I'm surprised that Adobe, the head of the WinOS PDF readers, has not yet made an option that prevents printing of certain documents.
Ah, but they have... There is an option in the document properties (file..document info..security in acroread). Now, I don't know how durable this is under Acrobat (the editor), but I thought it interesting that there's an option for 'selecting text and graphics'. So no copy/pasting either. Yikes.
And, remember, it's not just available on Windoze... it's MacOS, Solaris (both x86 and Sparc), HP-UX, Irix, AIX, and this little thing called Linux.
Speaking from a US perspective (UK may differ, China almost certainly will differ)...
1) It is, obviously but now explicitly, illegal to access or make available any sort of illegal materials on FreeNet.
About half of the stuff you list has significant case law that supports them as protected forms of expression under the first amendment. Unless that goes away, a unilateral ban on these items is blatently unconstitutional. The proected ones include 'other sexually-related epression', 'racism' '..forms of political dissent'. The others already have laws in place to enforce their use/non-use.
2) If a Freenet user is suspected of violating (1), search warrents will be served, and the suspect will be made to make their private keys available to law enforcement.
How is this any different than posting kiddie-porn or copyrighted material on my website?? As for the keys, 'I do not remember' would seem to be a good place to start (I seem to recall that this may be problematic in the UK, though). Also, there's a little thing called the fifth amendment, making it illegal to compel you to testify against yourself. If I can see the connection, any lawyer worth a shit can. The notion that all Freenet ops would be subject to the same warrant ignores rules of probable cause at least; there needs to be some evidence of infraction to call for a warrant.
3) Public anonymous communication is declaired illegal (since the amount of illegal activity is so high, and since the cost of weeding out the illegal is so great).
Somebody correct me if I'm totally wrong here, but I seem to recall that works the other way round - If 'everyone' is doing it, it becomes nearly impossible to make it (continue to make it) illegal. See smoking as an example. Even though the number of people who smoke is dropping, making it outright illegal would (never mind the lobbyists) be next to impossible..
The rest is, IMO, just paranoia. There's too much case law, constitutional law, and good old common sense to expect these things to become criminal. To get to the point where Freenet is illegal requires too many things to happen first that are just implausable. If it were otherwise, Napster would already be illegal.
I find my outlook improves greatly when/. is not the only website I read... but that's just me. Oh, and IANAL...
It is important to note that this was imposed on them by local affiliates and the networks.
True enough, but as I said, it would be the content owners' imposing this control. I remember the days before this decision came down - you could get NBC,CBS,ABC,FOX and PBS off the bird for $5/per month. It was sweet. I don't think that DirecTV would have ever done this without the serious arm-twisting the corporate network overlords initiated through the court system, on my (as an American taxpayer) dime. I think they were just happy to get paid. Now they have to chew up all kinds of bandwidth carring duplicate content, all in the name of protecting the advertisers' revenue stream. Bandwith that I'm certain could have been put to better use. *sigh*...
Why not just forget doing all this and give the TV/Radio bands up for wireless internet? Then the TV and radio stations can use the internet to broadcast thier content.
I really hate to sound overly cynical, but... I suspect that if this were ever to happen, the 'content' owners would:
1. Ensure that the content was only accessable by 'authorised' clients. Think SDMI, but for all of the content that used to be broadcast/satellite
2. Impose some sort of regional limitations, a la DVD. Actually, DirecTV (and other DBS providers) do this already - local stations are blocked based on where they know you to be.
3. Formally put an end to any notion of fair-use. Everything is pay-per-view.
In short, yes, I think it could be done, but I don't want the current 'content' owners to do it. Never mind that 98% of what's on commercial tv and radio is utter crap anyway.
NFS (Client) is there, and I believe I've seen mention (try Google) about making MacOSX an NFS server. As a client it seems to work ok, but I havn't tried some of the combinations that would likely be a problem (like running a 'classic' app under MacOSX, accessing data on an NFS-mounted directory. I strongly suspect that Creator/Type would not be shared with the app properly through NFS); casual access seems to be fine.
