Actually, a pair of jeans that writes Nietzsche would be a better analogy. Or if the sample I saw was any indication, a pair of jeans that writes Dan Brown perhaps.
Please help. I want to understand this. I think you're absolutely dead on about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of legislation. Utterly unenforceable and a complete waste of time - unless maybe it distracts John Ashcroft away from my beloved porn sites for a while.
But anymore, the SPAM I get is nonsense. Words twisted, misspelled, characters switched, inappropriate spaces etc - such that I don't even know what they're selling. How is this effective advertising - and to underscore your answer with a question - are people really dumb enough to buy from something like that? That's not just irritating, it's scary.
One of the best programming concept books I have ever read is Jeffrey Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions, now available in a Second Edition. I've become somewhat disenchanted with O'Reilly lately; but this book remains in the stable of great ones for me - both for it's learning value and also for it's high readability, something unusual in a computer book.
And here's one that's probably gonna seem off the wall; but Lingo Sorcery by Peter Small, although language specific, really helped to crystallize for me a lot of basic concepts that I have been able to turn around and apply to virtually every other language I've worked in.
I don't know why it would be provocative. Doesn't open source start out that way generally speaking? I don't think even the staunchest OS/FS advocates would deprive one of the right to make a living in the field of their choice.
A bike computer? That sounds roughly equivalent to driver's side television. Oooh, yeah, how about the mile high club for pilots?
And hey, where does the guy live who says "With PDA prices falling"? I wonder if you can pick me one up. Where I am, they haven't even slipped, much less fell.
I heard that. Great reference and entirely appropriate. Even more so would be "The Siege". Denzel, as relatively few others, can really make you forget he's Denzel and in the context of the film leave you well acquainted with the character rather than the actor.
I don't think the makers of "The Siege" or "Enemy of the State" were uniquely prescient exactly; but a couple films that were written off by some as paranoid, almost counter-culture phenomenon are truly high art after the fact.
I don't think any reasonable person would debate the utility of such a thing. Exactly what this means and how it accomplishes it are subjects for much debate (I would think at least a prompt of some kind is warranted); but that's not the issue being raised. The issue being raised is that, assuming the wording is accurately represented here (I have not seen, and never plan to see, the XP EULA), by accepting the agreement you agree that you must allow this behaviour in order to use the software.
As to what the typical non-tech user wants, I won't pretend to know their minds enough to speak to that; but I would imagine that if they were properly apprised of the privacy issues such a service potentially creates, they would at least seek some specifics. And even if we assume good intent on the privacy front, the question begs to be asked: "When is a fix not a fix?" NT Service packs 1 through 4 come to mind.
a) The person making and using the unauthorized copying would have bought the software otherwise. This usually isn't the case. People who have both the willingness and ability to pay will generally pay up
I see this assertion a lot; and I question it. OK, so the little kid at home pasting Jennifer Anniston's head on some porno slut's body probably isn't a purchasing candidate; and maybe these are the majority of pirates.
However, I've seen enough cases where companies that can perfectly well afford to pay for the stuff (and derive income from its use) use it in the pirate form because they can. I can spot about 20K a year in lost revenues that fit this description from my handful of clients alone. That's not just theft, that's theft on a pretty large scale. I don't know how many businesses there are in the world; but I'm sure it's exponentially greater than the tiny fraction I serve.
Go ahead and rationalize it if it makes you feel better. The sense of property as something physical that you derive from those definitions is connotative in almost all of the cases. If you choose to use it and not pay for it, when a fee for use is requested, you've stolen it. Copying isn't even the issue. Make a backup copy, that's legitimate and I know of only a few vendors in the software industry who would explicitly deny you that right. But splitting hairs about physical property versus an easily altered arrangement of bytes on your hard drive doesn't get you off the hook.
It's absolutely amazing, the rationale people will come with in an attempt to justify what is theft, plain and simple. It's not theft because you didn't take a product in a way that prevents a future sale? What kind of shit is that? If it costs money, and you use it without paying that price, it's theft. Webster, Oxford and American Heritage will all set you straight on that.
Shareware developers are greedy?
It costs too much?
I don't use it enough?
I can't make money with it?
I don't perceive the same value here as I do in a car?
There's a word for this folks - it's "denial". Any dime store psychologist can see right through this. I've got a nine year old that knows better. These aren't reasons to pirate it, these are reasons not to use it.
No I'm not a shareware developer, I'm not a member of the BSA andI don't find the privacy invading practices of some software developers even remotely acceptible. But shit, given that the alternative is to rely upon the apparently non-existent conscience of the consumer, I can certainly understand their determination to find a way.
Apologies for the rant. I know plenty of folks have made some very sensible points in this thread; but the rest of ya - this sense of entitlement you are walking around with is sad, sad, sad.
