Erm, so George Lucas and Fox are trying to turn Star Wars Ep 2 into a monopoly? In five years, the only film at the cinemas, the only one on PPV, the only one on network TV, will be Attack of the Clones?
(Presumably 5% of other cinemas will show other films, though most of them will show Star Wars most of the time and then the "other film" when they have a chance.)
Erm, nope. GNU/Linux isn't GNU/Linux because it was compiled with GCC, it's GNU/Linux because it includes the full GNU user-land with the Linux kernel. If you remove GNU from RedHat, you have an entirely different system.
If people were taking the BSD user land, which includes a few GNU utilities but isn't GNU per-se, Stallman wouldn't be asking you to do anything. He hasn't asked for OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X/NextStep, etc, to be named GNU/OpenBSD etc, which are also built using GNU tools - they do not include and rely on the full GNU user land as their non-kernel parts of the OS.
I do wish people would read what RMS actually has to say instead of repeating the same-old "I'm going to call it GNU/Slashdot" "He's forcing everyone to give out their code for free!" etc bullshit.
One of my first wierd experiences as a Brit living in the US was watching "Airplane" on network TV. Roughly 50% appeared to be missing. The most bizarre cut I recall went like this:
Original: Pilots are discussing problems. One turns to other: "When McCruskie hears about this, the shit's really going to hit the fan!"
Cut to shot of fan. A large brown mass hits it and slops to the bottom.
Cut to McCruskie and rest of film.
Network TV version: Pilots are discussing problems. Then are silent for a few seconds.
Cut to shot of fan. Nothing happens. "WTF is the significance of the fan?" asks audience.
Cut to McCruskie and rest of film.
I recall watching this, open mouthed, wondering how anyone can be that conservative. Then I got to know my collegues better, and while most are as liberal as the people in the UK, it's not uncommon to find an extremist in their twenties who will refuse to watch a film because it has a rude word in it. It's even more bizarre when you consider the standards being set: Beat the crap out of someone, and it's standard TV. Show crap, or use the word "crap", and it's controvertial.
This is one of the potential benefits of the V-chip. As the V-chip becomes more prevalent, the censors will have no excuse. Network TV should be able to show what it wants, safe in the knowledge that those who would normally whine and complain can be answered with the line "Well, we tagged it, if you'd set your V-chip properly you wouldn't have seen it. You only have yourself to blame."
My mistake - it was recently given one after the BBFC had stalled for a while (just doing a search on Yahoo for BBFC and Exorcist came up with the links)
This appears to be a good link on the subject. Certainly it was unavailable for a very long time because the BBFC refused to grant it a certificate. Thankfully they relented.
They're not actually legally binding for films in cinemas. The system is a little more complicated than that.
Local government has the absolute right to allow or disallow a film to be shown in local cinemas in the UK. To make things smoother, there's a policy that there will be little or no meddling in what films can be shown as long as the BBFC rates them and cinemas agree to restrict access according to the ratings. Cinemas who do not comply risk being unable to show films, either because the local council will withdraw their right to do so, or (more often) because the cinema chain will remove troublesome managers to prevent exactly this kind of showdown from happening.
Occasionally ratings are ignored and censorship goes ahead anyway: many local councils banned Life of Brian and also The Last Temptation of Christ, though generally the public doesn't stand for this kind of thing: bus tours were organised to neighbouring towns and counties where the films were being allowed to be shown. On the flip side, many art house cinemas are able to show films that aren't rated, if they have a liberal enough local council.
The BBFC ratings do have a legal mandate in one area, videos (and DVDs) where during the early eighties, the Thatcher regime responded to a "moral outrage" panic fanned a hysterical press about so-called slasher movies and passed a law making the ratings compulsory for video cassettes, and forcing sellers of video cassettes to abide by the certificates. There's at least one film, The Exorcist IIRC, that isn't available on video because the BBFC refuses to rate it.
Incidentally, on your rather specific definition of PG: PG is a voluntary code in more ways than one - there's no requirement that a parent accompany the child, and I recall seeing films when I was below that age without needing a parent to come with me. It was assumed that my parents had given me the necessary "guidance". This may have changed in the last 20 years, but I'm pretty sure I'd have heard if it had.
