Okay, this is an AFJ, but the idea is at least moderately interesting.. Subliminal advertising was tried long ago in movie theaters (promoting the refreshments, of course). More recently, we've seen the anti-drug poster and situation placements in popular TV shows. While it is regarded by many people as a Bad Thing, it all happens on a fairly regular basis.
I don't think I mind the more obvious placement of items (i.e., things you can actually see for more than a single frame), but subliminal advertisement is a messy idea and should be stomped out at all costs. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
I completely understand this, as I was basically in the same situation. These cards do cost quite a large amount. I wasn't too happy about shelling out cash for this, but 1) it was something I felt I had to do, 2) I had owned my TNT2 for just barely long enough for me to justify the replacement, and 3) I actually had/have enough money (for the time being) to do this. I still really need to get a job, though;-) -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
You make a very important point, and I thank you for that. However, perhaps it would be even better if NVidia had released some more specs to their cards, and did some work on their own drivers. Who knows, maybe NVidia would produce the better interface (I know that there have been questions about the quality of DRI). -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
The answer to his question would pretty much be `everywhere.' I wrote a note to NVidia just before I ordered my G400 (which just replaced my TNT2 yesterday). I wrote a note to my local LUG at the same time, and at least one person there did the same. This article is probably generating a fair number of messages. It's snowballing pretty much in every direction. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
Well, of course, I did send a slightly nasty letter to NVidia explaining my disappointment and the fact that I was planning on buying a G400. I think that both types of action can provide results on their own, but the maximum effect is only realized when both are used together. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
The simple solution to this is to vote with your dollars. Just yesterday, I ripped out my TNT2 and put in a Matrox G400 Max. I am extremely disappointed with the way NVidia has behaved. Their code release was merely playing lip service to the Linux community. I, along with many, many others, went out and bought NVidia cards because of their perceived superiority and support at the time. I was very disappointed to be shot down like that, especially when the card cost as much as it did.
Anyway, now I am becoming very interested in the reasons why Matrox has apparently not released all the specs for their cards, either. Fortunately, the 3D portions seem to all be there, but portions relating to DVD playback do not appear to be open (big surprise). Also, my card has the ability to do TV-out, but there are apparently some problems with releasing information about that. Somethig to do with that annoying MacroVision copy protection, I guess, but I don't know why I should be forced to copy protect my desktop....
Anyway, Matrox is still doing a great many Good Things for the Linux/Free Software community, and I am very grateful. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
There are problems with the way we are organized as a community. This is an inherent problem with a group that is so widely distributed, but sites like Slashdot help to alleviate that problem. Of course, there are plenty of people who used to read Slashdot, before all the First Posters and other weenies showed up, so I fear there is still a great lack of communication (heck, even Linus Torvalds doesn't read Slashdot;-)
I am firmly convinced that we have a voice, but the voice is not focused in any particular direction. Only on a few issues (such as Section 1201 of the DMCA or the DVD/DeCSS cases), have we been able to focus in any significant manner. Even in situations like the above, we do not have the experience as a political group to get any attention.
In early February, I stood out on a streetcorner in front of a movie theater, protesting the actions the MPAA and DVD CCA were taking against DeCSS distributors. It was a cold Minnesota evening, and I wasn't sure at all what I was doing.
When I first arrived, I was looking for some of the people I was expecting to meet. I fairly quickly found one person who was holding a sign with one hand, and with his other was trying to hand out flyers from a pile that was in great danger of blowing away in the wind. Mere seconds after I arrived, a very angry-looking manager told us to move off of the property of the theater and the mall in which it was located. We walked across the street, only to find that the mall owned that property as well. We finally ended up in a spot on the corner of a very busy intersection -- one so busy as to make distribution of our leaflets nearly impossible. We were also by this point quite a distance away from the theater, so no one really knew what we were protesting.
I learned many things that night and from reading post-protest coverage on 2600 sites and the like. If I had known these things earlier, I and the people with me would have been able to bring our point to a much greater number of people. I understand there are ways to get permits to be on `private' property (I use the quotes since it was a mall, a place of business usually open to anyone). Also, if our group had been slightly more forward-thinking and found a location before the protest, we probably would have made a much larger influence. Lastly, there were some very tight time constraints put on us. It is very difficult to organize something like what 2600 hoped to accomplish in just a week -- especially when the night of action in question was a Friday
Because of all of this, I propose creating a site (or two or three, if they become necessary) where geeks can learn about the political events that have the most influence on us. Also, the site could carry information about the best ways to get your message across to the public and the people in power. Basically, host HOWTOs for protesting, contacting representatives, and other things.
