The situation on the web is rather different from with traditional publishing, since it is much easier for web pages to be "published" well in advance of when any significant number of people see them.
Oh, please stop with the "web is different" mantra. It's possible for a defamatory printed article to be passed around a few friends, get published in a dorm magazine, move up to a college magazine, get picked up by a local newspaper, then go national. At any of these stages, it could be modified, expanded, redacted or for that matter OCR'd and media shifted to the web or CD-ROM. Heck, fake false dated versions could be produced at any point. It would be up to a court to decide what the first "publication" was, and whether it preceeded the version presented by the plaintiff by a year. Similarly, as a court would have to decide if the hidden version was publically available a year before it was noticed by the plaintiff or was shifted to a more public forum. Courts are actually rather good at deciding these things.
The whole issue of 'publication date' is very slippery online. With books or newspapers, it's easy, but on the net, it can be a very difficult issue.
Apparently not. This was a 7-0 vote, with no dissent. And I can understand why.
What's the difference between a download and a reprint of a newspaper article? Or it appearing in a journal? Or it being collated in a book? Or the rights being sold to another publisher and them publishing it? Or it being OCR'd and distributed on a CD-ROM? Or, for that matter, of someone retrieving it from an archive and making a photocopy of it for personal use?
Your point is only half valid. If you start down the slippery slope of asking what actions constitute a new publication, then you're into a world of litigation. But that applies equally to printed works as well. The words aren't graven in stone, and even if they were, they could be transcribed to a new medium, just as an online article can be printed in a publication. There's nothing particularly magic about the web: it's functionally very similar to a very convenient version of a paper archive and a photocopier.
This court just cut through the bullshit and got it exactly correct: the clock starts ticking from the date of first publication of the content in any medium. Hurrah for sane judged!
These reviews both strike me as fair. And they both highlight the big flaw in Linux on the desktop: support.
Microsoft offers you one way of doing things. If you don't know how to perform an operation, one of your friends and relatives will. I suspect that most of us will have given free Windows 'phone support at one time or another. And if you do have to 'phone the manufacturer, they can usually follow a script, because there's only so many ways you can break a Windows setup.
But Lindows... oh dear. If my mother bought one of these, she'd be on her own. The chances of me - familiar with Red Hat, SuSE and Solaris - being able to figure out and explain how to fix anything over the 'phone is next to null. And it seems that Lindows doesn't really have much of an idea either. The second article mentions that Lindows tech support eventually acknowleged that the only way to change the refresh was to fiddle with the xfree configuration. I actually think that's fair enough. What surprises and worries me is that Lindows tech support didn't know how to do it, and had to escalate it to an "executive" (and only because it was a journalist calling) before they found an answer.
If these things start selling in bulk, I suspect that Lindows might be looking for more front line tech support. A lot more front line tech support. That costs real money, and their strategy of flat rate licensing isn't going to look so clever when they find that they're paying per installation to provide support.
"Many quality mainstream and SF channels worldwide." Where?
Strangely enough, a lot of people are happy to watch what's on. In the UK, I'm thinking of BBC2, Channel 4, Sky1, Paramount Comedy, Sci-Fi channel, the various Discovery channels, the occasional National Geographic, and of course, Sabrina the Teenage Witch on Nickolodeon.
And no, I am not joking about that last one. I cannot think of a better example of a show with universal appeal, inspired scriptwriting, flawless casting and acting, and genuine flair and inventiveness, and all on a limited budget and done under the watchful eye of a rights holder (Archie Comics). It's another example of how SF like Who could be done if only the BBC would let go of it or at least sublicense it.
And for a very simple reason. The BBC used to be able to make programming on merit. Now it's full of spineless plonkers in expensive suits dribbling on about mindshare and demographics and return on investment.
In an era where there were only three (or four or five) channels available in the UK, Dr Who was tolerated because chances are, there wouldn't be anything better on elsewhere. But now it would have to fight for audiences among many quality mainstream and SF channels, worldwide.
And that means going toe to toe with the likes of Stargate, the Trek franchise, with Farscape, and with the all powerful Buffyverse.
To do that, you need the Buffy formula of good writing (which it always had) but also good acting (leads and support), costume, lighting, sound, editing, and FX, which, let's be honest, Dr Who was never overburdened with.
And all that costs, and that means risk, and that means it won't happen. It doesn't have the luxury of Red Dwarf, of coming from nowhere, starting out with zero budget and building up. It'd have to come back with a vengeance and go toe to toe with the big guns. And frankly, I don't think the BBC could do it. Not any more. It simple wouldn't have the courage to commit the necessary resource, and if it did try it, it would cut corners, produce something that was too safe to be cult and too sucky to be mainstream, which would just further reenforce the BBC notion that SF is expensive and risky.
There is actually a third option. Between expensive and good, and cheap and crap you can do cheap and good, if you have the vision and the courage. Look at the stunning Ultraviolet, done by the UK's Channel 4. Dark and gritty, completely believable, driven by story, drama and characters, dealing credibly with seriously adult issues like cancer, abortion and child abuse in six perfect, breathtaking, deeply moving episodes. It just happened to have vampires in it.
But that was Channel 4, not the BBC. C4 is now breaking the ground in the UK, with the BBC following on, assimilating the safer ideas. The BBC couldn't do a credible big budget Dr Who, and it hasn't got the talent or the courage to create a new vision for it. Channel 4 could, but they don't have the license. And think what Joss Whedon or Chris Carter could do with it, given half a chance.
So consider my name on the huge petition to get the BBC to stop clinging to past glories. Either use the license, or pass it on. But don't sit on it for fifteen years, exploiting the memory and teasing us with the possibility of a return, while the audience ages and we simply stop caring. Use it or lose it!
Coursey is an obvious troll with a long term pro-Microsoft agenda. I wouldn't worry about him influencing anyone: his "Bill is good, Bill is wise" mantra is so blatant that even the most casual reader should be able to spot it.
Indeed, if he'd written anything other than glowing praise for Palladium, I'd be shocked. This is just advocacy trolling by the numbers.
This is the same John Gilmore who we savaged for running an open mail relay and not backing down or compromising in any meaningful way.
