Putting copyright protection on the HD, presumably requiring the participation of the OS (not likely in the case of Free software anyway), essentially means that the PC must become a trusted client when running software.
Bruce Schneier (the very same) speaks to the idea of trusted clients in the 15 May 2000 Crypto-Gram. Here he says:
Other companies claim to sell rights-management software: audio and video files that can't be copied or redistributed,
data that can be read but cannot be printed, software that can't be copied. The common thread in all of these "solutions" is that they postulate a situation where the owner of
a file can control what happens to that file after it is sent to someone else.
It's complete nonsense.
Controlling what the client can do with a piece of data assumes a trusted (from the point of view of the initial owner of the file) piece of software running on the client. Such a thing does not exist, so these solutions don't work.
Besides, such a thing would put such a damper on PC sales as to make the last quarter look like a windfall...
Hang on... I don't get it. How is the harddrive alone supposed to prevent copying of 'protected' content? Surely they're assuming the cooperation of the OS 'manufacturer' in this scheme? The HD is merely storage space. It can keep all the keys and certificates it wants, but if nothing is referencing them, what good does it do anyone? Hell, the first time the drive is partitioned, they're little slice for key management goes away. Then what?
Something just doesn't seem right here... It's not April again is it??
The article mentions that "a device like this (without screen) could be sold for around $500 retail." That's fine, but at that price, with all of the stuff (read features) that are in the box, someone would be taking a loss on the hardware.
So, what's the business model for this thing?? Are they going to do like TiVo - sell the box at a loss and treat the whole thing as a 'service'? If I choose not to pay a monthly charge for the service, is the box essentialy a brick? Or, can I just use this as a front-end, with all my MP3's (>9GB) continuing to live on the server in my closet? Will I have to reencode everything (again)?
What is really needed, is the common touch only closed source software (like OS X) can provide. But this won't happen. Open source software is, plainly, too open - like Communism, they had a good idea, but, like Communism the idea is fatally flawed.
Explain to me how the openness and freedom afforded by OSS/Free software is a communist ideal? Seriously. This makes no sense at all.
If Free/OpenSource software is the reflection of communist ideals, then what is closed-source software? Lessee:
- A central 'authority' determines what the software I run looks like.
- They also define what the architecture of the software is.
- They further dictate when/where/how their (remember, we don't 'own' closed-source software) is run, and by whom. All covered in the EULA...
- Using patents and trademarks, and a twisted interpretation of copyright, they forclose competition, in the interest of their own well-being (profitability).
- User input in to the process is limited, perfunctury, and superficial in the extreme. Don't like using a particular browser? 'Sorry, you can't remove it. It's that way for your own good.'
- They engage in propaganda campaigns to warn everyone of the evils of doing things differently. (Naked PC's anyone?)
Linux/Free Software, on the other hand, allows me to do whatever I want to the software and redistribute the changes (perhaps at a profit). I am not bound by ideas of propriety (save the few restrictions of the GPL). I do not have answer to anyone if I want to run a copies of the system on each of the dozen or so systems I have @ home. I can give copies away for free if I'd like. It's freedom, not communism.
I think it's worse than that... There's a little java-script popup that appears when hitting the site. The first time I hit the site, I just closed it. They're annoying, but GeoCities and Tripod et al have got me (us?) very accustomed to closing those things as soon as they appear.
Out of curiosity, though, I hit the site again just to see what's in the popup. Have a look at what I saw:
Due to the great holiday traffic, PayPal is experiencing technical difficulties. When placing an order and you recieve an error, please keep trying. It may take several attempts.
As others have noted, a commercial entity that takes paypal (but nothing else) is a bit suspicious. But this? This is just... brazen... Might as well have said "Just to make sure you get your unit, pay us twice. Or three times. We don't mind. Four is ok too." (and so on).
We work hard on developing quality, innovative products here at Microsoft, and sorry but the odd time I have looked at Linux source code to get a better idea of how to come up with innovation solutions in Windows 2000 does *not* make me a thief!!
(Disclaimer: I know this is a troll, and deserves the Mod that it received. I'm also an expatriot of the Empire.)
Another way to say this is 'I couldn't think of anything on my own, so I had a quick peek at the Linux code for inspiration.' Some innovation. Still, I can't fault you for wanting to avoid reinvening the wheel.
However, I seem to recall an email from Ballmer forbidding everyone in the company working on or looking at the code for OSS projects, lest it 'infect' the MS code. Do you not remember that?? I don't have a particular problem with drawing inspiration from Linux code, but I'd prefer that you not do it, since it leaves the impression that MS code (or at least ideas) could also end up in Linux code, exposing it (GNU/Linux/OSS projects) to very expensive litigation for the misappropriation of MS's 'intellectual property'.
I don't agree with Ballmer on much, but on this point I do - If you code for Microsoft, you should/must not code for OSS projects (and VV), to avoid these kinds of cross-pollenation issues.