Of course, I might just be off my rocker...
(what would be a good name for such a site? geekpolitics.org? any other ideas?) -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
Personally, I find the output of pdflatex and dvipdfm to be far superior to the output of ps2pdf. Anyone who has ever seen the output of ps2pdf knows that PS->PDF conversion is less than optimal. The resulting document (if I understand correctly) is basically just a set of images embedded in a simple PDF document. Unfortunately, these images can appear very blobby when read with a GUI reader. They tend to print just fine (though perhaps at a lower resolution than what would normally be possible).
Just my $0.02, I guess.. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
The last time I replaced my video card was this past summer. I got an NVidia TNT2, because I expected NVidia to release some decent drivers (they had already released their 'open source' drivers).
Little did I know that NVidia was merely playing lip service to the open source movement. The code was highly obfuscated, so nobody could really understand what it was doing. Nobody knows how to make NVidia cards work with DMA transfer (something that would really speed up the card, especially in 3D).
In my opinion, the best available card is the Matrox G400 Max, which allows for Dual-head capability. It can be upgraded to handle TV input by adding in an extra Ranbow Runner PCI card. The Rainbow Runner is compatible with the entire Gx00 line. TV output comes standard with the G400 Max (output from one of the heads).
(Please note that there are a few different kinds of G400. The Millennium G400 comes with either 16 or 32 MB of RAM and with either single- or dual-head. The G400 Max comes with 32MB and dual head, plus I think it has a slightly higher clockspeed (not sure). There is also the G400-TV that has TV input built in.)
I have gotten very annoyed with my TNT2 because of the lack of support NVidia has given to the DRI project. The other major 3D card manufacturers (3dfx, Matrox, and ATI) have pledged their support, so I don't understand why NVidia wants to be so different. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
I finally read the article, and if anyone would be to blame for a conspiracy, I'd say it's the security/anti-virus companies like Network Associates. I shouldn't say that they actually did do this, but I would say there is a possibility.
The anti-virus companies in particular have a vested interest in keeping Windows the dominant platform -- viruses are far less common on Linux and other Unix-like OSes.
Of course, I still say that the distributors of Linux should really work harder to make the administration of various services easier to do and understand. CAEN Linux is one good option, plus I see that Bastile Linux (a script for hardening a default RedHat 6.0/6.1 install) is being actively maintained. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
I haven't read the article yet (server appears/.'ed), but I know that the security on a default Linux install is very low. We have been bugging distributors for quite a while now to bring down the number of services turned on in a normal installation. Hopefully this will change someone's mind.
Of course, in the Windows world, I know that people send each other.exe files left and right, whether by e-mail, ICQ, or anything else. A perfect way to send viruses or remote-access software. I'm really glad I don't have to worry about that side of things. -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
Whenever I see a 'CNN story' on Slashdot, I always look carefully at the URL. More often than not, there is a little '.idg' in there somewhere, meaning that the story actually came from an IDG magazine (Some notables: LinuxWorld, PC World, Mac World, Federal Computer Week)
This is one thing that kind of bothers me about the story selection on Slashdot.. Oh well, can't have everything;-) -- Ski-U-Mah! Stop the MPAA
Unfortunately, I think the x86 compatibility would end up being used as a crutch, like the Windows 3.x compatibility in OS/2. Software developers thought, "Well, if OS/2 runs Windows applications, there's no reason for me to port my app to OS/2."
Also, much the same thing has happened in the Windows world. Many apps have 16-bit code under the hood, making Microsoft's transition from Windows 9x (16/32-bit OS) to the coming NT derivatives (fully 32-bit). This is also one reason why the WINE project can't run certain programs. --
The primary reason is that they don't want to have to make these chips backwards compatible. Intel has a lot of problems with this - even the newest Pentium III's must support programs written for 386s
Heck, a Pentium III can run 8080/8086 code (maybe even 8008 code or 4004 code!)
Since the morphing code is running in Flash ROM, it can be upgraded, but if someone tried to load a morpher that doesn't work they're gonna have trouble reverting back to x86.
