If I post to a weblog like Slashdot via a server in the US from a client in the UK, what copyright law applies? If my post goes via another country on the way, what law applies? If I post to a UK USENET server that then redistributes my post across the world, what law applies?
In other words, discussions of the US copyright law are only the start of the whole issue...
In which parts of the world are the patents active? Remember the RSA patent - covered the US but not Europe. If the patents are US only, consider getting Europeans to do the OSS work. If I recall correctly, you can't patent algorithms in the EU.
It does seem to me that you're setting yourself up for much legal hassle. In the US, as I understand it (IANAL), patent disputes are heard before juries, making them a pain to fight and even more of a pain to win. The situation is different in the EU.
When people start using anything other than a PC to access the web, I'll start believing that the age of the PC has come to an end.
Let's assume that you include Macs in the set "PC". Then start believing.
The Sega Dreamcast is a web access device; at Xmas here in the UK the ISP providing access to Dreamcast users was overwhelmed by the number of registrations.
Virgin recently ordered an initial 10,000 iBrow internet appliances to give away free as part of their Virgin.net service.
My father regularly uses his Psion to pull down meteorological info pages before flying.
I agree with those who see PCs declining as a percentage of the set of web access devices. The mass of the population don't want or need a general purpose computer to access the web, they want an immediate-on dedicated device like the telephone or the TV.
I see the article includes ThinkPads in the list of "Linux certified" systems. Can anyone with experience confirm that everything works under Linux on a 'pad? I'd heard that there were problems with the video and modem.
This isn't a new issue, or even one related to technology. If you read Simon Singh's The Code Book he takes a detour out of relating the fascinating history of cryptography to relate how the Rosetta Stone allowed hieroglyphics to be read, and how Linear B (the Minoan script) was translated. Great stuff, and it shows that the problem of old material being in dead languages is an old problem.
A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian commented that the sheepskin on which the earliest known version of Beowulf is written had lasted far longer than any modern medium, and was therefore superior:-) So go for holes punched in sheepskin: the storage medium of the last millennium.
When I did O-level Computer Studies many, many years ago (it's a UK education thing, okay?) in Wales, we actually looked at a Welsh programming language. All the keywords in Welsh. Very, very bizarre. Anyone else remember BASEG? Or the Welsh version of CESIL?
The MPAA's site has one (and only one) email address, which is to be used to report instances of piracy (excuse my smiling). It's hotline@mpaa.org and I would guess email might be read by a team involved in the fight against actual movie piracy. Such a team might be interested in this argument: the resources being wasted on the DeCSS fiasco are now not available to comabt genuine piracy.
I suppose it depends if you believe in The Market or not. If so, then Market Forces will choose the better distros over the worse ones. Unless LO adds sufficient value over and above Mandrake or RH, why buy it? Personally, I choose RH 'cos I'm familiar with it, and Mandrake (or any other RH-based distro) doesn't give me any value that I think is worth the (admittedly minor) hassle of changing.
*sigh* Read the linked page. It's not a circuit-switched connection model anymore. It's a permanent virtual circuit, probably charged by either usage (in terms of data) or by subscription. That's a first, AFAIK, for any UK phone system, and worth noting in itself.
Set up a daemon that fakes a click on every nth advert.
Surf for free indefinitely.
In fact - even better, generate a Linux client that fakes the clicks, run that on your firewall (you do have a firewall system, right?) and use your desktop box for regular surfing.
And yes, this is (sort of) about evolution. These companies have set up an environment which is subject to exploit by those who live within it. Learn to exploit that environment better and you'll survive better:-)
ISO9001 is all about how well you follow quality procedures; it has zero, zip, nada & nothing to do with "quality" in the sense of "fitness for purpose" or "value to some person" (any Pirsig fans out there?).
So, if RH or VA or whoever want to write some procedures for how they do whatever they do, and then follow them, they can get certified as sticking to those procedures. There's at least one case of a software company sticking "ISO9001 Certified" on their boxes though all they had done was document and follow the procedures for packaging!
I speak as one who has been ISO9001 audited at least twice, and that for procedures that covered software development.