You don't necessarily get free upgrades with the normal software license. After 2 years you can't use XYZ and obviously you don't get any upgrades. I work for a company that has this type of licenses on our software products (costs ranging from $30,000 to $350,000 per year).
Although you don't mention what company you work for (for good reason, I'm not faulting you for that), I suspect that at those kinds of prices, you're not talking about a desktop application. At the very least, not a horizontal-market application like Office. I've seen this sort of pricing for server-apps, though.
Frankly, where I work, if we were to encounter a licence that 'rots' like this, we'd probably go with a competitor anyway. After all, if I not only have to pay to update my 'licence' to run the software, but also for patches (bugfixes) separately... that even gives the PHBs pause. This does not include support. We're quite happy to pay for that - for as long as we need it. After using a given package for a year or so, we probably won't even do that; relying instead on web-based and internal documentation where needed. Major upgrades are also another issue - happy to pay for those, again, as needed. All this means that we are running older versions of... well, pretty much everything.
But, with the latest patches and bugfixes in place, if it meets our needs, why upgrade? The whole mentality that we have to be running the 'latest and greatest' of everything is very overrated, especially if the 'latest and greatest' does not offer significant advances in the state of the art. A new rendering of Clippy need not apply.
Thing is, most licence agreements allow for revocation at any time anyway, which also means that using GPLed, and other less transient licencing is very much in our (meaning everyone's) best interests, never mind the pricing. I don't think it's unfair to ask for some kind of recurring payment to continue phone/live support of a given product, but to simply continue to use it (upgrades aside)????
Which, to maintain some semblence of being on-topic, is exactly what Microsoft is proposing. I don't think it's overly paranoid to expect, given previous behavior, that the file format of Office 10 will change again (I'd bet money on it), making them unreadable by O2K/97 without a plugin (which carries other artificial limitations with it - such as faulty rendering). Which also means that for a time, anyway, other word processors will not be able to handle them as well. All of which means that, again, if you fail to pay the ransom, your documents are rendered unusable.
And so, again, we arrive at the fact that I will continue to use/recommend AbiWord/StarOffice.
This is not the same thing. With a typical subscription model, you do get 'free' upgrades (not really free since they're all part of the subscription price). Under this model, if you choose to continue using the 'old' version of the software, you can - you've paid the licencing fees, the software does not self-destruct if you let the subscription run out.
The difference with Office 10 is that @ the end of the subscription period, the software becomes, IMO, crippled. From the press release:
If customers do not renew or install an upgrade product, they can still open, view and print their existing documents.
As is so often true with MS (or anyone's, for that matter) press releases, it's not what is said, but what is not said that is of issue. Note that in the above quote nothing is said about updating/saving current documents. Which, by extension, reasonably means that Office 10 (Office 2002, or whatever they call it) will be crippleware unless you pay the ransom^H^H^H^H^H^H subscription fees to continue working with your documents.
It's probably too early to say with any certainty whether this model will actually work. I suspect not, given the dismal failure other pay-for-play models have suffered (Divx comes to mind). Paranoid or not, RMS's Right to Read story serves as a cautionary tale. If you are unable to continue working with your documents because you haven't paid the fees, what other restrictions will they be willing to place on your use of your documents???
Me? I'll continue to use AbiWord/StarOffice, thanks.
The only other thing I'd do is remove the root restriction on ports 1024. On many Linux machines, root is no smarter than the other user of the machine.
Are you joking???? To paraphrase: 'Root on many Linux machines are as stupid as their users, so let's open up the machine for attacks/exploits even further.' I'm sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to me. What's next? Root pw is hard-coded to 'password' because they're to stupid to remember anything else??
Oh, wait, I know... Let's just remove all permissions in the filesystem. That way, the idiot roots won't have to deal with scary things like chmod and chown... Then, we wouldn't have to worry about having ACLs either. Brilliant!
As others have mentioned, running LinuxPPC on the cube is quite possible (and rewarding).
BUT!! One major detail - the mouse. Trying to use X/Gnome/KDE/whatever with a one-button mouse is an exercise in frustration, to say the least. I'm not at all a fan of 'just hit this key-combo for right/middle' style of advice. Just get a 3-button mouse and have done with it.
Fortunately, the newer Macs all have USB, and the state of Linux and USB seems to be a bit ahead on the PPC (or at least Mac) side of things. So there are plenty of choices for replacing the crippled mouse that comes with the Mac. I've used both the Logitech and MS optical mouses on Yellow Dog Linux, and they work perfectly (and provide the middle mouse button). Presumably most USB-mousen would work.
I quite agree, MS, or anyone else for that matter does not have the resources, man power etc. to track down every developer or potential developer on projects such as samba, or wine.
But they don't have to. Just pick one or two high-profile members of the group, and target them. As soon as everyone else in the project finds out what's happening, the project is dead. It may not be possible to eradicate all OSS projects, but a few well-delivered blows could seriously cripple most of the useful stuff out there. Besides, MS would likely only target those things that pose a threat to them. I doubt that they'd go after anyone working on vi, for instance.
