Linux is going in the complete opposite direction of Windows and getting faster with each version. If Linux is going to compete with Windows it better start getting slow, and getting slow fast!
Have to agree with this. Everyone knows that we need to emulate MSFT in every way. Take.NET - we need a slow, thick client like that to suck up all the privacy rights of everyone.
Instead, we have things like Ximian running on a faster more capable OS. How can we possibly compete? And it will work on old hardware even - where's the profit factor in that?
Next thing you know we'll actually get functional speech recognition that people can actually use.
Of course, if my understanding is correct, you may be prohibited from compiling and using the source code. This depends on whether or not you have "improperly" violated a trade secret. The document specifically notes that reverse engineering is proper (or is this only in Denmark?)
But nothing would stop me from making a distro with the source code, that you (the end user) could compile.
It seems that all I have to do is avoid the act of turning the DeCSS code into ones and zeros and I'm protected under free speech, as we read the decision.
By compiling it, you take the onus upon yourself. Under free speech I describe how the code works, explicitly, but I have not literally made the machine code.
The only problem would be in debugging the implementation. Perhaps I might be able to have someone in Norway do that for me and describe the bugs they see, so that I could then change the source code.
it seems that they are actually using Trade Secret law to suppress DECSS, not the DMCA...
Not just Trade Secret Law, but California's Trade Secret Law, which is quite different from that of other states.
I think you're correct that the appeals court did not directly rule on the use of the DCMA to suppress free speech, but they implied that even the DCMA must bow to the constitution, since it is not a constitutional amendment in its own right. Free speech wins against all but other constitutional laws, from what I can gather of the decision.
IANAL, but it seems to me that it boils down to the appelate court saying (with a lot of other things):
Source Code is Free Speech. DCMA cannot override the right of free speech, especially if it does not involve the use of slander, libel, or "fighting words".
Therefore, you cannot have a trade secret law, especially one from a state, override the constitutional right to free speech. Ever.
This implies that I can thereby describe WINE as free speech, and MSFT can't sue me for trade secrets, since it's an alternate method for responding to inputs and outputs.
This also implies that DCMA is functionally flawed on a constitutional basis.
This lastly implies that the only way to overturn this is to have the US Supreme Court or some higher court overturn this decision.
Exactly. The problem is that we are presented with the concept of a corporation being a person, as if that had validity, meaning that it should have influence on politics, on voting, on controlling.
A corporation is a collection of individuals who share risk, but do not risk any assets other than those that they contribute to the corporation thru its shares. Thus, it is immune to imprisonment, its shareholders can assist it in doing evil acts and yet not be held liable.
Corporations are not people. They should have no say in public policy. They should not be permitted to lobby government.
Some DVDs are film only. Some are software only. Some are films with minor menu software. Some are films with game software.
It depends.
But the thing that's disturbing is that the Powerpuff Girls have a virus. It must be the work of that villain MoJo JoJo! Quick, call the mayor's secretary, she'll know what to do!
It is indeed a problem. Perhaps if Jon could pick up a book, maybe something by ATTAC, we might get a less biased post.
Don't get me wrong. The problem is not that we shouldn't have global trade, or fewer barriers. The problem is that this subsidizes pollution, allows countries to push production to other countries without labor laws, and basically distorts the free and fair trade of goods on a level playing field.
In some countries they round up vagrants, imprison them, and make them work in prison sweat shops for 7 days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day. Some people are arrested for their religion and the same happens to them.
In some places they execute union members.
Get a grip, Jon. The world is more complex than the Commerce Department wants you to believe. There are Afghan kids of 6 and 7 sewing rugs in Pakistan that you use for your home this minute, working long hours. That is what global "free trade" means. Not your idyllic portrayal in your fancy books.
Once I used to work at a datacenter where I was the only night operator. We had entire racks of servers, and they were fairly noisy.
One day I came in. It was dark - someone had downed the lights, since the day shift had gone home - but I could see that there was only a single machine at the end of the cavernous room. Or so I thought. It looked a little bigger, but the other machines weren't visible. Maybe they were turned off for some reason and I missed the memo. Couldn't tell, it wasn't bright enough.
I flipped on the switch and...
[spooky music]
instead of the row upon row of Solaris machines there was...
[crescendo]
an IBM mainframe running hundreds of Linux servers on it!
[apologies to IBM for stealing their commercial, but it fit so well with the topic]
I've had the same problem. think there's some kind of timeout problem or some sloppy code.
One question would be, from the viewpoint of industry coders, as opposed to the marketing viewpoint: how difficult have you found it to write opt-in cookies instead of opt-out cookies?