I'll tell you what this picture (and every other pic I've ever seen of Stallman) is all about. He's got some brilliant PR people. I mean seriously, you know what Stallman is about before he even opens his mouth. And before you accuse me of judging a book by it's cover, let me say, I agree with about 65% of what RMS says - it's not like I'm bashing him. But such a picture perfect, communal, 70's, woodstock, peace love and understanding look in early 2002 can only be the result of careful crafting, coupled with a hell of a lot of trips to the Goodwill Store.
That's a good catch. And it's not just a few minor technicalities either, it's an assload of problems, some of them very major and at the same time, very fundamental. Just 5 years ago, a page this bad would not have even been renderable. he unqualified forgiveness of today's web browsers has really hurt the standards process.
You know, before I fell in love with computers and the many related disciplines, I spent a lot of years in the restaurant industry, in a variety of managerial and non managerial capacities. The one service lesson that came though again and again was that one bad impression can counter-balance easily a world of good impressions. You had to treat every customer like they were the most important person in the world; and I think that's a good maxim for any business.
That's why it was especially disconcerting to read one girl's comment in the article to the effect that if she got even one good offer, she was unconcerned about pissing off everyone else. If the first maxim is true, that one bad experience offsets a hundred or more good one's then how much exponentially worse must it be to create a hundred bad impressions on the low yield opprotunity of creating a good one. I suspect it might be alright to send someone a resume that is not necessarily solicited. After all, you never know until you try. But this means addressing a personal correspondence to a specific relevant person at your targeted company. I hope nobody gets any ideas from this.
Your point is well taken. Perhaps ill-advisedly, I speak at least partly from emotion on the subject; because the little bastards just piss me off. You're right, I don't understand all the inner workings of my TV; but I'll damn sure spend some time watching it. One doesn't necessitate the other.
But I'll also point out that these kids are part of a cultural phenomenon where they set themselves up as elite hackers/crackers, whatever the term du jour is, evaluating themseleves and each other according to how much havoc they can wreak, not any innate or acquired skill set. Wreaking havoc is easy, any idiot can do it (and as it turns out, mostly idiots do). So, would it make their shit easier to swallow if they had the mad skills they pretended to have? Probably not. But on some level, I could at least have some respect for their skills. Maybe that's a snobby attitude - I can live with the label.
Not only that; but feeling elite because they used some automated tool that they don't even understand; much less could have written on their own.
It's akin to the mailbox bashing you saw when we were kids. It was pretty popular back then to load a mailbox up with bricks. More than a handful of kids were put in the hospital that way. That may be a harsh penalty for a reckless kid; but there were a lot more useable mailboxes in the neighborhood.
You know man, you can really write. This is funny, articulate and interesting, regardless of it's fact/fiction status. This showed up on my Meta-Moderate page as Offtopic and I can't disagree. That means that, at -1, most folks will never read this. What a waste. You have a site with more stuff like this? I'd love to see more.
I'm not against it per se. But it's chances of efficacy are small. As another poster pointed out, has there even a piece of software that didn't have security holes found after release (assuming the relevance of security in a given piece of software)? Since perfection is an unreasonable standard to hold anyone to, what would have to be proven here is failure of due diligence; and that's a tough sell on the innocent until proven guilty premise.
Re:industry standard boilerplate
on
Borland Backs Down
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Boilerplate refers to legal language (actually any language I suppose) that is composed of stock paragraphs, phrases, etc. expressing principles that are likely to be used over and over again.
Attorneys do not generally, in other words, sit down and write a whole new contract or license everytime a new such thing is required. They build on a template consisting of the language you can take for granted and then modify only those portions specific to the subject at hand.
Incidentally, if you buy their excuse that the language was intended for the Enterprise edition and customers only, well, that's not so unreasonable. I'm sure individual piracy pales in comparison to the losses potentially incurred by such things at the enterprise level. Borland has always played fair with the small developer. Sure, like a lot of folks, I think Kylix 1.0 was bad enough that Kylix 2.0 should be a free upgrade; but as a rule, Borland supports the small developer well and if they are backing off the mistake so quickly, someone over there still has their head on straight.
I wonder if this will slow down or speed up all the script kiddies (xcuse me e733t h4x0rz) taking pot shots at (fortunately non-running) rpc services via compromised Korean machines.And will they please please please ship the damn things without telnet.
If we all worked for Slashdot, and/or had a financial interest in Linux, then yes, it would be exactly the same. My sense, however, is that this is a more evenly divided group in terms of OS or environment preferences than it initially appears and that such posts probably do not generate the sort inequity that the ZDNet article describes.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, a pair of jeans that writes Nietzsche would be a better analogy. Or if the sample I saw was any indication, a pair of jeans that writes Dan Brown perhaps.