Also, I recall there being an issue with exports from Linux needing the 'insecure' directive in the export to work with the public beta, but I don't know if that's true with the released version of MacOSX.
But since most major cd retailers don't accept returns of open CDs, you're still screwed. Doubly so - you've got a CD that won't play and you can't take back. *sigh*
1. It looks to use a completely new connector on the edge, so I'd have to give up the 2 cradles, the travel kit, the folding keyboard (how cool) and the wireless modem.
2. I notice that the little cardslot in the top of the thing is a. Proprietary in the extreme, and b. Supports SDMI, to which I object because it works with the basic assumption that everyone using digital technology to store music, ebooks, etc. are thieves and are not to be trusted.
This is (in a way) Palm's answer to Sony w/ MemoryStick. But why should I (we) support yet another proprietary, crippled, (no doubt) tightly controlled, and more expensive memory technology?
(I guess the moderator that called this informative didn't actually look at the linked page).
There are only four players listed:
1. AcornCD - for the Acorn RISCOS. That's not Linux.
2. Java CD Player - this one was a dead-link, so who knows how crippled/non-functional it is/was.
3. Jukebox - for BeOS. Again, another dead link.
4. xmcd/cda - this looks promising as it is GPLed.
So, we're down to exactly ONE 'approved' cd player according to Gracenote, and as others have mentioned, no 'approved' ripper/encoders.
So, what we're being told here is that 'you have a choice of players' without mentioning that 1-three of the four choices are useless in Free (Freedom) software. 2 - There's no 'approved' ripper/encoder. This is very typical of those who want to profit greatly from 'intellectual property' - especially that 'property' that they didn't even create: Offer 'choices' that really aren't.
Although drastic, perhaps the only real option the government has is an outright ban on CRTs, accompanied with a system to confiscate existing units. Only then will superior display technologies such as Samsung's unit be able to gain wide usage.
I hate to wreck your fascist little dream, but CRTs are likely to be with us for quite some time.
One of the things that CRTs do very very well compared to LCDs is to present consistent colour balance across normal (and abnormal) viewing angles. Even though the stated viewing angle of this (and other) LCD panels is reasonably good, I've never seen an LCD panel that could/did maintain consistent colour across that viewing angle. My limited knowledge of the physics involved suggest that it might not be possible to match (or even approach) the performance of CRTs in this area. For a graphics artist or photographer, or anyone involved in visual arts where colour accuracy is important, LCDs suck.
The prices for LCD panels are high, not because of some conspiracy by the manufacturers, but because the things remain difficult to manufacture. The failure rate of individual pixels is so high that entire displays have to be trashed. I don't have numbers handy @ the moment, but I seem to recall something like 30%-40% of manufactured displays don't meet acceptable standards. Apple, for instance, has been known to issue RMAs for Powerbooks that had 10 or more dead pixels (on a 1024x768 display). Considering the amount of waste, they've got to make up the costs somewhere. They'd be selling at an extreme loss trying to compete with CRT pricing right now. In other words, LCDs, from a QA perspective, suck. Oh, yes and the amount of resources that went into manufacturing and then recycling the defective displays, means that LCDs are not exactly guilt-free anyway.
Congress should immediately move to reduce the cost of LCDs and other energy efficient display systems.
Aside from the obvious "US != the world" comments, given the amount of power that the modern corporation has wielded in policy/lawmaking, do you honestly believe that such a measure would ever see the light of day? Especially with Dubya in office? I don't think so. And rightly so. I think the pure economics involved in LCD manufacture justify their prices. If I were the CEO of Samsung, and was ordered to lower the price of LCDs, I would either increase the pricing on CRTs to make up the losses (and take a loss on CRTs) or refuse to sell LCDs in the US market (and encourage the grey-market import of them instead).
I believe napster users spent far more on CDs than average. Personally I have vowed to not buy any CDs for at least 3 months. I urge other people who are irritated by the RIAAs handling of this affair to do likewise.