Heh, the thing I think is cool is that you could start off buying a chip this year, and if a new technology (Like SIMD or 3DNow!) comes out, you can just go to Transmeta's web site or whatever, download the new instructions, and go run a program that uses the new instructions! (Well, presuming that Transmeta will support older chips and whatnot -- that could be a problem with having different instruction sets for each chip. How long do you support an instruction set?) --
I understand there was a proof-of-concept demo at the Crusoe unveiling that would switch from x86 to Java bytecodes. I'm not sure if swapping between x86 and Java required a reboot or anything like that -- I wish I could have been at the unveiling so I could have seen that in person (but then I'm probably a terrible reporter;-) --
Rumor has it that they actually ported Linux to run on bare hardware, and it didn't really help enough to make it worth the trouble. Besides, a new version of Linux would likely have to be made for each different Transmeta chip (as the TM3120 and TM5400 have different instruction sets)
One thing that we may find, however, is that a certain architecture is emulated better than x86 (i.e. the PowerPC, ARM, or Alpha architecture may be easier to translate into native VLIW) Therefore it may be a better idea to run Linx over PPC/ARM/Alpha code-morphing software on a Transmeta chip (or maybe just specific type of Transmeta chip works better, etc., etc.)
Boy, this gets confusing after a while.
On a somewhat different topic: I kind of wonder if IBM is actually getting some technology from Transmeta. They moved the AS/400 from 32-bit to 64-bit (CPUs) a few years back and had to make sure the new systems were able to execute old code (actually, I understand that AS/400 machine code is abstracted from the object code of programs, though probably not in quite the same way as how Transmeta did things - if that makes any sense at all..) --
Sounds like a grand idea! However, I don't care as much about the money as having the DVD association release software/hardware that will work with Linux or any other OS. Perhaps release the specs and the algorithms for playing the video or something..
What would they be charged for, though? Barring a Market or something along those lines? Heh, or even Discrimination of some sort. --
I believe it is the responsibility of those of us in the Free Software community to educate the members of the media who are reporting on this subject. We need to show them the truth about what DVD encryption means.
Here's what I understand from reading other comments:
1. DVDs are not necessarily protected from copying because of CSS. Hardware that can do bit-by-bit copying of a DVD doesn't need to decrypt anything.
2. The aforementioned hardware either exists in very low quantities or doesn't exist. Media would also be expensive (usually more costly than buying your own copy of the movie).
3. The primary motivation behind DeCSS (as I understand it) was to allow users of operating systems that are unsupported by DVD manufacturers to play movies. As a side-effect, this may make copying of DVDs somewhat easier (although such a DVD may not play in a regular player?)
4. The puzzling comment from Jim Cardwell could have untold legal effects (IMHO): "We expected the source code to be broken. We were surprised it wasn't broken earlier."
I'm sure that there are a lot of other interesting facts that may show up, and we should give those facts to the news media. --
Well, while I wish this wasn't the case, I think it proves more that RealPlayer is a pretty crummy program. The Linux version is almost completely brain dead and takes up 100% cpu time even on a 8 kbit stream. I haven't dealt with the Windows version, as I don't run Windows.
I'm not sure how MS Media Player (formerly known as Netshow, formerly known as some non-Microsoft product) works in comparison, as I don't run Windows, but people will always go for the solution that works. Yes, it's possible there are other reasons, such as huge discounts for the people serving content or something, but in this case, I think it's more likely the MS player just works better.
To me, this whole situation just proves that the Open Source Community has to create new software around new video compression algorithms, or look at any algorithms already available. I have even thought about researching this field while I'm in college -- unfortunately, Mathematics (and thus the basis for many types of compression) is not my strong suit. I sincerely hope that anyone who has the skills and knowledge available (and who hasn't been unduly tempted by the promise of monetary gains) will put their talents to use in the development of new free software which everyone can use on every platform. --
$ xanim +f 1_opening.mov XAnim Rev 2.80.0 by Mark Podlipec Copyright (C) 1991-1999. All Rights Reserved Audio Codec: QDesign Music Codec (QDMC) not yet supported. Video Codec: Sorenson Video not yet supported.(E18) Notice: Video and Audio are present, but not yet supported. Usage: XAnim [options] anim [ [options] anim... ] -h lists some common options, but may be out of date. See xanim.readme or the man page for detailed help.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, this is an AFJ, but the idea is at least moderately interesting.. Subliminal advertising was tried long ago in movie theaters (promoting the refreshments, of course). More recently, we've seen the anti-drug poster and situation placements in popular TV shows. While it is regarded by many people as a Bad Thing, it all happens on a fairly regular basis.
