Unfortunately Aaron Seigo didn't make his KDE Myths a single FAQ style page but a cascading set of pages. Can someone mirror them before they are slashdotted out of creation?
Jeez, this guy spent I don't know how many years of his life, and millions of dollars, trying to reach this goal. How is the science logo appropriate for that? Is there an artist out there who could whip up a good looking balloon icon?
It's the least we can (collectively, I'm no artist) do.
In one breath you say Mod chips should be called "Piracy Chips." There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
Then in the next paragraph, Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
Do you see now? I don't own an X-Box, but if I did I very well may want a Mod-chip installed, so I can add my own software - maybe ZoneAlarm (? or is it ZoneAlert?). So I can see what my console that I purchased is sending out over the internet connection that I pay for.
That's why.
Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow...
on
ICANN Updates
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Perhaps the time has come to employ the philosophy behind that phrase. ICANN keeps whining on and on about how "hard" their job is.
How about just find the individual - and I'm sure there is one - who can just say "What? this? just do 1, 2, 3, 4.... there - done." - and give them ICANN's job? Given enough DNS experts, ICANN's job MUST be shallow.
In all fairness, the article states that the path of the asteroid was on a line with the sun. There is no way Earth based telescopes could have seen it, even had they known exactly where to look.
This will become more scary in the future, when there is some capability to deal with an asteroid on a collision course. When we get to that point, we'll be complacent and will eventually end up being sucker-punched by one of these asteroids coming "out of the sun".
While I am glad to see the man change his mind - it's nice to see an economist using the scientific method - 'cause the facts don't fit his original hypothesis, it's a shame that he's still clinging to his belief that micropayments make sense.
Flat rate is the way to go - no matter what. People don't like to pay for what they use - causes way too much anxiety over what the next bill is going to be. Almost everyone has a budget, and budgets need fixed costs.
The idea behind micropayments is to hide away paying for things - to make it small, unobtrusive, and in the background. No one I know of likes to be nickled and dimed to death, and we sure don't like not knowing **at the time** what we are being charged for (i.e. happening in the background). Even AOL went to flat rates and it wasn't to simplify their bookkeeping.
Maybe he'll let go of micropayments in a few more months. The sooner that myth dies, the better
The FAA has incredibly strict requirements for software critical to keeping a plane in the air. Open Source or not, every single line must be proven to do exactly what it needs to, and the entire system must be deterministic (meet real-time requirements, such as knowing the maximum latency for interrupt processing). The FAA itself should be giving these jokers an earful - this is pure FUD.
Most of the focus on discussion I have seen so far has been addressing the "non-sensitive" information, and how this bill will open the flood gates to allow companies to collect and share it on a massive scale.
I think this is a huge problem, BUT - doesn't anyone else see the problem with how "sensitive" data is defined in this bill?
Sensitive data can only be collected or shared on an opt-in basis. Sounds good, but isn't medical information (one of the "sensitive" items) protected more highly by the HIPPA acts? Won't this act undo everything HIPPA did to help protect medical records? All it takes is one hidden or weasle worked opt-in box to release all your medical information. Or finantial information. Once out there, it can be sold. Then it's gone for good - opting out at that point won't do any good.
We need to raise a huge stink about how trivially this bill handles critical private information - medical, finantial and other records.
Bzzt! You (of course) didn't read the article. The law was passed a month ago. Candyman was just a coincidence.
OK Both wrong. The State is to give and update a list of sites for ISPs to block. However, the articles do not state just how that list is drawn up or kept up to date. Maybe they'll have a new beaurocrat in charge of surfing for kiddie pr0n?
I think that just disabling the "startcenter" will get rid of most of your annoyances - if it isn't running all the time in the background, it can't pop up crap in your face all the time.
Your PC will also run faster.
Open up the preferences. I think it is a button on the "General" tab labeled startcenter. That opens up another dialog that allows you to disable it (top checkbox - uncheck it). It will pop up a message with a dire warning - just click Yes I really Want To Do This. That should be it.
All the startcenter is good for is preloading Real (so it starts up 3 seconds faster - big whoop) and poping up annoying messages.
