And in breaking news, Microsoft sanctions an unbiased statistical survey that puts them in good light.
In other news, MPAA is helping consumers by preventing copyright violations, SDMI is useful for consumer and music artists alike, and rich corporations are found to be the least arrogant of all commercial entities.
Yeah, and next we'll see cloned bulls from cloned bulls. Sure.
With respect to your story entitled "If You Can't Protect What's Yours, You Own Nothing", by Jack Valenti, I must urge you to find someone capable of writing a decent rebuttle to the clearly ignorant statements of Mr. Valenti. His arguments are nonsensical and uneducated, and are a very, very poor reflection on your publication. Please, allow me to elaborate.
As an example, take following paragraph (the third one, although most paragraphs contain adequate nonsense for a rebuttle, I just don't have that much time):
"Every DVD is coded with encryption software. The protection of our creative product is even more critical in a digital world because the one-millionth copy of a digital film is as pristine and pure as the original. The program in question illegally breaks the encryption, leaving the valuable product unprotected."
from the article, it seem to indicate that the "hacker" software exists to copy CD's in their pristine form. However, this is contrary to several factual statements from the manufacturers of DVD equipment. For example, Toshiba offers a DVD writer that would allow "pristine" copies of DVDs without ever decrypting them. I would speculate that the production of innovative hardware that permits copying without ever decrypting the DVDs would be more dangerous than software that permits decrypting them. At least decrypting them has the logical use of allowing them to be viewed.
Why is software decoding not dangerous? Because every DVD player can play encrypted DVD's. It is irrelevant that you copy DVD's encrypted or not, and the ability exists to copy them as encrypted DVDs. One must then speculate, what is the real intent behind the DVD decrypting software? Mr. Valenti conveniently leaves out the fact that the DVD software allows users of the Linux Operating System to view the DVD movies that they own, something not available prior to this. If I own a DVD, am I not entitled to view it in whatever manner I wish?
I have a license to drive, which makes sense since driving can be deadly, and putting the wrong people on the road endangers us all. I see no justification to live in a world where I need a license to watch movies. But that is the implication of Mr. Valenti: If you do not possess licensed decoder from the DVD consortium, DVD's are an inaccessible technology to you. Is it really his place to dictate this? I believe it similar to dictating which cars I am allowed to drive, and allowing me to only drive the BMW, and "to hell with me" if I can't afford that or want choice.
The stark ignorance of Mr. Valenti is appalling. The "cyber-thieves" generally have better things to do than copy films. (most of them are rich, anyway) Indeed, it is the very benevolence of the entire community surrounding open source software that permits them to work together on a common project, by volunteering to create software that allows users of Linux and FreeBSD and BeOS and all the other free operating systems, to view DVD movies.
In all honesty, I can tell you that Mr. Valenti is one of the most ignorant people alive, or one of the most selfish and malevolent ones. The publication of this FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in your newspaper undermines your credibility; without a satisfactory rebuttle, my faith in your publications is compromised, indefinitely.
Please try and find one of the many well educated people to publish a sensible rebuttle to this deception. It is a shame to see a respectable newspaper used as a medium for nonsensical opinion. The web page www.opendvd.org has information for journalists, which should be of interest to you. It provides true statements in direct contradiction of Mr. Valenti's article, except the statements on opendvd.org can be validated as true. Mr. Valenti's are fictitious opinion.
I must implore you to research this issue, and take heed when Mr. Valenti attempts to abuse your publication like this. There are millions of people out there who have read this article. The innocent will be deceived. The wise will be skeptical. The knowledgeable will be insulted.
If you do not have the right to use what is yours, what rights do you have?
Have you ever tried to find and download bugfixes from the MS Website? It's *n*a*s*t*y* forever to find it, and then, half the time the link is dead.
Also, in the case of a monopoly such as Microsoft, YES, they do make you wait for 6 months before releasing a patch (in the form of a Service Pack.) IIRC, you have to pay for these, much the way you have to pay for Win98 SR2, which was bugfixes for Win98. They're in the business of making money, not producing usable software. With real competition with something like Linux, they will either adapt, or crumble (I would think...)
Debian updates automagically. You could have one of those bobbing chickens hitting the enter key update Debian. I'm sure that a true "consumer" Linux, when out of infancy, will provide this without even user input. (for better or worse security reasons)
But your points are moot. I can obtain Linux for free, and fix the bugs on my own. I can pay for Microsoft software and never be able to fix the problems without entering into a perpetual upgrade-payment cycle. I reserve the right to critize anyone whom wants my money, and is failing to deliver on products. I consistently forgive volunteers.
