One of the reasons why the Win box costs up to $500 more is that the OEM had to pay a reduced rate for the OS and bundled apps.
And all my Win boxes (which I use for games...) came with the pre-install.
On the other hand, while I always buy a pre-install of Linux on my Linux boxen, I've bought a few distro releases since purchase.
One of the problems with the current legal status of the MSFT antitrust case is we don't have transparent pricing - we don't know how much it costs the OEM to preinstall, depending on what spifs they got, volume discounts, non-competes, ad and icon placement, and so on.
So my guess is most of my Win box probably ran between $200 and $400 for the bundled Win OS/app package it came with. Not that I would have paid for it, but that's probably what they paid.
I remember when he was our Guest of Honor at a V-Con, and hanging with him and his wife at a couple of the worldcons. He was always unassuming, had a nice sense of humor, and was polite to all the fans, treating them as equals.
While not my favorite writer in terms of his written works, he was probably my favorite writer to talk with. And, he helped shape SF (and a little Fantasy even) in many ways.
Skol, Poul...
[I know Fran really liked him too - hope she doesn't take this news too badly...]
What if you make a nanobot with the capability to learn, and you originally coded it to only copy articles for fair use purposes, but it realizes that all information should be free, and recodes itself to disseminate info to all comers?
It's not like you anticipated that it would decide to break the law.
The same goes for something designed for tissue repair - what if it starts fixing things you don't want fixed, like someone who had a tubal ligation or other operation to shut down reproductive capability, and it just fixes it. You didn't intend for pregnancy to occur...
What if it's a security bot, repairing data links to increase signal capabilities. And it runs across an uber-Carnivore screen tap that the uber-NSA put in, to intercept info it's not supposed to intercept. So the bot cuts it out of the circuit, since it doesn't belong. Did you do that intentionally? What if when you designed it, such things were illegal, and then they made it legal? What if it was legal and then they made it illegal?
Ah, the possibilities are astounding in their implications.
For instance, if I found a way to rip a Macrovision'ed disc that de-mungs the munged error correcting data I could see how that might run afoul of the DMCA. But what if someone simply pipes the music through the analog inputs of a soundcard, or rips the CD from a cd player with a digital audio out? Since no "circumvention" took place in these cases we now have a situation where, while the destination is the same, one "journey" is legal and the other is illegal.
This has always been true. It's pretty much a waste of time for RIAA and its ilk to attack duplicating, since we all have that capability, or could get it fairly easily if we don't already.
They go on about the "quality" of the recording, but in the end it all comes down to how much the intermediaries make off the artists. I was recently at WOMAD, where I bought a whole bunch of CDs for $16 and was glad to do so, since they get a major cut of the money (many dollars), not the usual 4 to 16 cents per CD that most recording artists get. Which is why I also buy my music from touring bands - more money to the artist.
Until someone does something about that basic equation, I doubt piracy will ever be impacted.
Remember all those wonderful hijinks that Code Red did? Yes, perhaps it wasn't as good as SirCam, but wasn't that really scary, hearing it on all the news channels?
I guess this means we can expect the sequel, just like in Hollywood - Code Red II: The URL generation!
Man, they do an IP lookup, instead of a URL. Bet that will take them about five minutes to recode...
Amusing how they used the Borland Delphi IDE to create it, no? Scott__ sussed that one out. Maybe the next one will be done in C#...
nintendo has always been about quality while the ps was about quantity. it looks like the ps2 is working toward quality but the nintendo is definitely going to have several must-have games at launch.
I think this is where the edge is. MSFT's pretty new to the game box business, and doesn't grok that games are all that matters, not how the pretty raindrop spatters on the ground.
and a warning to xbox fans, you're throwing away your money. it's going to flop.
I'm expecting you'll be able to pick up a $299 xBox for around $99 by September 2002 at the latest, myself. Might buy one at that price, for the few titles I like on it. But overpriced over the $150 mark. Hope they can keep the bug count down on the device, but not very hopeful, too many new things thrown in.
Seriously, when we see these in quantity and with a six-month consumer burn-in, then I'll believe MSFT can crank that much new tech in quantity.