Is the user-identifiable tracking nature of the information that valuable? Or is it more that there is a lot of demand to fine-tune the ads and promos to individual consumer slices?
I guess what I'm getting at is this - let's say the US wakes up and gets a cluestick and requires opt-in cookie technology. How difficult, in the experience of someone who has had to switch from opt-out to opt-in cookies, is it to convert?
Or is it mostly just the marketing and information resale portions of the business that are driving the opt-out-is-our-god approach?
Real battle opt-in vs opt-out: cookies side issue
on
EU May Outlaw Cookies
·
· Score: 2
The real discussion re the new EU law is that it would require opt-in instead of opt-out, and most of the industry's cookies are opt-out.
It's a simple matter of proper cookie creation and management.
Their objection is not truly about the cookies, it's that they want to do opt-out, and the wise EU wishes to maintain their citizen privacy rights by insisting on opt-in.
So, it is a red herring.
The sad thing is that the EU is about ten years ahead of where the US should be in regards to requiring opt-in instead of opt-out.
Opt-out sounds great until you see it in practice. I get about 20 spam a day that are opt-out - more than my standard message traffic. And on visiting a web site, I don't want to have opt-out sub me to lists for all their business partners, affinity lists, and everything that I never even knew they would start sending me spam on or tracking without my consent.
The amusing thing is that Europe is actually discussing an issue that is never discussed by US legislators. They assume that you should have privacy as a consumer; we in the US do not.
He went to his local store to buy a PC. Configured it with a nice graphics card, good sound card, decent NIC, dual hard drives, 21" monitor, 1GHz dual CPUs and 1GB RAM. Asked them to preload it with Mandrake.
They said it would be ready the next day.
Next day, he came back. Picked up the machine, took it home. Plugged it in. Turned on the power.
Went to get a cup of coffee. While he was doing this he thought he heard a wierd sound.
My first system was a VA, but that was before it was VA Linux. But you're right, it normally takes 2-3 years of slim margins (and usually losses) with any new firm.
When I did a small game design business I expected to lose money for three years and planned accordingly. To my surprise, I broke even the first year and made money from the second year on (a small profit at first, then a bigger one). Not bad for what started as a hobby.
Most businesses fail due to cash flow. That was true before the.com effect, and is still true now.
The reason I bought into Red Hat at IPO was that the prospectus showed they understood what it takes to get ahead in business. I seem to recall not getting into VA Linux due to the high multiple for not very great rewards.
Even after selling some of my initial Red Hat shares, I still own 400, which is about the same as my original 100 presplits. And I made money on the trades, when people got too crazy and offered insane multiples, and then buying back in on the inevitable drops.
VA can survive. I would hope that/. will continue to do well, due to the loyal base of/.ers, but for VA to survive and prosper, they need to stop trying to shift with the wind.
That doesn't mean that VA might not want to reposition a little bit, but only for sound business reasons.
When I removed all 20 lug nuts from my car, I could only drive it for about 1 seconds before the wheels fell off.
Yeah, well, when I unbolted my steering wheel from my car while driving at 120 mph, I lost control of my car and it made a flaming wreck. They should warn you not to do that.
Has anyone considered placing a warning on the outside of computers with WinXP, saying something like this:
"Warning: taking apart a computer can make you die. If you're not a real geek, which you can't be cause you use XP, don't do it - get a real geek with proper tools to help you."
Probably not.
And thus the overheated CPU due to removal of heat sink is in this category. You should never be messing with this in the first place. If you don't know what you're doing, you could kill yourself from capacitor discharge, disconnect the heat sink, and probably short out your machine from touching a loose hot wire to the wrong location.
Geeks don't let non-geeks mess inside their computers without supervision. Ever.
I'm betting that we'll be looking at a Pokemon Special Edition of Game Cube (Pikachu Yellow) and maybe a Pimkin version.
How's the play balance on Pimkin, by the way? This is the main reason I want to get one of these hot numbers - glad to hear the controllers are easy to use - hate the awkward feel of the other boxen.
3. Open source means you can fix the code. So stop complaining and do something useful.
I presume that's either a troll or a parody of the sort of nonsense that all too often gets put out in response to complaints. If it isn't, I'll simply note that you probably can't fix the code if you are not a programmer, which a lot of users aren't
Nope, it's a comment. The point is that 1 and 2 may be true, but the whole point of open source is that one can fix the code. This does not mean that you have to, but it means that you can.
If error handling is done incorrectly, rewrite it and submit it back as a changemod.
We are so used to the closed source model, where the originating software company has to find the bug and fix it, that we fail to understand the whole point of open source is that you get the code. So you can fix it.