Except you can't actually buy Cyberlink's Linux DVD player, unless you're a business intending to put it on embedded PCs etc.
Why do companies do this? I'd be willing to fork out $50 for a decent, efficient, legal, DVD player for Linux. I bet others would too. Since when have the majority of Linux users been people using set top boxes and other devices requiring embedded versions?
It's not a matter of it being allowed by the RFCs, is the fact that the RFCs imply it's the RIGHT WAY OF DOING THINGS. The entire concept of relaying only came up in recent revisions of RFC821, and only then as a "This is possible" sense, not a "This is how you're supposed to do it." Nor is your comparison valid: This like rejecting email where someone has issued the HELO command when connecting to your SMTP server, or rejecting any email that arrives via TCP port 25, rather than rejecting email where you see something in the content you dislike.
Regardless, valid email is sent this way, and precious little spam (spam, remember, is meant to be sent to hundreds of thousands of users, something which is pretty much impossible on a DUL.), so your criteria for rejecting emails is not only wrong, but ineffective.
Give it up. Correctly configured machines send email this way. You're rejecting valid email. Your filter does not work as intended, you need a different filter.
No, actually it's false-positive rate is almost exactly zero.
Well, I assume myself and CmdrTaco are not the only two people having legitimate, non-spam, emails blocked by people using the the DUL. I've had several rejected by Netcom and I assume CmdrTaco has had more than one blocked too from the nature of his complaint, so I'm assuming "Almost exactly zero" is accurate for quite a wide range of "almost exactly".
So you're saying that a misconfigured machine is the problem of the DUL? Dial-up users should never run their own mailserver without smart-host.
No on both counts. The RFCs have never suggested that relaying is the legitimate, "correct", way of sending email. It's nice that ISPs provide relays, it means you can have dumb email clients, but show me the RFC that makes their use compulsory, or even recommends them.
You can't. The RFC does not exist. The DUL provides a means to block email on the basis of a criteria that has nothing to do with spam.
A machine that is configured to deliver its own email when connected to the Internet is correctly configured according to the RFCs. A machine that isn't needs support that is usually there, but doesn't have to be. Punishing users for doing it properly is a poor, inane, idiotic thing to do.
Ted McGinley hasn't joined the cast yet, so it should be ok for another few years...
(Actually, IIRC Ted McG actually "unsharked" Married with Children. Though, technically, it still furfills the criteria in that it jumped the shark a second time while he was still in the show.)
It also has the worst false-positive rate. Typically, most Linux distros I've seen are set up to send their own email rather than rely on a third party email relay to send it. The DUL ensures that machines set up in this default fashion, despite not being set up as relays, will not be able to deliver perfectly legitimate email.
Essentially, for something to be useful against spam it has to reject as much spam as possible while leaving as much legitimate email as possible alone. The DUL may succeed on the first ground, but it fails miserably on the second. It also promotes ignoring RFCs, as relaying was never blessed as the way for ordinary users to send email.
You can reject spam by setting up your mailbox as a softlink to/dev/null. I wouldn't encourage it though, and I wouldn't encourage use of the DUL for the same reason.
Personally I agree with you. During the boom as little as two years ago, I read a lot of programmers protesting that they simply weren't prepared to take a five digit salary and that employers should bite the bullet and pay what the programmers thought they were worth.
The problem is that it's all crap. There's still a skills shortage, but now it's less pronounced salaries are beginning to get closer to decent levels, as a smaller choice means technical people are willing to take on jobs they weren't before.
With the exception of certain areas of the country where the dot-com boom and bust hit hard leaving a localised clump of highly skilled people, it's not difficult to get a job in programming, and you'll still earn a tremendous amount of money. Compare these "dreadful" $63,000 salaries to those of your non technical friends and family - unless you're living amongst lawyers and executives you're not likely to meet that many people on that kind of money.
Um, I thought that Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C. was on the left wing, being a democrat and everything.
Of course he is. You know those left wingers, always demanding more rights for giant corporations, always out on the streets protesting that there isn't enough capitalism and how dare those evil republicans make it difficult for Eisner, et al, to earn billions when they take the risks, etc. Look at those Globalisation protests - all out on the streets and rioting to demand that the G7 does more to remove trade barriers and make it easier for transnational corporations to exploit low wages in other countries.
