the "collective right" theory says nobody has standing to challenge any infringements upon the second amendment.
Yes I think it means no individual has constitutional standing to challenge infringement. The constitution doesn't guarantee me a right to drive a car either.
if these rights do not belong to individuals (not this "collectivist" bullshit), then they can not be rights
No, they belong to state and local governments. That "collectivist bullshit."
And perhaps not. I suspect that people like you and I will argue this stuff for ages. It may never be resolved until there is a true consensus with regard to the issue. At that time we should ammend the Constitution to be clearer.
Yeah, yeah. Mac "addicts" get irate when their platoform and thier favorite company gets knocked. Even when they get knocked fairly. But do non-Mac users ever wonder why? This article is a prime example.
The article is a cheap attempt at generating traffic through the use of overly-provocative (if not downright misleading) information. Clearly the message they are trying to tease readers with is that the iPod has some serious flaws and that other manufacturers are doing better in these areas. What they don't go out of their way to point out is that the iPod, generally speaking, is hands-down the best thing going. You have to get to the last sentence of this FUD-filled article to get that bit of truth.
Your preposterous claim, "the aclu says the People don't have the right to own firearms" doesn't match up with the information at the address I provided. To wit: "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one" (i.e., not a "nonexistent" one as you're suggesting).
"Help! The ACLU is coming to take our guns!" Please. The Supreme Court of the United States of America is more hostile to your precious guns than the ACLU ever was.
I really didn't expect a response on that point, but I'm not sure if you are engaging in discourse, or trying to sling mud at someone who disagrees with your political leanings
I took a long stab toward guessing your political persuasion and probably, in retrospect, should have kept my big mouth shut.
I also voted for Nader in 2000 (in Wisconsin where thank goodness Bush didn't win so I can still sort of sleep at night). I don't for a second believe that Bush is the lesser evil. I think he's a horrible president, perhaps the worst one in my lifetime. Jerry Brown, there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Yeah, I might vote for him. But not if he were running independent against a Democrat and Bush. No way. I'm voting for the Democrat this time. Even if it's Joe freakin' Lieberman!
Imply what you will about my political affiliations
I would guess that you're cynical enough to vote republican (or libertarian) on the pretense that if you can't save the world at least you're voting your own pocketbook. And you would be voting according to your own financial interests, too. If you're making, say, a quarter mil a year or better.
Left/right wing has meant pretty much nothing in terms of who votes for what bill that infringes civil rights
Two words for you: John Ashcroft.
Seriously, I do see your point: politics is dirty and money talks across party lines. But there is a very real and meaningful difference between the parties in this regard.
In his remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson praised Republicans for their 'overwhelming majority.
Actually, once I qualify it to being after 1964 I could just go ahead and say "Democrats fight for your rights and Republicans don't." If I wished, however, to make a statement about who fights for what prior to '64 I'd have to use "left" and "right" because, as you point out, there used to be a bunch of Southern Democrat "Dixiecrat" racists bastards in the Democratic party.
The true purpose of voting is to give the American public a feeling that they chose things to be the way they are
The American public does choose things to be the way they are. The only sense in which one can say that they don't is the sense in which they are manipulated by the powers that be (corporate, monied interests in most cases).
[the ACLU] care more about pushing a left-wing agenda than defending the rights of all Americans.
In point of fact, it is the "left-wing" of American politics which has been the champion of people's rights. "Right-wing" politicians have been on the wrong side of these issues for over thirty years. At least since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And incidentally, the ACLU does fight for the rights of all Americans. They have fought right along side Republicans in the past. Such as when they fought the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law as a violation of the first amendment. Conservatives everywhere had to STFU about the good ol' ACLU on that one. But everyone forgets so quickly. Especially as the ACLU is often at odds with Conservatives...but this is primarily because conservatives are so often at odds with the Bill of Rights. Go figure.
Mac fans can't win on these stories. First an alarmist article claiming that they are "forcing" paid upgrades by not fixing security holes in existing systems. Hundreds of Apple-bashing posts later, it comes out that they are indeed patching the existing systems. You come on here to point this out and say "see? They ARE fixing it!" and someone comes behind you and says "big fucking deal! this is what everyone else would do!"
Following Apple-related discussions on Slashdot is like riding on a bus with no steering: it careens onto the right shoulder, heads back toward the middle, only to screetch onto the left shoulder, back toward the middle...
Re:Some of the lower ones have everything too
on
Digital 35mm SLRs?
·
· Score: 1
Actually Canon has been doing this for a while. The A series has always had a pretty decent spread of manual "advanced" controls when one considers that they are, after all, compact point-n-shoots. There's nothing new about the A70. Not that I'm kocking it. We bought 3 of them (so far) in my workplace and we love them. I actually recommend the A70 to almost everyone who asks which digital camera they should buy. It's just too good a deal. Great image quality, easy-as-pie but still with full manual mode. Most people would be surprised to learn that full manual aperture and shutter speeds as well as manual focus are available on these inexpensive gems.
