[did] EFF lobbying, etc. made a difference [or]was there some other factor at work here?
The MPAA/RIAA pointed out to him that they use encryption, and that there's no way they're going to trust their enforcement/collection division (US Government Inc.) with the keys?
This is presented frivilously, but it's a real possibility. There are plenty of corporate users of encryption who can easily afford to contribute a Mercedes or two to Senator Gregg's campaign fund to get this farcical idea off the table.
Holy heck, there's a nice hobby. Proactively inviting corporate bribes ("campaign contributions") by proposing dumb bills that will hurt them. Much more efficient than waiting for OmniGlobalHyperMegaCorp to come a-knocking on your door.
Actually, the Navy will NOT be checking every line of code. That is why the battleship had to be towed already
I honestly find that very hard to believe. I'm not claiming that Navy guys will do it, but at the very least, they should have it checked by a third party consultancy firm.
It's certainly an interesting topic. Got references to any evidence?
Uh, what world are you living in? If the cost to any individual company of paying up is less than the cost of fighting it in court, the company has a duty (to its shareholders) to pay up.
Nobody's going to take a stand against this, unless IBM picks the wrong targets.
Tsk, it's the mandatory backdoor for the NSA to use to ensure that the system that the binary resides on isn't being used by baby raping file sharing anthrax snorting terrorist monsters.
Who's e-mailbox should we all slam with requests for reasonable IPR laws
How about webmaster@uspto.gov, informing her that she is in breach of IBM's patent on using templates to generate a web site.
My god. I was joking when I started typing that, but it's accurate. The USPTO web site is almost certainly put together using "a plurality of templates". And they granted a patent to IBM on that. Farcical, absolutely farcical.
On the bright side, as the USPTO funds itself from granting (mostly frivilous) patents, it's nice to see them finally hoist on their own petard.
Go do some remedial comprehension. The idea is that they max out peoples' upload connections by not actually downloading the tracks, same as if they just logged into an anonymous ftp server fifty times and sent a keepalive every couple of minutes.
It's utterly pointless though; how long will it take developers to put in a "drop upload if under X kbs" tick box? Five minutes? Then "do not accept connection from IPs that have dropped Y connections for the next Z minutes" box? Another five minutes?
Or hell, just change "number of simultaneous uploads" to "bandwidth available for simultaneous uploads".
Careful with your wording. "Steal" still implies that you are taking an object, or denying use of it, that there is a victim, and that they have lost something tangible.
Music sharing is not like that at all. Their argument is that they made 10 gzillion dollars last year, so if they only make 9 gzillion dollars this year, they've lost 1 gzillion dollars. Uh, wait. How you lose something that you never had?
If this concept is still unclear to anyone, think towards it via this example. You go into a music store and walk out with a $15 CD that you haven't paid for. What's the value of your theft?
The answer is 50 cents. That's what it costs to replace the CD. It's not $15 dollars. You weren't going to pay that. The store never had that amount of money from you. They never had it, so they can't lose it. They lost the replacement value of the object, 50 cents worth.
Extend that to sharing files online. You weren't going to buy them (don't tell me I might, I haven't bought any music for the last 16 years, long before file sharing appeared). The RIAA never had my money. I haven't taken an object from them, or denied them access to anything.
So, tell me, when I download (for the sake of argument) a Metallica track, who have I stolen from, and how much have I stolen? Quantify your answer, and explain how my victim has less after I have created a copy of the file.
It takes everyone a little time to get people aware of things like permissions, using the command line to copy or move files, etc
It's possible to set up KDE (haven't used GNOME for a year, so can't comment) so that it looks and works almost indistinguishably from any M$ GUI you care to specify. The biggest difference is finding and fiddling with system settings (which Joe Government won't need to do, that's what IT training is for) and dealing with mounts instead of drives. I honestly think that it's do-able.
If the Bundestag administration is not able to print.doc documents as they were shown in someone else's Word 2K (with correct table dimenstions, bullets, idents and images), it would make people laugh hard at them
Have a look at StarOffice 6 beta. I'm having no issues at all moving.doc documents between it and MS Word 97 and MS Word 2000. My company IT department is currently taking a serious look at StarOffice as a drop in replacement for Microsoft Office. It really is a lovely piece of work.
