Well, we don't need more laws. There are already product liability laws. They just don't apply here. Just one of the many reasons that MS doesn't want software to be seen as a "product."
I can see where the liability guys are coming from. OSS folks release the source, and GPL folks release a whole bunch of other rights as well. With code in hand and a pile of rights to do with it as you please, as well as probably not having paid a dime for it, the customer is more of a partner- assuming a lot of responsibility. Proprietary people charge money for what is really, despite their protests, a product. I've got a CD, maybe a book or two, some shrink wrap lying on the floor, and I'm at the vendor's mercy. I find out about security holes by getting cracked, even if the vendor has known about the hole for six months.
The bottom line is that by retaining power, proprietary software companies also retain responsibility. If I am not allowed to look through and modify the source, the holes in my system are not my responsibility (except for buying bad software), but that of the vendor who won't allow me access. Power = responsibility. Money = money. People pushing for finding software companies liable aren't the "let's sue everybody" crowd, they are using the standards of the proprietary, corporate world against itself. Or, if you prefer, holding those companies to their own standards.
License agreements are funny. According to one, I can't use my copy of XP on any box except the one it came on (don't worry, I haven't even used it on that one). How legally binding is an "agreement" that I didn't get to see until after the sale was completed? For that matter, how legally binding is an "agreement" with a monopoly? The "magic fingers of the markets" that you are holding out hope for are wearing thumbcuffs, my friend. But if the customers have to pay through the nose and have all real power held back from them, then the only answer is financial liability for the vendor. They might actually bother to produce good software then. If that financial incentive isn't enough, then there are other, more drastic legal measures. MS is illegally maintaining a monopoly, you know.
As long as those decisions are in the purchasing and staffing areas, I'd make the same decisions you would. But as long as you have the staff sitting at the hardware not doing anything constructive...
You can't have them vacuuming or dusting because they need to be at their desks, not to mention that they are professionals. Let them play, if the hardware can do it. If it can't, then let them read or something. Hell, board games wouldn't be out of line. As long as they answer their calls promptly, let them do whatever they need to to stay awake and alert.
Information, ideas and the like are literally free. The constitution grants Congress the authority to grant inventors a monopoly for a limited time, after which said ideas and inventions return to the public domain.
As a way of encouraging inventions for the public good, the constitution allows Congress to take away our rights to them for a while so the inventors can profit from them. Clear in that is that all IP is public domain, and we willingly give up our rights for a "limited time" as a means of encouraging more development.
Napster was not a terrible thing, just as guns don't kill people. The widespread use of Napster was a backlash against the sick joke that IP has become. I own several DVDs. Why can't I watch them in Linux? Because IP law is out of control. Why can't I play new CDs in Linux? Because IP law is out of control. Why can't I rip my new CD so I can use my PC as a jukebox or go jogging with an MP3 player? Because IP law is out of control.
After enough unreasonable intrusions on what I feel like doing with things I bought, I not only lose respect for all IP law, but I vote for (and donate to) anyone who isn't an incumbent (and write to tell them why) and seriously want these companies that interfere with my life to lose money. If you hurt your customers, expect your customers to hurt you. If you abuse your constituents, expect them to abuse you in the voting booth.
Change is on the way. The jails are already overcrowded, so they can't lock up folks with MP3s. Maybe this time the change that comes won't benefit the companies at the people's expense.
Wow... Anonymous and stupid. I thought Australian humo(u)r had expanded to include sarcasm at one point. I seem to have been misinformed. I can deal with French and Spanish if they speak slowly, and I've been working on Portugese lately.
The US didn't invent packet switching, or the web. They built a little thing called DARPANET, however, and let it get bigger. It quickly spread around the country and the world.
My main point is that I don't need the vast majority of the world for my net experience. Australia is a great example. I go to a few Australian sites occasionally. The Southern Cross Cable was not built so that Americans could buy Tux earrings more easily. It was so Australia and its neighbors could connect to the US. If your backbone carrier saw the future of net usage shifting away from the US, the cable would be pointing somewhere else, wouldn't it? The US doesn't see its usage as being Australia-centric, thus the complete indifference over here. I can guarantee you that world net use isn't going to be centered on Africa for a long, long time. Because of that it makes no sense whatsoever for any of the big western Bad Guys to spend a dime on connectivity to Africa- their customers just haven't been asking for it. I resent spending $40/month on top of my regular cable bill just to let my computer use the same wire that my TV has been using for years. I don't need connections to most of the rest of the world, and I'm not going to pay for them.