The xBox still has a game problem - probably have an edge for/. audience in game selection, but nothing really grabs the kid factor, and the girl factor is totally dead and dull.
I'm wondering if they can get a reasonable (e.g. playable, girl/woman-friendly) version of the Powerpuffs for the GBA and Gamecube. If they can do this, you could sell the three girl colors like hotcakes, with mask overlays on the GBA controllers to match each girl.
This would play to their niche element, plus boys would then go and buy the other colors, just to show they like boy colors.
One hopes they don't take it too far, like Nokia did with their faceplates, which haven't been quite as successful as projected.
Nintendo as a software house makes games that kids under 12 absolutly love. They aren't always the most complicated but they are easy to play which is very important. It won't be specs that win the battle it'll be the fun-factor of the games they release and I think Nintendo still knows how to do that.
The only problems I can see is if the other game houses have problems writing to the Gamecube, but apparently it's not very difficult. Microsoft's betting on the xBox bigtime, but I still don't think they grok kids, no matter how they slice it, although they have an edge in older teens and young adults right now. But the kid factor that Nintendo leverages on also translates well to teen girls and women in the 25-65 age grouping, so I think market share should be quite good.
The only major question is the Japanese Yen to USD or Euro conversion - this has hurt Nintendo before, even when their North American and Euro sales were thru the roof.
Think the Nintendo annual report said they were slated for Christmas 2001 or so in Japan, so figure maybe July 2002 here.
When these release we should see the Pikachu Yellow Gameboy Advances come out, since they're useful as controllers for the Gamecube.
I noticed, while in France, that the GBAs came out about two weeks later than in the USA, so I'm thinking that Western Europe should see reasonable numbers of Gamecubes within a month of the North American release dates.
Sure, but how many people actually read the agreement? I'm sure you could write in bold letters "THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER" and people will still click "I agree".
Now that you've given away my patent, a clickable virus with a UCITA-enforced contract, which presents a binding electronic agreement whereby which the user agrees to give in perpetuity all trade secrets, patents, financial instruments, and suchlike in return for permission to run the virus. Of course, I was also planning on patenting the virus that clicks the button for you, as a time saver....
Seriously, if they hadn't sold us their OS and their email package and their IIS software, the trade secrets would still be that.
But their continued lack of action on this front has left us, the consumers, in the position where they are enabling other people (virus writers) to release our trade secrets.
We should sue them for every penny they're worth, and have the BSA search their offices for pirated or virus-capable software.
OK, activism 101, for all those who still care about freedom.
First, this is a federal prison, a federal case. The only things that matter in the US are as follows:
1. The White House - well, you can forget that one. Never going to happen, so don't waste your breath.
2. The US Senate - write a letter or phone your two US Senators. Or at least get one of those free postcards at a bar, cafe, movie place and send it in. If you can get three US Senators to make this an issue, it will get fixed. No matter what anyone says, this is how the system works. They will say "oh, we were going to do that anyway," but reality is that power is essential.
3. The US Congress - same as the senate. You need about five to seven US Congressmembers to breathe down the feds necks.
4. US Governors of affected states - same deal as Congress.
5. The media - if you can get on talk TV, this is worth about one congressman per half hour show.
6. Letter to the editor in your local paper. Congress and the Senate read these things. Keep it short, succinct, to the point, give a short URL to more news. Don't threaten, ask "what is this country doing to our rights" and use the phrase "un-American". Be reasonable in tone, don't shout.
7. Media pickets around major software firms - Adobe, Microsoft, anyone with any connection. Publicize these like mad. Make it obvious you're not going away.
Everything else is just noise and will be ignored by the system.
One of the complaints, that of the "dumb" internet, is directly caused by business not being willing to shoulder the costs and time required to fully implement IPv6. The faults with TCP/IP are directly attributable to business resistance with rolling out the changes that we've been talking about throughout the 90s.
But what do I know, I've been on the Net ever since the early 80s.
Face it, they want the taxpayers to pay for it, even though we already paid for the Net in the first place, and they're just trying to wangle subsidies for their own nefarious schemes.
And make sure to cancel your Social Security number and date of birth too.
When I cancelled my date of birth, I was unable to access all the sites the DCMA requires age verification at.