For the most part, cable companies were granted a monopoly by the city / town (s) they service. It's a bargain - comapny X is granted a monopoly on cable (no competition) in return for wiring everyone who wants cable, no exceptions (also maybe for uniform pricing - can't change anyone more than anyone else for the same service), plus maybe a mandated free level of cable (local air channels plus public access channels usually)
Want to bitch about a cable company monopoly? Talk to your city council. Don't come whining about it here. There's good reason for the monopolies - inspect your local cable company's charter. It's all in there.
This entire effort is doomed to failure and futility, whether the bill is passed or not, whatever provisions it has in it. And none of the people involved can see that. Not IBM, not Disney - none of them.
The simple thing is that there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that can completely secure media against people to whom you sell it. They think that they are making it difficult for the average person to copy their products, leading to less copying. But what they don't see is that when all is said and done all the average person has to do is point a camera at a TV screen, or put a microphone in front of a speaker, and press record. Encryption? Defeated. Watermarking? Defeated. Shielded and encrypted key managed components from the DVD to the TV set itself? Defeated. It isn't high tech, isn't difficult, and in the end anyone can do it. It might not be perfect quality, but the VCR and MP3s have shown that "good enough" is good enough for the average person.
The most that will happen is that when they catch someone distributing a movie or song there may be a few more charges to jail them with. It won't change anything.
However, I do have a second point to make.
Disney et al. looks around and sees people copying their movies and making them available on the Internet. They think about making movies available digitally and it terrifies them that they might let the genie out of the bottle and "lose" their movies forever as a result. Actually, with DVDs they already make their movies available digitally - which scares them even more! Heck, all that money and effort to buy 150 year copyright protection will go down the drain - along with their companies.
So what can they do about it? Can they track down and prosecute the ones doing the copying? Haven't had much luck there - and even if they catch the 16 year old that first placed a movie on the Internet, they can't take the movie off the Internet.
Our system of Justice is based on freedom (don't laugh, it is - based on it anyway) - you have the freedom to do whatever you want. You simply have to face the consequences afterwards. We don't focus on trying to prevent crimes but on punishing crimes. That's part of what gets people frustrated with the police in some circumstances: "Well, can't you do something about them officer???" "Sorry ma'am, they haven't done anything illegal yet".
What Disney and the rest have decided to do is not to help make it illegal to share copies of their products on the Internet - it already is. They haven't decided to try and catch the ones doing it - it isn't easy, it doesn't put the "genie back in the bottle", and it isn't good PR to throw a kid in jail for 20 years. No, what they have decided to do is to attempt to make it impossible to break the copyright laws.
And that's why they'll fail - it cannot be done. No one can prevent someone from breaking the law if they really want to. And that's why we have a failure to communicate. They just don't see that - they are too scared that it is already too late, and terrified individuals make bad choices.
I for one hope they calm down - that they see their business model is not going to work from here forward and try to adapt. Maybe spending $200 million to make a picture just won't work anymore - maybe it has to cost under $20 million for them to make a profit using just the box office sales and lower VCR and DVD sales. I don't know.
But right now they are running scared - and making really bad choices.
I'm not sure that was actually considered when the Drake equation was put together. "L" assumes that a civilazation made it to broadcasting - or better yet colonization.
I've been thinking there should be another factor to that equation. Call it fv = The fraction of civilizations that survive viral plagues.
In this century we've seen ebola and AIDS. In the previous century (IIRC) smallpox, which did a real number on the world's population at the time. We've documented the first cases of these viruses, which suggests to me that they mutated from a formerly innocuous form into one deadly to people.
What would happen today if we witnessed the first outbreak of smallpox? Or something nastier than AIDS, that only becomes deadly after an incubation period of months or years? With our current level of civilization the carriers of such diseases could infect nearly the entire planet before the first bodies started to drop. Could our civilization survive losing 90%+ of the population in every location? Could any?
Perhaps that's why we haven't found any advanced alien civilizations, or any evidence that any ever existed, yet. Perhaps they all fell victim to their own diseases.
But not because it was Microsoft. I'm not sure I understand it all, but from what I gather this was Microsofts remedy to 100s of individual lawsuits, brought by individuals (not the DOJ or the States).