In closed source, you have no choice. You must let them fix it.
In open source, you have a choice. You can tell them it's a bug and let them fix it. You can find the problem segment of the code, point out where it should be rewritten, give a sample, and let them fix it. Or you can fix it yourself, clean your own version, and send it back as a changemod.
You have the power. If it really bugs you that much, fix it.
It's like a car. If you have tools, you can fix it when it breaks down. You can open the hood. If it's closed source, the hood is welded shut. Admittedly, if it's not something simple, you probably let them fix it (take it to a shop) or sell it as a lemon. But a lot of times it's something simple.
And thanks for modding me down as a troll, just because I point out that you have more responsibility as a user of open source than you would as a user of closed source. You can shirk your duty, but it's still there. If you can fix it, do so. If you can't, submit the bug. But whining and doing nothing are not acceptable.
If you check the Google site, you'll notice that the advertising links are clearly marked... Yahoo and most other search/index sites do the same thing. If it helps them to continue offering high-quality service, I don't mind.
Good point. I noticed that too, when I first saw the ad in Fortune. But it is a change, nonetheless. As I said, I still prefer to use Google.
While we're on the subject... Has anyone else noticed that Google now includes PDF files in its searching? It indexes the content of the files and even lets you view them as plaintext. That's the best thing since bread came sliced, IMO.
Actually prefer my bread raw. But this is definitely a major bonus feature, IMHO. Almost as good as the way Ximian defaults to let you see what's in the file!
Slashdot Mirror
See - it popped up the error dialog box faster!
So it must be better!
Microsoft .Net and Passport to blame!
...
Bill Gates identified as culprit: "We of the Taliban shall never be defeated!" shouts the software terrorist as he is hauled off to a comfy cell.
More news as this story breaks
Linux is going in the complete opposite direction of Windows and getting faster with each version. If Linux is going to compete with Windows it better start getting slow, and getting slow fast!
.NET - we need a slow, thick client like that to suck up all the privacy rights of everyone.
Have to agree with this. Everyone knows that we need to emulate MSFT in every way. Take
Instead, we have things like Ximian running on a faster more capable OS. How can we possibly compete? And it will work on old hardware even - where's the profit factor in that?
Next thing you know we'll actually get functional speech recognition that people can actually use.
We need to rethink our priorities to compete, no?
Of course, if my understanding is correct, you may be prohibited from compiling and using the source code. This depends on whether or not you have "improperly" violated a trade secret. The document specifically notes that reverse engineering is proper (or is this only in Denmark?)
But nothing would stop me from making a distro with the source code, that you (the end user) could compile.
It seems that all I have to do is avoid the act of turning the DeCSS code into ones and zeros and I'm protected under free speech, as we read the decision.
By compiling it, you take the onus upon yourself. Under free speech I describe how the code works, explicitly, but I have not literally made the machine code.
The only problem would be in debugging the implementation. Perhaps I might be able to have someone in Norway do that for me and describe the bugs they see, so that I could then change the source code.
All this would be legit.
it seems that they are actually using Trade Secret law to suppress DECSS, not the DMCA...
Not just Trade Secret Law, but California's Trade Secret Law, which is quite different from that of other states.
I think you're correct that the appeals court did not directly rule on the use of the DCMA to suppress free speech, but they implied that even the DCMA must bow to the constitution, since it is not a constitutional amendment in its own right. Free speech wins against all but other constitutional laws, from what I can gather of the decision.
OK, I've read thru the PDF of the decision.
IANAL, but it seems to me that it boils down to the appelate court saying (with a lot of other things):
Source Code is Free Speech. DCMA cannot override the right of free speech, especially if it does not involve the use of slander, libel, or "fighting words".
Therefore, you cannot have a trade secret law, especially one from a state, override the constitutional right to free speech. Ever.
This implies that I can thereby describe WINE as free speech, and MSFT can't sue me for trade secrets, since it's an alternate method for responding to inputs and outputs.
This also implies that DCMA is functionally flawed on a constitutional basis.
This lastly implies that the only way to overturn this is to have the US Supreme Court or some higher court overturn this decision.
Good.
Time to start coding!
>i>Does this mean people at Warner Bros can be jailed for years under the new terrorism act?
Yes.
And it is your duty, as the President warned us, to turn in such criminals to the FBI with utmost haste.
Hopefully we'll arrest those terrorists at the frog before they do more harm to our nation.
Exactly. The problem is that we are presented with the concept of a corporation being a person, as if that had validity, meaning that it should have influence on politics, on voting, on controlling.
A corporation is a collection of individuals who share risk, but do not risk any assets other than those that they contribute to the corporation thru its shares. Thus, it is immune to imprisonment, its shareholders can assist it in doing evil acts and yet not be held liable.