I'm not sure that it has been proved that there is a causal relationship between Napster usage and the increased sale of CDs. In fact, I doubt that that point can be sufficently proved to lay the argument to rest. Personally, I have purchased more CDs as a result of discovering new things on Napster, but I'm employed, and make enough money to be able to afford to purchase CDs to be 'legal' with the music I have (I subsequently re-rip the CDs to have high-quality MP3s on file). I seriously doubt that this is the norm; I suspect that most folks who grab just the tracks they want are not doing the same. Many are, but many != most.
That said, I think the reverse is also true - it's very difficult, if not impossible, to define a causal relationship between Napster use and a percieved loss of CD sales. But, as is so often the case, perception is reality, and the RIAA uses this perception to justify the lengths to which they're willing to go to prevent the sharing of 'their' content, as we're all aware.
I'm also conflicted over this proposed boycott of CDs. Clearly, I'm never going near the 'new, improved' version of Napster, and I will encourage all those I know to stay away from it as well. I suggest that we'd all stay away from an encumbered, crippled version of Napster. However, CDs, as a competing technology, are very open. I can rip 'em, copy 'em, combine tracks onto 'mix' CD's, and so on. Aside from who 'owns' the content, and what the're doing, CDs are a nearly ideal carrier for the music.
I'm also envisioning a future where a couple of trends collide to create a very undesirable situation:
1. The 'new' Napster becomes successful, even profitable, on the backs of J. Random Consumers. The RIAA/Napster declares it a victory in bringing digital content to the masses.
2. The 'rest of us' boycott CDs, causing sales to drop noticeably.
3. The RIAA, in their lust to remove 'unprotected' media from the market, use the drop in CD sales to declare that CDs are a dying media and use this as justification to stop shipping certain titles, and eventually most titles on CDs, instead favouring more restrictive (and more profitable) media.
I'm concerned that an all-out boycott of the one unencumberd technology we have is not the most effective way to handle this. I'm more inclined to boycott the bad, and support the good. I just wish the lines dividing the two were clearer...
According to the White House announcement, all the Tier 2 countries move to Tier 1, so I guess that Tier 2 will be empty (for now). The announcement doesn't discuss what the restrictions of Tier 2 are; they probably haven't changed.
No. RTFA... Tier 4 countries (Iran, Iraq, et al) remain under a 'virtual embargo' - nothing changes. France was never under any special restriction anyway...
Details in the article are a bit sparse.. I wonder if mp3PRO is going to include content control mechanisms, to placate the RIAA et al, by providing a means to 'protect the copyright holders' interests'.
The only way Microsoft can threaten Linux is to put out a product so great that people will be willing to pay for it rather than get something free.
If by 'free' you mean zero-price, then yes, that may be true. But I would have a heart-attack from surprise if Microsoft ever releases anything that is truely free (as in speech)...
In addition, Microsoft has to support it so well that people don't feel like they need to source so they can support it themselves.
While having the source is certainly useful for self-support, there's also the crucial point of what I'm free to do with the source. Again, I'd be extremely surprised to ever see Microsoft respect my freedom by getting involved in free software.
As such, they have long ceased to have my support, and as a result, I don't need theirs.
Now, in the Beta newsgroup, Micrsoft has specifically told us not to get our panties in a bunch... most of the internet reports are WRONG (including mine above) in some form or another... no one has it right yet, and not to believe them.
Of course that's what they're saying. What would you expect? Full disclosure? I don't expect that to happen until sometime after it ships, and someone puts a packet sniffer on it to see what's being transmitted to the empire. Even then, MS will deny that it's a big deal. And all the drones will believe it.
They've let casual copying go WAY too long, and many small companies are not license compliant.
Dunno, seems to me that they've let casual copying go in just long enough. Let everyone get nice and dependent on Windows (fully invested in whatever data formats, database servers, applications, etc.), and then jump up the efforts to prevent unauthorised copying.
MS's big problem moving forward is that the market is so saturated with PCs, and that the current version of Windows2000/ME is likely to be quite sufficient for most (Windows) users for at least the next 2 years, they've got to maximize their revenue streams any way they can without drawing unwanted attention to the pricing of their products. Making certain that everyone who eventually does upgrade pays for it, is one of the few ways to ensure this. Of course, I'd be willing to bet that the street price of the upgrade version of Whistler is going to be something more than US$90.