So Microsoft is sued by individuals for overcharging them for Windows (AFAIK)(?). Microsoft then says - "Hey, psst Judge, why don't we get rid of all these pesky little suits tying up your courts. And in return I'll do, oh, say, a little community service. On my own terms of course. Whadda say?"
I'm glad the Judge told them no - it would have been quite a travesty for the aggrieved to have gotten no compensation.
You know, this is something we should all have seen coming from a long way off. For years Sci-Fi writers and pundits have been preaching that the Internet is the beginnings of a movement towards world wide government - making things homogeneous across international boundaries in things like laws.
What everyone seemed to miss is that politics is inherently a creater of compromise. Neither side in a dispute ever (ok, hardly ever) gets their own way - inevitably a compromise is reached.
So what they really missed is looking around the world and realizing we have the MOST free national laws (to use the term loosly). I think everyone envisioned the rest of the world being elevated up to our standards of law and justice and due process.
In reality, from WIPO and elsewhere, we are being dragged 'down' to a more common level with the despots, the tyrants, the police states. Those who are least free will see a letting up of the iron bootjack. Those who are more free will see more of a police state.
Well, this is just the beginning of us seeing the police state. Welcome to the rest of the world!
Even if they can prove that (which could be difficult, what if I had my neighbor's son install it?), there are still two other problems. First, at the point you're presented with the click-wrap EULA, you've *already* bought it. The copy is now yours, and you can lie to it if you want. Second, even if you accept that a EULA can retroactively turn a sale into a license, every EULA I've seen is entirely one-sided. You get no rights you did not already have under standard copyright law, and have substantial restrictions imposed. Contracts without consideration are not valid.
All valid concerns, but...
1) They can probably convince a judge that the only way to install it is by agreeing to the EULA. Or that you deliberately bypassed the EULA in order to avoid it (pick your favorite way), which probably won't fly with the judge either.
2) The EULA gives you an out - returning the software for a refund if you do not agree. The fact that that can't be done in practice isn't going to be important to the judge right then. (that's another case)
3) The consideration might be construed by the judge as being able to use the software you "bought". Weirder things have happened.
Please bear in mind IANAL either, and don't like any of the above - just trying to be the devils advocate for a bit.
This ruling is very good to see, but we should not get our hopes up too much. I can't see the text of the ruling (slashdotted already I guess) but the idea here was (I gather) that EULAs didn't apply because the buyers never installed or used the software, so never got the point of clicking through a license.
This is extremely important for even though the Don Marti article stated the judge determined that "if it looks like a sale it is a sale, EULA notwithstanding". The ones who sold the Adobe software hadn't seen or agreed to the EULA at any point.
The problem is contract law - if the software vendor (Microsoft for example) can point out that you DID click "I Agree" to their EULA then the game is basically over. That EULA will be upheld as a contract between you and the vendor - and in a contract you can surrender any (almost) rights you want to. Including agreeing to "license" the software instead of "buying" it, surrendering the right to resell it, reverse engineer it, etc.
As far as I can see it, reselling your old Windows CDs will still be contested by Microsoft. But, on the bright side, now at least you can sell the Windows CD that came with your laptop as you wipe the hard drive to install Red Hat.
I think the real outcome would be that the US gets marginalized. If we stifle the very openness and sharing that now occurs, and that keeps the US at the head of the pack in science, industry, military technologies, etc., other nations (europe perhaps, or Japan) will pass us by.
The Dark Ages only occurred because the Church was a universal influence, and so retarded every nation. If the US imposes such restrictions on ourselves alone, we'll be passed by - Americans will go abroad to do research, start companies, etc.
Hopefully saner heads will prevail in the end. I sure hope so.
>I normally use framemaker to write my papers but
>occasionally I have to deliver word documents.
>Star office certainly supports word better than
>framemaker. However, I found that it had some
>trouble with the word documents I had. All of
>these documents are rather complex and they use
>tables, crossreferences, images and paragraph
>styles. I was impressed that the document was
>successfully imported. However, there were a few
>errors that though easy to correct would have
>lead to visible errors if I had just printed
>them without looking at them. I had a similar
>experience with my powerpoint documents.
>Near perfect but not entirely perfect.
>Conclusion: you will need to revise imported non
>trivial office documents to make sure
>everything is the way as intended.