Corporations are not people. They should have no say in public policy. They should not be permitted to lobby government.
Some DVDs are film only. Some are software only. Some are films with minor menu software. Some are films with game software.
It depends.
But the thing that's disturbing is that the Powerpuff Girls have a virus. It must be the work of that villain MoJo JoJo! Quick, call the mayor's secretary, she'll know what to do!
It is indeed a problem. Perhaps if Jon could pick up a book, maybe something by ATTAC, we might get a less biased post.
Don't get me wrong. The problem is not that we shouldn't have global trade, or fewer barriers. The problem is that this subsidizes pollution, allows countries to push production to other countries without labor laws, and basically distorts the free and fair trade of goods on a level playing field.
In some countries they round up vagrants, imprison them, and make them work in prison sweat shops for 7 days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day. Some people are arrested for their religion and the same happens to them.
In some places they execute union members.
Get a grip, Jon. The world is more complex than the Commerce Department wants you to believe. There are Afghan kids of 6 and 7 sewing rugs in Pakistan that you use for your home this minute, working long hours. That is what global "free trade" means. Not your idyllic portrayal in your fancy books.
It's the real world.
Once I used to work at a datacenter where I was the only night operator. We had entire racks of servers, and they were fairly noisy.
...
...
One day I came in. It was dark - someone had downed the lights, since the day shift had gone home - but I could see that there was only a single machine at the end of the cavernous room. Or so I thought. It looked a little bigger, but the other machines weren't visible. Maybe they were turned off for some reason and I missed the memo. Couldn't tell, it wasn't bright enough.
I flipped on the switch and
[spooky music]
instead of the row upon row of Solaris machines there was
[crescendo]
an IBM mainframe running hundreds of Linux servers on it!
[apologies to IBM for stealing their commercial, but it fit so well with the topic]
I've had the same problem. think there's some kind of timeout problem or some sloppy code.
One question would be, from the viewpoint of industry coders, as opposed to the marketing viewpoint: how difficult have you found it to write opt-in cookies instead of opt-out cookies?
Is the user-identifiable tracking nature of the information that valuable? Or is it more that there is a lot of demand to fine-tune the ads and promos to individual consumer slices?
I guess what I'm getting at is this - let's say the US wakes up and gets a cluestick and requires opt-in cookie technology. How difficult, in the experience of someone who has had to switch from opt-out to opt-in cookies, is it to convert?
Or is it mostly just the marketing and information resale portions of the business that are driving the opt-out-is-our-god approach?
The real discussion re the new EU law is that it would require opt-in instead of opt-out, and most of the industry's cookies are opt-out.
It's a simple matter of proper cookie creation and management.
Their objection is not truly about the cookies, it's that they want to do opt-out, and the wise EU wishes to maintain their citizen privacy rights by insisting on opt-in.
So, it is a red herring.
The sad thing is that the EU is about ten years ahead of where the US should be in regards to requiring opt-in instead of opt-out.
Opt-out sounds great until you see it in practice. I get about 20 spam a day that are opt-out - more than my standard message traffic. And on visiting a web site, I don't want to have opt-out sub me to lists for all their business partners, affinity lists, and everything that I never even knew they would start sending me spam on or tracking without my consent.
The amusing thing is that Europe is actually discussing an issue that is never discussed by US legislators. They assume that you should have privacy as a consumer; we in the US do not.
He went to his local store to buy a PC. Configured it with a nice graphics card, good sound card, decent NIC, dual hard drives, 21" monitor, 1GHz dual CPUs and 1GB RAM. Asked them to preload it with Mandrake.
...
They said it would be ready the next day.
Next day, he came back. Picked up the machine, took it home. Plugged it in. Turned on the power.
Went to get a cup of coffee. While he was doing this he thought he heard a wierd sound.
He turned around and looked at the monitor.
And he saw
[spooky music]
[tension builds]
It was booting Windows XP!
[maniacal laughter]
My first system was a VA, but that was before it was VA Linux. But you're right, it normally takes 2-3 years of slim margins (and usually losses) with any new firm.
.com effect, and is still true now.
/. will continue to do well, due to the loyal base of /.ers, but for VA to survive and prosper, they need to stop trying to shift with the wind.
When I did a small game design business I expected to lose money for three years and planned accordingly. To my surprise, I broke even the first year and made money from the second year on (a small profit at first, then a bigger one). Not bad for what started as a hobby.
Most businesses fail due to cash flow. That was true before the
The reason I bought into Red Hat at IPO was that the prospectus showed they understood what it takes to get ahead in business. I seem to recall not getting into VA Linux due to the high multiple for not very great rewards.