Now, I fully support him in this endeavour, but let's not just slip into maudlin hero worship. Like an old fashioned preacher, Gilmore has gone from being representative, through conservative, until he's now an extreme fundamentalist, not because he's changed, but because the world has. Gilmore refuses to compromise his ideals one iota. Beyond a certain point that ceases to be admirable and just becomes stubborn and unrealistic.
Again: I agree with the issue, I think he's fighting the good fight, but I just have some reservations about his judgement. I've had the feeling for some time now that John Gilmore is living in the past, and he just won't let go.
Re:X-Box more costly cuz of Windows (RETCH)
on
Microsoft Freon
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· Score: 2
Given the way that large corporations work, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft were billing themselves for use of the cut down 2K OS. At a massive discount, with... interesting... tax implications, I'd further speculate.
Note that the code has to be placed on Sourceforge, and be GPL. That rules the rabidly anti-GPL Microsoft out. BSD good, GPL bad.
Also, your first and last points contradict each other. The last thing Microsoft wants to do is to sell subsidised generic hardware to people who won't buy licensed games for it.
The only reason that I can think of for MS to do this is to show that it can't be done, to hype Palladium. But it's not their style.
What's really sad is that I haven't. Ponder Powermonger, a 1990 Amiga title from Bullfrog. It has (substantially) everything that Warcraft III has - peons, resource management, military units, inventions, seaons (which are a lot more significant than the day/night cycle), trading and heroes. Plus it has unit posture, morale and delayed orders (you actually have to dispatch little carrier pigeons to subordinates), which makes combat much more involved than just counting hit points. There's actual strategy involved.
the single player campaign [..] is just pure fun [and the] battles are great (Though mostly easy up until the last one)
They're not just easy, they're insultingly so. I lost one scenario in the entire four race single player campaign, and that's because I got bored and peon rushed an enemy base in sheer frustration at how trivial it was to defeat the laughably incomptent and predictable computer opponents. Warcraft III single player is fun in the same way that flicking snot at the back of a crippled kid's head is fun.
As for the heroes adding a whole new dimension to the genre, that's true enough, but it's a sucky dimension. Now instead of peon or grunt rushing, you have to (and I mean have to) Hero Rush around the map. Whoever scoops the most levels has pretty much got the game won. Sorry, but I prefer actual strategy in my RTS.
Finished the single player last night, although I'm not entirely sure why.
The maps are effectively all very simple mazes. There's so much blocking terrain that the amount of actual usable space is small, even on the big maps. Defensive towers are so cheap and effective that your "strategy" on most maps is just to build 8-12 towers on each of the two or three very obvious approach routes (that might as well be signposted "Very Obvious Approach Route") and massacre the desultory trickle of understrength AI attacks. A small flying squad of infantry (or flyers) to deal with the token seige engine in some attacking groups, plus a patrolling group of repairing peons, and you're impregnable for all practical purposes.
And this works on every map. Every single map. The "game" is just wandering your hero around, hoovering up goodies and picking fights until he stops levelling. Then you can pretty much take the enemy down any way you like. Grunt rushes, creeping artillery barrages, suicidal hero charges, it's all good, and it all works, as long as you concentrate on taking out buildings instead of wasting time engaging the enemy.
The AI is as pathetic as always. It's actually sad watching the small groups of mixed troops going down in the meat grinder of your tower fire, and the sallies are even worse. If you want to know one of the actual "tactics" for a base assault, it involves sending in a couple of units to snipe the enemy base. The enemy sallies everything out to engage them, then you just rush your actual attacking force right past the melee into the heart of their base and smack their town centre. Works. Every. Time.
On the special quest maps with no construction, it's (if anything) worse. Because your hero regenerates faster than any enemy, and because their AI's are crippled so that they only pursue you for a short distance and then return to their home, you can defeat all opposition with hit and runs. There's no skill involved, only patience. The only troops that are actually beneficial are artillery; the infantry you get gifted (generously) on these maps are largely irrelevant, as your hero can solo them. The plethora of healing wells scattered around just imbalance it further. How come the enemy never uses them?
Multiplayer isn't a bundle of laughs either. There's none of the StarCraft distinctiveness among the races. They're all fairly generic, and the Night Elves are pretty obviously an "oh yeah" addition that serve no purpose. The single player Night Elf campaign really does seem tacked on and anti-climactic.
Because of the unit limit, you have to choose between trick supporting units or combat units. Guess what? 10 powered up combat units will beat any combination of combat and support units, because the support units are feeble, and their effects are either underpowered or require too much micromanagement, and they go down before they can make a difference. Sure, that sorceress might polymorph one of your grunts into a sheep, but then your other nine grunts will smack her, both sides have lost a unit, your grunt will recover, and you still have more total hit points. In fact, most battles are just meat grinders where the winner is the side with the most total hit points. "Tactics" means using "attack" rather than "move" to get in some first strikes, and then the old saw of concentrating on one enemy at a time. Forget flanking, forget advantage of terrain, forget posture, it's just grind, grind, grind. Take out the peons and the town centre, and you've won, as always. Heck, if you're human and you're getting bored, ring the alarm bell, turn your peons into pathetic militia, and just make it easier for your opponent to snuff them as they charge mindlessly into combat.
In other words, we've seen it all before, and better. The graphics aren't even anything to write home about. You'll only ever view the game from one angle anyway, with the units on mostly level ground, and so they might as well be pre-rendered. You'd lose the lighting effects, and that's about it.
Sorry, I am sadly disappointed in Warcraft III. The engine and gameplay have evolved not one bit from StarCraft, unless you count the multiplayer Hero Rush (either to attack, or to loot and level). All the work has gone into the graphics and the token humorous unit poke-poke responses. To give you an idea of how derivative this is, they even lift sounds straight from Diablo.
This is a sequel by the numbers. Stick to the same old formula, give people what they know they like, sell to the same market, don't introduce anything that would require actual strategy or tactics like unit posture, significant terrain advantages or bonus damage on enemy that are in "move" rather than "attack" mode. Oh no, just keep on churning out the same old same old, and keep counting the profits. Bah.