...but ITwould make it far less confusing for the majority of people who are now switching to linux...
Not to mention far less useful to those who have been using it all along. I mean, WTF is so hard about the kernel being just a part of the overall package??
Just like the dotcom deathwatch site, we need a single webpage that lists all products that consumers should avoid.
According to whom?? The EFF, the FSF? RMS? ESR? Bruce Perens? Alan Cox? Linus? CmdrTaco? You? Me?
The thing about boycotting anyone/anything is that it is very subjective to the morals and ethics of any given individual. What I find objectionable, you find perfectly acceptable, and vice-versa. And what criteria are used? That it violates your privacy, your freedom, your sense of fair play? Or does it simply have to be 'too expensive' or maybe even the wrong colour. And what about crossover issues? I quite like the UI on Macintosh, but I object to the lack of freedom the OS offers. Is Macintosh on the 'good' list or the 'bad' list? DVD's employ an objectionable region-coding scheme, but I have a region-free player. Is it ok for me to buy Anime? I happen to agree with the EFF - opt-out on CPRM is not enough, but what if the maintainer of the 'good/bad' site doesn't agree?
If I'm going to avoid, say, buying DVDs because I think the MPAA is evil, then I don't need the approval of popular opinion to help me make that decision. The facts are quite sufficient, and those are already available in abundance.
Come on, a FEW BUCKS for a movie? Movies haven't been that cheap since around the time your grampa and I were born!
What he forgot to mention is the rampant inflation that occured in '02 - causing the value of a dollar to be roughly the same as the Yen at that time. Rather than having to fiddle with all those zeros, the US did something similar to what Mexico had done some years before, and issue the 'New Dollar' - or ND.
The ND's value was initially worth about 1.15 cents (in 2001 currency), but it did eventually strengthen, so that now, coupled with the regulation on the MPAA and cinema pricing structures, the typical non-matinee showing is about ND$3.25. Of course, a tub of popcorn costs ND$17.50, so I guess he was going to go without...
A 'vintage' arcade screen is probably more trouble than it's worth. After all, if you were going for true authenticity, you'd probably have the original console for your favorite in the first place.
Besides, X on what amounts to a TV screen would be pretty ugly anyway. I figure you'd be lucky to get 400x300 (or somesuch).
BTW, use the clips for the controls - at least until you're sure the configuration is what you're after...
Stallman also highlights the term "copy protection". "The word 'protection'... tries to disguise obstructionism and rampant power as an attempt to keep a program or book or song safe from harm. It is a propaganda word."
Exactly. 'Copy Protection' is a positive, almost feel-good phrase as in 'We're going to protect you...' I prefer to use the phrase 'copy prevention' as it, at least, is clear on whats really being done.
Both very important, but I think if Microsoft let us see the source to Windows and let us pay once for an OS instead of every time we buy a computer, Linux would die a quick painful death.
Perhaps, depending what MS would let you do with the source. I suspect that it would be quite restrictive. Windows will probably never be GPLed. And Microsoft's direction seems to have been getting even more expensive - you nearly have to pay every time you need to install the OS... It's going the wrong direction, IMO.
So, Athena, although it looks neat, continues in the grand tradition of enticing users to give up another bit of their freedom. Really, what is it besides a proprietary add-on (with an "in house" proprietary kernel in the future) to existing kernels?
Funny... I'd never really considered Alan Cox to be an 'insignificant individual'.
Now, I don't like like what cross-state taxation would mean to catalog/internet sales (general softening/decrease in an already softening economy) would mean, but I am an insignificant individual. So I guess it doesn't matter...
Slashdot Mirror
Wait. Isn't it 'PSX2'??
Ah, but they have... There is an option in the document properties (file..document info..security in acroread). Now, I don't know how durable this is under Acrobat (the editor), but I thought it interesting that there's an option for 'selecting text and graphics'. So no copy/pasting either. Yikes.