AFAIK, iTools is an initiative by Apple to add value to Macs. That is, Apple benefit when you buy a Mac (being a hardware company), and so to make buying a Mac more attractive, they offer value-added Mac-only services like iTools. Wonder what they'll do if we freeloading Linux people started signing up in droves to get at those services (since you can bet that the majority of us are not running on Apple hardware, LinuxPPC notwithstanding). It would be interesting to see how they reacted; piss off many of the OSS world or pay for them to use iTools without getting any revenue in return? Interesting choice, Mr Jobs:-)
Liquid Audio is very different from mp3. First, it's a "secure format". That means that (either by patent or trade secret) only Liquid Audio (the company) and its licensees can make players for these files. It also means that you can't easily convert a Liquid Audio track into another format. Depends on what you mean by "easily". It's a fairly simple problem for most programming-literate geeks - intercept the raw audio on its way to the soundcard and dump it. Encode to MP3 and there you are. For the non-programmers, the tools to do this are already fairly widespread. So Liquid Audio, like all inherent-copy-protection systems will deter some, but it's not the one and only solution to all piracy by any means.
This is an interesting phenomenon - USENET has no central authority and no control centre, so if the UDP has the desired effect, then it's an example of anarchism actually working (for once; note - I'm not in any way an anarchist). It's also support for what your mother told you about bullies and annoying brothers and sisters - "ignore them and they'll get fed up and stop it". Thanks, mum!
An organism (LinuxOne) has found itself in an environment rich in food (investors who jump at the word "Linux" with little understanding) and has learned to exploit that. It's evolution in action - where there are gullible people, others will emerge to prey on them. The question is probably whether or not laws should regulate this, or whether people who do insufficient research into the subjects of their investments should suffer. This evolutionary analogy doesn't apply in Kansas, of course, where there is no evolution.
While having seperate divisions for OS and application software will (hopefully) hamper their attempts to integrate the lot, 90% of the world's PC will still run on Windows. 99% of the world's managers will still choose to use Windows software and Microsoft applications because it is still the de facto standard. Yes, it might. An application division that is focused on profits from those applications will be free to pursue a strategy that does not have to align with that of the OS division. For example, porting Office to non-Windows platforms. The point is, surely, that MS can't then use the fact that their OS is dominant to restrict the platforms that the applications run on.
Unfortunately, since around 90% of the world's desktops run Windows, it turns out that "removing" MS would cause undesirable side-effects. MS is a huge and dominant American company whose sales bring a lot of money into the USA - hence the Govt aren't likely to do anything that'll substantially reduce those sales. At least breakup might encourage an application division reliant on sales of just that software to port to non-Windows platforms.
No Darwinian pressures? I beg to differ...
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 1
Modern media have no predators, and are not subject to biological or Darwinian-style selections
I beg to differ. Like any other organised entity, a medium depends on the availability of certain resources to function. Those resources include (but are not limited to) staff who can produce content and an audience that will consume that content and the revenue generators (such as advertisments) that fund the organisation. Either can be in short supply and if so, those organisations that most effectively use the resources will survive at the expense of those who don't. That's the nature of natural selection.
Woz says "Every other one is a slave to Intel and Microsoft and competitive prices that don't allow for much R&D>". Well, it seems to me that recently AMD have been (as you Americans say) "kicking some serious Intel butt", winning big orders from Gateway, Compaq, etc, and innovating on their own terms. And the 3D and sound-card manufacturers aren't Intel. And the network card market isn't Intel. You get my point, I hope. Okay, yes, Intel have traditionally set the standards and dominated, but I think Woz's position is a little too much in Apple's favour, and a little too close to marketing-speak for my taste. Though the guy's still a hero:-)
Having read the L0pht comments on Seattle's finest monopoly company, I wonder how MS will view this development. Think about it - while MS endeavour to sell Win2K to enterprises, @Stake, a high-profile REPUTABLE security company is telling them what security actually means, and where the holes are. I regard this development as a Good Thing - it's about time that security got the profile it deserves, and the only way to get that to much of the Corporate world is to set up a corporation to do it. @Stake have it right.
The MS spokeswoman may be asserting the truth. Win2000 may be the most secure OS that MS have released, but that's measured relative to the security of their previous efforts, which has been nothing special. She's opposing an absolute with a relative; obviously those debating society classes came in useful for her...
Getting IE won't get you Shockwave and Flash. Even IE under Wine won't do that. Macromedia will have to decide that a Linux port is in their commercial interests to do that, and it would probably help if there were ONE STANDARD way to do plugins for Linux browsers.
Do you really want to use "gay" as a term of abuse? Do you really think that people will take your point, or take you seriously if you're so obviously homophobic? What a good way to convince people of your point of view. Maybe you don't like Jews as well, or perhaps coloured people. Maybe you should say "HTML is black for anything except web pages", or "HTML is jewish for anything but web pages". See how it sounds?
I would have thought that within six months it'll be more likely that you want to rip the MPEG data to a hard disk. How many people just keep their MP3s on disk rather than bother blowing a CD? Hard disk space is getting cheaper all the time...