I'll call you out on that. For the majority of Windows users (which is what you are talking about), you need KDE3 to get equivelant friendliness. And KDE3 needs as much resources as an XP system. Don't tell me it doesn't, go and try it. KDE3 is unrunnable on a 48MB machine, and you'd have to be a masochist to want to use it with 64MB. 96 is the practical minimum, 128 is about right. Use anything less than KDE3 and you're sacrificing user friendliness, which (for most users) is a step backwards. In fact, for ease of use, I'd rate KDE3 alongside Win98SE. Win98SE runs fine in 32MB. So does fvwm95, but I'd (sorry) pick Win98SE over that for a general purpose system for
Don't get me wrong, the reason I'm making this comparison is because I do use KDE3 (and love it), but I'm always disappointed by people comparing the apples of a Win9x GUI with the oranges of a Linux CLI or simple xwm.
Perhaps by "old hardware" you mean something like PII 300+ with 128MB+ of DIMM memory, but I've just given my brother a salvaged P166 with 48Mb of SIMMs, running Win98SE, and he's happy with it. There's no X/Linux system that I could have put on it that would have done the job. Sorry, but I have to call them as I see them.
Oh please, when was the last time you actually bought a microsoft product?
Last time for me was when I found (in 2000) that I simply couldn't buy a laptop in the UK without a Microsoft OS (and other preloaded software). Funnily enough, even though I replaced it with a Linux distro, I'm still waiting for my refund.
Tell you what, when I receive the money, I'll buy a legit license key for the copy of XP on my (gaming) desktop. Fair enough?
it seems to me that a mod chip has been developed--in 9 months since the X Box was released
That's rather my point. The Xbox mod requires custom hardware, a soldering iron and a combination of technical skill and self confidence possessed by perhaps 1% of the population (remember, Slashdot is a very special audience). No system is "unbreakable", but it can be made so hard to break (technically and legally) that there's little practical difference. And they've got three years to improve on the Xbox system.
Re:No, it still won't work.
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Analyzing Palladium
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· Score: 3, Interesting
# Clever hacks, designed to completely fool the Palladium/DRM solution into thinking some software/hardware combination is legit and acceptable. This is highly possible,
Palladium is based on the patented Xbox method. The hack for that requires an expensive mod chip, a soldering iron, and a willingness to break your warranty and (arguably) the law in the form of the DMCA. That's pretty darn good security in practical terms, and it'll be better by 2006. This isn't some afterthought dongle, this is Palladium hardware that will only talk to the Palladium OS, and vice versa.
# The appearance of "GNU Hardware": open designs, based on a strict "No Palladium" clause, along with an explosion of small, customized hardware shop based on these designs
Bzzzt, wrong. Not enough market, and this won't open a niche, because Intel and AMD will sell expensive "server" versions that will run non-Palladium OS's (then expect to see sales licensed to "crack down on piracy"). But surely (I suspect you'll say) people will realise that it's better to support a cheaper and technically superior solution over a bloated expensive incumbent. Uh, right. Nobody every got sacked for buying IBM, goes the adage. Remind me, how is Transmeta doing these days? Still burning up the venture capital, right? OK, we can go to PPC, but that sinks one of the great strengths of Linux/BSD, that you can install it side by side with Redmond on your Intel/AMD system and see if you like it.
I think the US.gov could go along with this hare-brained scheme, but do you think the EU will?
Er, yes. Or rather, I think that EU politicians will let it in, and then the EU courts will have to deal with it after the fact. You know, the way it always works. Third word? What's the interest in the third world? It's to increase the potential market. OK, but companies know that it's more expensive to recruit than to retain. It's way more efficient to lock in your high value customers than to spend money to try and persuade low value customers to join in. And once you're infected by Palladium, they've got you. You're never getting out. They don't have to win everywhere at once with this, they just need to start the ball rolling.
Remember: Palladium can only work if every company joins the conspiracy. Some, maybe even a lot, won't.
Spurious assertion. First off, by 2006 Microsoft plan to have everyone - corporate and residential - on software-as-a-service plans, with automatic updates. And they'll simply stop offering anything other than Palladium. Then look at it from the point of view of risks and penalties. What's the cost of not signing up? It's guaranteed exclusion from the Palladium network. Initially, that means Microsoft, which means (depending how they want to play it) patches, fixes, MSN, MSDN, Microsoft Messenger, Hotmail, Passport, you name it. Then if just one of your big customers or partners switches, you have to switch, or lose them. I agree that it'll be hard for Microsoft to get the ball rolling on this, but when it starts, my god will it pick up momentum.
Maybe I'm being Chicken Little. Maybe you're being Pollyana. But the costs of me being right are a heck of a lot higher than the cost of you being right. I say we scream about this, and we scream about it now, before it has a chance to gather momentum.
Re:Lots of problems ahead for MS
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Analyzing Palladium
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I would think that an identification code embedded in hardware is going to be cracked, and in short order.
Sure. Remind me, where do I download the software hack for Xbox?
Sorry, you're just plain wrong on this one. Trying to impose security on an insecure OS with a dongle is wildly optimistic. But tying the hardware and the OS together is - demonstrably - not. Modding an Xbox requires a hardware hack, and Microsoft aren't idiots; they'll learn from the Xbox vulnerabilities and make sure that Palladium is harder to crack, or they'll have got their para-legal team hopped up and ready to take down any mod suppliers the instant they appear (note that one Xbox mod chip supplier went under today).
I'm not saying it'll be impossible, but I am predicting that it'll be damn hard and will require more than just a soldering iron and a cavalier disregard for your warranty, the EULA and the DMCA.
As regarding it dying in antitrust... well, we've seen how fast the DoJ moves on these issues. As for returning computers, what's your basis for believing that by 2006 you'll be able to buy a generic naked system without a Microsoft OS installed? And if we're talking about individual components, what will the market be for people who want to install a non-Microsoft OS but who won't realise that a stock consumer Intel/AMD chip won't talk to it? 2%? 1%?