Point is, while the internet provides an interesting case study of human communalization, it does not remove the economic barriers. The people who were outcasts yesterday are still outcasts today. If we form communities on the net, it is largely because we are already in communities in real life - most of us are employable, mildly educated, and well fed.
That's an excellent point, but I'm not so sure that's the point he was trying to get across. Mostly, I believe, he was pointing to the fact that we have genuine values, all else being equal, that cannot be maintained together.
I believe someone once described intelligence as the ability to hold two opposing ideas and make sense of them. Although true for the mind, it seems as though for community it is not, and we get natural divisions based on these genuine differences.
Well, it's usable. Not quite production yet, but certainly usable. Once the debugging code is extricated, it'll be significantly faster, I imagine. (if it's debugging now -- I hope all that console echoing will be turned off!:) )
I'm actually in M13 now, and it is nicer than Netscape when it renders. I believe the saying is, failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers. I think Mozilla will be one of those with many fathers.
Ironically, no, it is actually the director of NASA that is empowered to do arbitrary detention with military force, IIRC. I wish I could remember the actual article in the US legislature that this is in -- if I do, I'll post. (This is offtopic, but nonetheless, I always chuckle.)
My presumption for the existence of this law is in case the Presidency is taken over by aliens who mimic humans, NASA is best able to determine this and arbitrarily detain them. Now, if I were an alien, I'd take over NASA and make sure we never found out that aliens existed . . .
The director of NSA can surely detain you as well, with military force, but no one would ever know that you were detained, including yourself...
Not to be the odd one pointing this out, but the USA is well known for human rights violations (see Amnesty International USA campaign). It might be of particular interest that the director of NASA has the right to arbitrarily imprison anyone in the USA, including the president. (The president wouldn't like that very much, but it is within the director's legal right.)
Your advice is good, and perhaps more pertinent than you be believe it to be.
Very useful. The question is, can we viably extend mathematics should this "thing" be patented. This is the same thing we have to evaluate in Artificial Intelligence -- does someone get to benefit from having patents in AI, when in fact, giving these patents out practically undermines any further research in that particular direction, overall inhibiting the growth of that field.
It's not my place to say, but I'm quite sure that this is a very, very bad thing. Look at LZW -- no one really benefited from that patent, but it sure as hell made life very difficult for many, many people. It's fine to patent something if it's a specific end-process, but if it is a *foundation* for furthering a field, then patenting it cause undue harm to the exploration of that field.
So, my opinion is, if this thing is an "end process", as in unable to extend the field further, then it being patented should be of no harm. However, my understanding of this leads me to believe that patenting this thing will hinder the furthering of mathematics.
We cannot afford to put up barriers in mathematics, there is too much to explore, and we know too little, to put up artificial anthropocentric monetary induced barriers.
As if the ones we thought were real, like cleaners and soap and engine coolant, weren't bad enough. I can only imagine what these things are going to do to me. The fact that they mention the human genome isn't particularly comforting, either.
He has some good points, in terms of being patient:
Most compelling in this matter is the relative harm to the parties. At this point in the proceeding, the harm to the Defendants is truly minimal. They will simply have to remove the trade secret information from their web sites. They may still continue to discuss and debate the subject as they have in the past in both educational, scientific, philosophical and political context. Defendants have not provided any evidence of any economic harm which an injunction could currently cause, although if such an injunction were not granted it is quite possible that this could change which could potentially shift the burden of harm in Defendants' favor.
Which is entirely true. I'm self contradiction prior posts, in light of reading the Judge's justification, and although he does not seem to understand the magnitude of effects of his ruling, he does seem to have left himself open to make a just ruling. The ignorance is evident here:
Whether or not the Defendants agree that such information as at issue here should be protected or secret is irrelevant to the determination herein. Our system currently places high importance on protecting such intellectual property, and this Court must enforce such protections with all appropriate and available means.
Where the "all appropriate and available means" would likely required armed conflict across international borders. His "value of intellectual property" seems based not on ethics or principles, but rather on doctrine and traditional stagnated law. This is not a case to rule on technicality. If we attempt to win on a technicality, we forfeit the real battle.
Now, this judge seems a little out of his league here. Not to be presumptuous or anything, but he IS presuming to enforce this thing across oceans, all around the world. It's fine if he wants to take these things down in the U.S., but what will that prove to really do? Sure, no one can develop this thing in the U.S., but does this guy presume to restrict all imports of this thing (over the what, 1,200 O3 lines in/out of the U.S. + 120 odd satelites), in clear stark raving ignorance of the obvious demands of the general public?