Slashdot Mirror
If I post to a weblog like Slashdot via a server in the US from a client in the UK, what copyright law applies?
If my post goes via another country on the way, what law applies?
If I post to a UK USENET server that then redistributes my post across the world, what law applies?
In other words, discussions of the US copyright law are only the start of the whole issue...
In which parts of the world are the patents active? Remember the RSA patent - covered the US but not Europe. If the patents are US only, consider getting Europeans to do the OSS work. If I recall correctly, you can't patent algorithms in the EU.
It does seem to me that you're setting yourself up for much legal hassle. In the US, as I understand it (IANAL), patent disputes are heard before juries, making them a pain to fight and even more of a pain to win. The situation is different in the EU.
When people start using anything other than a PC to access the web, I'll start believing that the age of the PC has come to an end.
Let's assume that you include Macs in the set "PC". Then start believing.
The Sega Dreamcast is a web access device; at Xmas here in the UK the ISP providing access to Dreamcast users was overwhelmed by the number of registrations.
Virgin recently ordered an initial 10,000 iBrow internet appliances to give away free as part of their Virgin.net service.
My father regularly uses his Psion to pull down meteorological info pages before flying.
I agree with those who see PCs declining as a percentage of the set of web access devices. The mass of the population don't want or need a general purpose computer to access the web, they want an immediate-on dedicated device like the telephone or the TV.
I see the article includes ThinkPads in the list of "Linux certified" systems. Can anyone with experience confirm that everything works under Linux on a 'pad? I'd heard that there were problems with the video and modem.
This isn't a new issue, or even one related to technology. If you read Simon Singh's The Code Book he takes a detour out of relating the fascinating history of cryptography to relate how the Rosetta Stone allowed hieroglyphics to be read, and how Linear B (the Minoan script) was translated. Great stuff, and it shows that the problem of old material being in dead languages is an old problem.
A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian commented that the sheepskin on which the earliest known version of Beowulf is written had lasted far longer than any modern medium, and was therefore superior :-)
So go for holes punched in sheepskin: the storage medium of the last millennium.
When I did O-level Computer Studies many, many years ago (it's a UK education thing, okay?) in Wales, we actually looked at a Welsh programming language. All the keywords in Welsh. Very, very bizarre.
Anyone else remember BASEG? Or the Welsh version of CESIL?
The MPAA's site has one (and only one) email address, which is to be used to report instances of piracy (excuse my smiling). It's hotline@mpaa.org and I would guess email might be read by a team involved in the fight against actual movie piracy. Such a team might be interested in this argument: the resources being wasted on the DeCSS fiasco are now not available to comabt genuine piracy.
I suppose it depends if you believe in The Market or not. If so, then Market Forces will choose the better distros over the worse ones. Unless LO adds sufficient value over and above Mandrake or RH, why buy it? Personally, I choose RH 'cos I'm familiar with it, and Mandrake (or any other RH-based distro) doesn't give me any value that I think is worth the (admittedly minor) hassle of changing.
*sigh*
Read the linked page. It's not a circuit-switched connection model anymore. It's a permanent virtual circuit, probably charged by either usage (in terms of data) or by subscription. That's a first, AFAIK, for any UK phone system, and worth noting in itself.
Crack the software that runs the ads.
Set up a daemon that fakes a click on every nth advert.
Surf for free indefinitely.
In fact - even better, generate a Linux client that fakes the clicks, run that on your firewall (you do have a firewall system, right?) and use your desktop box for regular surfing.
And yes, this is (sort of) about evolution. These companies have set up an environment which is subject to exploit by those who live within it. Learn to exploit that environment better and you'll survive better :-)
ISO9001 is all about how well you follow quality procedures; it has zero, zip, nada & nothing to do with "quality" in the sense of "fitness for purpose" or "value to some person" (any Pirsig fans out there?).
So, if RH or VA or whoever want to write some procedures for how they do whatever they do, and then follow them, they can get certified as sticking to those procedures. There's at least one case of a software company sticking "ISO9001 Certified" on their boxes though all they had done was document and follow the procedures for packaging!
I speak as one who has been ISO9001 audited at least twice, and that for procedures that covered software development.
AFAIK, iTools is an initiative by Apple to add value to Macs. That is, Apple benefit when you buy a Mac (being a hardware company), and so to make buying a Mac more attractive, they offer value-added Mac-only services like iTools. Wonder what they'll do if we freeloading Linux people started signing up in droves to get at those services (since you can bet that the majority of us are not running on Apple hardware, LinuxPPC notwithstanding). It would be interesting to see how they reacted; piss off many of the OSS world or pay for them to use iTools without getting any revenue in return? Interesting choice, Mr Jobs :-)
Liquid Audio is very different from mp3. First, it's a "secure format". That means that (either by patent or trade secret) only Liquid Audio (the company) and its licensees can make players for these files. It also means that you can't easily convert a Liquid Audio track into another format.