This is a big deal. It's the Son of SSSCA, dressed up in pro-consumer clothes. It's not mandatory, just de facto (i.e. zero difference in practical terms). The response to any legal challenge will be that if you really want to run a non-Microsoft OS, you can pay extra for "server" or "pro" versions of CPU's (and whatever other components have jumped on the bandwagon). Fine, but how long before the anti-piracy argument gets leveraged to push through either a consentual or compulsory scheme to license access to non-Palladium parts? Six months? Less?
We can argue this until the cows come home, but let's agree to compromise. If you're right, you can say "told you so". If I'm right, I can say... well, whatever Bill allows me to say. Fair enough?
Because that's untrue. The USA is divided on many substantial issues, including whether there should be "one nation, undivided". Funnily enough, disagreeing with this assertion is a great way to validate it.
Given how many Slashdot stories come from Salon
on
Salon in Dire Straits
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· Score: 2
How about giving them some cash?
Speaking of which, how healthy is Slashdot at the moment? All sorted out? Or still burning capital waiting for the ad market to recover?
Feel free to mod this as funny or troll, but I am perfectly serious. I like this bill: it's pithy, addresses a real problem, and is neither too narrow nor too broad. However, it occurs to me that the wording could be applied to writing a piece of buggy software.
"A person is guilty of an offence if without authorisation he does any act which causes directly or indirectly a degradation, failure, or other impairment or function of a computerised system or any part thereof. A person is guilty of the offence [...] even if the act was not intended to cause such an effect, provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect. [...] the act is without authorisation if the person doing it does not have the permission of the owner [of the relevant computerised system or part thereof]."
So, I write a piece of code with a memory scribbler in it, say passing an unitialised pointer to memcpy(). The "act" is my typing of that specific line of code. Any reasonable person would anticipate that act would cause a degradation or failure on a system. Note: "a" system, not "my" system. I didn't intend it to cause failure, but I should (reasonably) have realised it would. And once I distribute the code, the damage is caused on many systems, none of which are owned by people who gave me permission (explicitely or even implicitely) to perform the "act", i.e. write that scribbler.
I'm certainly stretching a point, but my scenario satisfies the letter (if not the spirit) of the law. There's already a concept of criminal negligence; this would just be a specific case of it. The part that makes me pause is that the offence is caused by the individual coder, not by her employer.
So while this probably will never effect me, it gives me a little more incentive to make sure that I lint every line that I write, and damn the deadline. But hey, on balance that's a good thing, right?;-)
And that is the difference between open source and proprietary. You can argue until the cows come home which one is better, but open source is demonstrably more honest. If there's a hole, you find out about it. It isn't hushed up and smushed into the next Service Pack, regardless of whether it's being sploited or not.
I'm currently building a firewall machine for my brother. I'd considered openBSD, but was going to just stick to what I know and use a cut down Linux distro. But this changes my mind. I'm still old fashioned enough to respect honesty and integrity; people who display those virtues (I've found) tend to write better code, because they're more open to positive criticism and apply higher standards to their work. So openBSD it is, and roll on the next vulnerability, sometime in 2008.
I believe this situation will soon be resolved calmly, but a hundred "You SUCK!" e-mail cannot help
Well said. Indeed, if you read the wording of Lucasart's email, it's insanely polite and non confrontational. It's the nicest bitchslap I've ever read. They are actually demonstrating goodwill, which I find infinitely preferable to the modern trend for merely asserting that you are acting in "good faith"... while you rip your opponent's jugular out in a pre-emptive strike.
If anything, we should be emailing Lucasarts, thanking them for their reasonable approach (so far), and asking if it's really true that we can buy (note buy) their back catalogue and then use scummVM to play it in modern or alternative hardware. And if not, why not? Everybody wins from this.
I love how they pin it on one guy.... like it was all his fault. but we fired him now...
It could be worse. I work at a R&D operation that supplies Worldcom. We were told last week that $50M of expected business had fallen through, and that lost us a bunch of conditional investment. And gee, now Worldcom discloses that it has $3.7B less than it thought. Spot the connection, and bear in mind that Worldcom will have put damage limitation and cost control in place before going public with this.
So now we've got an enforced company wide pay cut, compulsory redundancies with statuatory minumum compensation and no employee consulatation, and an off the record statement from HR that our contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. The worst bit? Our CFO - the guy who booked $50M of potential sales plus conditional investment as a done deal - retains his job. Why? Because now, more than ever, we apparently need steady hands at the tiller. It's very brave and noble for the captain to stay at the helm and go down with his ship - but not if he's already asset stripped the lifeboats and thrown the entire crew overboard to gain bouyancy.
Sorry, gripe mode off. I just wanted to remind everyone that when you see headlines like these, it's not just the 17,000 poor shmoes at Worldcom that are getting stiffed. That $3.7B - and the lost investment and sales that it will cause - are going to be clawed back by cancelling orders or withholding money from suppliers, many of whom have already spent or invested on the basis that, hey, if you can't trust Worldcom to pay up, who can you trust. The hurt just spreads and spreads.
God damn but this is a bad time to be in telecomms.
You raise some very interesting points, and I agree that Win2K is a nice stable operating system (apart from for(;;) printf("\t\b\b"); ). Unfortunately, that's completely irrelevant to this discussion, which is about Longhorn.
And Longhorn isn't an operating system. That's abundantly clear from the Microblurb about it. It's about applications, it's about integration, it's about your machine knowing best how and where to store (and release) data, and what application to use to move and display it. And those are going to be Microsoft applications. The audacity is breathtaking, given that they are convicted monopolists. They just don't care, and I suspect that you don't either.
But that's only half of it. It's not even covered in this story, but the flip side is bad by anybody's standards. Fundamental to the DRM aspect of Longhorn is that the filesystem is encrypted. Mandatorily. And Microsoft has the keys. It's about Microsoft apps passing encrypted data to other trusted Microsoft apps. Well, heck, you can still grab it at the device, right? Wrong. Key to the security aspect of Longhorn is that the encryption spreads onto the hardware. And Microsoft has a patent on that, from their Xbox development (although "dongle" springs to mind as prior art).
