Either you fight the other guy, or you willingly hand your money over to your solicitor/lawyer.
Having spent 7 years in continuous litigation following a divorce - there are some times when you can't win. I now represent myself and am doing better. In my experience the primary interest of most solicitors is to keep the case going to keep their fees coming in.
If you must use a solicitor, choose carefully, ask around and choose one that is busy. If he is busy he will not be so interested in bleeding you dry as he can do the job and move on to the next sucker.
The approach that they seem to be adopting is to build up a set of legal measures (DMCA, patents,...) that will then be uneashed against open source products to either: force the removal of useful features; or make people afraid of being sued if they use it.
Remeber: with their new licencing in place and the continual updates mechanism they can quietly roll out a new protocol in a server one month and make the clients depend on it the next month. That could really make life hard for open source replacements - Samba watch out.
So if my new TV won't show a picture unless it has the new `broadcast flag' (or something) what happens when I try to plug my camcorder into the back of it to watch a video of my kids ?
Am I going to have to buy a new camcorder ? What if I want to make a copy of a birthday party recording to give to my mum ?
Would be consider adding to the Free world, by creating and GPLing one recipt dedicated to slashdot readers ? If it was a ketchup, relish or gravy we could call it 'Open Sauce'.
A recent article in new scientist contends that DNA patents "inhibit innovation and development" and reports that the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB), "says that too many patents are of doubtful validity because they are being issued for genetic discoveries that are not adequately inventive."
It seems to me that patents that are issued in the area of computer science are often of similar doubtful validity.
I thought that the purpose of a patent was to encourage innovation and technological advance, whereas what is happening now is quite the reverse.
Would rate of progress in genetics and computing slow if patents were abolished in these fields, copyright provides sufficient protection for the few years until the technology is overtaken by something newer and better.
In the UK it was illegal for electronic communications to be done except through the GPO (Post Office, which at one stage also owned the phone company). When I as at Cambridge university in the 1970s there was a legal problem with email. Email (communication between people) within one building was OK, but between different (university) sites was not. The undersity legal dons found a way round it (someone interacted with a computer, which happened to interact with someone else), but AFIR it was never tested - the GPO did not know.
A decade later: Unix and UUCP (remember that). We built a dialup network through high speed modems 300 (baud). It mostly carried news & mail. There was a legal problem - we weren't allowed to communicate electronically with anyone, so we joined a club the UKUUG (UK Unix User Group), we were thus a closed community and so it was OK (the exact legal mumbo jumbo escapes me). Because of this UKUUG membership grew rapidly.
Things have moved on & it doesn't appear to be necessary anymore, but I don't know how the law has changed -- I don't care as long as I can do it.
The BSA's primary interest is it's own bottom line and the continued employment of it's staff. This is more important to it than the profits of BSA members.
Thus the BSA will generate stories and statistics that ensure it's continued existance.
BSA is not that different from many commercial organisations.
Look at what M$ is doing: * OpenGL attack * Palladium * DMCA *... you know the rest
To date, these have all been set up, but that is about it. A company like M$ doesn't spend money unless it gets something back, so when will that be ?
I suspect that once M$ has a battery of these 'legal' cannons it will unleash them all at once against it's enemies - sorry - competitors. There will be a lot of smoke & noise for many months, what will remain once the smoke clears ?
So the umbrella either has to be going with the flow, in which case it's not going to catch up to any of the space debris (unless the debris has an eccentric orbit), or against the flow
You are assuming that there is a flow, ie that everything goes round in the same nice parallel orbits. They don't.
If some orbits are more popular than others, then for maximum sweeping effect choose one at right angles to that - say a polar orbit.
For maximum sweeping you want the plane of the umberella to be at right angles to it's direction of motion - ie present a large surface area to objects traveling in different orbits - as has been said trying to catch something in the same orbit is pointless - you just won't hit it.
If they can decide (ie control) which email you see, does this mean that mail sent from a non M$ box will be deemed not acceptable?
If M$ maintain their current dominance of the desktop this will create great pressure to move to the M$ platform.