If recognizing the Way Things Are and looking at simple economics is considered flamebait, then so be it. You keep dreaming of a perfect world, and I'll keep wanting to only pay for my part.
Never, never complain that you are more qualified than your peers. Rejoice! It might not help you get a job (they are pros at tooting their own horns), but damn you're going to smoke them once you're in.
Fair? Yeah. What's in Africa, internet-wise? Oh, yeah- nothing. Maybe a story on the latest massacre, but that's from cnn.com in Atlanta.
It doesn't make any sense for first world ISPs to pay for third world connectivity. There isn't enough demand here for links to backwaters to justify paying for them. Overseas, there's plenty of demand to be connected to us. If I were a shareholder in a US telco, I'd be upset if the board weren't looking out for my interests. Foreign subsidies like this aren't the realm of corporations, but governments. Do Africans want to take a collective $500 million effective drop in their foreign aid just to lower their net access cost? Washigton will happily fund it, but not in addition to whatever the hell else they're handing out.
I checked out one site in Africa- the one the Nigerian government put up about their scam. That was for a moment's entertainment, not something I feel like paying for their bandwidth to see. I, and the vast majority of Americans, simply do not demand any pipe, much less a fat one, to Africa. Africans want a pipe to America. Why should my ISP pay for 50% of the pipe when they only represent 0.08% of the demand?
I'll second that. like all true Americans, I speak only English. Give me the UK, Ireland, & Australia (how about New Zeland? Never been there, I don't know). Everything else except Mandrake can rot.
Our guys invented it. Overseas folks that want in can do it on their own dime. I'm still pissed about the last time we tried to clean something up in Africa. Now you want my cable bill to subsidize more Nigerian spam? I'd rather mail a check directly to the RIAA. At least nobody thinks I'm evil for not wanting to bankroll them.
Wow! That did feel good. Does Google track who clicks, or can I just keep on clicking away to my heart's content and dream of dollard moving in a good direction?
The sadder thing is, this war is purportedly being fought for our freedoms, and the government seems to think the best way to secure our (hard-won) civil liberties is to start by taking them away.
This war is being fought entirely for our freedoms. It's a shame that Al Qaeda was able to spark a war between a population that doesn't much care and a big government run by big government assholes. Yes, it's President Cheney and John Ashcroft vs. us, and our self evident, inalienable rights are the prize.
Call me crazy, but I don't understand this. If these folks are so pro-small government, why are they doing everything they can to increase the government's interference in our lives? Or are they only small government when it comes to the capital gains tax and the highest income tax bracket?
That's why the cell phone folks (and their congresscritters) are so anxious for the military to give up huge chunks of its part of the spectrum- because the Pentagon has all the bandwidth it needs. That's why my PRC-127 is useless any real distance from my unit- they cripple the range of the radios so they can reuse freqs more easily because they already don't have the bandwidth they need, space based or otherwise.
It's pathetic, the things people will do just for a couple more cents per share this quarter.
Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.
It sounds strange to rely on a missile that has a tight turning radius when all you have to do is swivel the launch rails. Surely the problem of how to swivel the launch rails is easier to solve than how to make a missile turn better.
Wah?
If I were ever on afterburner trying to kill someone, I'd hate for anything to fuck up my directional control. Let the missiles turn when they leave the rails. Let them turn really, really fast, so that when they field these helmets, I can aim at something without flying at it head on or wasting time, gas and risking my life trying to stare up its tailpipe.
I was actually using Partition Magic. No, I did not fail miserably; my computer is running just fine. XP, because of its unwillingness to play with others, failed entirely to show me what it can do. "Don't give me bullshit crap saying" that I didn't try XP. I didn't especially want to buy it, but I tried to keep it on. After seeing it for a few days it could have impressed me or not. It didn't want me to see it, however, once it found out that I wanted to run something else, too. Don't tell me that you blame all the HD util folks for being unable to resize Microsoft's latest filesystem.