Good thing I didn't cancel my driver's license while I was driving....
Thoughts, protests, and the media
on
Adobe Backs Down
·
· Score: 1
I wouldn't normally expect things like this to hit the mainstream newspapers. I haven't seen then in my newspaper here.
HOWEVER, when there's actual protests (as was in New York) that often hits the news [...]
It's more likely to appear in the media if you fax and phone and email the news departments that there is a protest and give interviews to those media who show up. Especially if you time it well.
What he's saying is that the damage is done. Adobe pulling out at this point is meaningless. Therefore they should still be held responsible and the protests should continue.
Um. Well, yes, I am saying that the damage is done. And I am saying that Adobe pulling out at this point is meaningless on every level, other than as a face-saving compromise.
But, since I never agreed with the protests in the first place, I'm not saying the protests should continue. But, I'm not saying they shouldn't continue, either. That's something the community needs to figure out.
That's like MSFT saying it won't ship free browser
on
Adobe Backs Down
·
· Score: 5
It's a day late and a dollar short. The guys in jail, has no likely date to be released, and would almost certainly have to stay in the US until the trail even if he was released.
So even if Adobe doesn't officially back the charges, they've already given the feds all the data to prosecute him, they'll almost certainly provide witnesses (oh, sure, "we can't ignore a court order") to help put him in prison, and no matter how good his defense is, he's stuck in the US and not at liberty.
The only good thing is that he can now write a book and guarantee a best seller, so he'll have some money eventually. Unless he's convicted, of course, as then the proceeds will be used for more such actions by the feds.
1. Open Source is not the totality of open source retailers. If SuSe went out of business today, the code lives on. If Red Hat went out of business today (doubtful, cause they make a profit), the code lives on. That is the point - they live off of us, not the other way around. They are useful to us, but not essential.
2. The recent failures of many Open Source connected businesses is more related to the tech bubble than anything else. A lot of firms die - that's how business and market capitalism work. The best ones don't always survive. Many firms that had unrealistic business plans were created in the Open Source arena, some of which were even created just to take advantage of the tech bubble. This is why I bought Red Hat, sold it, bought it again, sold it, and bought it again. It was a speculative bubble, and I'd be crazy to buy a stock valued on 400 times projected earnings. A reasonable valuation is a P/E of 10 to 20, a tech firm with rapid growth might be worth 20 to 30. Many firms had realistic projections of a P/E in two to threee years of 100 to 2000. This is insanity. And that's why the bubble burst. Note - I still own 400 shares of Red Hat directly, and 1000 indirectly, worth about what I paid for them, which is fine.
3. Europe is not the US. SuSe is a European market company, just like Red Hat is a US market company. Sure, they both sell worldwide, but that's where their market shares are. Their market is very different from ours. If they fail, other distros can take up the slack.
4. The world does not owe coders a living. Or even stock options. Especially not open source coders. If you're in this for the money, you've got it all wrong. Get a life.
5. Kyoto wins! Oops, sorry, just glad about sticking it to Georgie boy.
As someone who has bought a number of Adobe products in the past, including this year, and lives three blocks from their facility in Fremont, Center of the Universe (in Seattle, WA), I'm glad that action is being withheld, but I'm not sure if we should say it's over until we see some positive action.
Don't get me wrong, many of my friends own Adobe stock and/or work there, but let's see how the meeting goes.
Until then I may hold off on recommending Adobe as a solution.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the reasons why the Win box costs up to $500 more is that the OEM had to pay a reduced rate for the OS and bundled apps.
...) came with the pre-install.
And all my Win boxes (which I use for games
On the other hand, while I always buy a pre-install of Linux on my Linux boxen, I've bought a few distro releases since purchase.
One of the problems with the current legal status of the MSFT antitrust case is we don't have transparent pricing - we don't know how much it costs the OEM to preinstall, depending on what spifs they got, volume discounts, non-competes, ad and icon placement, and so on.
So my guess is most of my Win box probably ran between $200 and $400 for the bundled Win OS/app package it came with. Not that I would have paid for it, but that's probably what they paid.
Should be a hot seller, maybe have blueberry and cherry flavors.