And, remember, it's not just available on Windoze... it's MacOS, Solaris (both x86 and Sparc), HP-UX, Irix, AIX, and this little thing called Linux.
About half of the stuff you list has significant case law that supports them as protected forms of expression under the first amendment. Unless that goes away, a unilateral ban on these items is blatently unconstitutional. The proected ones include 'other sexually-related epression', 'racism' '..forms of political dissent'. The others already have laws in place to enforce their use/non-use.
How is this any different than posting kiddie-porn or copyrighted material on my website?? As for the keys, 'I do not remember' would seem to be a good place to start (I seem to recall that this may be problematic in the UK, though). Also, there's a little thing called the fifth amendment, making it illegal to compel you to testify against yourself. If I can see the connection, any lawyer worth a shit can. The notion that all Freenet ops would be subject to the same warrant ignores rules of probable cause at least; there needs to be some evidence of infraction to call for a warrant.
Somebody correct me if I'm totally wrong here, but I seem to recall that works the other way round - If 'everyone' is doing it, it becomes nearly impossible to make it (continue to make it) illegal. See smoking as an example. Even though the number of people who smoke is dropping, making it outright illegal would (never mind the lobbyists) be next to impossible..
The rest is, IMO, just paranoia. There's too much case law, constitutional law, and good old common sense to expect these things to become criminal. To get to the point where Freenet is illegal requires too many things to happen first that are just implausable. If it were otherwise, Napster would already be illegal.
I find my outlook improves greatly when /. is not the only website I read... but that's just me. Oh, and IANAL...
I think it's probably time for you to stop playing Black & White for a little while...
True enough, but as I said, it would be the content owners' imposing this control. I remember the days before this decision came down - you could get NBC,CBS,ABC,FOX and PBS off the bird for $5/per month. It was sweet. I don't think that DirecTV would have ever done this without the serious arm-twisting the corporate network overlords initiated through the court system, on my (as an American taxpayer) dime. I think they were just happy to get paid. Now they have to chew up all kinds of bandwidth carring duplicate content, all in the name of protecting the advertisers' revenue stream. Bandwith that I'm certain could have been put to better use. *sigh*...
I really hate to sound overly cynical, but... I suspect that if this were ever to happen, the 'content' owners would:
1. Ensure that the content was only accessable by 'authorised' clients. Think SDMI, but for all of the content that used to be broadcast/satellite
2. Impose some sort of regional limitations, a la DVD. Actually, DirecTV (and other DBS providers) do this already - local stations are blocked based on where they know you to be.
3. Formally put an end to any notion of fair-use. Everything is pay-per-view.
In short, yes, I think it could be done, but I don't want the current 'content' owners to do it. Never mind that 98% of what's on commercial tv and radio is utter crap anyway.
NFS (Client) is there, and I believe I've seen mention (try Google) about making MacOSX an NFS server. As a client it seems to work ok, but I havn't tried some of the combinations that would likely be a problem (like running a 'classic' app under MacOSX, accessing data on an NFS-mounted directory. I strongly suspect that Creator/Type would not be shared with the app properly through NFS); casual access seems to be fine.
Also, I recall there being an issue with exports from Linux needing the 'insecure' directive in the export to work with the public beta, but I don't know if that's true with the released version of MacOSX.
But since most major cd retailers don't accept returns of open CDs, you're still screwed. Doubly so - you've got a CD that won't play and you can't take back. *sigh*
I have 2 problems with it...
1. It looks to use a completely new connector on the edge, so I'd have to give up the 2 cradles, the travel kit, the folding keyboard (how cool) and the wireless modem.
2. I notice that the little cardslot in the top of the thing is a. Proprietary in the extreme, and b. Supports SDMI, to which I object because it works with the basic assumption that everyone using digital technology to store music, ebooks, etc. are thieves and are not to be trusted.
This is (in a way) Palm's answer to Sony w/ MemoryStick. But why should I (we) support yet another proprietary, crippled, (no doubt) tightly controlled, and more expensive memory technology?