OK: they won't switch this feature on right from day 1, but only when there is a critical mass of this out there & running. Remember: with the new M$ licence and the upgrade-over-the-net philosphy, they can move in this direction very quickly.
So oversimplifying a bit, this is 100 times
smaller than current tech.
100 times linear... which means that if they make chips using this technology in a similar way to current 2 dimensional chips, there will be 10,000 as many transistors on a chip of the same area.
If they learn how to stack them (3D), that would be really nice.
Use the different Unix flavours for what they are best at - insisting on only one is costly when you use system inappropriately - one size does not fit all.
Avoid a monoculture, diversity helps robustness.
I have written programs on various Unix flavours for more than 20 years. Bugs, hidden on one system, are obvious on another - that is good, find bugs early. Yes: porting costs up front, but you get long term rewards.
If you only buy from one vendor, what incentive do they have to remain competitive.
If you run a mixture they will all try to increase their share and work hard to keep you happy and guard the share that they do have.
How can an application remove other software ?
on
Spyware Fights Back
·
· Score: 1
The thing that surprised me is that is is possible for one piece of software to even touch the setup of another subsystem -- let alone uninstall it.
Just imagine what you would think if apache could uninstall ftpd ! Apache cannot remove itself, let alone anything else.
The only reason that this can happen is because of the non existant file protection on a M$ system, they still don't understand that users, daemons,... should all run as different users: none of which can munge the system binaries.
I recently bought for £346 ($484) a complete system: AMD Duron 1GHz, 128Mb RAM, 20Gb disk, 1.44 floppy, on-board modem, keyboard, mouse, speakers, 52x CDROM, 15" monitor. I put in an ethernet card & installed Linux straight off.
The price of Xbox in the UK is now £199 ($287).
Yes, the Xbox is cheaper but doesn't come with so much RAM, a keyboard, monitor, floppy, speakers. But does have a onboard ethernet. Now: if they were to bring the price down to £70 ($100), that would be worth considering as the basis of a desktop workstation - anyone know were I can get an SVGA card to plug in to the Xbox ?
What about if the game was free to download, all that you needed to play it was a few pennies per game. This beats having to pay £35 for a box with a CD in it.
Even if you don't end up paying more the games manufacturer wins because he doesn't have to worry about the retailer making a 100% mark up on selling it.
I think that this is am important point that is often overlooked in the all too simplistic numbers game. How much real work are all of those machines doing ? Answer that and you will see a very different profile -- the trouble is that getting a reasonable sample would be too difficult for the likes of IDG.
Did anyone else notice that about 1/2 of the many cookies that it tried to set were due to expire on 1 Jan 1970 - now what is the point of cookie that old ?
Why has Linux grown faster than the BSD variants ?
I think that a very important factor is that it is relatively easy to get a (good) patch into the Linux kernel and utilities. Compare that to the closed developer groups that exist with the BSDs and the NIH arrogance of the GNU people (sorry RMS, but they usually don't even bother to reply to mail reporting a bug or containing a patch).
The ability to write to the Linux code base as well as being able to read it has meant that people have seen their stuff go into the source which is a nice pat on the back. This then encourages them to do it again, and again, and again,...
I won't pretend that this is the only reason for Linux's popularity but is one reason why it has attracted such a a large & loyal developer base.
Yes, 3D is a way to go. There is going to have to be much to learn to achieve this. Heat is going to be the main problem. Building: current contruction methods aren't going to work, but we are getting to the stage where we can build nano robots that can place individual atoms, that is going to have to be how it is done. Costly: to build the first robots yes, but robots can build robots which build robots,..., when there are enough of them we get them to start making chips.
No, the source isn't wanted, the opportunity to compete on an even footing is wanted. Computing has been given a massive boost over the last 20 years by open standards, M$ took these but never gave it's own standards back - look at some of the problems that the Samba team have had picking to bits their protocols.
What is wanted is for wire protocols & file formats to be properly published. Properly is the key, they need to be well written, complete & timely, this is what needs to be regulated - that M$ does this properly.