Even back when I was running OS/2 (until mid '98) my computer wasn't non-Microsoft, and with reason- some of it was damn good stuff. Two weeks ago I had to drop it entirely. That's not a bad thing. I don't owe them even the chance that I gave them. I owe it to myself to find good software, and Microsoft's latest offering hid from me. Office XP could be the best thing since sliced bread- and if that seems to be the general feeling then I'll try it out. Until then I've got the XP disc sitting in my attic, and up there, it works great.
So, you wipe the latest and greatest version of Windows off your system before even trying it
No, I tried XP. I plugged in my new box, put in a partitioning floppy and powered up. I told it that I wanted to resize the 60G partition so that I could add a 20G Linux partition. I'm not being greedy; what's wrong with using 1/3 of my new drive for my own uses? As usual, Microsoft wouldn't play well with others. It told me that every last bit of that 60G partition was vital to it. Linux is vital to me- it is how I prefer to use my computer. Windows 98 never gave me problems with resizing partitions, so that looks like another "innovation." They embraced my HD and extended to cover the whole thing. Microsoft told me that the only way I could use my computer properly was by removing Microsoft's product. It wasn't my idea. I was willing to give it the lion's share of my HD, but it wanted a monopoly.
Where does this "like Mozilla" crap come from? If Netscape had Open sourced Netscape, then Mozilla would have been at exactly the same "useable" state from day one. I'm not talking about crippleware, about an OSS clone of the real app, I mean releasing the damn source. I mean I should be able to install my XP or compile it, whichever I prefer. I've got a license to run Windows. What's wrong with also having the freedom to run a Windows that works? If they're "likely to end up being pushed to just scrap it all and rewrite," then where do they get the balls to charge prople good money for such an apparently brain-damaged product?
I tried XP. It didn't work. If any of their previous "latest and greatest" offerings hadn't sucked, I might give this one another shot. I've got an XP CD you can have cheap. Uh... hello?
You win the all expense paid, two week trip to Philadelphia.
Driver installs, for example, are a lot easier to do because Windows 'stagnates', or as I prefer to call, sticks to its standard.
You recieve second prize in the contest; you referred to Microsoft sticking to a standard with a straight face. Had you personally stuck to a more important standard (proper use of the English language), you would have recieved first prize: One week in Philadelphia. Keep trying and better luck next time.
The OS needs to be open. The OS will work better 2 days later. Third party apps will work better. They'll still have their BSA tracking down 150 seat companies running 152 copies of windows, so they'll still make their money.
I'm not asking for GPL; MS GPLing anything would just give the GPL a bad name. Just release the source with the software. It's not going to increase piracy, but it will increase quality- the second biggest thing that most people hate them for. The license will be the same, Office will still be closed and go for $400+, and Outlook will still suck, but Windows itself will suck less. I wiped XP from my new box without ever booting it. If a decent Windows were available, I'd try it. It'd even kill most of the monopoly hubbub.
Notwithstanding the above, in the event usage of your computer is initiated by a party other than you, BDE will grant you the ability to deny access.
The (not yet established as legally binding on the end user) EULA grants them their rights, but if the wording on the imminent pop-up is at all obsfucatory, then the users will have a case. They have not yet hit the "I agree" that matters, and a window that (months after they failed to read the EULA) pops up in the middle of an AIM chat is going to get clicked on immediately, simply to get it out of the way. The users will have a good case if they want one.
The story said that it was impossible to install without clicking yes, but that the trojan could be removed later without affecting the P2P preformance at all. Pray tell, did the EULA mention that? There's opt-in and there's opt-in. Deceptive practices simply blow. Any agreement that cannot stand up in the light of day is no agreement at all.
I'm not a treehugger. I like 'em turned into charcoal, because that's one hell of a way to cook cows. I'm an Army guy who likes to shoot HE into the woods. And my gun is irrelevant; you're never taking my car away from me.
Man is incredibly capable of affecting his environment. He just sucks at predicting consequences. The question of whether Man or Nature is doing this warming is stupid. Change happens. The current change is warming. This is a Bad Thing- The sea levels are just fine where they're at, and droughts suck. What little groundwater that we haven't polluted yet isn't enough for us to drink, wash our cars and water our lawns forever.
Unless the warming is mainly because Earth's orbit is decaying a bit and we're getting closer to the sun, we can affect it. The niche we've evolved into is changing, folks. I don't want to find myself owning property that suddenly turned into beachfront. We're better off changing our behavior to maintain the status quo than changing our behavior because we don't have the port cities or crop production levels that we got so used to.