I myself shoot a PowerShot G2. The G series also is a compact point-n-shoot with a full spread of manual controls.
...by using iTunes to rip CDs [to AAC] or the Apple Music Store [to purchase AAC files] you are limiting your ability to use those files [since they not only contain DRM, but cannot be played in some software or on some MP3 portable devices].
Not to beat a dead horse here, but some are bound to mis-understand this. It sounds as if you're saying "if you rip your own CDs using iTunes the resulting files are a) DRM'd and b) unplayable in anything but an iPod. That is, of course, wrong on both counts. Nothing's preventing you from ripping your CDs as MP3s. Nothing's preventing you from putting those files on anything that will play them. The files are in no way copy protected.
Even if you for reasons of efficiency choose to rip the files from your CD collection as AAC (.m4a I think) they aren't "protected" or "restricted" in any way. The problem you'd run into is one of practicality: neither your car stereo manufacturer nor your portable mp3 player manufacturer have licensed MPEG4 technology for their devices and thus cannot play the files. At present, the only external device capable of doing so is Apple's iPod. In principle, nothing's stopping any one from licensing this technology from the mpeg group. That is, in fact, what they want I'm sure. One supposes that if the iTMS remains a leader in legit music downloads other players will jump on board to be able to play the format....all of Microsoft's efforts at distributing music [i.e. as partners with music distributing sites] involve the use of WMA format and DRM. Those files, of course, are no more useable than AAC...
I'm betting they're considerably less usable. All of the previous models used to do legal music downloads have resulted in severely restricted files which are often a) rented, not sold b) literallly unplayable in any player besides the designated one c) unburnable or burnable in a very limited way, sometimes even requiring an extra fee. I think there has been one lonely exception to that rule and in that case the service was pimping independent "never heard of 'em" artists who were much more afraid of obscurity than of piracy.
I'm not "declaring it dead" I'm merely pointing out the large disconnect between it's actual, present importance as opposed to the importance ascribed to it by readers of slashdot.
Someone has to say this out loud: nobody * gives a rats behind about Ogg Vorbis.
* By "nobody" I actualy mean that only a very tiny minority of people who listen to music will a) know what it is and b) care enough about it for it to influence his/her purchase decision.
Listening to slashdot folks go on and on in discussion after discussion about it gets a little silly. It's almost as if readers here believe that the iPod would sell 10% more units if only it supported this codec. (This is of course ridiculous.) We sit around and discuss how "the industry" is reacting to Ogg, when in fact it's hard to imagine how it could be less relevant to anyone except the tiny, tiny minority of people who a) use Linux on the desktop and b) are willing and able to shell out for a portable digital music player and c) aren't just going to dual boot windows to do it. (Regarding point b one wonders how 'willing' a lot of these guys are, they way they go on about how they build their own Linux boxes for $0.79 out of junk parts from thier basement Comodore graveyard, but I digress.)
And don't even get me started on the tragically misguided "I won't participate in any music sales scheme that doesn't involve zero compression, zero copy protection" ethos.
Some people persist in saying that Windows isn't less secure, it's just a bigger target! Just today someone forwarded this to me from a David Pogue column in the New York Times. Sorry I don't have a link.
***
I also wrote that Mac OS X and Linux are virus-free because they offer virus writers a much smaller "audience" than Windows -- a notion that's been much repeated in the press, most recently last week's BusinessWeek cover story.
That, as it turns out, is a myth, no matter who repeats it. There's a much bigger reason virus writers don't like Mac OS X and Linux.
"Unix [which underlies Mac OS X] and Linux ARE more secure," wrote one reader. "They have been developed, open-source style, by people who know exactly what they are doing. Unix and Linux have had at least 10 years of battling hackers to better themselves. This leads to an extremely secure environment."
Many of you also pointed out simple design decisions that make Mac OS X and Linux much more secure than Windows XP.
For example:
* Windows comes with five of its ports open; Mac OS X comes with all of them shut and locked. (Ports are back-door channels to the Internet: one for instant-messaging, one for Windows XP's remote-control feature and so on.) These ports are precisely what permitted viruses like Blaster to infiltrate millions of PC's. Microsoft says that it won't have an opportunity to close these ports until the next version of Windows, which is a couple of years away.
* When a program tries to install itself in Mac OS X or Linux, a dialog box interrupts your work and asks you permission for that installation -- in fact, requires your account password. Windows XP goes ahead and installs it, potentially without your awareness.
* Administrator accounts in Windows (and therefore viruses that exploit it) have access to all areas of the operating system. In Mac OS X, even an administrator can't touch the files that drive the operating system itself. A Mac OS X virus (if there were such a thing) could theoretically wipe out all of your files, but wouldn't be able to access anyone else's stuff -- and couldn't touch the operating system itself.