Depends on what you mean by "easily". It's a fairly simple problem for most programming-literate geeks - intercept the raw audio on its way to the soundcard and dump it. Encode to MP3 and there you are. For the non-programmers, the tools to do this are already fairly widespread. So Liquid Audio, like all inherent-copy-protection systems will deter some, but it's not the one and only solution to all piracy by any means.
This is an interesting phenomenon - USENET has no central authority and no control centre, so if the UDP has the desired effect, then it's an example of anarchism actually working (for once; note - I'm not in any way an anarchist). It's also support for what your mother told you about bullies and annoying brothers and sisters - "ignore them and they'll get fed up and stop it". Thanks, mum!
An organism (LinuxOne) has found itself in an environment rich in food (investors who jump at the word "Linux" with little understanding) and has learned to exploit that. It's evolution in action - where there are gullible people, others will emerge to prey on them. The question is probably whether or not laws should regulate this, or whether people who do insufficient research into the subjects of their investments should suffer.
This evolutionary analogy doesn't apply in Kansas, of course, where there is no evolution.
While having seperate divisions for OS and application software will (hopefully) hamper their attempts to integrate the lot, 90% of the world's PC will still run on Windows. 99% of the world's managers will still choose to use Windows software and Microsoft applications because it is still the de facto standard.
Yes, it might. An application division that is focused on profits from those applications will be free to pursue a strategy that does not have to align with that of the OS division. For example, porting Office to non-Windows platforms. The point is, surely, that MS can't then use the fact that their OS is dominant to restrict the platforms that the applications run on.
Unfortunately, since around 90% of the world's desktops run Windows, it turns out that "removing" MS would cause undesirable side-effects. MS is a huge and dominant American company whose sales bring a lot of money into the USA - hence the Govt aren't likely to do anything that'll substantially reduce those sales. At least breakup might encourage an application division reliant on sales of just that software to port to non-Windows platforms.
Modern media have no predators, and are not subject to biological or Darwinian-style selections
I beg to differ. Like any other organised entity, a medium depends on the availability of certain resources to function. Those resources include (but are not limited to) staff who can produce content and an audience that will consume that content and the revenue generators (such as advertisments) that fund the organisation. Either can be in short supply and if so, those organisations that most effectively use the resources will survive at the expense of those who don't. That's the nature of natural selection.
Woz says "Every other one is a slave to Intel and Microsoft and competitive prices that don't allow for much R&D>". Well, it seems to me that recently AMD have been (as you Americans say) "kicking some serious Intel butt", winning big orders from Gateway, Compaq, etc, and innovating on their own terms. And the 3D and sound-card manufacturers aren't Intel. And the network card market isn't Intel. You get my point, I hope. :-)
Okay, yes, Intel have traditionally set the standards and dominated, but I think Woz's position is a little too much in Apple's favour, and a little too close to marketing-speak for my taste. Though the guy's still a hero
Having read the L0pht comments on Seattle's finest monopoly company, I wonder how MS will view this development. Think about it - while MS endeavour to sell Win2K to enterprises, @Stake, a high-profile REPUTABLE security company is telling them what security actually means, and where the holes are. I regard this development as a Good Thing - it's about time that security got the profile it deserves, and the only way to get that to much of the Corporate world is to set up a corporation to do it. @Stake have it right.
The MS spokeswoman may be asserting the truth. Win2000 may be the most secure OS that MS have released, but that's measured relative to the security of their previous efforts, which has been nothing special. She's opposing an absolute with a relative; obviously those debating society classes came in useful for her...
Getting IE won't get you Shockwave and Flash. Even IE under Wine won't do that. Macromedia will have to decide that a Linux port is in their commercial interests to do that, and it would probably help if there were ONE STANDARD way to do plugins for Linux browsers.
Do you really want to use "gay" as a term of abuse? Do you really think that people will take your point, or take you seriously if you're so obviously homophobic? What a good way to convince people of your point of view. Maybe you don't like Jews as well, or perhaps coloured people. Maybe you should say "HTML is black for anything except web pages", or "HTML is jewish for anything but web pages". See how it sounds?
I would have thought that within six months it'll be more likely that you want to rip the MPEG data to a hard disk. How many people just keep their MP3s on disk rather than bother blowing a CD? Hard disk space is getting cheaper all the time...