They aren't on very good terms to begin with (since their dispute over Microsoft's EULA
In the EULA case, the government wasn't involved, it was (IIRC) a civil case where a reseller took on Microsoft and won hands down in court. The verdict couldn't have been clearer. Microsoft was instructed in no uncertain terms that they would not be bullying anyone in Germany with extra-legal EULA's. I don't honestly know how they dealt with that, it's in stark contrast to the convoluted and toothless conduct remedies that they have become used to arguing against or just ignoring in the US.
What else does the German gov't have to offer, anyway?
Information on all European Union internal policies and planning? Incriminating evidence of them cheating on trade deals?
The US and the EU are of comparable size in population and economy, and are in fierce competition in many areas. Things like banana trade wars might sound like a bad comedy sketch, but it's a serious multi-million dollar dispute, and there's plenty more of them out there.
So, how would you feel about Germany monitoring your financial dealings through their own version of Echelon? Wouldn't you want the NSA to protect you from that? There's a valid (though specious) counter-intelligence excuse for putting in back doors in popular products, to spy on those who might be spying on you.
Not that I'm buying that this is actually going on, but there's plenty of reasons why it might be, and why it's better to be Open than sorry.
Consider that the new generation of US warships will be running Windows for Warfare. You can damn well bet your life that the US Navy is going to want to evaluate every line of code that goes into those systems. They aren't just going to take Microsoft's word for it, especially as MS subcontract work out to third parties, some of them in countries where a little bribery would go a long way.
Similarly, no sensible government (including the US!) should be using closed binaries for critical functions.
I'm sure this is good for somebody but my 11mb wireless lan is already
It's good for me, because I want an 802.11b LAN (ahem, technically a NAN, Neighbourhood Area Network...) and this will get the price down.
At today's prices in the UK, it would cost me cost me £400/$600 to equip my home LAN with 802.11b (firewall, 2 desktops, 1 laptop), and it was even more back when I put in a wired LAN with 10/100 CAT-5 for £120/$180.
I couldn't justify the extra £280/$420 to go wireless just on the geek chic factor, and now that I'm wired up, I'm even less inclined to throw away my CAT-5 and go wireless.
Which is exactly the reason why 802.11a will drive down the prices of 802.11b. 802.11b manufacturers will have to persuade people that's it worth their while installing it now. If 802.11b prices don't drop to the point where it's a no brainer, IT departments (and nerds) will ask why they should pay 50% of the price for an "obsolescent" technology that only gives 10% of the bandwidth. OK, we know that 802.11b isn't actually obsolescent (I want it!) but that impression is going to be a factor from now on.
So sure, I don't want or need 802.11a, but I'm really glad to see it finally make a commercial appearance.
Sad but true, if it's in the license agreement that "Thou shalt not resell this OS", then that's the way the ball bounces
What on earth are you talking about? Just because M$ says so, it doesn't make it so. The M$ EULA is a post-purchase disclaimer and restriction that has no basis in law, and is not (yet) binding in most jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions it's been explitely rejected.
Now, have you ever tried getting a refund on a bundled M$ OS (as a single user)? I have, and it's next to impossible. M$ won't hold up their end of the EULA, so why on earth should we?
The applicable laws here are copyright, and right of first purchase. If I remove the OS installation from my machine before I sell it, neither of those laws even arguably limits my rights to sell, loan or gift the CD and the right-to-use to anyone else. Get back to me once the law is changed to accomodate M$, and not before.
To this date I harbor no ill will towards MS or eBay
Why not? Microsoft are enforcing an extra-legal non-contract by threats and intimidation, and eBay are presuming your guilt without requiring M$ to provide even token evidence to support their claim.
Not "Funny", "Insightful". This highlights the ludicrous nature of the EULA, which (read it!) actually prohibits you from giving the disks away.
Think about that. Microsoft makes sure that your PC comes with a CD that you can't sell or give away. Even throwing it away is dodgy, because it can be picked up and used. If it's stolen and used to install a new OS, you're arguably at fault for failing to secure it, and at a minimum your ability to run your legit version without interference from M$ is at risk (no? Consider Son of WinXP).
All you can safely do is to destroy it.
And yet some people still defend the Microsoft EULA. Astonishing.
A current OS is perhaps a different matter - they have to make a living you know!