It is a good thing that there were no damages awarded, as it is an unenforceable judgement for most of the people with whom it matters. The issues of practicality of the judgement are unheard. This fellow seems largely ignorant of the real issues at hand, and someone has to bring these things to his attention. We MUST win this thing on the grounds of rightiousness, not technicalities, for in technicalities we prematurely admit defeat.
The context is the definition of "nature" as follows:
A primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality: couldn't tolerate city life anymore and went back to nature.
In which case, by definition, natural is the state that exists disjoint of artificial (or synthetic, or manufactured, or conditioned, etc.) entities, such as the cure we have created for influenza.
We must acknowledge two circumstances, first that a single chemical entity could end the world as we know and accept in a catalyst form, and second that our own industrialized chemical production could spread harmful entities (see DDT and tobacco) to all places where humanity exists. Failure to accept these possibilities is a most highly dangerous ignorance.
Also of note: nature is only efficient in terms of generations. Intragenerational modifications to a species are relatively minute, but generational natural selection is what makes nature so adaptable. Without generational selection, evolution is stagnated, which is the state of homo sapiens as we read this.
As humans, our main selection criteria are poverty and deadly addictions (and isolated modifiers). The fact that we can reason about this sort of thing does not change the fact that at some point, something will curb our growth. If not ourselves, then something else. (Unless we explore altenative habitats, like space and oceans).
It directly kills very few (those who were really on the edge) but the most devastating effects are against the strong and healthy. The victim's own immune response is responsible for their death in many if not most cases.
That is something that was hinted at here (on Slashdot), and I must say that it adds an interesting twist to any ethical question. Suffice to say that the survival of the fittest is an odd thing to say, since it would be the physically unfit that would possess darwinian fitness (the ability to continue life and breed).
I do know that common diseases, including influenza, do cause death in AIDS patients, as up until 1993 (IIRC - see WHO) influenza was the largest killer in the world - a statistic consisting mostly of those with advanced HIV, until strains of antibiotic resistent TB started making a comeback in 3rd world countries. (TB now being the largest killer in the world)
Not many luddite paranoids use Slashdot, partially by definition. Whereas social darwinism may be an accurate observation, I honestly can't say what it means.:)
How do you know that these viruses aren't in fact modifying our genetic code to cause us "to grow wings?" The inablity to forsee all posiblities is not an excuse for inaction, and certainly not an excuse to submit people to pain and death for your "darwinian fitness".
The implication I was incinuating was that by using drugs may lower the overall quality of life for us all, that by using synthetic means of human-preservation we may undermine the things we take for granted and value. Contrast the cost of lives now with the cost of the quality of life. Do we really need a larger number of people to lead a happier life? (Not to say we should murder people, or let them die when we have a choice, but it is an interesting question.)
A cure for influenza may be somewhat like the spice from Herbert's Dune: it allowed many people to live their lives for longer and in unimaginable ways, but was a deadly addiction. Granted, the influenza cure probably isn't addictive, but the duality between truth and worth, effect and consequence is not clear. Administering a cure of unknown consequence may have worse consequences than not administering it at all. From a personal perspective, the choice is obvious: we give the cure, but from a holistic perspective the choice is not clear at all, and not to be made lightly.
As far as influenza is concerned, it is about time that we saw a new Spanish Flu. This deadly strain would likely kill the weak and those already sick (ie. HIV/AIDS), in the long term leading to a healthier population.
With the advent of a vaccine or cure to any given case of the flu, we can completely circumvent a pandemic instance of influenza. But the side effects of wide-spread population usage of any particular high-concentration drug could have drastic long-term effects on a population that we simply cannot forsee. We might all grow wings, I honestly don't know, but I would suggest that something added to the "living equilibrium", such as a (relatively) spontaneously created medication, has the potential to unbalance many of the delicate chemical systems we need to live a healthy, darwinian fit, happy life.
We must then weigh, should a pandemic influenza arise, the benefits of a cure versus the benefits of not using a cure. But if a cure exists, and people are dying, they will desire said cure, side effects be damned. At least, I would desire said cure.
(troll-redundancy warning) *RANT* I just want DVD on my Linux machine. Is that too much to ask? What have I ever done to these people? I have given them lots of money by viewing their movies, and is this how they reward my sacrifices of real culture?