The only question is: how bad, and how soon. How bad means will we even be able to buy hardware that doesn't insist on a Microsoft OS being present to activate it? From the way Microsoft are talking, it's looking increasingly like they do think they can swing this. It's not open to debate whether they'd want to. Locked down hardware has been a long time wet dream of theirs, c.f. the original "WinXP ready" requirements. The only question is: do they think they can spin the PR (or do they not care any more?), and do they think they can strongarm the manufacturers? I believe that they think they can.
So you go ahead and argue that Longhorn is innovative. As a complete system, it probably will be. But I don't want a complete system. More than that, I don't want to have no alternative to buying - sorry, licensing - a complete system, and the DoJ happen to agree. But what I want least of all is to have a system that stores encrypted data, and that won't give me the keys, ever. That's a blatant attempt to lock in users, and we need to point at it and scream "No!" right now, because I do not want to have to wait for the DoJ to get its ass belatedly into gear after the fact again.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, please stop with the "web is different" mantra. It's possible for a defamatory printed article to be passed around a few friends, get published in a dorm magazine, move up to a college magazine, get picked up by a local newspaper, then go national. At any of these stages, it could be modified, expanded, redacted or for that matter OCR'd and media shifted to the web or CD-ROM. Heck, fake false dated versions could be produced at any point. It would be up to a court to decide what the first "publication" was, and whether it preceeded the version presented by the plaintiff by a year. Similarly, as a court would have to decide if the hidden version was publically available a year before it was noticed by the plaintiff or was shifted to a more public forum. Courts are actually rather good at deciding these things.
Apparently not. This was a 7-0 vote, with no dissent. And I can understand why.
What's the difference between a download and a reprint of a newspaper article? Or it appearing in a journal? Or it being collated in a book? Or the rights being sold to another publisher and them publishing it? Or it being OCR'd and distributed on a CD-ROM? Or, for that matter, of someone retrieving it from an archive and making a photocopy of it for personal use?
Your point is only half valid. If you start down the slippery slope of asking what actions constitute a new publication, then you're into a world of litigation. But that applies equally to printed works as well. The words aren't graven in stone, and even if they were, they could be transcribed to a new medium, just as an online article can be printed in a publication. There's nothing particularly magic about the web: it's functionally very similar to a very convenient version of a paper archive and a photocopier.
This court just cut through the bullshit and got it exactly correct: the clock starts ticking from the date of first publication of the content in any medium. Hurrah for sane judged!
These reviews both strike me as fair. And they both highlight the big flaw in Linux on the desktop: support.
Microsoft offers you one way of doing things. If you don't know how to perform an operation, one of your friends and relatives will. I suspect that most of us will have given free Windows 'phone support at one time or another. And if you do have to 'phone the manufacturer, they can usually follow a script, because there's only so many ways you can break a Windows setup.
But Lindows... oh dear. If my mother bought one of these, she'd be on her own. The chances of me - familiar with Red Hat, SuSE and Solaris - being able to figure out and explain how to fix anything over the 'phone is next to null. And it seems that Lindows doesn't really have much of an idea either. The second article mentions that Lindows tech support eventually acknowleged that the only way to change the refresh was to fiddle with the xfree configuration. I actually think that's fair enough. What surprises and worries me is that Lindows tech support didn't know how to do it, and had to escalate it to an "executive" (and only because it was a journalist calling) before they found an answer.
If these things start selling in bulk, I suspect that Lindows might be looking for more front line tech support. A lot more front line tech support. That costs real money, and their strategy of flat rate licensing isn't going to look so clever when they find that they're paying per installation to provide support.
Strangely enough, a lot of people are happy to watch what's on. In the UK, I'm thinking of BBC2, Channel 4, Sky1, Paramount Comedy, Sci-Fi channel, the various Discovery channels, the occasional National Geographic, and of course, Sabrina the Teenage Witch on Nickolodeon.
And no, I am not joking about that last one. I cannot think of a better example of a show with universal appeal, inspired scriptwriting, flawless casting and acting, and genuine flair and inventiveness, and all on a limited budget and done under the watchful eye of a rights holder (Archie Comics). It's another example of how SF like Who could be done if only the BBC would let go of it or at least sublicense it.
And for a very simple reason. The BBC used to be able to make programming on merit. Now it's full of spineless plonkers in expensive suits dribbling on about mindshare and demographics and return on investment.
In an era where there were only three (or four or five) channels available in the UK, Dr Who was tolerated because chances are, there wouldn't be anything better on elsewhere. But now it would have to fight for audiences among many quality mainstream and SF channels, worldwide.
And that means going toe to toe with the likes of Stargate, the Trek franchise, with Farscape, and with the all powerful Buffyverse.
To do that, you need the Buffy formula of good writing (which it always had) but also good acting (leads and support), costume, lighting, sound, editing, and FX, which, let's be honest, Dr Who was never overburdened with.
And all that costs, and that means risk, and that means it won't happen. It doesn't have the luxury of Red Dwarf, of coming from nowhere, starting out with zero budget and building up. It'd have to come back with a vengeance and go toe to toe with the big guns. And frankly, I don't think the BBC could do it. Not any more. It simple wouldn't have the courage to commit the necessary resource, and if it did try it, it would cut corners, produce something that was too safe to be cult and too sucky to be mainstream, which would just further reenforce the BBC notion that SF is expensive and risky.
There is actually a third option. Between expensive and good, and cheap and crap you can do cheap and good, if you have the vision and the courage. Look at the stunning Ultraviolet, done by the UK's Channel 4. Dark and gritty, completely believable, driven by story, drama and characters, dealing credibly with seriously adult issues like cancer, abortion and child abuse in six perfect, breathtaking, deeply moving episodes. It just happened to have vampires in it.
But that was Channel 4, not the BBC. C4 is now breaking the ground in the UK, with the BBC following on, assimilating the safer ideas. The BBC couldn't do a credible big budget Dr Who, and it hasn't got the talent or the courage to create a new vision for it. Channel 4 could, but they don't have the license. And think what Joss Whedon or Chris Carter could do with it, given half a chance.
So consider my name on the huge petition to get the BBC to stop clinging to past glories. Either use the license, or pass it on. But don't sit on it for fifteen years, exploiting the memory and teasing us with the possibility of a return, while the audience ages and we simply stop caring. Use it or lose it!