Then they can do it the same way as everyone else, by making a product that people want to pay to upgrade to.
What they are doing here is to remove OS's from circulation, forcing you to pay (again) for the latest version, or to go pirate, or to go to another OS.
There's no justifacation or reason for this, other than that they can.
The fuck? "Off topic"? Are IQ's dropping sharply around here? Do we not understand that "coming out" in this context (with the "quotes") refers to Wil "outing" (look, "quotes") himself as a/.'er?
Bloody hell. Maybe we should ask Wil why he bothers reading this site at all.
Mod me down again, beeyatches, I've got karma to burn, and you're only displaying your own idiocy.
I've been following your insightful CleverNickName postings and reading your fun site for a while now. Simple question: what prompted the "coming out"? Mad whim, or promotional? Your candour is appreciated.;-)
customers hate pay-per-use, and WILL pay premiums to avoid the feeling that "the meter is running" (--they don't neccesarily "do the math" based on realistic usage patterns
That sums me up entirely. I went digital, and didn't work out usage, precisely because I didn't want to be worrying about it. I carry my digital (and rechargeable batteries) everywhere and use it without a second thought. My filtering is done at leisure later. With a Polaroid(tm) I'd have to make my editing decisions before taking the picture. Even if I ended up keeping the same number of pictures with both cameras, with the digital I've got much more chance of keeping the ones that I really want.
Cringley is an Idiot. Broadband is doing just fine where I live (Central NJ). Most of my neighbors have cable modems on Optimum Online with it's great 1 Mb/sec up 5 Mb/sec down service at $29.95/mo.
Let's see. Cringley's point is that companies are providing lots of bandwidth cheaply (and aren't making the expected revenue from selling more services and content on the back of it)
And your counter is that you know lots of people who get lots of bandwidth cheaply?
Did it occur to you for one second that you were actually reenforcing his point? Or did I blink and miss the bit where you explained how much extra you give to Optimum to actually let them sustain the service that you've come to enjoy?
I think Cringley's point is that broadband as we know it is dead, and that we're going to kiss goodbye to the competition in the market and see prices rise and standards fall until they're actually sustainable.
As Cringley is predicting the future, how about you get back to us in a year and tell us how your service is doing then?
Why don't we just have more small-town ISPs? [...] I was worried that we would be screwed when comcast bought out our local cable company
This is what's known as "answering your own question".
Oh look, a small profitable competitor! We must assimilate them and show them the folly of their ways! They must divert all money from tech support to hiring an executive creative team to plan broadband content strategy...
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The MPAA/RIAA pointed out to him that they use encryption, and that there's no way they're going to trust their enforcement/collection division (US Government Inc.) with the keys?
This is presented frivilously, but it's a real possibility. There are plenty of corporate users of encryption who can easily afford to contribute a Mercedes or two to Senator Gregg's campaign fund to get this farcical idea off the table.
Holy heck, there's a nice hobby. Proactively inviting corporate bribes ("campaign contributions") by proposing dumb bills that will hurt them. Much more efficient than waiting for OmniGlobalHyperMegaCorp to come a-knocking on your door.
I honestly find that very hard to believe. I'm not claiming that Navy guys will do it, but at the very least, they should have it checked by a third party consultancy firm.
It's certainly an interesting topic. Got references to any evidence?
Uh, what world are you living in? If the cost to any individual company of paying up is less than the cost of fighting it in court, the company has a duty (to its shareholders) to pay up.
Nobody's going to take a stand against this, unless IBM picks the wrong targets.
Tsk, it's the mandatory backdoor for the NSA to use to ensure that the system that the binary resides on isn't being used by baby raping file sharing anthrax snorting terrorist monsters.
How about whatever system of "plurality of templates" the USPTO web site was using prior to mid-1998?
How about webmaster@uspto.gov, informing her that she is in breach of IBM's patent on using templates to generate a web site.
My god. I was joking when I started typing that, but it's accurate. The USPTO web site is almost certainly put together using "a plurality of templates". And they granted a patent to IBM on that. Farcical, absolutely farcical.
On the bright side, as the USPTO funds itself from granting (mostly frivilous) patents, it's nice to see them finally hoist on their own petard.