And all this legal blitz, why does that exist? The plantiffs consistently self-contradict, as in "it is of no economic incentive to [produce DeCSS]", and yet it is apparently of economic incentive to engage in legal action to undermine it's existence. Why does this apply to me, anyway? Most people involved in DeCSS are outside US legal jurisdiction, thereby making most of the plantiff's claims invalid.
And should I ever decide to copy DVD's, which is possible, however unlikely, it will probably be to my hard drive, and I can do it just as well in Windows as I can in Linux, but seeing as I can't even view the damned things in Linux yet, I'm deprived of the satisfaction of entirely obviating Windows, and thus might as well take advantage of it's presence on my hard drive, and use the abundantly available Windows software to copy DVD's.
Now, it is of particular interest to me, these so called law abiding people, where they get the necessary ignorance to sue advocates of open development, in stark raving legal and media lunacy: in the face of clear & obvious benefit to everyone. Everyone that is, except those behind these bizarre scapegoat legal actions.
In my humble but correct opinion, there is no sign of intelligence in these actions. It is the "established" staving off change. */RANT*
Is anyone aware if XFree86 3.3.6 supports SiS6326, which is mostly used on onboard chipsets for motherboards. I've had a heck of a time finding relevent information about this thing (even the scant SiS web page is only half-useful), and have only been able to find a half-working SuSE XFCom driver.
My personal hope is that the 56k modem is the last of the dial-up era. However, I also live in hope that DSL (et al.) never falls into the Microsoft dictated "software required" trap.
I do believe that it is quite within the world of Microsoft to have dedicated modems, DSL or otherwise, that require Windows software to operate, with integration similar to the WinModem. Such a thought distresses me, on several levels, and my wish is for choice.
Seems like that would be a major selling point, since "that other OS" claims to be certified, when really the ONLY version that was ever certified was NT3.51, which, er, they don't sell or support any more...
That's an interesting point. My personal feeling is that Red Hat might release a certified Linux distribution, at a high expense, with nice technical descriptions of the protocols, the necessities of each security level, and things of such cosmetic nature. Underlying their secure version will be open source Linux. And I can imagine that any actions that move against the particular open-source movement that Red Hat stands for, ie. by close sourcing particular parts of the system, would recieve a backlash of negative publicity.
On the other hand, if Red Hat can spin off security through obscurity, or anything through obscurity, for that matter, they are instantly given a lead over other Linux distributions. If they can release closed source in the name of security, or under the veil of NDA's, or what have you, they are at an advantage over Caldera, SuSE, Corel, et al.
The question is, are the benefits of having closed source to the bottom line sufficient to justify the publicity of it. For Red Hat, the answer must be to the shareholders.
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, MPAA is helping consumers by preventing copyright violations, SDMI is useful for consumer and music artists alike, and rich corporations are found to be the least arrogant of all commercial entities.
Yeah, and next we'll see cloned bulls from cloned bulls. Sure.
lol
As an example, take following paragraph (the third one, although most paragraphs contain adequate nonsense for a rebuttle, I just don't have that much time):
"Every DVD is coded with encryption software. The protection of our creative product is even more critical in a digital world because the one-millionth copy of a digital film is as pristine and pure as the original. The program in question illegally breaks the encryption, leaving the valuable product unprotected."
from the article, it seem to indicate that the "hacker" software exists to copy CD's in their pristine form. However, this is contrary to several factual statements from the manufacturers of DVD equipment. For example, Toshiba offers a DVD writer that would allow "pristine" copies of DVDs without ever decrypting them. I would speculate that the production of innovative hardware that permits copying without ever decrypting the DVDs would be more dangerous than software that permits decrypting them. At least decrypting them has the logical use of allowing them to be viewed.
Why is software decoding not dangerous? Because every DVD player can play encrypted DVD's. It is irrelevant that you copy DVD's encrypted or not, and the ability exists to copy them as encrypted DVDs. One must then speculate, what is the real intent behind the DVD decrypting software? Mr. Valenti conveniently leaves out the fact that the DVD software allows users of the Linux Operating System to view the DVD movies that they own, something not available prior to this. If I own a DVD, am I not entitled to view it in whatever manner I wish?
I have a license to drive, which makes sense since driving can be deadly, and putting the wrong people on the road endangers us all. I see no justification to live in a world where I need a license to watch movies. But that is the implication of Mr. Valenti: If you do not possess licensed decoder from the DVD consortium, DVD's are an inaccessible technology to you. Is it really his place to dictate this? I believe it similar to dictating which cars I am allowed to drive, and allowing me to only drive the BMW, and "to hell with me" if I can't afford that or want choice.