Coursey is an obvious troll with a long term pro-Microsoft agenda. I wouldn't worry about him influencing anyone: his "Bill is good, Bill is wise" mantra is so blatant that even the most casual reader should be able to spot it.
Indeed, if he'd written anything other than glowing praise for Palladium, I'd be shocked. This is just advocacy trolling by the numbers.
This is the same John Gilmore who we savaged for running an open mail relay and not backing down or compromising in any meaningful way.
Now, I fully support him in this endeavour, but let's not just slip into maudlin hero worship. Like an old fashioned preacher, Gilmore has gone from being representative, through conservative, until he's now an extreme fundamentalist, not because he's changed, but because the world has. Gilmore refuses to compromise his ideals one iota. Beyond a certain point that ceases to be admirable and just becomes stubborn and unrealistic.
Again: I agree with the issue, I think he's fighting the good fight, but I just have some reservations about his judgement. I've had the feeling for some time now that John Gilmore is living in the past, and he just won't let go.
Given the way that large corporations work, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft were billing themselves for use of the cut down 2K OS. At a massive discount, with... interesting... tax implications, I'd further speculate.
Note that the code has to be placed on Sourceforge, and be GPL. That rules the rabidly anti-GPL Microsoft out. BSD good, GPL bad.
Also, your first and last points contradict each other. The last thing Microsoft wants to do is to sell subsidised generic hardware to people who won't buy licensed games for it.
The only reason that I can think of for MS to do this is to show that it can't be done, to hype Palladium. But it's not their style.
What's really sad is that I haven't. Ponder Powermonger, a 1990 Amiga title from Bullfrog. It has (substantially) everything that Warcraft III has - peons, resource management, military units, inventions, seaons (which are a lot more significant than the day/night cycle), trading and heroes. Plus it has unit posture, morale and delayed orders (you actually have to dispatch little carrier pigeons to subordinates), which makes combat much more involved than just counting hit points. There's actual strategy involved.
And all in 512Kb.
They're not just easy, they're insultingly so. I lost one scenario in the entire four race single player campaign, and that's because I got bored and peon rushed an enemy base in sheer frustration at how trivial it was to defeat the laughably incomptent and predictable computer opponents. Warcraft III single player is fun in the same way that flicking snot at the back of a crippled kid's head is fun.
As for the heroes adding a whole new dimension to the genre, that's true enough, but it's a sucky dimension. Now instead of peon or grunt rushing, you have to (and I mean have to) Hero Rush around the map. Whoever scoops the most levels has pretty much got the game won. Sorry, but I prefer actual strategy in my RTS.
Finished the single player last night, although I'm not entirely sure why.
The maps are effectively all very simple mazes. There's so much blocking terrain that the amount of actual usable space is small, even on the big maps. Defensive towers are so cheap and effective that your "strategy" on most maps is just to build 8-12 towers on each of the two or three very obvious approach routes (that might as well be signposted "Very Obvious Approach Route") and massacre the desultory trickle of understrength AI attacks. A small flying squad of infantry (or flyers) to deal with the token seige engine in some attacking groups, plus a patrolling group of repairing peons, and you're impregnable for all practical purposes.
And this works on every map. Every single map. The "game" is just wandering your hero around, hoovering up goodies and picking fights until he stops levelling. Then you can pretty much take the enemy down any way you like. Grunt rushes, creeping artillery barrages, suicidal hero charges, it's all good, and it all works, as long as you concentrate on taking out buildings instead of wasting time engaging the enemy.
The AI is as pathetic as always. It's actually sad watching the small groups of mixed troops going down in the meat grinder of your tower fire, and the sallies are even worse. If you want to know one of the actual "tactics" for a base assault, it involves sending in a couple of units to snipe the enemy base. The enemy sallies everything out to engage them, then you just rush your actual attacking force right past the melee into the heart of their base and smack their town centre. Works. Every. Time.
On the special quest maps with no construction, it's (if anything) worse. Because your hero regenerates faster than any enemy, and because their AI's are crippled so that they only pursue you for a short distance and then return to their home, you can defeat all opposition with hit and runs. There's no skill involved, only patience. The only troops that are actually beneficial are artillery; the infantry you get gifted (generously) on these maps are largely irrelevant, as your hero can solo them. The plethora of healing wells scattered around just imbalance it further. How come the enemy never uses them?
Multiplayer isn't a bundle of laughs either. There's none of the StarCraft distinctiveness among the races. They're all fairly generic, and the Night Elves are pretty obviously an "oh yeah" addition that serve no purpose. The single player Night Elf campaign really does seem tacked on and anti-climactic.
Because of the unit limit, you have to choose between trick supporting units or combat units. Guess what? 10 powered up combat units will beat any combination of combat and support units, because the support units are feeble, and their effects are either underpowered or require too much micromanagement, and they go down before they can make a difference. Sure, that sorceress might polymorph one of your grunts into a sheep, but then your other nine grunts will smack her, both sides have lost a unit, your grunt will recover, and you still have more total hit points. In fact, most battles are just meat grinders where the winner is the side with the most total hit points. "Tactics" means using "attack" rather than "move" to get in some first strikes, and then the old saw of concentrating on one enemy at a time. Forget flanking, forget advantage of terrain, forget posture, it's just grind, grind, grind. Take out the peons and the town centre, and you've won, as always. Heck, if you're human and you're getting bored, ring the alarm bell, turn your peons into pathetic militia, and just make it easier for your opponent to snuff them as they charge mindlessly into combat.
In other words, we've seen it all before, and better. The graphics aren't even anything to write home about. You'll only ever view the game from one angle anyway, with the units on mostly level ground, and so they might as well be pre-rendered. You'd lose the lighting effects, and that's about it.
Sorry, I am sadly disappointed in Warcraft III. The engine and gameplay have evolved not one bit from StarCraft, unless you count the multiplayer Hero Rush (either to attack, or to loot and level). All the work has gone into the graphics and the token humorous unit poke-poke responses. To give you an idea of how derivative this is, they even lift sounds straight from Diablo.