Besides the above constraints, MS would also be constrained by the fear of bad press, consumer/governmental reaction...
Question: When has Microsoft ever shown fear of any entity??? This is part of the reason they're perpetually in trouble with DOJ/FTC/etc...
Some of the folks that I used to work with would go all glassy-eyed whenever the topic of conversation would shift to corporate ethics. If n2h2 can't be classified as evil, there's certainly a fucked-up sense of values going on here.
FWIW, the page is http://www.n2h2.com/sponsor/overview.h tml . I'm actually offended (a rare occurance) by the careless use of the words 'penetration' and 'exposure' in context with kids. Maybe they're trying to make sure that kids can't read their website (contains 'naughty' words on that page..), and discover the truth of what's happening; filter out the unprofitable, replace it with the highly profitable.
But what do we do about it? Harping about it on/. won't change their behaviour. Will writing my representatives in 'DC make a difference? N2H2 has so many 'strategic partners', that certainly one or more of those have my rep's in their pocket... Fat lot of good that'll do then. So what do we do? Campaign finance reform? Oh wait, N2H2 filters that out.. After a couple of generations or so, will anyone remember that things were ever different?
Re:Wow, i think this is Reuters messing up.
on
High-Speed Greed
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· Score: 1
It's got to be something like that; either hosting, or at the very least referrals, a la Amazon.
Aside from the insane notion that they could actually get away with it (ie the retailers actually going along with it), I have to wonder how such a scheme could be enforced (ie the retailers tell AT&T to stuff it)...
The whole thing stinks of misinformation and sensationalism.
If someone wanted to write a commentary on Derrida's lectures, that is one thing. But to record and sell his lectures is another is another.
But that's not what the bill says. Here is the relevent section:
66450. (a) Except as authorized by policies developed in accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 66452, no business, agency, or person, including, but not necessarily limited to, an enrolled student, shall prepare, cause to be prepared,
give, sell, transfer, or otherwise distribute or publish, for any commercial purpose, any contemporaneous recording of an academic presentation in a classroom or equivalent site of instruction by an instructor of record. This prohibition applies to a recording made in any medium, including, but not necessarily limited to, handwritten or typewritten class notes.
(Emphasis added)
At best, it's sloppy legislation; it leaves far too many holes open. If the goal is to prevent wholesale recording/distribution of lectures, it should say that, and leave the vague wording out. And, I still think it would/will fail to pass constitutional muster as written.
At worst, RMS is an optimist with R2R.
As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. But if you want truely paranoid... What if the driving force behind the bill is the desire of the profs/university to publish their own materials without any competition??
I quickly called Bell South and Qwest and got myself switched back to the way I had it before, then put a lock on my line. The lock, which everyone should have (and should be the default) prevents your LD carrier from being changed unless you call your local carrier and tell them it is ok.
I had a similar situation a number of years ago. What really bugs me is that not only is the lock not the default, but the local carrier doesn't tell you about it unless you get slammed @ least once (that's all it took for me... I was quite angry about the situation).
Another dirty secret that I discovered at the same time is that if you're paying for an unpublished number (another thing that should be default and gratis), that doesn't include the LD carriers (and perhaps others), unless you specifically tell the local carrier otherwise.
So, when I moved into the place I'm in now, on a different local carrier, I ran down the laundry list of features I wanted, included these two (locks and listings), and they didn't even flinch (I really like my local carrier; they're considerably less evil than the big Bell systems). It's been years since I've been solicted to change my LD carrier, much less slammed.
I notice the proliferation of low-quality online universities these days, which pretty much prove the Professor's point. Why will you need a Stanford or a Harvard if the same quality of education ( ie the same notes ) are available for sale in the Dipshit School of Engineering
Sorry, I'm not buying it. The notes are not the education. There's no way that I could possibly claim to have a Stanford or a Harvard (or wherever) education simply by having read the notes from the classes there. It's not the same thing, and the Prof. should recognize this.
And, even if notes == education, then I have to think that it's just evolutionary pressure to get better, not whine about it.
A worst-case scenario doesn't negate the reasonable implementation of something that ensures quality of education.
Fair enough, but this bill doesn't ensure the quality of education either. It simply curtails free speech and commerce in the name of 'principle'. I don't think that's a sufficient reason.
Professor Mathieu Deflem's problem is one of principle. If students bunk his class & pay up $10 to get a Kinko's copy of whatever was said in his class, that defeats the purpose of his class.
So? Sounds like Prof. Deflem needs to peek his head out of academia for a second and think about another, more important principal - free speech.
As others have noted, it would (possibly) be a different story if we were talking about audio/video recordings, but these are notes!!
Two things disturb me about this situation. First, it's a fairly classic 'slippery-slope' problem. How long will it be until non-commercial distribution of class notes are prohibited? See RMS's 'Right to Read' story for a worst-case scenario.
