less. So why did they make money? They burned a few million copies more.
Wealth nowadays isn't necessarily from physical objects. Not to say it's not real and valid, but there is a difference between making ten physical items and making one piece of IP and running off nine copies.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, stop driving on public roads, stop calling the police, don't use a hospital. Don't use anything invented by/during the space program (basically, any modern plastics, or alloys). Don't consider getting any modern prosthetics, or artificial organs. The list goes on. Don't read any books, they were all written by authors who went to public schools or used other publicly funded infrastructure.
These things are publicly funded because we're much better off with them, the number of people who could afford these things on their own is very small (could even Bill Gates have funded all the research that NASA did?) And those who could afford these things are that rich through theft (ie. hereditary rulers, offspring of the 'rober barons', etc.)
If you want to cough up the bill for your share of all the publicly funded works, throughout the ages, that you rely on to be where you are, we'll let you out of paying any taxes.
Well, I'm completely against CD taxes, BUT... If they are going to collect them, do id Software, and Epic, and Planet Moon, etc, get their cut? The only thing I use CDs for other than backups, etc, is games. I actually own Giant, Q3, and UT, but I know many people who've pirated them - more people than have burned MP3s...
So, to be fair, the RIAA has got to step back and let that tax be fairly divided. And now with DiVX, the MPAA is going to be involved. (And they seem to think movies are more important than music...)
It'll be nice to see a little infighting.
Perhaps there would be less people using the web, but you ignore Apple, Amiga, and all the other companies that would have been here had MS not. You assume that MS exists in a vacumm. Computers would be no less than two years behind where they are now. Commodity hardware is nice, but Apple had allowed clones before, stopping only when they were losing money. If their apps sold to more people they'd probably have gotten out of the hardware market, controlling it only through 'Apple Approved' programs, like MS through their 'Made for Windows' program.
Similarly, Apple was the leader in usability and had they had more of a market share, they would doubtlessly have kept improving. If not, some other company could have done it.
How great would the web be if only geeks were on it? That's not just theoretical. Many of us here remember how great it was. No banners, no 'free registration', no spam bots, free information easily arranged to be shared with other academics. I doubt begrude anyone the right to be on the net, but the crass commercialization of it sucks. Mainly thanks to big companies like MS making sure that any idiot could connect. (Though I realize that had MS and AOL not done this, others would have.)
Finally, for your idea that MS should be forgiven all their illegal acts, putting other companies out of business, and forming a monopoly to the detriment of the consumer. What? Are you mad? Should we start forgiving crimes simply because it's been a while and the victim isn't around to complain anymore?
MS and their upgrade-itis (the refusal to patch products, only release a new version) have cost the public *much* more than it has helped them.
I'm all for not bashing big companies just because they're big but MS really is a scum lord, they really did compete only through illegal actions.
Actually a lot of poor countries are poor while they have a fair bit of trade. It's not specifically because of government corruption, it's because they allow unrestrained capitalism. Some guy whose family was a little more ruthless, or who fenced off a huge piece of land, has many more resources than the poor living around him. That allows him to get cheap labour, producing cheap goods, and to keep the money to himself.
Reagan's trickle-down theory didn't work in most areas. If there are limited options for workers they basically have to take the jobs given, at the wages offered, or starve. In the USA/Canada we've got enough jobs to allow people a choice of low-level jobs which prevents their being trapped and exploited. In poor countries that are often few choices, or agreements between factory/plantation owners exist to keep the wages down low enough to deny the workers a real choice.
Here we have the choice of striking (a protected action) to remove a whole labour force, we also have cheap enough food that we can keep from starving while exerting pressure on the management. Workers in poor countries can't strike (or the management can violently strike break) and often can't afford enough food without their wages. Yet their wages are kept low enough to not give them the ability to better their lives, merely to stay alive.
Just because a lot of money is flowing, and trade does benefit both parties, doesn't mean that anyone around the two traders is profiting. And it doesn't mean that one of the parties isn't looting their country to supply those trade goods, hurting everyone else.
Just like NAFTA. It "created" wealth, if you listen to the wealthy, but that wealth didn't raise the standard of living for the poor and middle classes. Wow, the rich got richer. I'm so glad I could contribute to that.
It's not news that MS doesn't like Open Source/Linux/etc. What is news is that MS is lying, yet again, to a bunch of execs.
That means that IT types need to know what they say so that we can refute it when our bosses panic about us running Apache instead of IIS.