Have you thought about submitting a copy of your documents (if possible) to the StarOffice folks so they can see and correct the errors you found? With better examples of errors I'm sure they can find and fix more of the import/export bugs.
Won't boycotting CDs and DVDs just play into their hands? If we can actually impact sales such that they stay flat instead of increasing like they should (all things being equal), won't they just see that as evidence of "pirating"? And work even harder at "copy protection"?
Maybe what we should do is buy MORE CDs and DVDs - make them so profitable that they drop their rediculous encryption and copy protection crusades because the crusade will be COSTING them more money than it saves them.
Can the OSS community come up with a competitor to both of these systems using an approach like Napster - a central server everyone connects to? Then the systems actually involved in the transaction of data talk directly to each other, just like Napster. The difference being one of the systems is YOUR cache of data that YOU maintain on YOUR server (or on a Geocities account or something).
You would have the benefit of it being accessible from anywhere, could interoperate with Passport or Liberty Alliance, give neither Sun nor Microsoft direct access to your data, keep you in control of your own data, etc.
The "system" on your end could be as simple as a servlet or jsp accessible only via SSL, keeping your private data securely encrypted until needed. As an extra precaution, the data sent back could be encrypted using the Public key of the system requesting it (for the paranoid). Perhaps one-use passwords for access, so keeping the password given to a particular company doesn't gain them anything?
The only way I see any way to preserve privacy is to keep the data off of central servers. Can something like that be implemented under either Passport or LA now?
It's what I use and I have had ZERO problems with it. I don't know if it will actually support being a DHCP server while it is doing it's other tricks (like routing all incoming to a designated DMZ machine, or doing selective port forwarding, or packet filtering to specific IP addresses inside, etc. - has a lot of tricks). Has anyone done that? I doubt it would mind as long as you keep the fixed addresses out of the range it will be generating addresses in.
But, even if it doesn't, why not just have one of your dedicated servers be the DHCP server too? Once a box is handed an IP address, everything will work just as well as if it had a fixed one.
Me, I didn't bother - all my boxes have fixed IP addresses, but I'm guessing you have a notebook you want to shuttle from work to home.
Anyway, that's my $0.02 - just make sure you use a switch instead of a hub if you move good volumes of data around.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately Aaron Seigo didn't make his KDE Myths a single FAQ style page but a cascading set of pages. Can someone mirror them before they are slashdotted out of creation?
Jeez, this guy spent I don't know how many years of his life, and millions of dollars, trying to reach this goal. How is the science logo appropriate for that? Is there an artist out there who could whip up a good looking balloon icon?
It's the least we can (collectively, I'm no artist) do.
In one breath you say Mod chips should be called "Piracy Chips." There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
Then in the next paragraph, Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
Do you see now? I don't own an X-Box, but if I did I very well may want a Mod-chip installed, so I can add my own software - maybe ZoneAlarm (? or is it ZoneAlert?). So I can see what my console that I purchased is sending out over the internet connection that I pay for.
That's why.
Perhaps the time has come to employ the philosophy behind that phrase. ICANN keeps whining on and on about how "hard" their job is.
How about just find the individual - and I'm sure there is one - who can just say "What? this? just do 1, 2, 3, 4.... there - done." - and give them ICANN's job? Given enough DNS experts, ICANN's job MUST be shallow.
In all fairness, the article states that the path of the asteroid was on a line with the sun. There is no way Earth based telescopes could have seen it, even had they known exactly where to look.
This will become more scary in the future, when there is some capability to deal with an asteroid on a collision course. When we get to that point, we'll be complacent and will eventually end up being sucker-punched by one of these asteroids coming "out of the sun".
While I am glad to see the man change his mind - it's nice to see an economist using the scientific method - 'cause the facts don't fit his original hypothesis, it's a shame that he's still clinging to his belief that micropayments make sense.
Flat rate is the way to go - no matter what. People don't like to pay for what they use - causes way too much anxiety over what the next bill is going to be. Almost everyone has a budget, and budgets need fixed costs.
The idea behind micropayments is to hide away paying for things - to make it small, unobtrusive, and in the background. No one I know of likes to be nickled and dimed to death, and we sure don't like not knowing **at the time** what we are being charged for (i.e. happening in the background). Even AOL went to flat rates and it wasn't to simplify their bookkeeping.