The stark ignorance of Mr. Valenti is appalling. The "cyber-thieves" generally have better things to do than copy films. (most of them are rich, anyway) Indeed, it is the very benevolence of the entire community surrounding open source software that permits them to work together on a common project, by volunteering to create software that allows users of Linux and FreeBSD and BeOS and all the other free operating systems, to view DVD movies.
In all honesty, I can tell you that Mr. Valenti is one of the most ignorant people alive, or one of the most selfish and malevolent ones. The publication of this FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in your newspaper undermines your credibility; without a satisfactory rebuttle, my faith in your publications is compromised, indefinitely.
Please try and find one of the many well educated people to publish a sensible rebuttle to this deception. It is a shame to see a respectable newspaper used as a medium for nonsensical opinion. The web page www.opendvd.org has information for journalists, which should be of interest to you. It provides true statements in direct contradiction of Mr. Valenti's article, except the statements on opendvd.org can be validated as true. Mr. Valenti's are fictitious opinion.
I must implore you to research this issue, and take heed when Mr. Valenti attempts to abuse your publication like this. There are millions of people out there who have read this article. The innocent will be deceived. The wise will be skeptical. The knowledgeable will be insulted.
If you do not have the right to use what is yours, what rights do you have?
Also, in the case of a monopoly such as Microsoft, YES, they do make you wait for 6 months before releasing a patch (in the form of a Service Pack.) IIRC, you have to pay for these, much the way you have to pay for Win98 SR2, which was bugfixes for Win98. They're in the business of making money, not producing usable software. With real competition with something like Linux, they will either adapt, or crumble (I would think...)
Debian updates automagically. You could have one of those bobbing chickens hitting the enter key update Debian. I'm sure that a true "consumer" Linux, when out of infancy, will provide this without even user input. (for better or worse security reasons)
But your points are moot. I can obtain Linux for free, and fix the bugs on my own. I can pay for Microsoft software and never be able to fix the problems without entering into a perpetual upgrade-payment cycle. I reserve the right to critize anyone whom wants my money, and is failing to deliver on products. I consistently forgive volunteers.
There's a significant difference. One is about to be released as a "final commercial version". Linux is a perpetual beta.
I believe someone once described intelligence as the ability to hold two opposing ideas and make sense of them. Although true for the mind, it seems as though for community it is not, and we get natural divisions based on these genuine differences.
I'm actually in M13 now, and it is nicer than Netscape when it renders. I believe the saying is, failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers. I think Mozilla will be one of those with many fathers.
My presumption for the existence of this law is in case the Presidency is taken over by aliens who mimic humans, NASA is best able to determine this and arbitrarily detain them. Now, if I were an alien, I'd take over NASA and make sure we never found out that aliens existed . . .
The director of NSA can surely detain you as well, with military force, but no one would ever know that you were detained, including yourself ...
Your advice is good, and perhaps more pertinent than you be believe it to be.
True. I've never even heard of US Eastern, and I'm in it! (in Canada)
Very useful. The question is, can we viably extend mathematics should this "thing" be patented. This is the same thing we have to evaluate in Artificial Intelligence -- does someone get to benefit from having patents in AI, when in fact, giving these patents out practically undermines any further research in that particular direction, overall inhibiting the growth of that field.
It's not my place to say, but I'm quite sure that this is a very, very bad thing. Look at LZW -- no one really benefited from that patent, but it sure as hell made life very difficult for many, many people. It's fine to patent something if it's a specific end-process, but if it is a *foundation* for furthering a field, then patenting it cause undue harm to the exploration of that field.
So, my opinion is, if this thing is an "end process", as in unable to extend the field further, then it being patented should be of no harm. However, my understanding of this leads me to believe that patenting this thing will hinder the furthering of mathematics.
We cannot afford to put up barriers in mathematics, there is too much to explore, and we know too little, to put up artificial anthropocentric monetary induced barriers.
As if the ones we thought were real, like cleaners and soap and engine coolant, weren't bad enough. I can only imagine what these things are going to do to me. The fact that they mention the human genome isn't particularly comforting, either.
It is a good thing that there were no damages awarded, as it is an unenforceable judgement for most of the people with whom it matters. The issues of practicality of the judgement are unheard. This fellow seems largely ignorant of the real issues at hand, and someone has to bring these things to his attention. We MUST win this thing on the grounds of rightiousness, not technicalities, for in technicalities we prematurely admit defeat.