This is a sequel by the numbers. Stick to the same old formula, give people what they know they like, sell to the same market, don't introduce anything that would require actual strategy or tactics like unit posture, significant terrain advantages or bonus damage on enemy that are in "move" rather than "attack" mode. Oh no, just keep on churning out the same old same old, and keep counting the profits. Bah.
I'll call you out on that. For the majority of Windows users (which is what you are talking about), you need KDE3 to get equivelant friendliness. And KDE3 needs as much resources as an XP system. Don't tell me it doesn't, go and try it. KDE3 is unrunnable on a 48MB machine, and you'd have to be a masochist to want to use it with 64MB. 96 is the practical minimum, 128 is about right. Use anything less than KDE3 and you're sacrificing user friendliness, which (for most users) is a step backwards. In fact, for ease of use, I'd rate KDE3 alongside Win98SE. Win98SE runs fine in 32MB. So does fvwm95, but I'd (sorry) pick Win98SE over that for a general purpose system for
Don't get me wrong, the reason I'm making this comparison is because I do use KDE3 (and love it), but I'm always disappointed by people comparing the apples of a Win9x GUI with the oranges of a Linux CLI or simple xwm.
Perhaps by "old hardware" you mean something like PII 300+ with 128MB+ of DIMM memory, but I've just given my brother a salvaged P166 with 48Mb of SIMMs, running Win98SE, and he's happy with it. There's no X/Linux system that I could have put on it that would have done the job. Sorry, but I have to call them as I see them.
If it's a joke, I'm not laughing
Last time for me was when I found (in 2000) that I simply couldn't buy a laptop in the UK without a Microsoft OS (and other preloaded software). Funnily enough, even though I replaced it with a Linux distro, I'm still waiting for my refund.
Tell you what, when I receive the money, I'll buy a legit license key for the copy of XP on my (gaming) desktop. Fair enough?
- where do I download the software hack for Xbox?
it seems to me that a mod chip has been developed--in 9 months since the X Box was releasedThat's rather my point. The Xbox mod requires custom hardware, a soldering iron and a combination of technical skill and self confidence possessed by perhaps 1% of the population (remember, Slashdot is a very special audience). No system is "unbreakable", but it can be made so hard to break (technically and legally) that there's little practical difference. And they've got three years to improve on the Xbox system.
Palladium is based on the patented Xbox method. The hack for that requires an expensive mod chip, a soldering iron, and a willingness to break your warranty and (arguably) the law in the form of the DMCA. That's pretty darn good security in practical terms, and it'll be better by 2006. This isn't some afterthought dongle, this is Palladium hardware that will only talk to the Palladium OS, and vice versa.
Bzzzt, wrong. Not enough market, and this won't open a niche, because Intel and AMD will sell expensive "server" versions that will run non-Palladium OS's (then expect to see sales licensed to "crack down on piracy"). But surely (I suspect you'll say) people will realise that it's better to support a cheaper and technically superior solution over a bloated expensive incumbent. Uh, right. Nobody every got sacked for buying IBM, goes the adage. Remind me, how is Transmeta doing these days? Still burning up the venture capital, right? OK, we can go to PPC, but that sinks one of the great strengths of Linux/BSD, that you can install it side by side with Redmond on your Intel/AMD system and see if you like it.
Er, yes. Or rather, I think that EU politicians will let it in, and then the EU courts will have to deal with it after the fact. You know, the way it always works. Third word? What's the interest in the third world? It's to increase the potential market. OK, but companies know that it's more expensive to recruit than to retain. It's way more efficient to lock in your high value customers than to spend money to try and persuade low value customers to join in. And once you're infected by Palladium, they've got you. You're never getting out. They don't have to win everywhere at once with this, they just need to start the ball rolling.
Spurious assertion. First off, by 2006 Microsoft plan to have everyone - corporate and residential - on software-as-a-service plans, with automatic updates. And they'll simply stop offering anything other than Palladium. Then look at it from the point of view of risks and penalties. What's the cost of not signing up? It's guaranteed exclusion from the Palladium network. Initially, that means Microsoft, which means (depending how they want to play it) patches, fixes, MSN, MSDN, Microsoft Messenger, Hotmail, Passport, you name it. Then if just one of your big customers or partners switches, you have to switch, or lose them. I agree that it'll be hard for Microsoft to get the ball rolling on this, but when it starts, my god will it pick up momentum.
Maybe I'm being Chicken Little. Maybe you're being Pollyana. But the costs of me being right are a heck of a lot higher than the cost of you being right. I say we scream about this, and we scream about it now, before it has a chance to gather momentum.
Sure. Remind me, where do I download the software hack for Xbox?
Sorry, you're just plain wrong on this one. Trying to impose security on an insecure OS with a dongle is wildly optimistic. But tying the hardware and the OS together is - demonstrably - not. Modding an Xbox requires a hardware hack, and Microsoft aren't idiots; they'll learn from the Xbox vulnerabilities and make sure that Palladium is harder to crack, or they'll have got their para-legal team hopped up and ready to take down any mod suppliers the instant they appear (note that one Xbox mod chip supplier went under today).
I'm not saying it'll be impossible, but I am predicting that it'll be damn hard and will require more than just a soldering iron and a cavalier disregard for your warranty, the EULA and the DMCA.
As regarding it dying in antitrust... well, we've seen how fast the DoJ moves on these issues. As for returning computers, what's your basis for believing that by 2006 you'll be able to buy a generic naked system without a Microsoft OS installed? And if we're talking about individual components, what will the market be for people who want to install a non-Microsoft OS but who won't realise that a stock consumer Intel/AMD chip won't talk to it? 2%? 1%?
This is a big deal. It's the Son of SSSCA, dressed up in pro-consumer clothes. It's not mandatory, just de facto (i.e. zero difference in practical terms). The response to any legal challenge will be that if you really want to run a non-Microsoft OS, you can pay extra for "server" or "pro" versions of CPU's (and whatever other components have jumped on the bandwagon). Fine, but how long before the anti-piracy argument gets leveraged to push through either a consentual or compulsory scheme to license access to non-Palladium parts? Six months? Less?
We can argue this until the cows come home, but let's agree to compromise. If you're right, you can say "told you so". If I'm right, I can say... well, whatever Bill allows me to say. Fair enough?
