This just underlines the injustice of the courts. I suspect that it was as much decided on who knew who and who had the biggest pockets - always a big factor in a trial.
Life would be much more pleasant if there were no lawyers.
OK, so you have to watch all of it, including the ads. The next logical step in protecting corporate revenue streams is mandatory purchase of popcorn when you rent a video. It makes perfect sense - how else do they get compensated for you hiring it once and you crowding all your mates into your living room to watch it ?
Slashdot readers who make their own popcorn will be the first to be sued.
I have been looking at this problem recently: how can the ukuug (United Kingdom Unix User Group) improve services to members ? One way that I am investigating is the sort of thing that is expensive for a one off, but can be cheap in bulk - SSL certificates are like this.
I floated the idea in the newsletter and providing a SSL certificate for free as part of membership was well received. To make this work, I need lots of other UUGs to join with UKUUG and share the cost of becoming a SSL signing authority, I would like to get the cost down to about $1/member.
Questions:
Am I missing something that would turn this into a bad idea, or would cost too much ?
I want other UUGs to contact me and talk about possible agreement to spread the cost (no committment at this stage).
At university, some 25 years ago, we went on Pi walks:
Start in some direction; when a junction is reached inspect the next digit of Pi: 1,2,3: turn left; 4,5,6: go straight on; 7,8,9: turn right; 0: turn back.
The results can be interesting.
For a change we did 'e' walks. You can use any irrational number.
More to the point if a patent holder is presented with potential prior art after the patent is granted, they should be obliged to evaluate the putative prior art and, if it is indeed prior art, withdraw the patent.
There should be penalties if they do not do this in a timely/honest/... manner.
This will never happen: if it did, lawyers would make less money - so this will never get voted in.
This is the stupidity of the whole thing. People have been shopping with more than one cart for years, why the f**k can someone patent something that every one already does - just because there is a computer in the loop ?
It is this fundemental idea that just adding a bit of technicality to something that is commonly done somehow makes it completely new/novel & so patentable. This is what needs to be attacked, rather than the stream of pitiful patents by money grabbing sharks.
The law makers need to be reminded that the purpose of a patent was for the common good, not to line the pockets of those that make political donations -- darn, I have just destroyed my own argument!
about 15 years ago IIRC, see http://herd.plethora.net/~seebs/c/10com.html Still very good advice.
Never forget that C is just a machine independent assembler, you need to have a good understanding of how machines really work to be able to write good C programs.
Also: plan the code and code the plan. C is a language that bites you if you are sploppy.
Maybe I need to pay a fee if I sing a song while walking down the street. (``demand payments for any public performance of copyrighted material'')
Maybe I should invoice the song writer for promoting the meme that is his song.
Maybe I could point this out to the next obnoxious git that sits next to me on a train with a zzz zzzz zzzzz coming out of his walkman -- peace at last.
Maybe this isn't in the long term interest of the song writers. If guides/scouts don't sing the songs, then the kids won't learn them but will learn other ones. These are the ones that they will remember in later life and want to buy the records/....
Maybe we ought to organise a public rally/demonstration... and be sued for siging Bob Dylan songs.
Maybe we ought to write Open songs and publicise them.
Maybe we ought to get RMS to write the GNU Public Song Licence.
Maybe this could lead to a resurgance in classical music, most of which is out of copyright. There are performers who allow their interpretation to be played without fee.
Maybe cab drivers should include a 'hire of radio' as part of their fee. It is then up to the passenger to choose to play the radio that is (for a few minutes) theirs.
Maybe cab drivers should invoice the local radio station for increasing their audience figures and thus what they can charge their advertisers.
Maybe this sort of thing is a good thing. People will become so fed up with it that the politicians will see lost votes in it.
Archaelogogists in 1000 years are likely to be interested in what we are (were) up to today, that is 100 times as many generation times as it took the Acorn to become unusable.
Many of the designers of the original machines are probably still around - and able to help. They won't be in 1000 years time (insert caveat about medical advances here).