I don't think I mind the more obvious placement of items (i.e., things you can actually see for more than a single frame), but subliminal advertisement is a messy idea and should be stomped out at all costs.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
I completely understand this, as I was basically in the same situation. These cards do cost quite a large amount. I wasn't too happy about shelling out cash for this, but 1) it was something I felt I had to do, 2) I had owned my TNT2 for just barely long enough for me to justify the replacement, and 3) I actually had/have enough money (for the time being) to do this. I still really need to get a job, though ;-)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
You make a very important point, and I thank you for that. However, perhaps it would be even better if NVidia had released some more specs to their cards, and did some work on their own drivers. Who knows, maybe NVidia would produce the better interface (I know that there have been questions about the quality of DRI).
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
The answer to his question would pretty much be `everywhere.' I wrote a note to NVidia just before I ordered my G400 (which just replaced my TNT2 yesterday). I wrote a note to my local LUG at the same time, and at least one person there did the same. This article is probably generating a fair number of messages. It's snowballing pretty much in every direction.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Well, of course, I did send a slightly nasty letter to NVidia explaining my disappointment and the fact that I was planning on buying a G400. I think that both types of action can provide results on their own, but the maximum effect is only realized when both are used together.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
The simple solution to this is to vote with your dollars. Just yesterday, I ripped out my TNT2 and put in a Matrox G400 Max. I am extremely disappointed with the way NVidia has behaved. Their code release was merely playing lip service to the Linux community. I, along with many, many others, went out and bought NVidia cards because of their perceived superiority and support at the time. I was very disappointed to be shot down like that, especially when the card cost as much as it did.
Anyway, now I am becoming very interested in the reasons why Matrox has apparently not released all the specs for their cards, either. Fortunately, the 3D portions seem to all be there, but portions relating to DVD playback do not appear to be open (big surprise). Also, my card has the ability to do TV-out, but there are apparently some problems with releasing information about that. Somethig to do with that annoying MacroVision copy protection, I guess, but I don't know why I should be forced to copy protect my desktop....
Anyway, Matrox is still doing a great many Good Things for the Linux/Free Software community, and I am very grateful.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
There are problems with the way we are organized as a community. This is an inherent problem with a group that is so widely distributed, but sites like Slashdot help to alleviate that problem. Of course, there are plenty of people who used to read Slashdot, before all the First Posters and other weenies showed up, so I fear there is still a great lack of communication (heck, even Linus Torvalds doesn't read Slashdot ;-)
I am firmly convinced that we have a voice, but the voice is not focused in any particular direction. Only on a few issues (such as Section 1201 of the DMCA or the DVD/DeCSS cases), have we been able to focus in any significant manner. Even in situations like the above, we do not have the experience as a political group to get any attention.
In early February, I stood out on a streetcorner in front of a movie theater, protesting the actions the MPAA and DVD CCA were taking against DeCSS distributors. It was a cold Minnesota evening, and I wasn't sure at all what I was doing.
When I first arrived, I was looking for some of the people I was expecting to meet. I fairly quickly found one person who was holding a sign with one hand, and with his other was trying to hand out flyers from a pile that was in great danger of blowing away in the wind. Mere seconds after I arrived, a very angry-looking manager told us to move off of the property of the theater and the mall in which it was located. We walked across the street, only to find that the mall owned that property as well. We finally ended up in a spot on the corner of a very busy intersection -- one so busy as to make distribution of our leaflets nearly impossible. We were also by this point quite a distance away from the theater, so no one really knew what we were protesting.
I learned many things that night and from reading post-protest coverage on 2600 sites and the like. If I had known these things earlier, I and the people with me would have been able to bring our point to a much greater number of people. I understand there are ways to get permits to be on `private' property (I use the quotes since it was a mall, a place of business usually open to anyone). Also, if our group had been slightly more forward-thinking and found a location before the protest, we probably would have made a much larger influence. Lastly, there were some very tight time constraints put on us. It is very difficult to organize something like what 2600 hoped to accomplish in just a week -- especially when the night of action in question was a Friday
Because of all of this, I propose creating a site (or two or three, if they become necessary) where geeks can learn about the political events that have the most influence on us. Also, the site could carry information about the best ways to get your message across to the public and the people in power. Basically, host HOWTOs for protesting, contacting representatives, and other things.
Of course, I might just be off my rocker...