That was sarcasm btw. Simply because someone is a "Democrat" doesn't make them "left wing."
Their tech support would have to find a new OS to support and train on it. Do we really want to be telling Jane and John Doe what chmod does over the phone? I bet people think that 'cat' would be a little thing that would run arround their screen instead of a real tool.
Do OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, or Atheos (to be really esoteric) require users use cat or chmod? Does OS/2 even have cat or chmod? Do Windows users have to use TYPE and ATTRIB? Doesn't Mandrake do a reasonable job at ensuring that such knowledge isn't necessary to use Linux?
There are plenty of alternative operating systems out there, plenty of operating systems that are at least as, if not more, user friendly than Windows. Dell, Compaq, et al, will not need to search far to find them.
The IP police thing aside, what exactly is wrong with this quote:
My favourite Hilary Rosen quote: "Piracy is not a private offense, it hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music."
I mean, it's a statement of the obvious isn't it? We can argue until the cows come home about alternative methods of funding music, but on a straightforward level, surely the above is right? Surely if people copy rather than buy, less money goes to the artists, which means fewer artists able to support themselves?
And what's the deal with this...
I guess Rosen won't be happy until each and every pirate is charged with crimes against humanity and convicted by the International Court of Justice"
Aside from being over the top, it doesn't follow on from the previous statement at all. It doesn't even follow from Rosen's desire for taxpayer funded enforcement of copyright law.
Current copyright law (the DMCA) is absurdly over the top. The RIAA is doing some pretty absurd things to enforce it. But I don't see why Rosen's quote was singled out, it actually makes her look quite reasonable. And suggesting that anyone's proposing treating copyright breakers as war criminals makes you look silly and ensures the real arguments you might have against the current copyright regime, arguments which are legitimate and need to be heard, will be ignored.
Indeed. It's saying "No, the Americans are not gullible". And you're countering "The Americans are not gullible" with "How dare you! The British are gullible too!" which is a bizarre and entirely inappropriate response.
Actually, no. Fair use allows you to copy insofar as its necessary to, in order to use the product and to keep it safe (by making back ups, etc.) This is why using a VCR is not illegal - you are copying copyrighted content, but you're doing so in order to use the content you've been given.
Making copies for the purpose of redistributing them is where the courts tend to draw the line, whether it's Honest Bob's DVD Duplication Operation, or 1337 Joe's Napster archive.
What would be the deadline for Tivo users? And what do Tivo users do about the story appearing in newspapers the following day, being discussed by people on the same bus or train or around the water cooler?
I mean, come on. It's one thing to protest when at least 50% of the potential audience are but an hour or two away from seeing the show, it's quite another to suggest the entire world should be silent because there's someone, somewhere, who has recorded it and hasn't watched it yet. That's a ludicrous demand.
That's one of the penalties of time shifting: you may find out about the show before you watch it. If you don't like that, don't time-shift.
Except that the current system is great for lawyers: You're forced to accept an EULA to use a piece of software, if you don't want to, you have to (somehow) negotiate your money back. And in order to understand the EULA, you probably should consult a lawyer anyway: Even if it apparently reads like plain English, there will be clauses that are likely to be invalid, or ambigious, or have hidden repercussions.
Simply outlawing them, or offering a basic "If someone pays you for the right to use the software, you MUST offer them the ability to install and use the software without agreeing to any conditions beyond those implied by copyright law and first-use/right of first sale doctrines." is not going to help the lawyers. It removes them from the process, and a good thing too.
Of course I realize that unlike my hypothetical hair dryer, a piece of software can be copied and distributed using little or no personal resources. It isn't exactly a commodity, so it can't be treated as such. Nevertheless, I'm still opposed to EULAs in their current forms, so perhaps a compromise is in order.
You don't have to sign a licence agreement when you buy and read a book, borrow a book, watch TV, watch a movie at a theatre or on a VHS tape or on a DVD, listen to a music CD, listen to a radio station, etc, etc. To varying degrees, all of these are comparable to the use and flexibility of software.