There are only four players listed:
So, we're down to exactly ONE 'approved' cd player according to Gracenote, and as others have mentioned, no 'approved' ripper/encoders.
So, what we're being told here is that 'you have a choice of players' without mentioning that 1-three of the four choices are useless in Free (Freedom) software. 2 - There's no 'approved' ripper/encoder. This is very typical of those who want to profit greatly from 'intellectual property' - especially that 'property' that they didn't even create: Offer 'choices' that really aren't.
I hate to wreck your fascist little dream, but CRTs are likely to be with us for quite some time.
One of the things that CRTs do very very well compared to LCDs is to present consistent colour balance across normal (and abnormal) viewing angles. Even though the stated viewing angle of this (and other) LCD panels is reasonably good, I've never seen an LCD panel that could/did maintain consistent colour across that viewing angle. My limited knowledge of the physics involved suggest that it might not be possible to match (or even approach) the performance of CRTs in this area. For a graphics artist or photographer, or anyone involved in visual arts where colour accuracy is important, LCDs suck.
The prices for LCD panels are high, not because of some conspiracy by the manufacturers, but because the things remain difficult to manufacture. The failure rate of individual pixels is so high that entire displays have to be trashed. I don't have numbers handy @ the moment, but I seem to recall something like 30%-40% of manufactured displays don't meet acceptable standards. Apple, for instance, has been known to issue RMAs for Powerbooks that had 10 or more dead pixels (on a 1024x768 display). Considering the amount of waste, they've got to make up the costs somewhere. They'd be selling at an extreme loss trying to compete with CRT pricing right now. In other words, LCDs, from a QA perspective, suck. Oh, yes and the amount of resources that went into manufacturing and then recycling the defective displays, means that LCDs are not exactly guilt-free anyway.
Aside from the obvious "US != the world" comments, given the amount of power that the modern corporation has wielded in policy/lawmaking, do you honestly believe that such a measure would ever see the light of day? Especially with Dubya in office? I don't think so. And rightly so. I think the pure economics involved in LCD manufacture justify their prices. If I were the CEO of Samsung, and was ordered to lower the price of LCDs, I would either increase the pricing on CRTs to make up the losses (and take a loss on CRTs) or refuse to sell LCDs in the US market (and encourage the grey-market import of them instead).
I'm not sure that it has been proved that there is a causal relationship between Napster usage and the increased sale of CDs. In fact, I doubt that that point can be sufficently proved to lay the argument to rest. Personally, I have purchased more CDs as a result of discovering new things on Napster, but I'm employed, and make enough money to be able to afford to purchase CDs to be 'legal' with the music I have (I subsequently re-rip the CDs to have high-quality MP3s on file). I seriously doubt that this is the norm; I suspect that most folks who grab just the tracks they want are not doing the same. Many are, but many != most.
That said, I think the reverse is also true - it's very difficult, if not impossible, to define a causal relationship between Napster use and a percieved loss of CD sales. But, as is so often the case, perception is reality, and the RIAA uses this perception to justify the lengths to which they're willing to go to prevent the sharing of 'their' content, as we're all aware.
I'm also conflicted over this proposed boycott of CDs. Clearly, I'm never going near the 'new, improved' version of Napster, and I will encourage all those I know to stay away from it as well. I suggest that we'd all stay away from an encumbered, crippled version of Napster. However, CDs, as a competing technology, are very open. I can rip 'em, copy 'em, combine tracks onto 'mix' CD's, and so on. Aside from who 'owns' the content, and what the're doing, CDs are a nearly ideal carrier for the music.
I'm also envisioning a future where a couple of trends collide to create a very undesirable situation:
I'm concerned that an all-out boycott of the one unencumberd technology we have is not the most effective way to handle this. I'm more inclined to boycott the bad, and support the good. I just wish the lines dividing the two were clearer...
No. RTFA... Tier 4 countries (Iran, Iraq, et al) remain under a 'virtual embargo' - nothing changes. France was never under any special restriction anyway...
Any clues?
If by 'free' you mean zero-price, then yes, that may be true. But I would have a heart-attack from surprise if Microsoft ever releases anything that is truely free (as in speech)...