It's "Know your enemy", they're my enemy because they're trying to convince my employers to use less workable "solutions" (if they can be called that) to already solved problems.
If MS was concerned Open Source wouldn't work, they'd shut up about it and watch Corel, IBM, Redhat, and all the other companies, big and small, take a huge hit. Then they'd rake in more money.
The reason do they have for their throwing away PR guys (what value do they have left after the lose all credability?)
They're afraid Open Source will work, for everyone else, and they're desperately telling people that the emperor looks simply divine in his clothes. To look just like the emperor (simply divine, I remind you) you should rush out and buy MS Clothes 2.0, and not take those free clothes everyone is willing to give you...
Simply put, quality sells itself. If they had anything that would sell itself, they'd let it.
They'd stay friendly with IT types who went to other alternatives, knowing they'd be back. Instead of how it is now, knowing that anyone who investigates a unix-based alternative for a server is never going back to NT...
(The only reason to stay with an NT server is to support clients who demand Outlook/Exchange/Active Directory. I'm not into the MS stuff, so I don't know how much of that can be done ala Samba...)
If Microsoft really questioned the Open Source business model they'd just sit back and watch competitors die. The only reason they're spreading all the FUD is that they know Open Source will kill them.
Look at what companies say about issues they don't care about, or wish to remain silent on... nothing. They certainly don't sacrifice the credability of their PR guys over unimportant issues.
Had MS quietly continued their business, I wouldn't think they cared. As is, it's pretty well a sign that they know they're tanking and they can't stop it.
Of course, it might take a while, and a Microsoft that tanked might still be more powerful than many other companies, but it'd be essentially dead, no matter what they call it.
Methink thou doth protest too much.
Based on suggests, to me, code that is reliant on GPLed code. It doesn't suggest that the code is derived from, that's different.
:= x + 1;", etc.
As for the 'translation'... To me, that says that mere translation doesn't create a new work. This fits with general copyright law.
I can't take Star Trek and simply translate it into German and sell it as my own. But I could take the idea of a spaceship of people from a similar society exploring the galaxy, etc, and write a story about them as long as it wasn't identical with the names files off.
I think RMS's comments of code being speech back this up... Translation is (mostly) a mechanical thing, "Oui" is "Yes", "ferme" is "close", etc. Much the same as "x++;" is "x
Direct translation doesn't involve any creative work, thus it's the same work (from a creation POV) as the original.
But, if you took the code and liked what it did, and came up with a new way to do it... that'd be like deciding you liked science-fiction stories with spaceships after watching Star Trek, then writing your own.
These are two seperate things...
Price fixing is when two (or more) companies agree to set certain prices for their products instead of letting market forces decide them.
This is what the oil companies are doing. They know customers have to buy, so they agree to limit production enough to drive prices to their ideal spot of the price-elasticity curve, rather than having open production and open consumption set a price.
'Dumping' refers to selling something below cost. Some of this is allowed - loss leaders at the supermarket for example, but other things are not. The law is designed to prevent companies from doing a MS, giving away one product (supported by the income from other products) just to force competitors out of the market.
The good thing about the GPL is that independant discovery is completely acceptable. The GPL is a copyright device, not a patent device.
You'll always be able to write non-GPLed software. Even better, you'll be able to use GPLed software as a learning tool to do so. In fact, as long as you paraphrase, you can pretty well use code snippets as well.
Contrast this to most companies attempts to patent obvious things, keeping anyone else from implementing that thing, independently or not.
You're perfectly free to take the available Bison code and integrate it into YACC. Go for it.
// back in the early 80s and I learned to program by LISTing various programs on the system disk.
If you don't like the license, then look at the changes and rewrite the fixes, it's barely slower than cutting and pasting (it'd be required for anything non-trivial anyway) and it gets around copyright problems.
And because Bison can't be closed, you know anyone using a Bison derivative in the future will keep contributing bug-fixes indirectly to YACC. Of course, most YACC users will be companies who've taken it and closed the source...
I like the GPL. I don't just want to help a specific coder on a time crunch who decides to snag my code, I want to help future generations who want to get into programming by being able to peek under the hood of the OS and programs they use.
I started on an Apple
Then when I got deeper into it, I used the assembly code listings for the OS, printed in the back of the manual. The OS came with BASIC and a 6502 mini-assembler.