Second, legislation that passes in CA is often adopted throughout much of the rest of the country. Clearly, that would be a mistake with this one.
The bill is so clearly unconstitutional, I wonder that it got sponsered in the first place.
MS's Windows Terminal Server performs over 30x as quick as XFree does, while providing even more functionality, such as a way to save files on Microsoft's core server with the touch of a button
Y'know, I used to think the same thing. Then I actually used X to run applications from n machines on my desktop. Terminal Server may be faster, but it absolutely does not have the same level of functionality. As for saving files on a 'core server'... I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to there, but I'd wager that a well-planned/implemented NFS mount scheme would serve the same purpose. Even better, actually - no drive letters to deal with. Oh, and have a look at the licensing terms for clients under terminal server... yuk...
rather than bash a wonderful and proven product such as.NET which has been out for years and is succeeding beyond Microsoft's wildest dreams.
Ummm... Oh wait... So, is this meant to be '-1 Troll/Flamebait' or '+1 Funny'????
I wouldn't really expect Apple to compete against Solaris anytime soon, but it can certainly evolve into a capable small-to-mid-range server platform with a little work. Heck, people have been using Mac OS (the non-Unix kind) as servers for years.
It seems to me that if MacOSX is as good a *nix as the article suggests, and that the GNU tools work properly, that MacOSX lives somewhere in the spectrum of low-end Solaris boxen.
There are a number of similarities: Relatively expensive, but nicely done hardware that the OS is pretty closely tied to. Assuming MacOSX retains *nix-style uptimes - Long uptimes. Solid (if not stellar) performance. And so on.
So, I see no reason that MacOSX couldn't quickly become some serious competition for Sun in the Ultra 5,10,(60 ?)range. Which, BTW, is the same place that Linux on modern X86 hardware seems to live as well.
Actually, there is one reason I can think of: Apple doesn't push it in that direction. We've all seen some very curious blunders and missteps from them in the past. They've caught a wave, I hope that they can continue to ride it. Candy-coloured machines are interesting and all, but if they start pushing candy-coloured *nix boxen and everything that means... hmmm..
If you want Linux and the various *nix clones to be accepted by the public as a serious force instead of the domain of cloistered geeks, you want to do something to make it visible. KDE and Gnome are okay interfaces, but they're only distributed as far as Linux is. Here's a manufacturer of hardware AND software bundling everything together -- OS, drivers, and front end -- and giving the whole thing visibility.
Not entirely... Sun is getting pretty heavily behind Gnome. Or, at least, so they say. From the whitepaper: "When GNOME ships with the Solaris Operating Environment, Sun will offer the same support as it does today for CDE." The only catch is that they're talking about Gnome 2.0, and Sun is expecting this addition to happen somewhere around 3Q01..
I hope it works out, since 1-I hate CDE and 2-The 1.x product is pretty sweet on Sol7, and from what I've seen so far, a lot of it works pretty well.
If you want to pooh-pooh Apple just becuase they 'suck,' then you might be doing the *nix community a disservice. Because most people, if they turn away from Apple for whatever reason, tend to think Microsoft first, not Linux.
So maybe they just want more to watch. Is this generally the case; are people watching more TV as a result of TiVo?
Yes, people watch up to 30 percent more television when they have a TiVo. But their overall satisfaction increases. People watch a greater diversity of programs. I know from my standpoint, I used to only watch movies.
I find the exact opposite to be true - I watch about 90% less television with my TiVo than before. I think there are two reasons for this:
1. I only watch what I've told TiVo to record for me, which amounts to about 3 hours per week. Right now, since everything is in reruns, TiVo's just storing up a bunch of stuff I'll probably never look at; the TV's not been on since last Tuesday or so. Since I don't spend time channel-surfing, I watch almost no TV at all now.
2. When I zip through commercials, I don't stop for anything - no ads at all if I can help it. This includes ads for the upcoming NEW SHOWS!!! Since I don't get seduced by the new shows, and I'm not really interested in watching more just to become a "better" source of demographic information (a privilege for which I pay, no less!) my viewing habits remain, at best, flat. They're losing money on me, and there's fuck-all they can do about it. That makes me very happy.
The moment that TiVo-inserted ads become non-skippable, or I start getting targeted-phone calls, or targeted-junk mail, or (yikes, they HAVE my email address) spam, they'll be getting the box back.
I tend to disagree with the idea that micros, if given the
chance, will flood the net. There are a few reasons that make
this potential problem improbable. First of all most micro owners
do not have modems. Of those that do, most are only at 300 baud.
If a micro owner with a 300 baud modem attempts to read in the
net it could take a tremendous amount of time. And we are assuming,
of course, that this micro owner has the disk space to contain
it all. This same reason disqualifies any possibility that other
micro users, that may be a friend to the guy that brought the
news over originally. I certainly am not willing to have my
computer tied up for hours to transfer much of the news that
I dont even read (maybe the friend likes the news i dont like).