We must acknowledge two circumstances, first that a single chemical entity could end the world as we know and accept in a catalyst form, and second that our own industrialized chemical production could spread harmful entities (see DDT and tobacco) to all places where humanity exists. Failure to accept these possibilities is a most highly dangerous ignorance.
Also of note: nature is only efficient in terms of generations. Intragenerational modifications to a species are relatively minute, but generational natural selection is what makes nature so adaptable. Without generational selection, evolution is stagnated, which is the state of homo sapiens as we read this.
As humans, our main selection criteria are poverty and deadly addictions (and isolated modifiers). The fact that we can reason about this sort of thing does not change the fact that at some point, something will curb our growth. If not ourselves, then something else. (Unless we explore altenative habitats, like space and oceans).
I do know that common diseases, including influenza, do cause death in AIDS patients, as up until 1993 (IIRC - see WHO) influenza was the largest killer in the world - a statistic consisting mostly of those with advanced HIV, until strains of antibiotic resistent TB started making a comeback in 3rd world countries. (TB now being the largest killer in the world)
A cure for influenza may be somewhat like the spice from Herbert's Dune: it allowed many people to live their lives for longer and in unimaginable ways, but was a deadly addiction. Granted, the influenza cure probably isn't addictive, but the duality between truth and worth, effect and consequence is not clear. Administering a cure of unknown consequence may have worse consequences than not administering it at all. From a personal perspective, the choice is obvious: we give the cure, but from a holistic perspective the choice is not clear at all, and not to be made lightly.
With the advent of a vaccine or cure to any given case of the flu, we can completely circumvent a pandemic instance of influenza. But the side effects of wide-spread population usage of any particular high-concentration drug could have drastic long-term effects on a population that we simply cannot forsee. We might all grow wings, I honestly don't know, but I would suggest that something added to the "living equilibrium", such as a (relatively) spontaneously created medication, has the potential to unbalance many of the delicate chemical systems we need to live a healthy, darwinian fit, happy life.
We must then weigh, should a pandemic influenza arise, the benefits of a cure versus the benefits of not using a cure. But if a cure exists, and people are dying, they will desire said cure, side effects be damned. At least, I would desire said cure.
*RANT*
I just want DVD on my Linux machine. Is that too much to ask? What have I ever done to these people? I have given them lots of money by viewing their movies, and is this how they reward my sacrifices of real culture?
And all this legal blitz, why does that exist? The plantiffs consistently self-contradict, as in "it is of no economic incentive to [produce DeCSS]", and yet it is apparently of economic incentive to engage in legal action to undermine it's existence. Why does this apply to me, anyway? Most people involved in DeCSS are outside US legal jurisdiction, thereby making most of the plantiff's claims invalid.
And should I ever decide to copy DVD's, which is possible, however unlikely, it will probably be to my hard drive, and I can do it just as well in Windows as I can in Linux, but seeing as I can't even view the damned things in Linux yet, I'm deprived of the satisfaction of entirely obviating Windows, and thus might as well take advantage of it's presence on my hard drive, and use the abundantly available Windows software to copy DVD's.
Now, it is of particular interest to me, these so called law abiding people, where they get the necessary ignorance to sue advocates of open development, in stark raving legal and media lunacy: in the face of clear & obvious benefit to everyone. Everyone that is, except those behind these bizarre scapegoat legal actions.
In my humble but correct opinion, there is no sign of intelligence in these actions. It is the "established" staving off change.
*/RANT*
Not secretive. Just quiet.
Is anyone aware if XFree86 3.3.6 supports SiS6326, which is mostly used on onboard chipsets for motherboards. I've had a heck of a time finding relevent information about this thing (even the scant SiS web page is only half-useful), and have only been able to find a half-working SuSE XFCom driver.
I do believe that it is quite within the world of Microsoft to have dedicated modems, DSL or otherwise, that require Windows software to operate, with integration similar to the WinModem. Such a thought distresses me, on several levels, and my wish is for choice.
On the other hand, if Red Hat can spin off security through obscurity, or anything through obscurity, for that matter, they are instantly given a lead over other Linux distributions. If they can release closed source in the name of security, or under the veil of NDA's, or what have you, they are at an advantage over Caldera, SuSE, Corel, et al.
The question is, are the benefits of having closed source to the bottom line sufficient to justify the publicity of it. For Red Hat, the answer must be to the shareholders.