Also, wonder if you can get one that takes like snot and other Harry Potter flavors?
"Mom, Shawna swallowed my camera again! Make her throw it up!"
"Eew! You spoiled it! I'm not touching that!"
I remember when he was our Guest of Honor at a V-Con, and hanging with him and his wife at a couple of the worldcons. He was always unassuming, had a nice sense of humor, and was polite to all the fans, treating them as equals.
...
...]
While not my favorite writer in terms of his written works, he was probably my favorite writer to talk with. And, he helped shape SF (and a little Fantasy even) in many ways.
Skol, Poul
[I know Fran really liked him too - hope she doesn't take this news too badly
What if you make a nanobot with the capability to learn, and you originally coded it to only copy articles for fair use purposes, but it realizes that all information should be free, and recodes itself to disseminate info to all comers?
...
It's not like you anticipated that it would decide to break the law.
The same goes for something designed for tissue repair - what if it starts fixing things you don't want fixed, like someone who had a tubal ligation or other operation to shut down reproductive capability, and it just fixes it. You didn't intend for pregnancy to occur
What if it's a security bot, repairing data links to increase signal capabilities. And it runs across an uber-Carnivore screen tap that the uber-NSA put in, to intercept info it's not supposed to intercept. So the bot cuts it out of the circuit, since it doesn't belong. Did you do that intentionally? What if when you designed it, such things were illegal, and then they made it legal? What if it was legal and then they made it illegal?
Ah, the possibilities are astounding in their implications.
For instance, if I found a way to rip a Macrovision'ed disc that de-mungs the munged error correcting data I could see how that might run afoul of the DMCA. But what if someone simply pipes the music through the analog inputs of a soundcard, or rips the CD from a cd player with a digital audio out? Since no "circumvention" took place in these cases we now have a situation where, while the destination is the same, one "journey" is legal and the other is illegal.
This has always been true. It's pretty much a waste of time for RIAA and its ilk to attack duplicating, since we all have that capability, or could get it fairly easily if we don't already.
They go on about the "quality" of the recording, but in the end it all comes down to how much the intermediaries make off the artists. I was recently at WOMAD, where I bought a whole bunch of CDs for $16 and was glad to do so, since they get a major cut of the money (many dollars), not the usual 4 to 16 cents per CD that most recording artists get. Which is why I also buy my music from touring bands - more money to the artist.
Until someone does something about that basic equation, I doubt piracy will ever be impacted.
Remember all those wonderful hijinks that Code Red did? Yes, perhaps it wasn't as good as SirCam, but wasn't that really scary, hearing it on all the news channels?
...
...
I guess this means we can expect the sequel, just like in Hollywood - Code Red II: The URL generation!
Man, they do an IP lookup, instead of a URL. Bet that will take them about five minutes to recode
Amusing how they used the Borland Delphi IDE to create it, no? Scott__ sussed that one out. Maybe the next one will be done in C#
I don't know about $99 for an X-Box. That would barely pay for the hard drive, let alone the Pentium processor, SDRAM, and all the components...
Depends on how serious Bill G is about it. If he doesn't want it to fail, he may be willing to sell it way below cost, like with IE.
nintendo has always been about quality while the ps was about quantity. it looks like the ps2 is working toward quality but the nintendo is definitely going to have several must-have games at launch.
I think this is where the edge is. MSFT's pretty new to the game box business, and doesn't grok that games are all that matters, not how the pretty raindrop spatters on the ground.
and a warning to xbox fans, you're throwing away your money. it's going to flop.
I'm expecting you'll be able to pick up a $299 xBox for around $99 by September 2002 at the latest, myself. Might buy one at that price, for the few titles I like on it. But overpriced over the $150 mark. Hope they can keep the bug count down on the device, but not very hopeful, too many new things thrown in.
[caveat - I own MSFT and NTDOY]
Seriously, when we see these in quantity and with a six-month consumer burn-in, then I'll believe MSFT can crank that much new tech in quantity.
/. audience in game selection, but nothing really grabs the kid factor, and the girl factor is totally dead and dull.