Why do you think that the incoming messages are from "people"? ;-)
Go do some remedial comprehension. The idea is that they max out peoples' upload connections by not actually downloading the tracks, same as if they just logged into an anonymous ftp server fifty times and sent a keepalive every couple of minutes.
It's utterly pointless though; how long will it take developers to put in a "drop upload if under X kbs" tick box? Five minutes? Then "do not accept connection from IPs that have dropped Y connections for the next Z minutes" box? Another five minutes?
Or hell, just change "number of simultaneous uploads" to "bandwidth available for simultaneous uploads".
Careful with your wording. "Steal" still implies that you are taking an object, or denying use of it, that there is a victim, and that they have lost something tangible.
Music sharing is not like that at all. Their argument is that they made 10 gzillion dollars last year, so if they only make 9 gzillion dollars this year, they've lost 1 gzillion dollars. Uh, wait. How you lose something that you never had?
If this concept is still unclear to anyone, think towards it via this example. You go into a music store and walk out with a $15 CD that you haven't paid for. What's the value of your theft?
The answer is 50 cents. That's what it costs to replace the CD. It's not $15 dollars. You weren't going to pay that. The store never had that amount of money from you. They never had it, so they can't lose it. They lost the replacement value of the object, 50 cents worth.
Extend that to sharing files online. You weren't going to buy them (don't tell me I might, I haven't bought any music for the last 16 years, long before file sharing appeared). The RIAA never had my money. I haven't taken an object from them, or denied them access to anything.
So, tell me, when I download (for the sake of argument) a Metallica track, who have I stolen from, and how much have I stolen? Quantify your answer, and explain how my victim has less after I have created a copy of the file.
It's possible to set up KDE (haven't used GNOME for a year, so can't comment) so that it looks and works almost indistinguishably from any M$ GUI you care to specify. The biggest difference is finding and fiddling with system settings (which Joe Government won't need to do, that's what IT training is for) and dealing with mounts instead of drives. I honestly think that it's do-able.
Have a look at StarOffice 6 beta. I'm having no issues at all moving .doc documents between it and MS Word 97 and MS Word 2000. My company IT department is currently taking a serious look at StarOffice as a drop in replacement for Microsoft Office. It really is a lovely piece of work.
In the EULA case, the government wasn't involved, it was (IIRC) a civil case where a reseller took on Microsoft and won hands down in court. The verdict couldn't have been clearer. Microsoft was instructed in no uncertain terms that they would not be bullying anyone in Germany with extra-legal EULA's. I don't honestly know how they dealt with that, it's in stark contrast to the convoluted and toothless conduct remedies that they have become used to arguing against or just ignoring in the US.
Interestingly, Microsoft have already voluntarily modified Windows to remove a component with very tenuous links to Scientology to head off any trouble in Germany.
No, Microsoft and Germany really don't see eye to eye at all.
Information on all European Union internal policies and planning? Incriminating evidence of them cheating on trade deals?
The US and the EU are of comparable size in population and economy, and are in fierce competition in many areas. Things like banana trade wars might sound like a bad comedy sketch, but it's a serious multi-million dollar dispute, and there's plenty more of them out there.
So, how would you feel about Germany monitoring your financial dealings through their own version of Echelon? Wouldn't you want the NSA to protect you from that? There's a valid (though specious) counter-intelligence excuse for putting in back doors in popular products, to spy on those who might be spying on you.
Not that I'm buying that this is actually going on, but there's plenty of reasons why it might be, and why it's better to be Open than sorry.
Consider that the new generation of US warships will be running Windows for Warfare. You can damn well bet your life that the US Navy is going to want to evaluate every line of code that goes into those systems. They aren't just going to take Microsoft's word for it, especially as MS subcontract work out to third parties, some of them in countries where a little bribery would go a long way.
Similarly, no sensible government (including the US!) should be using closed binaries for critical functions.
It's good for me, because I want an 802.11b LAN (ahem, technically a NAN, Neighbourhood Area Network...) and this will get the price down.
At today's prices in the UK, it would cost me cost me £400/$600 to equip my home LAN with 802.11b (firewall, 2 desktops, 1 laptop), and it was even more back when I put in a wired LAN with 10/100 CAT-5 for £120/$180.
I couldn't justify the extra £280/$420 to go wireless just on the geek chic factor, and now that I'm wired up, I'm even less inclined to throw away my CAT-5 and go wireless.