The article talks about changes in hardware and software that made the old formats unreadable, how often will that change over 1000 years - especially if proprietary s/ware vendors need to churn to get upgrade fees?
The data was stored on 2 video disks, not a large amount of data - quite pheasable to have a project to recover the data. What about the data that we might want to store today ? What about the data that will be generated over the next 1000 years ?
To be kept available future data archives will need to be copied over and over. They will have to be copied in bulk, there will not be the man power to do specials on anything.
Data is only useful is readable and searchable. Will a future archaeologist be willing to learn to use 100 generations of applications to look at 1000 years of archive ?
Disasters happen. This data must be free so that it can be freely copied many times to many places.
What am I trying to say: this problem will get worse, worse than you can imagine. Well defined, simple Open standards for data is a must for the basics. Well defined, simple Open standards for Open Source applications to implement anything richer - these applications growing gradually over time, but maintaining backwards compatability. I still use troff and can still maintain/print documents that are over 15 years old.
A proprietary future will be much poorer than an Open one. A future that overly controls copying will be much poorer than an open one.
All of the numbers above are probably an underestimate.
A year or so ago we would have been thrilled that the discussion was even happening. There will be debate one way and the other - the more the better.
The point is that the longer and more high profile the debate, the more people become aware of OSS and come to realise that it is not a flash in the pan. ``Gee, they are still talking about Linux, my M$/... salesman told me it would be forgotten by the Autumn. Hmmmm, maybe I ought to find out some more.''
To an extent, any publicity is good publicity.
The closed source vendors have a problem: they either shut up about Linux/OSS and have it gradually move into their territory; or they generate loud FUD and bring it to decision makers' attention.
Things will get really interesting when widespread adoption of OSS grows from operating systems, systems utilities and universal applications to business sector specific applications.
Many are worried about ensuring that your backup is at great distance from your machine, but complain about the effort of taking it elsewhere.
The obvious answer is to back your data up, in lots of tiny pieces, in cookies stored on the PCs of everyone that visits your web site. Your only problem is to then get enough hits.
I suppose that restoring might be interesting, but work that out when it happens -- disasters only happen to other people:-)
Did you notice the finish date for the study? March 2004, yes 2004 not 2003! It is not as if it is a big study - only $410,000.
Governments when faced with something that they don't like often make it go away by commissioning a study, by the time that it comes out the fuss has died down and everyone has forgotten about it. I hope that that is not what is happening here. If that is the case, this is one 'fuss' where events will overtake the report.
The reason that the companies do it is that they know that potential customers look at the cost before deciding where to buy. So, they take something off the advertised price and add it back on as a mandatory charge - by which time it is too late or costly in money or time for the customer to switch.
One company starts: the others have to follow or loose business.
The place where this should be tackled is the Advertising Standards Authority (or equivalent for those not in the UK) or the local trading standards office.
Why is it fraud: because it is a con trick on the customer. They lie to get the customer into their door. This should be treated as the fraud that it is.
I didn't see Q acknowledged
on
Landshark
·
· Score: 1
I look forward to seeing one of these in action in the next James Bond or XXX film.
We, in the UK, will be celebrating that on 5 Nov 1605 Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament... a failure that we still, occasionally, regret:-)
One problem, as others have remarked, is that most people don't know that this is happening, or forget quickly.
The current UK government is very good a raising stealth taxes (taxes that are easily forgotten). One of these is an air-flight tax. The budget airlines don't like these as they can be a significant %age of the total price; so they quote these separately - which ensures that everyone always remembers that they are being taxes.
The ISPs should do the same: itemise cost to provide service + cost to record all your traffic.
This 'in your face' mechanism may help get this obnoxious intrusion removed.
Does the post office record the address of every letter that you send ?
Slashdot Mirror
This just underlines the injustice of the courts. I suspect that it was as much decided on who knew who and who had the biggest pockets - always a big factor in a trial.