Well, they did date it January 4th. No, that's too obvious- a dateline from early December would have been more likely to get noticed and posted in April.
Headspace and timing are critical adjustments to keep the.50cal machine gun working. Lusers' diseases sound like an "Operator Headspace Problem."
The smartest way to slash tech support costs is to stop supporting IE. "I'm sorry, sir. IE is a buggy piece of software unnecessarily embedded in an even more bug-ridden operating system. We do not have the source code to either, and cannot be expected to know of, much less be able to fix all of their problems. Please call the vendor that sold you the software. If they can't support what they sold you, consider returning it and trying a different browser."
This means that you must not talk about security problems in Connector with your hired security consultant. You can't even share information with other Ximian customers.
So you can't freely redistribute it? Wah. Not everything can be the GPL, and not everything should be. Your take on how it restricts you is inaccurate, too. A consultant, while not an employee for tax purposes, is still someone that you hired. Other Ximian customers, having the source code themselves, already have those details that you may not divulge- so discuss away.
Come on folks, GPL is OSS, but OSS is not necessarily GPL. License agreements like this are the biggest strength of OSS. The customers get the source and the companies still make money. There's nothing "extremely obnoxious" about that.
AOL is just as "responcible" for the content that its users make publicly available as the old Napster was. When the company is a little guy, it gets crucified. When the company is AOL-TW, the same logic used to reach an anti-Napster verdict gets thrown out the window. This case highlights the intellectual dishonesty in both the DMCA and its enforcement. It is not about protecting copyright holders, as the enforcers claim. If the reasoning in this case were applied to the Napster case, then Napster would be back to the way it used to be.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see where the liability guys are coming from. OSS folks release the source, and GPL folks release a whole bunch of other rights as well. With code in hand and a pile of rights to do with it as you please, as well as probably not having paid a dime for it, the customer is more of a partner- assuming a lot of responsibility. Proprietary people charge money for what is really, despite their protests, a product. I've got a CD, maybe a book or two, some shrink wrap lying on the floor, and I'm at the vendor's mercy. I find out about security holes by getting cracked, even if the vendor has known about the hole for six months.
The bottom line is that by retaining power, proprietary software companies also retain responsibility. If I am not allowed to look through and modify the source, the holes in my system are not my responsibility (except for buying bad software), but that of the vendor who won't allow me access. Power = responsibility. Money = money. People pushing for finding software companies liable aren't the "let's sue everybody" crowd, they are using the standards of the proprietary, corporate world against itself. Or, if you prefer, holding those companies to their own standards.
License agreements are funny. According to one, I can't use my copy of XP on any box except the one it came on (don't worry, I haven't even used it on that one). How legally binding is an "agreement" that I didn't get to see until after the sale was completed? For that matter, how legally binding is an "agreement" with a monopoly? The "magic fingers of the markets" that you are holding out hope for are wearing thumbcuffs, my friend. But if the customers have to pay through the nose and have all real power held back from them, then the only answer is financial liability for the vendor. They might actually bother to produce good software then. If that financial incentive isn't enough, then there are other, more drastic legal measures. MS is illegally maintaining a monopoly, you know.
You can't have them vacuuming or dusting because they need to be at their desks, not to mention that they are professionals. Let them play, if the hardware can do it. If it can't, then let them read or something. Hell, board games wouldn't be out of line. As long as they answer their calls promptly, let them do whatever they need to to stay awake and alert.
What?
Information, ideas and the like are literally free. The constitution grants Congress the authority to grant inventors a monopoly for a limited time, after which said ideas and inventions return to the public domain.
As a way of encouraging inventions for the public good, the constitution allows Congress to take away our rights to them for a while so the inventors can profit from them. Clear in that is that all IP is public domain, and we willingly give up our rights for a "limited time" as a means of encouraging more development.
Napster was not a terrible thing, just as guns don't kill people. The widespread use of Napster was a backlash against the sick joke that IP has become. I own several DVDs. Why can't I watch them in Linux? Because IP law is out of control. Why can't I play new CDs in Linux? Because IP law is out of control. Why can't I rip my new CD so I can use my PC as a jukebox or go jogging with an MP3 player? Because IP law is out of control.