So I agree: screw 'em. At the very least, it should be possible for every user to use a piece of software without agreeing to an EULA, to the extent that a buyer can claim money back, time and effort recouped, and extra damages if they are not given the option. If a software company wants to offer an alternative, then that's fine, as long as it's an alternative, and not a replacement.
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Erm, so George Lucas and Fox are trying to turn Star Wars Ep 2 into a monopoly? In five years, the only film at the cinemas, the only one on PPV, the only one on network TV, will be Attack of the Clones?
(Presumably 5% of other cinemas will show other films, though most of them will show Star Wars most of the time and then the "other film" when they have a chance.)
What a terrible thought.
...and definitely not to be confused with "Blazemonger" Dan...
Erm, nope. GNU/Linux isn't GNU/Linux because it was compiled with GCC, it's GNU/Linux because it includes the full GNU user-land with the Linux kernel. If you remove GNU from RedHat, you have an entirely different system.
If people were taking the BSD user land, which includes a few GNU utilities but isn't GNU per-se, Stallman wouldn't be asking you to do anything. He hasn't asked for OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X/NextStep, etc, to be named GNU/OpenBSD etc, which are also built using GNU tools - they do not include and rely on the full GNU user land as their non-kernel parts of the OS.
I do wish people would read what RMS actually has to say instead of repeating the same-old "I'm going to call it GNU/Slashdot" "He's forcing everyone to give out their code for free!" etc bullshit.
One of my first wierd experiences as a Brit living in the US was watching "Airplane" on network TV. Roughly 50% appeared to be missing. The most bizarre cut I recall went like this:
Original: Pilots are discussing problems. One turns to other: "When McCruskie hears about this, the shit's really going to hit the fan!"
Cut to shot of fan. A large brown mass hits it and slops to the bottom.
Cut to McCruskie and rest of film.
Network TV version: Pilots are discussing problems. Then are silent for a few seconds.
Cut to shot of fan. Nothing happens. "WTF is the significance of the fan?" asks audience.
Cut to McCruskie and rest of film.
I recall watching this, open mouthed, wondering how anyone can be that conservative. Then I got to know my collegues better, and while most are as liberal as the people in the UK, it's not uncommon to find an extremist in their twenties who will refuse to watch a film because it has a rude word in it. It's even more bizarre when you consider the standards being set: Beat the crap out of someone, and it's standard TV. Show crap, or use the word "crap", and it's controvertial.
This is one of the potential benefits of the V-chip. As the V-chip becomes more prevalent, the censors will have no excuse. Network TV should be able to show what it wants, safe in the knowledge that those who would normally whine and complain can be answered with the line "Well, we tagged it, if you'd set your V-chip properly you wouldn't have seen it. You only have yourself to blame."
Here's hoping.
There's also the highest rating:
R80: Restricted 80. Basically you can't get in unless you're over 80, and accompanied by both parents.
My mistake - it was recently given one after the BBFC had stalled for a while (just doing a search on Yahoo for BBFC and Exorcist came up with the links)
This appears to be a good link on the subject. Certainly it was unavailable for a very long time because the BBFC refused to grant it a certificate. Thankfully they relented.
They're not actually legally binding for films in cinemas. The system is a little more complicated than that.
Local government has the absolute right to allow or disallow a film to be shown in local cinemas in the UK. To make things smoother, there's a policy that there will be little or no meddling in what films can be shown as long as the BBFC rates them and cinemas agree to restrict access according to the ratings. Cinemas who do not comply risk being unable to show films, either because the local council will withdraw their right to do so, or (more often) because the cinema chain will remove troublesome managers to prevent exactly this kind of showdown from happening.
Occasionally ratings are ignored and censorship goes ahead anyway: many local councils banned Life of Brian and also The Last Temptation of Christ, though generally the public doesn't stand for this kind of thing: bus tours were organised to neighbouring towns and counties where the films were being allowed to be shown. On the flip side, many art house cinemas are able to show films that aren't rated, if they have a liberal enough local council.