Maybe he'll let go of micropayments in a few more months. The sooner that myth dies, the better
The FAA has incredibly strict requirements for software critical to keeping a plane in the air. Open Source or not, every single line must be proven to do exactly what it needs to, and the entire system must be deterministic (meet real-time requirements, such as knowing the maximum latency for interrupt processing). The FAA itself should be giving these jokers an earful - this is pure FUD.
Most of the focus on discussion I have seen so far has been addressing the "non-sensitive" information, and how this bill will open the flood gates to allow companies to collect and share it on a massive scale.
I think this is a huge problem, BUT - doesn't anyone else see the problem with how "sensitive" data is defined in this bill?
Sensitive data can only be collected or shared on an opt-in basis. Sounds good, but isn't medical information (one of the "sensitive" items) protected more highly by the HIPPA acts? Won't this act undo everything HIPPA did to help protect medical records? All it takes is one hidden or weasle worked opt-in box to release all your medical information. Or finantial information. Once out there, it can be sold. Then it's gone for good - opting out at that point won't do any good.
We need to raise a huge stink about how trivially this bill handles critical private information - medical, finantial and other records.
Bzzt! You (of course) didn't read the article. The law was passed a month ago. Candyman was just a coincidence.
OK Both wrong. The State is to give and update a list of sites for ISPs to block. However, the articles do not state just how that list is drawn up or kept up to date. Maybe they'll have a new beaurocrat in charge of surfing for kiddie pr0n?
I think that just disabling the "startcenter" will get rid of most of your annoyances - if it isn't running all the time in the background, it can't pop up crap in your face all the time.
Your PC will also run faster.
Open up the preferences. I think it is a button on the "General" tab labeled startcenter. That opens up another dialog that allows you to disable it (top checkbox - uncheck it). It will pop up a message with a dire warning - just click Yes I really Want To Do This. That should be it.
All the startcenter is good for is preloading Real (so it starts up 3 seconds faster - big whoop) and poping up annoying messages.
Want to bitch about a cable company monopoly? Talk to your city council. Don't come whining about it here. There's good reason for the monopolies - inspect your local cable company's charter. It's all in there.
This entire effort is doomed to failure and futility, whether the bill is passed or not, whatever provisions it has in it. And none of the people involved can see that. Not IBM, not Disney - none of them.
The simple thing is that there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that can completely secure media against people to whom you sell it. They think that they are making it difficult for the average person to copy their products, leading to less copying. But what they don't see is that when all is said and done all the average person has to do is point a camera at a TV screen, or put a microphone in front of a speaker, and press record. Encryption? Defeated. Watermarking? Defeated. Shielded and encrypted key managed components from the DVD to the TV set itself? Defeated. It isn't high tech, isn't difficult, and in the end anyone can do it. It might not be perfect quality, but the VCR and MP3s have shown that "good enough" is good enough for the average person.
The most that will happen is that when they catch someone distributing a movie or song there may be a few more charges to jail them with. It won't change anything.
However, I do have a second point to make.
Disney et al. looks around and sees people copying their movies and making them available on the Internet. They think about making movies available digitally and it terrifies them that they might let the genie out of the bottle and "lose" their movies forever as a result. Actually, with DVDs they already make their movies available digitally - which scares them even more! Heck, all that money and effort to buy 150 year copyright protection will go down the drain - along with their companies.
So what can they do about it? Can they track down and prosecute the ones doing the copying? Haven't had much luck there - and even if they catch the 16 year old that first placed a movie on the Internet, they can't take the movie off the Internet.
Our system of Justice is based on freedom (don't laugh, it is - based on it anyway) - you have the freedom to do whatever you want. You simply have to face the consequences afterwards. We don't focus on trying to prevent crimes but on punishing crimes. That's part of what gets people frustrated with the police in some circumstances: "Well, can't you do something about them officer???" "Sorry ma'am, they haven't done anything illegal yet".
What Disney and the rest have decided to do is not to help make it illegal to share copies of their products on the Internet - it already is. They haven't decided to try and catch the ones doing it - it isn't easy, it doesn't put the "genie back in the bottle", and it isn't good PR to throw a kid in jail for 20 years. No, what they have decided to do is to attempt to make it impossible to break the copyright laws.