Yeah, you would think vi would've caught that :)
Please help. I want to understand this. I think you're absolutely dead on about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of legislation. Utterly unenforceable and a complete waste of time - unless maybe it distracts John Ashcroft away from my beloved porn sites for a while.
But anymore, the SPAM I get is nonsense. Words twisted, misspelled, characters switched, inappropriate spaces etc - such that I don't even know what they're selling. How is this effective advertising - and to underscore your answer with a question - are people really dumb enough to buy from something like that? That's not just irritating, it's scary.
How can anyone not be outraged at the insult?
Approximately 7 unique sentiments, and not one of them original. So much for a dignified death.
One of the best programming concept books I have ever read is Jeffrey Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions, now available in a Second Edition. I've become somewhat disenchanted with O'Reilly lately; but this book remains in the stable of great ones for me - both for it's learning value and also for it's high readability, something unusual in a computer book. And here's one that's probably gonna seem off the wall; but Lingo Sorcery by Peter Small, although language specific, really helped to crystallize for me a lot of basic concepts that I have been able to turn around and apply to virtually every other language I've worked in.
I don't know why it would be provocative. Doesn't open source start out that way generally speaking? I don't think even the staunchest OS/FS advocates would deprive one of the right to make a living in the field of their choice.
Take a deep breath man, and relax. It's a joke.
A bike computer? That sounds roughly equivalent to driver's side television. Oooh, yeah, how about the mile high club for pilots?
And hey, where does the guy live who says "With PDA prices falling"? I wonder if you can pick me one up. Where I am, they haven't even slipped, much less fell.
I heard that. Great reference and entirely appropriate. Even more so would be "The Siege". Denzel, as relatively few others, can really make you forget he's Denzel and in the context of the film leave you well acquainted with the character rather than the actor.
I don't think the makers of "The Siege" or "Enemy of the State" were uniquely prescient exactly; but a couple films that were written off by some as paranoid, almost counter-culture phenomenon are truly high art after the fact.
I don't think any reasonable person would debate the utility of such a thing. Exactly what this means and how it accomplishes it are subjects for much debate (I would think at least a prompt of some kind is warranted); but that's not the issue being raised. The issue being raised is that, assuming the wording is accurately represented here (I have not seen, and never plan to see, the XP EULA), by accepting the agreement you agree that you must allow this behaviour in order to use the software.
As to what the typical non-tech user wants, I won't pretend to know their minds enough to speak to that; but I would imagine that if they were properly apprised of the privacy issues such a service potentially creates, they would at least seek some specifics. And even if we assume good intent on the privacy front, the question begs to be asked: "When is a fix not a fix?" NT Service packs 1 through 4 come to mind.
The above post was aimed at this post, not the post by mikera
Fair enough but;
a) The person making and using the unauthorized copying would have bought the software otherwise. This usually isn't the case. People who have both the willingness and ability to pay will generally pay up
I see this assertion a lot; and I question it. OK, so the little kid at home pasting Jennifer Anniston's head on some porno slut's body probably isn't a purchasing candidate; and maybe these are the majority of pirates.
However, I've seen enough cases where companies that can perfectly well afford to pay for the stuff (and derive income from its use) use it in the pirate form because they can. I can spot about 20K a year in lost revenues that fit this description from my handful of clients alone. That's not just theft, that's theft on a pretty large scale. I don't know how many businesses there are in the world; but I'm sure it's exponentially greater than the tiny fraction I serve.
Go ahead and rationalize it if it makes you feel better. The sense of property as something physical that you derive from those definitions is connotative in almost all of the cases. If you choose to use it and not pay for it, when a fee for use is requested, you've stolen it. Copying isn't even the issue. Make a backup copy, that's legitimate and I know of only a few vendors in the software industry who would explicitly deny you that right. But splitting hairs about physical property versus an easily altered arrangement of bytes on your hard drive doesn't get you off the hook.
It's absolutely amazing, the rationale people will come with in an attempt to justify what is theft, plain and simple. It's not theft because you didn't take a product in a way that prevents a future sale? What kind of shit is that? If it costs money, and you use it without paying that price, it's theft. Webster, Oxford and American Heritage will all set you straight on that.
Shareware developers are greedy?
It costs too much?
I don't use it enough?
I can't make money with it?
I don't perceive the same value here as I do in a car?
There's a word for this folks - it's "denial". Any dime store psychologist can see right through this. I've got a nine year old that knows better. These aren't reasons to pirate it, these are reasons not to use it.
No I'm not a shareware developer, I'm not a member of the BSA andI don't find the privacy invading practices of some software developers even remotely acceptible. But shit, given that the alternative is to rely upon the apparently non-existent conscience of the consumer, I can certainly understand their determination to find a way.