The BBFC ratings do have a legal mandate in one area, videos (and DVDs) where during the early eighties, the Thatcher regime responded to a "moral outrage" panic fanned a hysterical press about so-called slasher movies and passed a law making the ratings compulsory for video cassettes, and forcing sellers of video cassettes to abide by the certificates. There's at least one film, The Exorcist IIRC, that isn't available on video because the BBFC refuses to rate it.
Incidentally, on your rather specific definition of PG: PG is a voluntary code in more ways than one - there's no requirement that a parent accompany the child, and I recall seeing films when I was below that age without needing a parent to come with me. It was assumed that my parents had given me the necessary "guidance". This may have changed in the last 20 years, but I'm pretty sure I'd have heard if it had.
Except you can't actually buy Cyberlink's Linux DVD player, unless you're a business intending to put it on embedded PCs etc.
Why do companies do this? I'd be willing to fork out $50 for a decent, efficient, legal, DVD player for Linux. I bet others would too. Since when have the majority of Linux users been people using set top boxes and other devices requiring embedded versions?
It's not a matter of it being allowed by the RFCs, is the fact that the RFCs imply it's the RIGHT WAY OF DOING THINGS. The entire concept of relaying only came up in recent revisions of RFC821, and only then as a "This is possible" sense, not a "This is how you're supposed to do it." Nor is your comparison valid: This like rejecting email where someone has issued the HELO command when connecting to your SMTP server, or rejecting any email that arrives via TCP port 25, rather than rejecting email where you see something in the content you dislike.
Regardless, valid email is sent this way, and precious little spam (spam, remember, is meant to be sent to hundreds of thousands of users, something which is pretty much impossible on a DUL.), so your criteria for rejecting emails is not only wrong, but ineffective.
Give it up. Correctly configured machines send email this way. You're rejecting valid email. Your filter does not work as intended, you need a different filter.
Well, I assume myself and CmdrTaco are not the only two people having legitimate, non-spam, emails blocked by people using the the DUL. I've had several rejected by Netcom and I assume CmdrTaco has had more than one blocked too from the nature of his complaint, so I'm assuming "Almost exactly zero" is accurate for quite a wide range of "almost exactly".
No on both counts. The RFCs have never suggested that relaying is the legitimate, "correct", way of sending email. It's nice that ISPs provide relays, it means you can have dumb email clients, but show me the RFC that makes their use compulsory, or even recommends them.
You can't. The RFC does not exist. The DUL provides a means to block email on the basis of a criteria that has nothing to do with spam.
A machine that is configured to deliver its own email when connected to the Internet is correctly configured according to the RFCs. A machine that isn't needs support that is usually there, but doesn't have to be. Punishing users for doing it properly is a poor, inane, idiotic thing to do.
Ted McGinley hasn't joined the cast yet, so it should be ok for another few years...
(Actually, IIRC Ted McG actually "unsharked" Married with Children. Though, technically, it still furfills the criteria in that it jumped the shark a second time while he was still in the show.)
It also has the worst false-positive rate. Typically, most Linux distros I've seen are set up to send their own email rather than rely on a third party email relay to send it. The DUL ensures that machines set up in this default fashion, despite not being set up as relays, will not be able to deliver perfectly legitimate email.
/dev/null. I wouldn't encourage it though, and I wouldn't encourage use of the DUL for the same reason.
Essentially, for something to be useful against spam it has to reject as much spam as possible while leaving as much legitimate email as possible alone. The DUL may succeed on the first ground, but it fails miserably on the second. It also promotes ignoring RFCs, as relaying was never blessed as the way for ordinary users to send email.
You can reject spam by setting up your mailbox as a softlink to
Personally I agree with you. During the boom as little as two years ago, I read a lot of programmers protesting that they simply weren't prepared to take a five digit salary and that employers should bite the bullet and pay what the programmers thought they were worth.
The problem is that it's all crap. There's still a skills shortage, but now it's less pronounced salaries are beginning to get closer to decent levels, as a smaller choice means technical people are willing to take on jobs they weren't before.
With the exception of certain areas of the country where the dot-com boom and bust hit hard leaving a localised clump of highly skilled people, it's not difficult to get a job in programming, and you'll still earn a tremendous amount of money. Compare these "dreadful" $63,000 salaries to those of your non technical friends and family - unless you're living amongst lawyers and executives you're not likely to meet that many people on that kind of money.