(what would be a good name for such a site? geekpolitics.org? any other ideas?)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Personally, I find the output of pdflatex and dvipdfm to be far superior to the output of ps2pdf. Anyone who has ever seen the output of ps2pdf knows that PS->PDF conversion is less than optimal. The resulting document (if I understand correctly) is basically just a set of images embedded in a simple PDF document. Unfortunately, these images can appear very blobby when read with a GUI reader. They tend to print just fine (though perhaps at a lower resolution than what would normally be possible).
Just my $0.02, I guess..
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
I second that!
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
The last time I replaced my video card was this past summer. I got an NVidia TNT2, because I expected NVidia to release some decent drivers (they had already released their 'open source' drivers).
Little did I know that NVidia was merely playing lip service to the open source movement. The code was highly obfuscated, so nobody could really understand what it was doing. Nobody knows how to make NVidia cards work with DMA transfer (something that would really speed up the card, especially in 3D).
In my opinion, the best available card is the Matrox G400 Max, which allows for Dual-head capability. It can be upgraded to handle TV input by adding in an extra Ranbow Runner PCI card. The Rainbow Runner is compatible with the entire Gx00 line. TV output comes standard with the G400 Max (output from one of the heads).
(Please note that there are a few different kinds of G400. The Millennium G400 comes with either 16 or 32 MB of RAM and with either single- or dual-head. The G400 Max comes with 32MB and dual head, plus I think it has a slightly higher clockspeed (not sure). There is also the G400-TV that has TV input built in.)
I have gotten very annoyed with my TNT2 because of the lack of support NVidia has given to the DRI project. The other major 3D card manufacturers (3dfx, Matrox, and ATI) have pledged their support, so I don't understand why NVidia wants to be so different.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Yeah, yet another thing that /.'s authors should try to remember...
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Eeek, I want my old gtk colors back! This is too dark! Does anyone have a gtkrc file I could use to fix this?
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Haha ;-)
So MacOS Rumors is basically playing the Telephone Game with itself?
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
I finally read the article, and if anyone would be to blame for a conspiracy, I'd say it's the security/anti-virus companies like Network Associates. I shouldn't say that they actually did do this, but I would say there is a possibility.
The anti-virus companies in particular have a vested interest in keeping Windows the dominant platform -- viruses are far less common on Linux and other Unix-like OSes.
Of course, I still say that the distributors of Linux should really work harder to make the administration of various services easier to do and understand. CAEN Linux is one good option, plus I see that Bastile Linux (a script for hardening a default RedHat 6.0/6.1 install) is being actively maintained.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
I haven't read the article yet (server appears /.'ed), but I know that the security on a default Linux install is very low. We have been bugging distributors for quite a while now to bring down the number of services turned on in a normal installation. Hopefully this will change someone's mind.
.exe files left and right, whether by e-mail, ICQ, or anything else. A perfect way to send viruses or remote-access software. I'm really glad I don't have to worry about that side of things.
Of course, in the Windows world, I know that people send each other
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Right. Linus said that he would release the pre-releases when he got back.
You may remember that before 2.2.0 came out, there were 'pre-2.2.0' kernels. The same thing will happen with 2.4
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Whenever I see a 'CNN story' on Slashdot, I always look carefully at the URL. More often than not, there is a little '.idg' in there somewhere, meaning that the story actually came from an IDG magazine (Some notables: LinuxWorld, PC World, Mac World, Federal Computer Week)
;-)
This is one thing that kind of bothers me about the story selection on Slashdot.. Oh well, can't have everything
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Unfortunately, I think the x86 compatibility would end up being used as a crutch, like the Windows 3.x compatibility in OS/2. Software developers thought, "Well, if OS/2 runs Windows applications, there's no reason for me to port my app to OS/2."
Also, much the same thing has happened in the Windows world. Many apps have 16-bit code under the hood, making Microsoft's transition from Windows 9x (16/32-bit OS) to the coming NT derivatives (fully 32-bit). This is also one reason why the WINE project can't run certain programs.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
The primary reason is that they don't want to have to make these chips backwards compatible. Intel has a lot of problems with this - even the newest Pentium III's must support programs written for 386s
Heck, a Pentium III can run 8080/8086 code (maybe even 8008 code or 4004 code!)
Since the morphing code is running in Flash ROM, it can be upgraded, but if someone tried to load a morpher that doesn't work they're gonna have trouble reverting back to x86.