The xBox still has a game problem - probably have an edge for
[caveat - I own NTDOY and MSFT]
I'm wondering if they can get a reasonable (e.g. playable, girl/woman-friendly) version of the Powerpuffs for the GBA and Gamecube. If they can do this, you could sell the three girl colors like hotcakes, with mask overlays on the GBA controllers to match each girl.
This would play to their niche element, plus boys would then go and buy the other colors, just to show they like boy colors.
One hopes they don't take it too far, like Nokia did with their faceplates, which haven't been quite as successful as projected.
[caveat - I own Nokia and NTDOY]
Nintendo as a software house makes games that kids under 12 absolutly love. They aren't always the most complicated but they are easy to play which is very important. It won't be specs that win the battle it'll be the fun-factor of the games they release and I think Nintendo still knows how to do that.
The only problems I can see is if the other game houses have problems writing to the Gamecube, but apparently it's not very difficult. Microsoft's betting on the xBox bigtime, but I still don't think they grok kids, no matter how they slice it, although they have an edge in older teens and young adults right now. But the kid factor that Nintendo leverages on also translates well to teen girls and women in the 25-65 age grouping, so I think market share should be quite good.
The only major question is the Japanese Yen to USD or Euro conversion - this has hurt Nintendo before, even when their North American and Euro sales were thru the roof.
[caveat - I own MSFT and NTDOY]
Think the Nintendo annual report said they were slated for Christmas 2001 or so in Japan, so figure maybe July 2002 here.
When these release we should see the Pikachu Yellow Gameboy Advances come out, since they're useful as controllers for the Gamecube.
I noticed, while in France, that the GBAs came out about two weeks later than in the USA, so I'm thinking that Western Europe should see reasonable numbers of Gamecubes within a month of the North American release dates.
Sure, but how many people actually read the agreement? I'm sure you could write in bold letters "THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER" and people will still click "I agree".
....
Now that you've given away my patent, a clickable virus with a UCITA-enforced contract, which presents a binding electronic agreement whereby which the user agrees to give in perpetuity all trade secrets, patents, financial instruments, and suchlike in return for permission to run the virus. Of course, I was also planning on patenting the virus that clicks the button for you, as a time saver
Sigh, now what am I gonna do to Make More Money!
You guys must have some serious problems. I havn't received *ONE* nore *SEEN* one of these messages..
All this means is that noone leaves email addressed to you in their InBox who has MSFT Exchange on an IIS machine.
Which is a fancy way of saying that none of your friends and family email you from Bad Systems.
Either that, or you're just an unpopular guy. I've had a few gig myself, had to clean them out of my various accounts so they wouldn't choke.
Seriously, if they hadn't sold us their OS and their email package and their IIS software, the trade secrets would still be that.
...
But their continued lack of action on this front has left us, the consumers, in the position where they are enabling other people (virus writers) to release our trade secrets.
We should sue them for every penny they're worth, and have the BSA search their offices for pirated or virus-capable software.
It's only fair
OK, activism 101, for all those who still care about freedom.
First, this is a federal prison, a federal case. The only things that matter in the US are as follows:
1. The White House - well, you can forget that one. Never going to happen, so don't waste your breath.
2. The US Senate - write a letter or phone your two US Senators. Or at least get one of those free postcards at a bar, cafe, movie place and send it in. If you can get three US Senators to make this an issue, it will get fixed. No matter what anyone says, this is how the system works. They will say "oh, we were going to do that anyway," but reality is that power is essential.
3. The US Congress - same as the senate. You need about five to seven US Congressmembers to breathe down the feds necks.
4. US Governors of affected states - same deal as Congress.
5. The media - if you can get on talk TV, this is worth about one congressman per half hour show.
6. Letter to the editor in your local paper. Congress and the Senate read these things. Keep it short, succinct, to the point, give a short URL to more news. Don't threaten, ask "what is this country doing to our rights" and use the phrase "un-American". Be reasonable in tone, don't shout.
7. Media pickets around major software firms - Adobe, Microsoft, anyone with any connection. Publicize these like mad. Make it obvious you're not going away.
Everything else is just noise and will be ignored by the system.
with her original, undyed blond hair.
...