After enough unreasonable intrusions on what I feel like doing with things I bought, I not only lose respect for all IP law, but I vote for (and donate to) anyone who isn't an incumbent (and write to tell them why) and seriously want these companies that interfere with my life to lose money. If you hurt your customers, expect your customers to hurt you. If you abuse your constituents, expect them to abuse you in the voting booth.
Change is on the way. The jails are already overcrowded, so they can't lock up folks with MP3s. Maybe this time the change that comes won't benefit the companies at the people's expense.
The US didn't invent packet switching, or the web. They built a little thing called DARPANET, however, and let it get bigger. It quickly spread around the country and the world.
My main point is that I don't need the vast majority of the world for my net experience. Australia is a great example. I go to a few Australian sites occasionally. The Southern Cross Cable was not built so that Americans could buy Tux earrings more easily. It was so Australia and its neighbors could connect to the US. If your backbone carrier saw the future of net usage shifting away from the US, the cable would be pointing somewhere else, wouldn't it? The US doesn't see its usage as being Australia-centric, thus the complete indifference over here. I can guarantee you that world net use isn't going to be centered on Africa for a long, long time. Because of that it makes no sense whatsoever for any of the big western Bad Guys to spend a dime on connectivity to Africa- their customers just haven't been asking for it. I resent spending $40/month on top of my regular cable bill just to let my computer use the same wire that my TV has been using for years. I don't need connections to most of the rest of the world, and I'm not going to pay for them.
If recognizing the Way Things Are and looking at simple economics is considered flamebait, then so be it. You keep dreaming of a perfect world, and I'll keep wanting to only pay for my part.
It doesn't make any sense for first world ISPs to pay for third world connectivity. There isn't enough demand here for links to backwaters to justify paying for them. Overseas, there's plenty of demand to be connected to us. If I were a shareholder in a US telco, I'd be upset if the board weren't looking out for my interests. Foreign subsidies like this aren't the realm of corporations, but governments. Do Africans want to take a collective $500 million effective drop in their foreign aid just to lower their net access cost? Washigton will happily fund it, but not in addition to whatever the hell else they're handing out.
I checked out one site in Africa- the one the Nigerian government put up about their scam. That was for a moment's entertainment, not something I feel like paying for their bandwidth to see. I, and the vast majority of Americans, simply do not demand any pipe, much less a fat one, to Africa. Africans want a pipe to America. Why should my ISP pay for 50% of the pipe when they only represent 0.08% of the demand?
Our guys invented it. Overseas folks that want in can do it on their own dime. I'm still pissed about the last time we tried to clean something up in Africa. Now you want my cable bill to subsidize more Nigerian spam? I'd rather mail a check directly to the RIAA. At least nobody thinks I'm evil for not wanting to bankroll them.
This war is being fought entirely for our freedoms. It's a shame that Al Qaeda was able to spark a war between a population that doesn't much care and a big government run by big government assholes. Yes, it's President Cheney and John Ashcroft vs. us, and our self evident, inalienable rights are the prize.
Call me crazy, but I don't understand this. If these folks are so pro-small government, why are they doing everything they can to increase the government's interference in our lives? Or are they only small government when it comes to the capital gains tax and the highest income tax bracket?
It's pathetic, the things people will do just for a couple more cents per share this quarter.
Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.
Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/14/00
Wah?
If I were ever on afterburner trying to kill someone, I'd hate for anything to fuck up my directional control. Let the missiles turn when they leave the rails. Let them turn really, really fast, so that when they field these helmets, I can aim at something without flying at it head on or wasting time, gas and risking my life trying to stare up its tailpipe.
It would sound dangerous, except "shoot" isn't what these folks say when they're upset. And no military guy would say "shoot" when he means "fire."
Now if his wingman's plane is damaged and he looks over and says "your engine is on fire," then there could be a problem.
Even back when I was running OS/2 (until mid '98) my computer wasn't non-Microsoft, and with reason- some of it was damn good stuff. Two weeks ago I had to drop it entirely. That's not a bad thing. I don't owe them even the chance that I gave them. I owe it to myself to find good software, and Microsoft's latest offering hid from me. Office XP could be the best thing since sliced bread- and if that seems to be the general feeling then I'll try it out. Until then I've got the XP disc sitting in my attic, and up there, it works great.