Another major reason for this idea's improbability concerns the
source of news for the micro. The network mainly consists of
computers that are used essentially as research, university,
commercial industry tools. Most (if not all) of these systems
would not take to having people call of their computer to
(opps... call up their computers to) transfer the news.
Of course they maybe able to get by for a while without being
question, but when lines are tied up for hours at a time
system personnel will most likely get suspicious. And also,
the only people who have accounts on machines that bring
in the news are most likely legitimate users who, after all,
could have read the news from the system itself without
the long wait and the multitude of 40 track floppies.
Really, I think they should make a mod like +1 paranoiya(sp?) just for this type of post.
And yet, it gets a +1 informative. Only on Slashdot...
And yes, the hw requirements are a slight jab at the trend of bloatware that comes from our favorite company, but most of the post applies to AOL's ventures into this arena as well.
Part of the problem/reason is what we've already seen with DirectPC - it's very much a Windows-only "solution" to high-speed access. IIRC, Win9x-only at that. Blech!
Paranoid rants aside, I honestly don't think that Microsoft and AOL will allow for platforms that they cannot fully control. MS's control is obvious. AOL can resort to tricks like taking over the network adaptor configuration (like the PPP debacle with AOL 5.0), and say things like "Oh, Connection Sharing? Sorry, we don't support that, so we disable it. Read your licence agreement again, it's in there.. "
But neither of them can fully control other platforms like that, nor do we want them to.
At the very least, it'll come down to what platforms can they actually support. Details are sketchy, so writing drivers may or may not be an issue, but certainly I doubt that AOL or even MS has the resources (or desire) to take calls from every quasi-major platform user that they may see.
Hell, my ISP escalates me immediatly when they hear me say the word "Linux" - 'cos the front-line folks don't have a clue how to deal with tshooting it (even though I've done all that anyway before I call).
System Requirements
- PC equipped with Pentium II or better running at 300 MhZ or better
- 128MB of RAM or more
- 300MB of free HD space
- Windows2000 or WindowsME
- Mouse
No Linux, no BSD, no Solaris, no MacOS, no BeOS. Maybe they'll let you plug your XBox into it, but otherwise it's gonna be pretty restrictive.
Not to mention what the user access agreement looks like. "In exchange for this service you agree that we may, at any time, make available, with or without notice, information which may or may not be personally identifiable as coming from you. Failure to agree to these terms will result in termination of service. Termination of service does not release liabilty to fufill your usage contract, which will, in the event of termination be due in full at time of termination..." And so on.
Of course, this is just speculation, based on past behavior, and is as likely to be completely wrong as not. Just don't say I didn't tell you so. Me, I'm sticking with DSL, thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Putting copyright protection on the HD, presumably requiring the participation of the OS (not likely in the case of Free software anyway), essentially means that the PC must become a trusted client when running software.
Bruce Schneier (the very same) speaks to the idea of trusted clients in the 15 May 2000 Crypto-Gram. Here he says:
Besides, such a thing would put such a damper on PC sales as to make the last quarter look like a windfall...
Hang on... I don't get it. How is the harddrive alone supposed to prevent copying of 'protected' content? Surely they're assuming the cooperation of the OS 'manufacturer' in this scheme? The HD is merely storage space. It can keep all the keys and certificates it wants, but if nothing is referencing them, what good does it do anyone? Hell, the first time the drive is partitioned, they're little slice for key management goes away. Then what?
Something just doesn't seem right here... It's not April again is it??
The article mentions that "a device like this (without screen) could be sold for around $500 retail." That's fine, but at that price, with all of the stuff (read features) that are in the box, someone would be taking a loss on the hardware.
So, what's the business model for this thing?? Are they going to do like TiVo - sell the box at a loss and treat the whole thing as a 'service'? If I choose not to pay a monthly charge for the service, is the box essentialy a brick? Or, can I just use this as a front-end, with all my MP3's (>9GB) continuing to live on the server in my closet? Will I have to reencode everything (again)?
Ok, more than one question.
Explain to me how the openness and freedom afforded by OSS/Free software is a communist ideal? Seriously. This makes no sense at all.
If Free/OpenSource software is the reflection of communist ideals, then what is closed-source software? Lessee:
- A central 'authority' determines what the software I run looks like.
- They also define what the architecture of the software is.
- They further dictate when/where/how their (remember, we don't 'own' closed-source software) is run, and by whom. All covered in the EULA...
- Using patents and trademarks, and a twisted interpretation of copyright, they forclose competition, in the interest of their own well-being (profitability).
- User input in to the process is limited, perfunctury, and superficial in the extreme. Don't like using a particular browser? 'Sorry, you can't remove it. It's that way for your own good.'
- They engage in propaganda campaigns to warn everyone of the evils of doing things differently. (Naked PC's anyone?)