Even after selling some of my initial Red Hat shares, I still own 400, which is about the same as my original 100 presplits. And I made money on the trades, when people got too crazy and offered insane multiples, and then buying back in on the inevitable drops.
VA can survive. I would hope that
That doesn't mean that VA might not want to reposition a little bit, but only for sound business reasons.
VA Microsoft
if they do that, my next box will be a Penguin.
So, are you saying the GPL version will allow you to play The Sims or do you have to pay for some non-GPL proprietary code to run The Sims under WINE?
And if it's a subscription, how is that any different from the Microsoft tax?
When I removed all 20 lug nuts from my car, I could only drive it for about 1 seconds before the wheels fell off.
Yeah, well, when I unbolted my steering wheel from my car while driving at 120 mph, I lost control of my car and it made a flaming wreck. They should warn you not to do that.
Has anyone considered placing a warning on the outside of computers with WinXP, saying something like this:
"Warning: taking apart a computer can make you die. If you're not a real geek, which you can't be cause you use XP, don't do it - get a real geek with proper tools to help you."
Probably not.
And thus the overheated CPU due to removal of heat sink is in this category. You should never be messing with this in the first place. If you don't know what you're doing, you could kill yourself from capacitor discharge, disconnect the heat sink, and probably short out your machine from touching a loose hot wire to the wrong location.
Geeks don't let non-geeks mess inside their computers without supervision. Ever.
is that one of the comments posted about it was that The Sims runs on WINE but not VMWare or NT.
When did this happen? The ONLY reason why I have a Win98 box is to run The Sims. If that's been resolved, I can reformat it to Linux and reload.
Does anyone have info on this? I tried to search in the WINE db and couldn't find a listing - am I doing it wrong?
Thanks!
I'm betting that we'll be looking at a Pokemon Special Edition of Game Cube (Pikachu Yellow) and maybe a Pimkin version.
How's the play balance on Pimkin, by the way? This is the main reason I want to get one of these hot numbers - glad to hear the controllers are easy to use - hate the awkward feel of the other boxen.
3. Open source means you can fix the code. So stop complaining and do something useful.
I presume that's either a troll or a parody of the sort of nonsense that all too often gets put out in response to complaints. If it isn't, I'll simply note that you probably can't fix the code if you are not a programmer, which a lot of users aren't
Nope, it's a comment. The point is that 1 and 2 may be true, but the whole point of open source is that one can fix the code. This does not mean that you have to, but it means that you can.
If error handling is done incorrectly, rewrite it and submit it back as a changemod.
We are so used to the closed source model, where the originating software company has to find the bug and fix it, that we fail to understand the whole point of open source is that you get the code. So you can fix it.
In closed source, you have no choice. You must let them fix it.
In open source, you have a choice. You can tell them it's a bug and let them fix it. You can find the problem segment of the code, point out where it should be rewritten, give a sample, and let them fix it. Or you can fix it yourself, clean your own version, and send it back as a changemod.
You have the power. If it really bugs you that much, fix it.
It's like a car. If you have tools, you can fix it when it breaks down. You can open the hood. If it's closed source, the hood is welded shut. Admittedly, if it's not something simple, you probably let them fix it (take it to a shop) or sell it as a lemon. But a lot of times it's something simple.
And thanks for modding me down as a troll, just because I point out that you have more responsibility as a user of open source than you would as a user of closed source. You can shirk your duty, but it's still there. If you can fix it, do so. If you can't, submit the bug. But whining and doing nothing are not acceptable.
1. Most open source developers are lousy at writing good error handling.
2. Most closed source developers write error handling routines that pass the blame to someone else's code or are not helpful.
3. Open source means you can fix the code. So stop complaining and do something useful.
They are print ads. Of course there aren't online references. Real execs don't read it online, except when in Yahoo! Finance.
I have a subscription, that's why I know about the ads.
But they turned me away.
My IQ wasn't low enough.
If you check the Google site, you'll notice that the advertising links are clearly marked... Yahoo and most other search/index sites do the same thing. If it helps them to continue offering high-quality service, I don't mind.
Good point. I noticed that too, when I first saw the ad in Fortune. But it is a change, nonetheless. As I said, I still prefer to use Google.
While we're on the subject... Has anyone else noticed that Google now includes PDF files in its searching? It indexes the content of the files and even lets you view them as plaintext. That's the best thing since bread came sliced, IMO.
Actually prefer my bread raw. But this is definitely a major bonus feature, IMHO. Almost as good as the way Ximian defaults to let you see what's in the file!