No, I tried XP. I plugged in my new box, put in a partitioning floppy and powered up. I told it that I wanted to resize the 60G partition so that I could add a 20G Linux partition. I'm not being greedy; what's wrong with using 1/3 of my new drive for my own uses? As usual, Microsoft wouldn't play well with others. It told me that every last bit of that 60G partition was vital to it. Linux is vital to me- it is how I prefer to use my computer. Windows 98 never gave me problems with resizing partitions, so that looks like another "innovation." They embraced my HD and extended to cover the whole thing. Microsoft told me that the only way I could use my computer properly was by removing Microsoft's product. It wasn't my idea. I was willing to give it the lion's share of my HD, but it wanted a monopoly.
Where does this "like Mozilla" crap come from? If Netscape had Open sourced Netscape, then Mozilla would have been at exactly the same "useable" state from day one. I'm not talking about crippleware, about an OSS clone of the real app, I mean releasing the damn source. I mean I should be able to install my XP or compile it, whichever I prefer. I've got a license to run Windows. What's wrong with also having the freedom to run a Windows that works? If they're "likely to end up being pushed to just scrap it all and rewrite," then where do they get the balls to charge prople good money for such an apparently brain-damaged product?
I tried XP. It didn't work. If any of their previous "latest and greatest" offerings hadn't sucked, I might give this one another shot. I've got an XP CD you can have cheap. Uh ... hello?
Driver installs, for example, are a lot easier to do because Windows 'stagnates', or as I prefer to call, sticks to its standard.
You recieve second prize in the contest; you referred to Microsoft sticking to a standard with a straight face. Had you personally stuck to a more important standard (proper use of the English language), you would have recieved first prize: One week in Philadelphia. Keep trying and better luck next time.
I'm not asking for GPL; MS GPLing anything would just give the GPL a bad name. Just release the source with the software. It's not going to increase piracy, but it will increase quality- the second biggest thing that most people hate them for. The license will be the same, Office will still be closed and go for $400+, and Outlook will still suck, but Windows itself will suck less. I wiped XP from my new box without ever booting it. If a decent Windows were available, I'd try it. It'd even kill most of the monopoly hubbub.
Excerpt (from your excerpt of the EULA)
Notwithstanding the above, in the event usage of your computer is initiated by a party other than you, BDE will grant you the ability to deny access.
The (not yet established as legally binding on the end user) EULA grants them their rights, but if the wording on the imminent pop-up is at all obsfucatory, then the users will have a case. They have not yet hit the "I agree" that matters, and a window that (months after they failed to read the EULA) pops up in the middle of an AIM chat is going to get clicked on immediately, simply to get it out of the way. The users will have a good case if they want one.
The story said that it was impossible to install without clicking yes, but that the trojan could be removed later without affecting the P2P preformance at all. Pray tell, did the EULA mention that? There's opt-in and there's opt-in. Deceptive practices simply blow. Any agreement that cannot stand up in the light of day is no agreement at all.
Man is incredibly capable of affecting his environment. He just sucks at predicting consequences. The question of whether Man or Nature is doing this warming is stupid. Change happens. The current change is warming. This is a Bad Thing- The sea levels are just fine where they're at, and droughts suck. What little groundwater that we haven't polluted yet isn't enough for us to drink, wash our cars and water our lawns forever.
Unless the warming is mainly because Earth's orbit is decaying a bit and we're getting closer to the sun, we can affect it. The niche we've evolved into is changing, folks. I don't want to find myself owning property that suddenly turned into beachfront. We're better off changing our behavior to maintain the status quo than changing our behavior because we don't have the port cities or crop production levels that we got so used to.
The smartest way to slash tech support costs is to stop supporting IE. "I'm sorry, sir. IE is a buggy piece of software unnecessarily embedded in an even more bug-ridden operating system. We do not have the source code to either, and cannot be expected to know of, much less be able to fix all of their problems. Please call the vendor that sold you the software. If they can't support what they sold you, consider returning it and trying a different browser."
So you can't freely redistribute it? Wah. Not everything can be the GPL, and not everything should be. Your take on how it restricts you is inaccurate, too. A consultant, while not an employee for tax purposes, is still someone that you hired. Other Ximian customers, having the source code themselves, already have those details that you may not divulge- so discuss away.
Come on folks, GPL is OSS, but OSS is not necessarily GPL. License agreements like this are the biggest strength of OSS. The customers get the source and the companies still make money. There's nothing "extremely obnoxious" about that.