Linux/Free Software, on the other hand, allows me to do whatever I want to the software and redistribute the changes (perhaps at a profit). I am not bound by ideas of propriety (save the few restrictions of the GPL). I do not have answer to anyone if I want to run a copies of the system on each of the dozen or so systems I have @ home. I can give copies away for free if I'd like. It's freedom, not communism.
Out of curiosity, though, I hit the site again just to see what's in the popup. Have a look at what I saw:
As others have noted, a commercial entity that takes paypal (but nothing else) is a bit suspicious. But this? This is just... brazen... Might as well have said "Just to make sure you get your unit, pay us twice. Or three times. We don't mind. Four is ok too." (and so on).
All for a redressed Apex player... Nah...
(Disclaimer: I know this is a troll, and deserves the Mod that it received. I'm also an expatriot of the Empire.)
Another way to say this is 'I couldn't think of anything on my own, so I had a quick peek at the Linux code for inspiration.' Some innovation. Still, I can't fault you for wanting to avoid reinvening the wheel.
However, I seem to recall an email from Ballmer forbidding everyone in the company working on or looking at the code for OSS projects, lest it 'infect' the MS code. Do you not remember that?? I don't have a particular problem with drawing inspiration from Linux code, but I'd prefer that you not do it, since it leaves the impression that MS code (or at least ideas) could also end up in Linux code, exposing it (GNU/Linux/OSS projects) to very expensive litigation for the misappropriation of MS's 'intellectual property'.
I don't agree with Ballmer on much, but on this point I do - If you code for Microsoft, you should/must not code for OSS projects (and VV), to avoid these kinds of cross-pollenation issues.
Although you don't mention what company you work for (for good reason, I'm not faulting you for that), I suspect that at those kinds of prices, you're not talking about a desktop application. At the very least, not a horizontal-market application like Office. I've seen this sort of pricing for server-apps, though.
Frankly, where I work, if we were to encounter a licence that 'rots' like this, we'd probably go with a competitor anyway. After all, if I not only have to pay to update my 'licence' to run the software, but also for patches (bugfixes) separately... that even gives the PHBs pause. This does not include support. We're quite happy to pay for that - for as long as we need it. After using a given package for a year or so, we probably won't even do that; relying instead on web-based and internal documentation where needed. Major upgrades are also another issue - happy to pay for those, again, as needed. All this means that we are running older versions of... well, pretty much everything.
But, with the latest patches and bugfixes in place, if it meets our needs, why upgrade? The whole mentality that we have to be running the 'latest and greatest' of everything is very overrated, especially if the 'latest and greatest' does not offer significant advances in the state of the art. A new rendering of Clippy need not apply.
Thing is, most licence agreements allow for revocation at any time anyway, which also means that using GPLed, and other less transient licencing is very much in our (meaning everyone's) best interests, never mind the pricing. I don't think it's unfair to ask for some kind of recurring payment to continue phone/live support of a given product, but to simply continue to use it (upgrades aside)????
Which, to maintain some semblence of being on-topic, is exactly what Microsoft is proposing. I don't think it's overly paranoid to expect, given previous behavior, that the file format of Office 10 will change again (I'd bet money on it), making them unreadable by O2K/97 without a plugin (which carries other artificial limitations with it - such as faulty rendering). Which also means that for a time, anyway, other word processors will not be able to handle them as well. All of which means that, again, if you fail to pay the ransom, your documents are rendered unusable.
And so, again, we arrive at the fact that I will continue to use/recommend AbiWord/StarOffice.
This is not the same thing. With a typical subscription model, you do get 'free' upgrades (not really free since they're all part of the subscription price). Under this model, if you choose to continue using the 'old' version of the software, you can - you've paid the licencing fees, the software does not self-destruct if you let the subscription run out.
The difference with Office 10 is that @ the end of the subscription period, the software becomes, IMO, crippled. From the press release:
As is so often true with MS (or anyone's, for that matter) press releases, it's not what is said, but what is not said that is of issue. Note that in the above quote nothing is said about updating/saving current documents. Which, by extension, reasonably means that Office 10 (Office 2002, or whatever they call it) will be crippleware unless you pay the ransom^H^H^H^H^H^H subscription fees to continue working with your documents.
It's probably too early to say with any certainty whether this model will actually work. I suspect not, given the dismal failure other pay-for-play models have suffered (Divx comes to mind). Paranoid or not, RMS's Right to Read story serves as a cautionary tale. If you are unable to continue working with your documents because you haven't paid the fees, what other restrictions will they be willing to place on your use of your documents???
Me? I'll continue to use AbiWord/StarOffice, thanks.
Are you joking???? To paraphrase: 'Root on many Linux machines are as stupid as their users, so let's open up the machine for attacks/exploits even further.' I'm sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to me. What's next? Root pw is hard-coded to 'password' because they're to stupid to remember anything else??