Life would be much more pleasant if there were no lawyers.
OK, so you have to watch all of it, including the ads. The next logical step in protecting corporate revenue streams is mandatory purchase of popcorn when you rent a video. It makes perfect sense - how else do they get compensated for you hiring it once and you crowding all your mates into your living room to watch it ?
Slashdot readers who make their own popcorn will be the first to be sued.
I floated the idea in the newsletter and providing a SSL certificate for free as part of membership was well received. To make this work, I need lots of other UUGs to join with UKUUG and share the cost of becoming a SSL signing authority, I would like to get the cost down to about $1/member.
Questions:
Please email me at: addw AT phcomp DOT co DOT uk
At university, some 25 years ago, we went on Pi walks:
Start in some direction; when a junction is reached inspect the next digit of Pi: 1,2,3: turn left; 4,5,6: go straight on; 7,8,9: turn right; 0: turn back.
The results can be interesting.
For a change we did 'e' walks. You can use any irrational number.
There should be penalties if they do not do this in a timely/honest/... manner.
This will never happen: if it did, lawyers would make less money - so this will never get voted in.
This is the stupidity of the whole thing. People have been shopping with more than one cart for years, why the f**k can someone patent something that every one already does - just because there is a computer in the loop ?
It is this fundemental idea that just adding a bit of technicality to something that is commonly done somehow makes it completely new/novel & so patentable. This is what needs to be attacked, rather than the stream of pitiful patents by money grabbing sharks.
The law makers need to be reminded that the purpose of a patent was for the common good, not to line the pockets of those that make political donations -- darn, I have just destroyed my own argument!
No, you have got that wrong. Bezos won't patent a thing like a book - but he will patent a method like reading a book.
So it will be OK to print and own books, but you will need to pay a royalty to read them.
Remembering the chaos theory description of the wide reaching potential of tiny effects:
:-)
Do we now have robotic weather control ?
about 15 years ago IIRC, see http://herd.plethora.net/~seebs/c/10com.html Still very good advice.
Never forget that C is just a machine independent assembler, you need to have a good understanding of how machines really work to be able to write good C programs.
Also: plan the code and code the plan. C is a language that bites you if you are sploppy.
Will Bill Gates get all depressed because of all those people defecting to Linux and end up calling the Samaritans ?
Maybe I need to pay a fee if I sing a song while walking down the street. (``demand payments for any public performance of copyrighted material'')
... and be sued for siging Bob Dylan songs.
Maybe I should invoice the song writer for promoting the meme that is his song.
Maybe I could point this out to the next obnoxious git that sits next to me on a train with a zzz zzzz zzzzz coming out of his walkman -- peace at last.
Maybe this isn't in the long term interest of the song writers. If guides/scouts don't sing the songs, then the kids won't learn them but will learn other ones. These are the ones that they will remember in later life and want to buy the records/....
Maybe we ought to organise a public rally/demonstration
Maybe we ought to write Open songs and publicise them.
Maybe we ought to get RMS to write the GNU Public Song Licence.
Maybe this could lead to a resurgance in classical music, most of which is out of copyright. There are performers who allow their interpretation to be played without fee.
Maybe cab drivers should include a 'hire of radio' as part of their fee. It is then up to the passenger to choose to play the radio that is (for a few minutes) theirs.
Maybe cab drivers should invoice the local radio station for increasing their audience figures and thus what they can charge their advertisers.
Maybe this sort of thing is a good thing. People will become so fed up with it that the politicians will see lost votes in it.
To be kept available future data archives will need to be copied over and over. They will have to be copied in bulk, there will not be the man power to do specials on anything.
What am I trying to say: this problem will get worse, worse than you can imagine. Well defined, simple Open standards for data is a must for the basics. Well defined, simple Open standards for Open Source applications to implement anything richer - these applications growing gradually over time, but maintaining backwards compatability. I still use troff and can still maintain/print documents that are over 15 years old.
A proprietary future will be much poorer than an Open one. A future that overly controls copying will be much poorer than an open one.