Heh, the thing I think is cool is that you could start off buying a chip this year, and if a new technology (Like SIMD or 3DNow!) comes out, you can just go to Transmeta's web site or whatever, download the new instructions, and go run a program that uses the new instructions! (Well, presuming that Transmeta will support older chips and whatnot -- that could be a problem with having different instruction sets for each chip. How long do you support an instruction set?)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
I understand there was a proof-of-concept demo at the Crusoe unveiling that would switch from x86 to Java bytecodes. I'm not sure if swapping between x86 and Java required a reboot or anything like that -- I wish I could have been at the unveiling so I could have seen that in person (but then I'm probably a terrible reporter ;-)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Rumor has it that they actually ported Linux to run on bare hardware, and it didn't really help enough to make it worth the trouble. Besides, a new version of Linux would likely have to be made for each different Transmeta chip (as the TM3120 and TM5400 have different instruction sets)
One thing that we may find, however, is that a certain architecture is emulated better than x86 (i.e. the PowerPC, ARM, or Alpha architecture may be easier to translate into native VLIW) Therefore it may be a better idea to run Linx over PPC/ARM/Alpha code-morphing software on a Transmeta chip (or maybe just specific type of Transmeta chip works better, etc., etc.)
Boy, this gets confusing after a while.
On a somewhat different topic:
I kind of wonder if IBM is actually getting some technology from Transmeta. They moved the AS/400 from 32-bit to 64-bit (CPUs) a few years back and had to make sure the new systems were able to execute old code (actually, I understand that AS/400 machine code is abstracted from the object code of programs, though probably not in quite the same way as how Transmeta did things - if that makes any sense at all..)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Sounds like a grand idea! However, I don't care as much about the money as having the DVD association release software/hardware that will work with Linux or any other OS. Perhaps release the specs and the algorithms for playing the video or something..
What would they be charged for, though? Barring a Market or something along those lines? Heh, or even Discrimination of some sort.
--
I believe it is the responsibility of those of us in the Free Software community to educate the members of the media who are reporting on this subject. We need to show them the truth about what DVD encryption means.
Here's what I understand from reading other comments:
1. DVDs are not necessarily protected from copying because of CSS. Hardware that can do bit-by-bit copying of a DVD doesn't need to decrypt anything.
2. The aforementioned hardware either exists in very low quantities or doesn't exist. Media would also be expensive (usually more costly than buying your own copy of the movie).
3. The primary motivation behind DeCSS (as I understand it) was to allow users of operating systems that are unsupported by DVD manufacturers to play movies. As a side-effect, this may make copying of DVDs somewhat easier (although such a DVD may not play in a regular player?)
4. The puzzling comment from Jim Cardwell could have untold legal effects (IMHO): "We expected the source code to be broken. We were surprised it wasn't broken earlier."
I'm sure that there are a lot of other interesting facts that may show up, and we should give those facts to the news media.
--
Well, while I wish this wasn't the case, I think it proves more that RealPlayer is a pretty crummy program. The Linux version is almost completely brain dead and takes up 100% cpu time even on a 8 kbit stream. I haven't dealt with the Windows version, as I don't run Windows.
I'm not sure how MS Media Player (formerly known as Netshow, formerly known as some non-Microsoft product) works in comparison, as I don't run Windows, but people will always go for the solution that works. Yes, it's possible there are other reasons, such as huge discounts for the people serving content or something, but in this case, I think it's more likely the MS player just works better.
To me, this whole situation just proves that the Open Source Community has to create new software around new video compression algorithms, or look at any algorithms already available. I have even thought about researching this field while I'm in college -- unfortunately, Mathematics (and thus the basis for many types of compression) is not my strong suit. I sincerely hope that anyone who has the skills and knowledge available (and who hasn't been unduly tempted by the promise of monetary gains) will put their talents to use in the development of new free software which everyone can use on every platform.
--
Bah! Sorenson!
... ]
$ xanim +f 1_opening.mov
XAnim Rev 2.80.0 by Mark Podlipec Copyright (C) 1991-1999. All Rights Reserved
Audio Codec: QDesign Music Codec (QDMC) not yet supported.
Video Codec: Sorenson Video not yet supported.(E18)
Notice: Video and Audio are present, but not yet supported.
Usage:
XAnim [options] anim [ [options] anim
-h lists some common options, but may be out of date.
See xanim.readme or the man page for detailed help.
--