The unfair bundling deals should be made illegal as well, but this is commercial stuff that the business people will understand, I fear that they may not understand the problems of standards.
Slashdot Mirror
Happy Birthday
Either you fight the other guy, or you willingly hand your money over to your solicitor/lawyer.
Having spent 7 years in continuous litigation following a divorce - there are some times when you can't win. I now represent myself and am doing better. In my experience the primary interest of most solicitors is to keep the case going to keep their fees coming in.
If you must use a solicitor, choose carefully, ask around and choose one that is busy. If he is busy he will not be so interested in bleeding you dry as he can do the job and move on to the next sucker.
The approach that they seem to be adopting is to build up a set of legal measures (DMCA, patents, ...) that will then be uneashed against open source products to either: force the removal of useful features; or make people afraid of being sued if they use it.
Remeber: with their new licencing in place and the continual updates mechanism they can quietly roll out a new protocol in a server one month and make the clients depend on it the next month. That could really make life hard for open source replacements - Samba watch out.
So if my new TV won't show a picture unless it has the new `broadcast flag' (or something) what happens when I try to plug my camcorder into the back of it to watch a video of my kids ?
Am I going to have to buy a new camcorder ?
What if I want to make a copy of a birthday party recording to give to my mum ?
It probably costs as much 'cos it costs Dell as much - they probably have to pay M$ $X * number_of_pcs_sold, so they pay M$ come what may.
What it does do is to prevent M$ from counting it as another PC sold with a M$ operating system.
Would be consider adding to the Free world, by creating and GPLing one recipt dedicated to slashdot readers ? If it was a ketchup, relish or gravy we could call it 'Open Sauce'.
It seems to me that patents that are issued in the area of computer science are often of similar doubtful validity.
I thought that the purpose of a patent was to encourage innovation and technological advance, whereas what is happening now is quite the reverse.
Would rate of progress in genetics and computing slow if patents were abolished in these fields, copyright provides sufficient protection for the few years until the technology is overtaken by something newer and better.
In the UK it was illegal for electronic communications to be done except through the GPO (Post Office, which at one stage also owned the phone company). When I as at Cambridge university in the 1970s there was a legal problem with email. Email (communication between people) within one building was OK, but between different (university) sites was not. The undersity legal dons found a way round it (someone interacted with a computer, which happened to interact with someone else), but AFIR it was never tested - the GPO did not know.
A decade later: Unix and UUCP (remember that). We built a dialup network through high speed modems 300 (baud). It mostly carried news & mail. There was a legal problem - we weren't allowed to communicate electronically with anyone, so we joined a club the UKUUG (UK Unix User Group), we were thus a closed community and so it was OK (the exact legal mumbo jumbo escapes me). Because of this UKUUG membership grew rapidly.
Things have moved on & it doesn't appear to be necessary anymore, but I don't know how the law has changed -- I don't care as long as I can do it.
Algorithm for breaking into HP boxen:
1) take the system administrator to the pub
2) give him lots of beer
3) ask him the root password
4) go 'crack' the machine
Actually things like this are good - the demonstrate the stupidity of DMCA and may aid it's demise.
The BSA's primary interest is it's own bottom line and the continued employment of it's staff. This is more important to it than the profits of BSA members.
Thus the BSA will generate stories and statistics that ensure it's continued existance.
BSA is not that different from many commercial organisations.
Look at what M$ is doing: ... you know the rest
* OpenGL attack
* Palladium
* DMCA
*
To date, these have all been set up, but that is about it. A company like M$ doesn't spend money unless it gets something back, so when will that be ?
I suspect that once M$ has a battery of these 'legal' cannons it will unleash them all at once against it's enemies - sorry - competitors.
There will be a lot of smoke & noise for many months, what will remain once the smoke clears ?
You are assuming that there is a flow, ie that everything goes round in the same nice parallel orbits. They don't.
If some orbits are more popular than others, then for maximum sweeping effect choose one at right angles to that - say a polar orbit.