Apologies for the rant. I know plenty of folks have made some very sensible points in this thread; but the rest of ya - this sense of entitlement you are walking around with is sad, sad, sad.
I'll tell you what this picture (and every other pic I've ever seen of Stallman) is all about. He's got some brilliant PR people. I mean seriously, you know what Stallman is about before he even opens his mouth. And before you accuse me of judging a book by it's cover, let me say, I agree with about 65% of what RMS says - it's not like I'm bashing him. But such a picture perfect, communal, 70's, woodstock, peace love and understanding look in early 2002 can only be the result of careful crafting, coupled with a hell of a lot of trips to the Goodwill Store.
That's a good catch. And it's not just a few minor technicalities either, it's an assload of problems, some of them very major and at the same time, very fundamental. Just 5 years ago, a page this bad would not have even been renderable. he unqualified forgiveness of today's web browsers has really hurt the standards process.
You know, before I fell in love with computers and the many related disciplines, I spent a lot of years in the restaurant industry, in a variety of managerial and non managerial capacities. The one service lesson that came though again and again was that one bad impression can counter-balance easily a world of good impressions. You had to treat every customer like they were the most important person in the world; and I think that's a good maxim for any business.
That's why it was especially disconcerting to read one girl's comment in the article to the effect that if she got even one good offer, she was unconcerned about pissing off everyone else. If the first maxim is true, that one bad experience offsets a hundred or more good one's then how much exponentially worse must it be to create a hundred bad impressions on the low yield opprotunity of creating a good one. I suspect it might be alright to send someone a resume that is not necessarily solicited. After all, you never know until you try. But this means addressing a personal correspondence to a specific relevant person at your targeted company. I hope nobody gets any ideas from this.
Your point is well taken. Perhaps ill-advisedly, I speak at least partly from emotion on the subject; because the little bastards just piss me off. You're right, I don't understand all the inner workings of my TV; but I'll damn sure spend some time watching it. One doesn't necessitate the other.
But I'll also point out that these kids are part of a cultural phenomenon where they set themselves up as elite hackers/crackers, whatever the term du jour is, evaluating themseleves and each other according to how much havoc they can wreak, not any innate or acquired skill set. Wreaking havoc is easy, any idiot can do it (and as it turns out, mostly idiots do). So, would it make their shit easier to swallow if they had the mad skills they pretended to have? Probably not. But on some level, I could at least have some respect for their skills. Maybe that's a snobby attitude - I can live with the label.
Not only that; but feeling elite because they used some automated tool that they don't even understand; much less could have written on their own.
It's akin to the mailbox bashing you saw when we were kids. It was pretty popular back then to load a mailbox up with bricks. More than a handful of kids were put in the hospital that way. That may be a harsh penalty for a reckless kid; but there were a lot more useable mailboxes in the neighborhood.
You know man, you can really write. This is funny, articulate and interesting, regardless of it's fact/fiction status. This showed up on my Meta-Moderate page as Offtopic and I can't disagree. That means that, at -1, most folks will never read this. What a waste. You have a site with more stuff like this? I'd love to see more.
I'm not against it per se. But it's chances of efficacy are small. As another poster pointed out, has there even a piece of software that didn't have security holes found after release (assuming the relevance of security in a given piece of software)? Since perfection is an unreasonable standard to hold anyone to, what would have to be proven here is failure of due diligence; and that's a tough sell on the innocent until proven guilty premise.
Boilerplate refers to legal language (actually any language I suppose) that is composed of stock paragraphs, phrases, etc. expressing principles that are likely to be used over and over again.
Attorneys do not generally, in other words, sit down and write a whole new contract or license everytime a new such thing is required. They build on a template consisting of the language you can take for granted and then modify only those portions specific to the subject at hand.
Incidentally, if you buy their excuse that the language was intended for the Enterprise edition and customers only, well, that's not so unreasonable. I'm sure individual piracy pales in comparison to the losses potentially incurred by such things at the enterprise level. Borland has always played fair with the small developer. Sure, like a lot of folks, I think Kylix 1.0 was bad enough that Kylix 2.0 should be a free upgrade; but as a rule, Borland supports the small developer well and if they are backing off the mistake so quickly, someone over there still has their head on straight.
I wonder if this will slow down or speed up all the script kiddies (xcuse me e733t h4x0rz) taking pot shots at (fortunately non-running) rpc services via compromised Korean machines.And will they please please please ship the damn things without telnet.
If we all worked for Slashdot, and/or had a financial interest in Linux, then yes, it would be exactly the same. My sense, however, is that this is a more evenly divided group in terms of OS or environment preferences than it initially appears and that such posts probably do not generate the sort inequity that the ZDNet article describes.
As the dolphin is of the family Delphinidae, it's almost inevitable that Borland will come rolling up with a lawsuit soon.