How are you going to do that with Windows? There's no free compiler from MS (you have to hunt one down from a third-party) and you can't get source code to the OS or most programs you'll see.
That's what BSD code turns into - cheaper programs for MS, no benefits for users. GPLed code helps everyone. MS can learn from it, new programers can learn from it, other programmers can use it, still others can port it. With BSD code only the initial version is available in open source... Yay.
By the logic on competing in the 'great game'... You'd expect Apple to port that stuff to Linux (or allow it to be done) in an instant. But you'd also expect them to handicap the windows client. That way it'd be the dominant streaming video platform for non-MS platforms. (People may not love QT, but they hate Real.)
Apple could easily release QT and TT, etc, without being sued by shareholders. If the shareholders have sat through their real blunders they'd go for a goodwill building exercise. After all, that's the only reason Apple is alive - the goodwill of diehard users.
You know, it wouldn't be too hard...
There have been random level-creation tools out since Doom, they take a library of pieces with standard connection points and build a level with them. For an angband-y feel, the combat would have to be RPG based, not quake-skill based. That's an interesting task, but not impossible.
The NPCs (as few as they are) have been done. Look at any of the Quake-engine based games that involve look at someone while their mouth moves and a sound is played - perhaps with subtitles to match.
I actually put some work into an RPG in quake, where the combat was based on your stats, but weighted by your performance in actual fighting. The number of shots that hit the target in a given time, and the number of his that hit you, are used to weight the damage rolls from the RPG element. It gives a good player an edge (customizable) and still makes it stat based.
It's not always perfect - with melee-attack creatures it looks funny if you dodge their attacks and still take damage. (This isn't a problem with distance attacks - the computer can cheat a bit, making some attacks perfect shots, to deal the ammount of damage it had rolled.)
If you went with either all twitch combat (FPS skill) or all random RPG combat, it'd be easier, but IMHO not as much fun.
If you're interested in this, feel free to drop me a line. I wouldn't mind working on this.
That doesn't prove it can't be cracked. If anything, it proves that 1) Nobody capable thought it was worth $20, or 2) The successful crackers waited until the program was used to crack it, to ensure they'd get something from it.
I know that if I was looking to crack something like SDMI that I'd try now, but wait to release anything until the format had a few billion invested in it to release the crack. After content providers get stung repeatedly with unsecure 'secure formats' enough they'll stop trying that method.
Taking a screenshot of that bill would be 'easy', in that it's easily said. You'd obviously have hooked all the screen viewing and capture routines but the video is still displayed by the graphics card. Overlays are harder to read, but can be done. And better yet, they can be done directly from the hardware. Maybe the hack would have to be written for each major video card, but it'd get around any level of OS-level protection.
And if that didn't work, there's always VMWare.
All your method would do is raise the bar. But it takes a lot longer to write a protection system than it does for an equally skilled person to break it.
When you signed up with your ISP did you sign a contract? I didn't. Not for any of my ISPs. One was five years ago - before this lawsuit mania. The cable ISP was two years ago and forgot to bring a contract when delivering the cable modem - I signed a receipt for the modem but that's it.
The other ISP I signed up for I did over the phone with a credit card. With them, all I was told was that time was unlimited. That's it. No mention of any limitations.
The Cable ISP's installer at least told me about some restrictions (no servers) but I could get around most of that because his wording was really vague. (He didn't read the contract, just said "We don't allow x, y, and z." Without any attempt at definition... ICQ can operate as a peer-to-peer server, is that covered?
The other ISP doesn't even have that to go on. They didn't tell me any restrictions. If they terminate my account without warning (ie, they can refuse to renew it, but little else) I can sue them for a few things. (All fairly small, related to the costs of lost business and finding a new ISP.)
Does anyone here actually have a binding contract with their ISP?
btw: Contracts that disclaim all responsibility and state that service may be terminated at any time, etc. are not valid. (A service that can be terminated at any time is of no value, and a contract for a service of no value isn't valid.)
That's Canadian law, and a rough view of it.
All the CEOs I have talked to understand this. They are usually well schooled and they understand the basis of contract law. They are perfectly aware that the *only* reason MS can make us jump through hoops is that MS can afford more lawyers than we have employees.
No, an EULA isn't binding just because MS says so. But if enough people act like it, and obey it, it makes it harder for everyone else to fight. Microsoft can afford to keep a few companies tied up in court until they fold.
However, if people weren't gutless (like you seem to be) there'd be enough companies fighting this crap that MS couldn't afford that many legal battles.