It will make it easier to accept her in a different role, since most people have grown accustomed to her raven tresses in Xena.
Should be a good change
One of the complaints, that of the "dumb" internet, is directly caused by business not being willing to shoulder the costs and time required to fully implement IPv6. The faults with TCP/IP are directly attributable to business resistance with rolling out the changes that we've been talking about throughout the 90s.
But what do I know, I've been on the Net ever since the early 80s.
Face it, they want the taxpayers to pay for it, even though we already paid for the Net in the first place, and they're just trying to wangle subsidies for their own nefarious schemes.
And make sure to cancel your Social Security number and date of birth too.
....
When I cancelled my date of birth, I was unable to access all the sites the DCMA requires age verification at.
Good thing I didn't cancel my driver's license while I was driving
I wouldn't normally expect things like this to hit the mainstream newspapers. I haven't seen then in my newspaper here.
HOWEVER, when there's actual protests (as was in New York) that often hits the news [...]
It's more likely to appear in the media if you fax and phone and email the news departments that there is a protest and give interviews to those media who show up. Especially if you time it well.
What he's saying is that the damage is done. Adobe pulling out at this point is meaningless. Therefore they should still be held responsible and the protests should continue.
Um. Well, yes, I am saying that the damage is done. And I am saying that Adobe pulling out at this point is meaningless on every level, other than as a face-saving compromise.
But, since I never agreed with the protests in the first place, I'm not saying the protests should continue. But, I'm not saying they shouldn't continue, either. That's something the community needs to figure out.
It's a day late and a dollar short. The guys in jail, has no likely date to be released, and would almost certainly have to stay in the US until the trail even if he was released.
So even if Adobe doesn't officially back the charges, they've already given the feds all the data to prosecute him, they'll almost certainly provide witnesses (oh, sure, "we can't ignore a court order") to help put him in prison, and no matter how good his defense is, he's stuck in the US and not at liberty.
The only good thing is that he can now write a book and guarantee a best seller, so he'll have some money eventually. Unless he's convicted, of course, as then the proceeds will be used for more such actions by the feds.
I think we're losing sight of a few things:
1. Open Source is not the totality of open source retailers. If SuSe went out of business today, the code lives on. If Red Hat went out of business today (doubtful, cause they make a profit), the code lives on. That is the point - they live off of us, not the other way around. They are useful to us, but not essential.
2. The recent failures of many Open Source connected businesses is more related to the tech bubble than anything else. A lot of firms die - that's how business and market capitalism work. The best ones don't always survive. Many firms that had unrealistic business plans were created in the Open Source arena, some of which were even created just to take advantage of the tech bubble. This is why I bought Red Hat, sold it, bought it again, sold it, and bought it again. It was a speculative bubble, and I'd be crazy to buy a stock valued on 400 times projected earnings. A reasonable valuation is a P/E of 10 to 20, a tech firm with rapid growth might be worth 20 to 30. Many firms had realistic projections of a P/E in two to threee years of 100 to 2000. This is insanity. And that's why the bubble burst. Note - I still own 400 shares of Red Hat directly, and 1000 indirectly, worth about what I paid for them, which is fine.
3. Europe is not the US. SuSe is a European market company, just like Red Hat is a US market company. Sure, they both sell worldwide, but that's where their market shares are. Their market is very different from ours. If they fail, other distros can take up the slack.
4. The world does not owe coders a living. Or even stock options. Especially not open source coders. If you're in this for the money, you've got it all wrong. Get a life.
5. Kyoto wins! Oops, sorry, just glad about sticking it to Georgie boy.
As someone who has bought a number of Adobe products in the past, including this year, and lives three blocks from their facility in Fremont, Center of the Universe (in Seattle, WA), I'm glad that action is being withheld, but I'm not sure if we should say it's over until we see some positive action.
Don't get me wrong, many of my friends own Adobe stock and/or work there, but let's see how the meeting goes.
Until then I may hold off on recommending Adobe as a solution.
If you have an EU passport, this would be easy to get in on. Hence the English (for all the Brits and Irish) does make sense.
Amusing IPO restrictions about Americans. Do you think it's possibly due to Red Hat's IPO being restricted to US citizens?