While having the source is certainly useful for self-support, there's also the crucial point of what I'm free to do with the source. Again, I'd be extremely surprised to ever see Microsoft respect my freedom by getting involved in free software.
As such, they have long ceased to have my support, and as a result, I don't need theirs.
Of course that's what they're saying. What would you expect? Full disclosure? I don't expect that to happen until sometime after it ships, and someone puts a packet sniffer on it to see what's being transmitted to the empire. Even then, MS will deny that it's a big deal. And all the drones will believe it.
Dunno, seems to me that they've let casual copying go in just long enough. Let everyone get nice and dependent on Windows (fully invested in whatever data formats, database servers, applications, etc.), and then jump up the efforts to prevent unauthorised copying.
MS's big problem moving forward is that the market is so saturated with PCs, and that the current version of Windows2000/ME is likely to be quite sufficient for most (Windows) users for at least the next 2 years, they've got to maximize their revenue streams any way they can without drawing unwanted attention to the pricing of their products. Making certain that everyone who eventually does upgrade pays for it, is one of the few ways to ensure this. Of course, I'd be willing to bet that the street price of the upgrade version of Whistler is going to be something more than US$90.
Not to mention far less useful to those who have been using it all along. I mean, WTF is so hard about the kernel being just a part of the overall package??
According to whom?? The EFF, the FSF? RMS? ESR? Bruce Perens? Alan Cox? Linus? CmdrTaco? You? Me?
The thing about boycotting anyone/anything is that it is very subjective to the morals and ethics of any given individual. What I find objectionable, you find perfectly acceptable, and vice-versa. And what criteria are used? That it violates your privacy, your freedom, your sense of fair play? Or does it simply have to be 'too expensive' or maybe even the wrong colour. And what about crossover issues? I quite like the UI on Macintosh, but I object to the lack of freedom the OS offers. Is Macintosh on the 'good' list or the 'bad' list? DVD's employ an objectionable region-coding scheme, but I have a region-free player. Is it ok for me to buy Anime? I happen to agree with the EFF - opt-out on CPRM is not enough, but what if the maintainer of the 'good/bad' site doesn't agree?
If I'm going to avoid, say, buying DVDs because I think the MPAA is evil, then I don't need the approval of popular opinion to help me make that decision. The facts are quite sufficient, and those are already available in abundance.
What he forgot to mention is the rampant inflation that occured in '02 - causing the value of a dollar to be roughly the same as the Yen at that time. Rather than having to fiddle with all those zeros, the US did something similar to what Mexico had done some years before, and issue the 'New Dollar' - or ND.
The ND's value was initially worth about 1.15 cents (in 2001 currency), but it did eventually strengthen, so that now, coupled with the regulation on the MPAA and cinema pricing structures, the typical non-matinee showing is about ND$3.25. Of course, a tub of popcorn costs ND$17.50, so I guess he was going to go without...
Besides, X on what amounts to a TV screen would be pretty ugly anyway. I figure you'd be lucky to get 400x300 (or somesuch).
BTW, use the clips for the controls - at least until you're sure the configuration is what you're after...
Exactly. 'Copy Protection' is a positive, almost feel-good phrase as in 'We're going to protect you...' I prefer to use the phrase 'copy prevention' as it, at least, is clear on whats really being done.
Perhaps, depending what MS would let you do with the source. I suspect that it would be quite restrictive. Windows will probably never be GPLed. And Microsoft's direction seems to have been getting even more expensive - you nearly have to pay every time you need to install the OS... It's going the wrong direction, IMO.
So, Athena, although it looks neat, continues in the grand tradition of enticing users to give up another bit of their freedom. Really, what is it besides a proprietary add-on (with an "in house" proprietary kernel in the future) to existing kernels?
No thanks.
Funny... I'd never really considered Alan Cox to be an 'insignificant individual'.
Now, I don't like like what cross-state taxation would mean to catalog/internet sales (general softening/decrease in an already softening economy) would mean, but I am an insignificant individual. So I guess it doesn't matter...