The "Select" agreement may be signed, but there are MS site licenses which are not. In those, copyright law applies unless a valid contract would say otherwise. Valid contracts don't often hide in boxes, or hold software hostage until you click through.
And how long were they in power? How long would it take to produce any results from a breeding program?
Actually, you're wrong. If you buy a PC and Windows, then scrap the PC, you can install Windows on a new PC.
Point to the copyright law that says otherwise.
Microsoft's EULA isn't a valid contract and isn't binding. Ignore it.
Just because MS says it's one way doesn't make it so. They wrote up a little EULA, which you're free to ignore (unless you live in a state which passed the UCITA) because it's not a valid contract.
You may sign away your rights, but if you simple buy 500 licenses for software, those can be transfered as much as you wish. Follow general copyright law, that's all. Microsoft wishes otherwise, and has bought a law (UCITA) which will say otherwise, but until then...
Then what they should do is send an informative letter to dealers explaining the site licenses, so that those dealers can better advise customers.
The reason there are so many articles about Microsoft's scummy practices is that Microsoft really IS that scummy.
They know that an audit can kill most companies if they press the issues. Installing the same copy of Windows on each new for testing - then wiping the HD is *perfectly legal*. However Microsoft will claim otherwise based on their EULA and tie you up in court until the end of time.
They're thieves, trying to force people to buy a product they're not using. They realized that they can't keep selling enough OSes to sustain their growth - by supply and demand means - so they're trying to force people to buy unused copies.
They won't be very intelligent if they succeed with inbreeding themselves.
And the leaders are the supporters of that, they'll gladly have little aryan children regardless of the cost.
One of the replies (from Dirtside) makes a good point...
If the loser pays the costs, suing a corporation could stick an individual millions of dollars in the hole.
IMHO, you'd work on a sharing plan based on total wealth. If an individual with $10k sued a corp with $10M, the corp would foot $1000 of the bill for every $1 that the individual paid.
This way they'd both run out of money at the same time, when the trial cost $10,010,000... Neither one would be able to raise the price beyond the means of the other.
Canadian judges are fairly good about handing out reasonable settlements (no $5M for hot coffee, etc). I think they could also hand out reasonable penalties (in relation to the wealth of the participants) for frivolous lawsuits.
While I'm not saying that I agree completely...
The French revolution was a wake-up call to the rich opressors.
At some point, you have to be willing to fight for your rights or you won't have any. Maybe the DMCA isn't that time, but that time will eventually come. It's only because the rich know this that they try to take our rights away in small steps, if they weren't afraid of the masses, we'd be in a much worse situation.
You must be joking...
>What transpired in Europe 60 years ago has show to us that freespeech should not be abused to give
>speaking rights to those who would deny those rights to others.
If you just stayed the hell out and didn't censor anyone, or allow anyone to be censored, then nobody would be able to take away anyone's rights.
If you don't give nazis the power to supress the rights of the jews, then you don't have to censor the nazis. They'll just be another group of harmless idiots completely out of touch with reality.
Actually, you have to laugh, their idea of the master race is suicidal. They want to inbreed themselves until all differences are gone. That's a chuckle, they'll all be perfect 6' well-built blonde, blue-eyed, and dreadfully retarded. Much like collies or any other massively overbred dog. "Oh, eek. It's an attack of the nazi beach bunnies with the 60 point IQs, eek, eek."
If someone denies the holocaust, why don't you get off your little censorship powertrip and actually bother to refute what they say? Otherwise you'll end up throwing a real scholar into jail when they merely try to correct a historical innacuracy, just because their views don't fit with the politically correct ones. You certainly don't seem smart and well educated enough to understand where to draw the lines.
Windows 2000 simply didn't take billions to write. It's about as complex as other modern OSes, multi-million dollar projects, sure, but no more.
However, Microsoft has made billions from it (and NT 4.0 before it).
They do this at a moderately low unit cost, why? Because once the development costs have been paid, they simply dump bits onto a $.10 disk and throw a cardboard box around it. The hologram is probably the most expensive thing in the package.
Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and IBM have all written (and bought, etc) OSes, of varrying complexity. Microsoft's isn't better than all of those, and it didn't cost significantly less. So why did they make money? They burned a few million copies more.
Wealth nowadays isn't necessarily from physical objects. Not to say it's not real and valid, but there is a difference between making ten physical items and making one piece of IP and running off nine copies.