Which is exactly the reason why 802.11a will drive down the prices of 802.11b. 802.11b manufacturers will have to persuade people that's it worth their while installing it now. If 802.11b prices don't drop to the point where it's a no brainer, IT departments (and nerds) will ask why they should pay 50% of the price for an "obsolescent" technology that only gives 10% of the bandwidth. OK, we know that 802.11b isn't actually obsolescent (I want it!) but that impression is going to be a factor from now on.
So sure, I don't want or need 802.11a, but I'm really glad to see it finally make a commercial appearance.
What on earth are you talking about? Just because M$ says so, it doesn't make it so. The M$ EULA is a post-purchase disclaimer and restriction that has no basis in law, and is not (yet) binding in most jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions it's been explitely rejected.
Now, have you ever tried getting a refund on a bundled M$ OS (as a single user)? I have, and it's next to impossible. M$ won't hold up their end of the EULA, so why on earth should we?
The applicable laws here are copyright, and right of first purchase. If I remove the OS installation from my machine before I sell it, neither of those laws even arguably limits my rights to sell, loan or gift the CD and the right-to-use to anyone else. Get back to me once the law is changed to accomodate M$, and not before.
Why not? Microsoft are enforcing an extra-legal non-contract by threats and intimidation, and eBay are presuming your guilt without requiring M$ to provide even token evidence to support their claim.
Not "Funny", "Insightful". This highlights the ludicrous nature of the EULA, which (read it!) actually prohibits you from giving the disks away.
Think about that. Microsoft makes sure that your PC comes with a CD that you can't sell or give away. Even throwing it away is dodgy, because it can be picked up and used. If it's stolen and used to install a new OS, you're arguably at fault for failing to secure it, and at a minimum your ability to run your legit version without interference from M$ is at risk (no? Consider Son of WinXP).
All you can safely do is to destroy it.
And yet some people still defend the Microsoft EULA. Astonishing.
Then they can do it the same way as everyone else, by making a product that people want to pay to upgrade to.
What they are doing here is to remove OS's from circulation, forcing you to pay (again) for the latest version, or to go pirate, or to go to another OS.
There's no justifacation or reason for this, other than that they can.
The fuck? "Off topic"? Are IQ's dropping sharply around here? Do we not understand that "coming out" in this context (with the "quotes") refers to Wil "outing" (look, "quotes") himself as a /.'er?
Bloody hell. Maybe we should ask Wil why he bothers reading this site at all.
Mod me down again, beeyatches, I've got karma to burn, and you're only displaying your own idiocy.
Hey Will,
I've been following your insightful CleverNickName postings and reading your fun site for a while now. Simple question: what prompted the "coming out"? Mad whim, or promotional? Your candour is appreciated. ;-)
That sums me up entirely. I went digital, and didn't work out usage, precisely because I didn't want to be worrying about it. I carry my digital (and rechargeable batteries) everywhere and use it without a second thought. My filtering is done at leisure later. With a Polaroid(tm) I'd have to make my editing decisions before taking the picture. Even if I ended up keeping the same number of pictures with both cameras, with the digital I've got much more chance of keeping the ones that I really want.
Transforms into Giant Robot! With Real Firing Missiles!
I know, it's sad. :-(
Wow, so you're the guy that's been keeping them in business since 1988!
Seriously, how much did that cost? That must have been one hell of a special party.
Let's see. Cringley's point is that companies are providing lots of bandwidth cheaply (and aren't making the expected revenue from selling more services and content on the back of it)
And your counter is that you know lots of people who get lots of bandwidth cheaply?
Did it occur to you for one second that you were actually reenforcing his point? Or did I blink and miss the bit where you explained how much extra you give to Optimum to actually let them sustain the service that you've come to enjoy?
I think Cringley's point is that broadband as we know it is dead, and that we're going to kiss goodbye to the competition in the market and see prices rise and standards fall until they're actually sustainable.
As Cringley is predicting the future, how about you get back to us in a year and tell us how your service is doing then?
This is what's known as "answering your own question".
Oh look, a small profitable competitor! We must assimilate them and show them the folly of their ways! They must divert all money from tech support to hiring an executive creative team to plan broadband content strategy...