Oh, wait, I know... Let's just remove all permissions in the filesystem. That way, the idiot roots won't have to deal with scary things like chmod and chown... Then, we wouldn't have to worry about having ACLs either. Brilliant!
As others have mentioned, running LinuxPPC on the cube is quite possible (and rewarding).
BUT!! One major detail - the mouse. Trying to use X/Gnome/KDE/whatever with a one-button mouse is an exercise in frustration, to say the least. I'm not at all a fan of 'just hit this key-combo for right/middle' style of advice. Just get a 3-button mouse and have done with it.
Fortunately, the newer Macs all have USB, and the state of Linux and USB seems to be a bit ahead on the PPC (or at least Mac) side of things. So there are plenty of choices for replacing the crippled mouse that comes with the Mac. I've used both the Logitech and MS optical mouses on Yellow Dog Linux, and they work perfectly (and provide the middle mouse button). Presumably most USB-mousen would work.
But they don't have to. Just pick one or two high-profile members of the group, and target them. As soon as everyone else in the project finds out what's happening, the project is dead. It may not be possible to eradicate all OSS projects, but a few well-delivered blows could seriously cripple most of the useful stuff out there. Besides, MS would likely only target those things that pose a threat to them. I doubt that they'd go after anyone working on vi, for instance.
Question: When has Microsoft ever shown fear of any entity??? This is part of the reason they're perpetually in trouble with DOJ/FTC/etc...
Some of the folks that I used to work with would go all glassy-eyed whenever the topic of conversation would shift to corporate ethics. If n2h2 can't be classified as evil, there's certainly a fucked-up sense of values going on here.
FWIW, the page is http://www.n2h2.com/sponsor/overview.h tml . I'm actually offended (a rare occurance) by the careless use of the words 'penetration' and 'exposure' in context with kids. Maybe they're trying to make sure that kids can't read their website (contains 'naughty' words on that page..), and discover the truth of what's happening; filter out the unprofitable, replace it with the highly profitable.
But what do we do about it? Harping about it on /. won't change their behaviour. Will writing my representatives in 'DC make a difference? N2H2 has so many 'strategic partners', that certainly one or more of those have my rep's in their pocket... Fat lot of good that'll do then. So what do we do? Campaign finance reform? Oh wait, N2H2 filters that out.. After a couple of generations or so, will anyone remember that things were ever different?
Aside from the insane notion that they could actually get away with it (ie the retailers actually going along with it), I have to wonder how such a scheme could be enforced (ie the retailers tell AT&T to stuff it)...
The whole thing stinks of misinformation and sensationalism.
But that's not what the bill says. Here is the relevent section:
At best, it's sloppy legislation; it leaves far too many holes open. If the goal is to prevent wholesale recording/distribution of lectures, it should say that, and leave the vague wording out. And, I still think it would/will fail to pass constitutional muster as written.
At worst, RMS is an optimist with R2R.
As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. But if you want truely paranoid... What if the driving force behind the bill is the desire of the profs/university to publish their own materials without any competition??
I had a similar situation a number of years ago. What really bugs me is that not only is the lock not the default, but the local carrier doesn't tell you about it unless you get slammed @ least once (that's all it took for me... I was quite angry about the situation).
Another dirty secret that I discovered at the same time is that if you're paying for an unpublished number (another thing that should be default and gratis), that doesn't include the LD carriers (and perhaps others), unless you specifically tell the local carrier otherwise.
So, when I moved into the place I'm in now, on a different local carrier, I ran down the laundry list of features I wanted, included these two (locks and listings), and they didn't even flinch (I really like my local carrier; they're considerably less evil than the big Bell systems). It's been years since I've been solicted to change my LD carrier, much less slammed.
Sorry, I'm not buying it. The notes are not the education. There's no way that I could possibly claim to have a Stanford or a Harvard (or wherever) education simply by having read the notes from the classes there. It's not the same thing, and the Prof. should recognize this.
And, even if notes == education, then I have to think that it's just evolutionary pressure to get better, not whine about it.
Fair enough, but this bill doesn't ensure the quality of education either. It simply curtails free speech and commerce in the name of 'principle'. I don't think that's a sufficient reason.
So? Sounds like Prof. Deflem needs to peek his head out of academia for a second and think about another, more important principal - free speech.
As others have noted, it would (possibly) be a different story if we were talking about audio/video recordings, but these are notes!!
Two things disturb me about this situation. First, it's a fairly classic 'slippery-slope' problem. How long will it be until non-commercial distribution of class notes are prohibited? See RMS's 'Right to Read' story for a worst-case scenario.
Second, legislation that passes in CA is often adopted throughout much of the rest of the country. Clearly, that would be a mistake with this one.
The bill is so clearly unconstitutional, I wonder that it got sponsered in the first place.
Oh... IANAL....