All of the numbers above are probably an underestimate.
Vendors have been calling things 'XXX for Windows' for years. M$ liked it to start with because it enhanced the visibility of their operating system.
...
Then they came to not bother, everyone knew about M$ Windows.
Now they are trying to grab control of a generic word so that they can get at 'Lindows'. Sorry: precedence has been set for such a long time.
The above is the rational view. To know what the legal view is, first find a dice
A year or so ago we would have been thrilled that the discussion was even happening. There will be debate one way and the other - the more the better.
The point is that the longer and more high profile the debate, the more people become aware of OSS and come to realise that it is not a flash in the pan. ``Gee, they are still talking about Linux, my M$/... salesman told me it would be forgotten by the Autumn. Hmmmm, maybe I ought to find out some more.''
To an extent, any publicity is good publicity.
The closed source vendors have a problem: they either shut up about Linux/OSS and have it gradually move into their territory; or they generate loud FUD and bring it to decision makers' attention.
Things will get really interesting when widespread adoption of OSS grows from operating systems, systems utilities and universal applications to business sector specific applications.
they could verify the report in the Daily Sport that someone had spotted, on the moon, the World War II airplane in which Adolf Hitler had escaped.
At least the Daily Sport admitted that it made up the stories as it was easier than doing the investigation.
Many are worried about ensuring that your backup is at great distance from your machine, but complain about the effort of taking it elsewhere.
:-)
The obvious answer is to back your data up, in lots of tiny pieces, in cookies stored on the PCs of everyone that visits your web site. Your only problem is to then get enough hits.
I suppose that restoring might be interesting, but work that out when it happens -- disasters only happen to other people
One thing that small organisms do very well is to swap genes. So what if it escapes, borrows some missing/interesting genes from a passing E. Coli ?
GM crops have been found to swap genes with plants that they weren't supposed to.
Did you notice the finish date for the study? March 2004, yes 2004 not 2003! It is not as if it is a big study - only $410,000.
Governments when faced with something that they don't like often make it go away by commissioning a study, by the time that it comes out the fuss has died down and everyone has forgotten about it. I hope that that is not what is happening here. If that is the case, this is one 'fuss' where events will overtake the report.
The reason that the companies do it is that they know that potential customers look at the cost before deciding where to buy. So, they take something off the advertised price and add it back on as a mandatory charge - by which time it is too late or costly in money or time for the customer to switch.
One company starts: the others have to follow or loose business.
The place where this should be tackled is the Advertising Standards Authority (or equivalent for those not in the UK) or the local trading standards office.
Why is it fraud: because it is a con trick on the customer. They lie to get the customer into their door. This should be treated as the fraud that it is.
I look forward to seeing one of these in action in the next James Bond or XXX film.
M$ is not an corporation from an EU country, there is no direct economic advantage to the EU of supporting M$'s illegal activities.
The powerful EU officials are not directly elected by the populace; so they are not quite so easy to buy.
A change of administration in one EU country is not so far reaching as the change in a single country (ie the US).
The EU has deomstrated an interest in Open Source:
EU Studies Linux Migration
Individual countries have also expressed strong interest in Open Source.
The point is that 'ice' can be made from all sorts of liquids - water is just one of them.
We, in the UK, will be celebrating that on 5 Nov 1605 Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament ... a failure that we still, occasionally, regret :-)
One problem, as others have remarked, is that most people don't know that this is happening, or forget quickly.
The current UK government is very good a raising stealth taxes (taxes that are easily forgotten). One of these is an air-flight tax. The budget airlines don't like these as they can be a significant %age of the total price; so they quote these separately - which ensures that everyone always remembers that they are being taxes.
The ISPs should do the same: itemise cost to provide service + cost to record all your traffic.
This 'in your face' mechanism may help get this obnoxious intrusion removed.
Does the post office record the address of every letter that you send ?
Visit:
n li ne.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clicko
realplayer is needed to see this.