And that's why they'll fail - it cannot be done. No one can prevent someone from breaking the law if they really want to. And that's why we have a failure to communicate. They just don't see that - they are too scared that it is already too late, and terrified individuals make bad choices.
I for one hope they calm down - that they see their business model is not going to work from here forward and try to adapt. Maybe spending $200 million to make a picture just won't work anymore - maybe it has to cost under $20 million for them to make a profit using just the box office sales and lower VCR and DVD sales. I don't know.
But right now they are running scared - and making really bad choices.
I'd just put the spy code in the Bios. What else is distributed on every computer, and run every time they boot?
BWAHAAAAAHAAAA
A manager that reads Slashdot!
I'm not sure that was actually considered when the Drake equation was put together. "L" assumes that a civilazation made it to broadcasting - or better yet colonization.
Just another factor to consider -
I've been thinking there should be another factor to that equation. Call it fv = The fraction of civilizations that survive viral plagues.
In this century we've seen ebola and AIDS. In the previous century (IIRC) smallpox, which did a real number on the world's population at the time. We've documented the first cases of these viruses, which suggests to me that they mutated from a formerly innocuous form into one deadly to people.
What would happen today if we witnessed the first outbreak of smallpox? Or something nastier than AIDS, that only becomes deadly after an incubation period of months or years? With our current level of civilization the carriers of such diseases could infect nearly the entire planet before the first bodies started to drop. Could our civilization survive losing 90%+ of the population in every location? Could any?
Perhaps that's why we haven't found any advanced alien civilizations, or any evidence that any ever existed, yet. Perhaps they all fell victim to their own diseases.
But not because it was Microsoft. I'm not sure I understand it all, but from what I gather this was Microsofts remedy to 100s of individual lawsuits, brought by individuals (not the DOJ or the States).
So Microsoft is sued by individuals for overcharging them for Windows (AFAIK)(?). Microsoft then says - "Hey, psst Judge, why don't we get rid of all these pesky little suits tying up your courts. And in return I'll do, oh, say, a little community service. On my own terms of course. Whadda say?"
I'm glad the Judge told them no - it would have been quite a travesty for the aggrieved to have gotten no compensation.
You know, this is something we should all have seen coming from a long way off. For years Sci-Fi writers and pundits have been preaching that the Internet is the beginnings of a movement towards world wide government - making things homogeneous across international boundaries in things like laws.
What everyone seemed to miss is that politics is inherently a creater of compromise. Neither side in a dispute ever (ok, hardly ever) gets their own way - inevitably a compromise is reached.
So what they really missed is looking around the world and realizing we have the MOST free national laws (to use the term loosly). I think everyone envisioned the rest of the world being elevated up to our standards of law and justice and due process.
In reality, from WIPO and elsewhere, we are being dragged 'down' to a more common level with the despots, the tyrants, the police states. Those who are least free will see a letting up of the iron bootjack. Those who are more free will see more of a police state.
Well, this is just the beginning of us seeing the police state. Welcome to the rest of the world!
Even if they can prove that (which could be difficult, what if I had my neighbor's son install it?), there are still two other problems. First, at the point you're presented with the click-wrap EULA, you've *already* bought it. The copy is now yours, and you can lie to it if you want. Second, even if you accept that a EULA can retroactively turn a sale into a license, every EULA I've seen is entirely one-sided. You get no rights you did not already have under standard copyright law, and have substantial restrictions imposed. Contracts without consideration are not valid.
All valid concerns, but...
1) They can probably convince a judge that the only way to install it is by agreeing to the EULA. Or that you deliberately bypassed the EULA in order to avoid it (pick your favorite way), which probably won't fly with the judge either.
2) The EULA gives you an out - returning the software for a refund if you do not agree. The fact that that can't be done in practice isn't going to be important to the judge right then. (that's another case)
3) The consideration might be construed by the judge as being able to use the software you "bought". Weirder things have happened.
Please bear in mind IANAL either, and don't like any of the above - just trying to be the devils advocate for a bit.
This ruling is very good to see, but we should not get our hopes up too much. I can't see the text of the ruling (slashdotted already I guess) but the idea here was (I gather) that EULAs didn't apply because the buyers never installed or used the software, so never got the point of clicking through a license.