Y'know, I used to think the same thing. Then I actually used X to run applications from n machines on my desktop. Terminal Server may be faster, but it absolutely does not have the same level of functionality. As for saving files on a 'core server'... I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to there, but I'd wager that a well-planned/implemented NFS mount scheme would serve the same purpose. Even better, actually - no drive letters to deal with. Oh, and have a look at the licensing terms for clients under terminal server... yuk...
Ummm... Oh wait... So, is this meant to be '-1 Troll/Flamebait' or '+1 Funny'????
It seems to me that if MacOSX is as good a *nix as the article suggests, and that the GNU tools work properly, that MacOSX lives somewhere in the spectrum of low-end Solaris boxen.
There are a number of similarities: Relatively expensive, but nicely done hardware that the OS is pretty closely tied to. Assuming MacOSX retains *nix-style uptimes - Long uptimes. Solid (if not stellar) performance. And so on.
So, I see no reason that MacOSX couldn't quickly become some serious competition for Sun in the Ultra 5,10,(60 ?)range. Which, BTW, is the same place that Linux on modern X86 hardware seems to live as well.
Actually, there is one reason I can think of: Apple doesn't push it in that direction. We've all seen some very curious blunders and missteps from them in the past. They've caught a wave, I hope that they can continue to ride it. Candy-coloured machines are interesting and all, but if they start pushing candy-coloured *nix boxen and everything that means... hmmm..
This could become very interesting...
Not entirely... Sun is getting pretty heavily behind Gnome. Or, at least, so they say. From the whitepaper: "When GNOME ships with the Solaris Operating Environment, Sun will offer the same support as it does today for CDE." The only catch is that they're talking about Gnome 2.0, and Sun is expecting this addition to happen somewhere around 3Q01..
I hope it works out, since 1-I hate CDE and 2-The 1.x product is pretty sweet on Sol7, and from what I've seen so far, a lot of it works pretty well.
Agreed - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
From the article:
I find the exact opposite to be true - I watch about 90% less television with my TiVo than before. I think there are two reasons for this:
1. I only watch what I've told TiVo to record for me, which amounts to about 3 hours per week. Right now, since everything is in reruns, TiVo's just storing up a bunch of stuff I'll probably never look at; the TV's not been on since last Tuesday or so. Since I don't spend time channel-surfing, I watch almost no TV at all now.
2. When I zip through commercials, I don't stop for anything - no ads at all if I can help it. This includes ads for the upcoming NEW SHOWS!!! Since I don't get seduced by the new shows, and I'm not really interested in watching more just to become a "better" source of demographic information (a privilege for which I pay, no less!) my viewing habits remain, at best, flat. They're losing money on me, and there's fuck-all they can do about it. That makes me very happy.
The moment that TiVo-inserted ads become non-skippable, or I start getting targeted-phone calls, or targeted-junk mail, or (yikes, they HAVE my email address) spam, they'll be getting the box back.
...and I was just getting ready to support your statement by detailing the numbers showing how my G4/500 cost me more than my Ultra10.. Oh well..
Ah, nostalgia....
And yet, it gets a +1 informative. Only on Slashdot...
And yes, the hw requirements are a slight jab at the trend of bloatware that comes from our favorite company, but most of the post applies to AOL's ventures into this arena as well.
Part of the problem/reason is what we've already seen with DirectPC - it's very much a Windows-only "solution" to high-speed access. IIRC, Win9x-only at that. Blech!
Paranoid rants aside, I honestly don't think that Microsoft and AOL will allow for platforms that they cannot fully control. MS's control is obvious. AOL can resort to tricks like taking over the network adaptor configuration (like the PPP debacle with AOL 5.0), and say things like "Oh, Connection Sharing? Sorry, we don't support that, so we disable it. Read your licence agreement again, it's in there.. "
But neither of them can fully control other platforms like that, nor do we want them to.
At the very least, it'll come down to what platforms can they actually support. Details are sketchy, so writing drivers may or may not be an issue, but certainly I doubt that AOL or even MS has the resources (or desire) to take calls from every quasi-major platform user that they may see.
Hell, my ISP escalates me immediatly when they hear me say the word "Linux" - 'cos the front-line folks don't have a clue how to deal with tshooting it (even though I've done all that anyway before I call).
System Requirements
- PC equipped with Pentium II or better running at 300 MhZ or better
- 128MB of RAM or more
- 300MB of free HD space
- Windows2000 or WindowsME
- Mouse
No Linux, no BSD, no Solaris, no MacOS, no BeOS. Maybe they'll let you plug your XBox into it, but otherwise it's gonna be pretty restrictive.
Not to mention what the user access agreement looks like. "In exchange for this service you agree that we may, at any time, make available, with or without notice, information which may or may not be personally identifiable as coming from you. Failure to agree to these terms will result in termination of service. Termination of service does not release liabilty to fufill your usage contract, which will, in the event of termination be due in full at time of termination..." And so on.
Of course, this is just speculation, based on past behavior, and is as likely to be completely wrong as not. Just don't say I didn't tell you so. Me, I'm sticking with DSL, thanks.