For maximum sweeping you want the plane of the umberella to be at right angles to it's direction of motion - ie present a large surface area to objects traveling in different orbits - as has been said trying to catch something in the same orbit is pointless - you just won't hit it.
If you want to sync to a time server it makes sense to use one close by - less latency, etc. Finding a server that is close is not that difficult.
Why do M$ boxen got to M$ to find out ? Would it be a way of letting Bill see who is running XP or whatever ?
OK: they won't switch this feature on right from day 1, but only when there is a critical mass of this out there & running. Remember: with the new M$ licence and the upgrade-over-the-net philosphy, they can move in this direction very quickly.
100 times linear ... which means that if they make chips using this technology in a similar way to current 2 dimensional chips, there will be 10,000 as many transistors on a chip of the same area.
If they learn how to stack them (3D), that would be really nice.
Avoid a monoculture, diversity helps robustness.
I have written programs on various Unix flavours for more than 20 years. Bugs, hidden on one system, are obvious on another - that is good, find bugs early. Yes: porting costs up front, but you get long term rewards.
If you only buy from one vendor, what incentive do they have to remain competitive.
If you run a mixture they will all try to increase their share and work hard to keep you happy and guard the share that they do have.
The thing that surprised me is that is is possible for one piece of software to even touch the setup of another subsystem -- let alone uninstall it.
... should all run as different users: none of which can munge the system binaries.
Just imagine what you would think if apache could uninstall ftpd ! Apache cannot remove itself, let alone anything else.
The only reason that this can happen is because of the non existant file protection on a M$ system, they still don't understand that users, daemons,
When will they ever learn ?
I recently bought for £346 ($484) a complete system: AMD Duron 1GHz, 128Mb RAM, 20Gb disk, 1.44 floppy, on-board modem, keyboard, mouse, speakers, 52x CDROM, 15" monitor. I put in an ethernet card & installed Linux straight off.
The price of Xbox in the UK is now £199 ($287).
Yes, the Xbox is cheaper but doesn't come with so much RAM, a keyboard, monitor, floppy, speakers. But does have a onboard ethernet. Now: if they were to bring the price down to £70 ($100), that would be worth considering as the basis of a desktop workstation - anyone know were I can get an SVGA card to plug in to the Xbox ?
All prices include VAT.
Even if you don't end up paying more the games manufacturer wins because he doesn't have to worry about the retailer making a 100% mark up on selling it.
I think that this has a good chance of flying.
I think that this is am important point that is often overlooked in the all too simplistic numbers game. How much real work are all of those machines doing ? Answer that and you will see a very different profile -- the trouble is that getting a reasonable sample would be too difficult for the likes of IDG.
Did anyone else notice that about 1/2 of the many cookies that it tried to set were due to expire on 1 Jan 1970 - now what is the point of cookie that old ?
I think that a very important factor is that it is relatively easy to get a (good) patch into the Linux kernel and utilities. Compare that to the closed developer groups that exist with the BSDs and the NIH arrogance of the GNU people (sorry RMS, but they usually don't even bother to reply to mail reporting a bug or containing a patch).
The ability to write to the Linux code base as well as being able to read it has meant that people have seen their stuff go into the source which is a nice pat on the back. This then encourages them to do it again, and again, and again, ...
I won't pretend that this is the only reason for Linux's popularity but is one reason why it has attracted such a a large & loyal developer base.
Yes, 3D is a way to go. There is going to have to be much to learn to achieve this. Heat is going to be the main problem. Building: current contruction methods aren't going to work, but we are getting to the stage where we can build nano robots that can place individual atoms, that is going to have to be how it is done. Costly: to build the first robots yes, but robots can build robots which build robots, ..., when there are enough of them we get them to start making chips.
What is wanted is for wire protocols & file formats to be properly published. Properly is the key, they need to be well written, complete & timely, this is what needs to be regulated - that M$ does this properly.
The unfair bundling deals should be made illegal as well, but this is commercial stuff that the business people will understand, I fear that they may not understand the problems of standards.
Where do you go from here ? ..... :-)