Because that's untrue. The USA is divided on many substantial issues, including whether there should be "one nation, undivided". Funnily enough, disagreeing with this assertion is a great way to validate it.
How about giving them some cash?
Speaking of which, how healthy is Slashdot at the moment? All sorted out? Or still burning capital waiting for the ad market to recover?
Feel free to mod this as funny or troll, but I am perfectly serious. I like this bill: it's pithy, addresses a real problem, and is neither too narrow nor too broad. However, it occurs to me that the wording could be applied to writing a piece of buggy software.
"A person is guilty of an offence if without authorisation he does any act which causes directly or indirectly a degradation, failure, or other impairment or function of a computerised system or any part thereof. A person is guilty of the offence [...] even if the act was not intended to cause such an effect, provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect. [...] the act is without authorisation if the person doing it does not have the permission of the owner [of the relevant computerised system or part thereof]."
So, I write a piece of code with a memory scribbler in it, say passing an unitialised pointer to memcpy(). The "act" is my typing of that specific line of code. Any reasonable person would anticipate that act would cause a degradation or failure on a system. Note: "a" system, not "my" system. I didn't intend it to cause failure, but I should (reasonably) have realised it would. And once I distribute the code, the damage is caused on many systems, none of which are owned by people who gave me permission (explicitely or even implicitely) to perform the "act", i.e. write that scribbler.
I'm certainly stretching a point, but my scenario satisfies the letter (if not the spirit) of the law. There's already a concept of criminal negligence; this would just be a specific case of it. The part that makes me pause is that the offence is caused by the individual coder, not by her employer.
So while this probably will never effect me, it gives me a little more incentive to make sure that I lint every line that I write, and damn the deadline. But hey, on balance that's a good thing, right? ;-)
And that is the difference between open source and proprietary. You can argue until the cows come home which one is better, but open source is demonstrably more honest. If there's a hole, you find out about it. It isn't hushed up and smushed into the next Service Pack, regardless of whether it's being sploited or not.
I'm currently building a firewall machine for my brother. I'd considered openBSD, but was going to just stick to what I know and use a cut down Linux distro. But this changes my mind. I'm still old fashioned enough to respect honesty and integrity; people who display those virtues (I've found) tend to write better code, because they're more open to positive criticism and apply higher standards to their work. So openBSD it is, and roll on the next vulnerability, sometime in 2008.
Well said. Indeed, if you read the wording of Lucasart's email, it's insanely polite and non confrontational. It's the nicest bitchslap I've ever read. They are actually demonstrating goodwill, which I find infinitely preferable to the modern trend for merely asserting that you are acting in "good faith"... while you rip your opponent's jugular out in a pre-emptive strike.
If anything, we should be emailing Lucasarts, thanking them for their reasonable approach (so far), and asking if it's really true that we can buy (note buy) their back catalogue and then use scummVM to play it in modern or alternative hardware. And if not, why not? Everybody wins from this.
It could be worse. I work at a R&D operation that supplies Worldcom. We were told last week that $50M of expected business had fallen through, and that lost us a bunch of conditional investment. And gee, now Worldcom discloses that it has $3.7B less than it thought. Spot the connection, and bear in mind that Worldcom will have put damage limitation and cost control in place before going public with this.
So now we've got an enforced company wide pay cut, compulsory redundancies with statuatory minumum compensation and no employee consulatation, and an off the record statement from HR that our contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. The worst bit? Our CFO - the guy who booked $50M of potential sales plus conditional investment as a done deal - retains his job. Why? Because now, more than ever, we apparently need steady hands at the tiller. It's very brave and noble for the captain to stay at the helm and go down with his ship - but not if he's already asset stripped the lifeboats and thrown the entire crew overboard to gain bouyancy.
Sorry, gripe mode off. I just wanted to remind everyone that when you see headlines like these, it's not just the 17,000 poor shmoes at Worldcom that are getting stiffed. That $3.7B - and the lost investment and sales that it will cause - are going to be clawed back by cancelling orders or withholding money from suppliers, many of whom have already spent or invested on the basis that, hey, if you can't trust Worldcom to pay up, who can you trust. The hurt just spreads and spreads.
God damn but this is a bad time to be in telecomms.
You raise some very interesting points, and I agree that Win2K is a nice stable operating system (apart from for(;;) printf("\t\b\b"); ). Unfortunately, that's completely irrelevant to this discussion, which is about Longhorn.
And Longhorn isn't an operating system. That's abundantly clear from the Microblurb about it. It's about applications, it's about integration, it's about your machine knowing best how and where to store (and release) data, and what application to use to move and display it. And those are going to be Microsoft applications. The audacity is breathtaking, given that they are convicted monopolists. They just don't care, and I suspect that you don't either.
But that's only half of it. It's not even covered in this story, but the flip side is bad by anybody's standards. Fundamental to the DRM aspect of Longhorn is that the filesystem is encrypted. Mandatorily. And Microsoft has the keys. It's about Microsoft apps passing encrypted data to other trusted Microsoft apps. Well, heck, you can still grab it at the device, right? Wrong. Key to the security aspect of Longhorn is that the encryption spreads onto the hardware. And Microsoft has a patent on that, from their Xbox development (although "dongle" springs to mind as prior art).
The only question is: how bad, and how soon. How bad means will we even be able to buy hardware that doesn't insist on a Microsoft OS being present to activate it? From the way Microsoft are talking, it's looking increasingly like they do think they can swing this. It's not open to debate whether they'd want to. Locked down hardware has been a long time wet dream of theirs, c.f. the original "WinXP ready" requirements. The only question is: do they think they can spin the PR (or do they not care any more?), and do they think they can strongarm the manufacturers? I believe that they think they can.
So you go ahead and argue that Longhorn is innovative. As a complete system, it probably will be. But I don't want a complete system. More than that, I don't want to have no alternative to buying - sorry, licensing - a complete system, and the DoJ happen to agree. But what I want least of all is to have a system that stores encrypted data, and that won't give me the keys, ever. That's a blatant attempt to lock in users, and we need to point at it and scream "No!" right now, because I do not want to have to wait for the DoJ to get its ass belatedly into gear after the fact again.