Of course he is. You know those left wingers, always demanding more rights for giant corporations, always out on the streets protesting that there isn't enough capitalism and how dare those evil republicans make it difficult for Eisner, et al, to earn billions when they take the risks, etc. Look at those Globalisation protests - all out on the streets and rioting to demand that the G7 does more to remove trade barriers and make it easier for transnational corporations to exploit low wages in other countries.
That was sarcasm btw. Simply because someone is a "Democrat" doesn't make them "left wing."
Do OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, or Atheos (to be really esoteric) require users use cat or chmod? Does OS/2 even have cat or chmod? Do Windows users have to use TYPE and ATTRIB? Doesn't Mandrake do a reasonable job at ensuring that such knowledge isn't necessary to use Linux?
There are plenty of alternative operating systems out there, plenty of operating systems that are at least as, if not more, user friendly than Windows. Dell, Compaq, et al, will not need to search far to find them.
I mean, it's a statement of the obvious isn't it? We can argue until the cows come home about alternative methods of funding music, but on a straightforward level, surely the above is right? Surely if people copy rather than buy, less money goes to the artists, which means fewer artists able to support themselves?
And what's the deal with this...
Aside from being over the top, it doesn't follow on from the previous statement at all. It doesn't even follow from Rosen's desire for taxpayer funded enforcement of copyright law.
Current copyright law (the DMCA) is absurdly over the top. The RIAA is doing some pretty absurd things to enforce it. But I don't see why Rosen's quote was singled out, it actually makes her look quite reasonable. And suggesting that anyone's proposing treating copyright breakers as war criminals makes you look silly and ensures the real arguments you might have against the current copyright regime, arguments which are legitimate and need to be heard, will be ignored.
Sadly there's no Windows version of the unsupported offer.
Indeed. It's saying "No, the Americans are not gullible". And you're countering "The Americans are not gullible" with "How dare you! The British are gullible too!" which is a bizarre and entirely inappropriate response.
Try reading the next few words after those quoted. The point being made is the exact opposite to that you're trying to counter.
Quite. The quote that always gets me is "But the remedy the States want will just help Microsoft's competition".
Isn't that the entire point?
Actually, no. Fair use allows you to copy insofar as its necessary to, in order to use the product and to keep it safe (by making back ups, etc.) This is why using a VCR is not illegal - you are copying copyrighted content, but you're doing so in order to use the content you've been given.
Making copies for the purpose of redistributing them is where the courts tend to draw the line, whether it's Honest Bob's DVD Duplication Operation, or 1337 Joe's Napster archive.
I mean, come on. It's one thing to protest when at least 50% of the potential audience are but an hour or two away from seeing the show, it's quite another to suggest the entire world should be silent because there's someone, somewhere, who has recorded it and hasn't watched it yet. That's a ludicrous demand.
That's one of the penalties of time shifting: you may find out about the show before you watch it. If you don't like that, don't time-shift.
Except that the current system is great for lawyers: You're forced to accept an EULA to use a piece of software, if you don't want to, you have to (somehow) negotiate your money back. And in order to understand the EULA, you probably should consult a lawyer anyway: Even if it apparently reads like plain English, there will be clauses that are likely to be invalid, or ambigious, or have hidden repercussions.
Simply outlawing them, or offering a basic "If someone pays you for the right to use the software, you MUST offer them the ability to install and use the software without agreeing to any conditions beyond those implied by copyright law and first-use/right of first sale doctrines." is not going to help the lawyers. It removes them from the process, and a good thing too.
You don't have to sign a licence agreement when you buy and read a book, borrow a book, watch TV, watch a movie at a theatre or on a VHS tape or on a DVD, listen to a music CD, listen to a radio station, etc, etc. To varying degrees, all of these are comparable to the use and flexibility of software.
So I agree: screw 'em. At the very least, it should be possible for every user to use a piece of software without agreeing to an EULA, to the extent that a buyer can claim money back, time and effort recouped, and extra damages if they are not given the option. If a software company wants to offer an alternative, then that's fine, as long as it's an alternative, and not a replacement.
Rather depends on whether the maid is told where the camera(s) is/are, doesn't it?