This is extremely important for even though the Don Marti article stated the judge determined that "if it looks like a sale it is a sale, EULA notwithstanding". The ones who sold the Adobe software hadn't seen or agreed to the EULA at any point.
The problem is contract law - if the software vendor (Microsoft for example) can point out that you DID click "I Agree" to their EULA then the game is basically over. That EULA will be upheld as a contract between you and the vendor - and in a contract you can surrender any (almost) rights you want to. Including agreeing to "license" the software instead of "buying" it, surrendering the right to resell it, reverse engineer it, etc.
As far as I can see it, reselling your old Windows CDs will still be contested by Microsoft. But, on the bright side, now at least you can sell the Windows CD that came with your laptop as you wipe the hard drive to install Red Hat.
I think the real outcome would be that the US gets marginalized. If we stifle the very openness and sharing that now occurs, and that keeps the US at the head of the pack in science, industry, military technologies, etc., other nations (europe perhaps, or Japan) will pass us by.
The Dark Ages only occurred because the Church was a universal influence, and so retarded every nation. If the US imposes such restrictions on ourselves alone, we'll be passed by - Americans will go abroad to do research, start companies, etc.
Hopefully saner heads will prevail in the end. I sure hope so.
>I normally use framemaker to write my papers but
>occasionally I have to deliver word documents.
>Star office certainly supports word better than
>framemaker. However, I found that it had some
>trouble with the word documents I had. All of
>these documents are rather complex and they use
>tables, crossreferences, images and paragraph
>styles. I was impressed that the document was
>successfully imported. However, there were a few
>errors that though easy to correct would have
>lead to visible errors if I had just printed
>them without looking at them. I had a similar
>experience with my powerpoint documents.
>Near perfect but not entirely perfect.
>Conclusion: you will need to revise imported non
>trivial office documents to make sure
>everything is the way as intended.
Have you thought about submitting a copy of your documents (if possible) to the StarOffice folks so they can see and correct the errors you found? With better examples of errors I'm sure they can find and fix more of the import/export bugs.
Won't boycotting CDs and DVDs just play into their hands? If we can actually impact sales such that they stay flat instead of increasing like they should (all things being equal), won't they just see that as evidence of "pirating"? And work even harder at "copy protection"?
Maybe what we should do is buy MORE CDs and DVDs - make them so profitable that they drop their rediculous encryption and copy protection crusades because the crusade will be COSTING them more money than it saves them.
Ok, let the flaming begin 8-)
Can the OSS community come up with a competitor to both of these systems using an approach like Napster - a central server everyone connects to? Then the systems actually involved in the transaction of data talk directly to each other, just like Napster. The difference being one of the systems is YOUR cache of data that YOU maintain on YOUR server (or on a Geocities account or something).
You would have the benefit of it being accessible from anywhere, could interoperate with Passport or Liberty Alliance, give neither Sun nor Microsoft direct access to your data, keep you in control of your own data, etc.
The "system" on your end could be as simple as a servlet or jsp accessible only via SSL, keeping your private data securely encrypted until needed. As an extra precaution, the data sent back could be encrypted using the Public key of the system requesting it (for the paranoid). Perhaps one-use passwords for access, so keeping the password given to a particular company doesn't gain them anything?
The only way I see any way to preserve privacy is to keep the data off of central servers. Can something like that be implemented under either Passport or LA now?
It's what I use and I have had ZERO problems with it. I don't know if it will actually support being a DHCP server while it is doing it's other tricks (like routing all incoming to a designated DMZ machine, or doing selective port forwarding, or packet filtering to specific IP addresses inside, etc. - has a lot of tricks). Has anyone done that? I doubt it would mind as long as you keep the fixed addresses out of the range it will be generating addresses in.
But, even if it doesn't, why not just have one of your dedicated servers be the DHCP server too? Once a box is handed an IP address, everything will work just as well as if it had a fixed one.
Me, I didn't bother - all my boxes have fixed IP addresses, but I'm guessing you have a notebook you want to shuttle from work to home.
Anyway, that's my $0.02 - just make sure you use a switch instead of a hub if you move good volumes of data around.