* No Macintosh e-mail program automatically runs scripts that come attached to incoming messages, as Microsoft Outlook does.
Evidently, I'm not the only columnist to have fallen for this old myth; see http://www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/plug gedin/bal-mac082803,0,1353478.column for another writer's more technical apology. But the conclusion is clear: Linux and Mac OS X aren't just more secure because fewer people use them. They're also much harder to crack right out of the box ***
I think a big part of it is you have to hold the thing in your hands. Otherwise you can't really understand how deliciously Apple's computers - especially their laptops - are engineered. Other laptops in comparison feel like plastic pizza boxes with the heft of a concrete mason block and sport all the fit-and-finish of a 3rd-grade science project completed the night before.
Then there's OS X. Having a Unix OS specifically engineered to integrate perfeclty with your hardware is a huge thing. Once you get used to that it's very hard to go back. Hell, I still get giddy over the idea that I can run Office and Photoshop and other commercial apps on Unix at all.
Also on the software front there's Apple's end-to-end multimedia solutions: iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, etc. They make similar applications look like cheap knock-offs. And in some cases they are.
It seems you and others here have cast Apple in the role of RIAA puppet. A company that desperately wants to kill your fun and prevent you from doing what you want with what you bought. I don't believe that at all. I believe Apple thought about making illegal copying and distribution difficult, and probably not at all about reselling. They probably don't care, beyond the fact that it's impractical to a degree that probably not many people will bother, thus making it irrelevant for them.
Apple has NO interest in preventing you from reselling music that you've bought. Or at least no more than a record company has in preventing you from reselling a CD that you bought from them. Sure, they'd rather someone bought a new copy but what the hell. The only thing they really, really care about is the idea that you might transfer (sell or give away) music you bought from them without deleting your own copy.
I'd bet my last $0.99 that Apple's only real concern when designing the iTMS was that illegal copying and distribution be difficult. They probably didn't think any more about reselling beyond "gee, I guess that would be tough unless you gave the person your login credentials..."
And incidentally, I don't think the term "used" can meaningfully be applied to digital files like MP3 or AAC. There wouldn't be very much reason to price the resale cheaper than the original. Unless you factor in that Brittany isn't quite the hot commodity she was when you bought her music.
I'm not arguing that there aren't differences between Apple's license and the GPL. I'm perfectly aware of that fact. What I'm saying is that the tone of the discussion about those differences would imply that Apple is trying to engage in some kind of nefarious deception. The consequent frenzy of Apple bashing completely ignores the fact that they are one of the major player in the biz who is making great strides in adopting the methods pioneered the free/open source software movement. The fact that this is a Good Thing gets lost in the shuffle, as they are branded thieves and liars for less than 100% compliance to a model that hasn't yet proven fit for making a single dime...and hasn't resulted in a single consumer software application worth a damn.
The solution won't come from the Democrats or Republicans
(But it will come from right-wing Libertarians!)
It won't come from any one politician, no matter how spiffy their website or fiery their oration
(I don't like Howard Dean!)
Instead it has to come from the bottom foundations of society.
(Poor people have to change. They have to become less needy. And they should probably dress nicer. I mean really.)
When the lawyer urges you to sue, spit on his shoes
(After all, what's a few fatal accidents people when you consider everything that tire company does for the economy! You should see my portfolio, by the way. Woohoo!)
When the politician promises you money if you vote for him, walk away.
(Only if he promises you welfare benefits. If he promises you tax breaks, that's okay. The term "corporate welfare" is so gosh darned unfair. And voting is bad for the proletariat anyway. Makes them uppity.)
When you professor tells you that your condition is the result of evil meat-eating while male Europeans, drop the class.
(Because everyone knows scientific inquiry can't be trusted. They keep focusing on things that are "true." What is "true" anyway? Does it help our stock dividends? Does it repeal the death tax? I don't think so!)
All of this just goes to show that there are people in the hippie free software movement who will never, ever accept or approve of anything less than total compliance with their GPL license. If a company doesn't use GPL licensing for their software: evil. If they use it for one product and not another: evil. If they use free software licensing for some of their stuff while their competitors use totally proprietary licensing: they're even more evil because they're just trying to appear like they aren't evil. But they are.
I think GNU-Linux and the open source and free software movmement is an incredible thing that should be encouraged and nurtured. I cheer at their successes. I use Linux both at work and at home. Yay for them. For us all. But I think this community can clearly go too far in what it expects/demands of proprietary software development companies who try to adopt open source principles.
Apparently releasing half your software under an open source license isn't any better than releasing none of it. It's all seen as some sort of subterfugue, an attempt to "dupe" the open source community into thinking the company is "cool." You people need to chill the hell out and realize who your friends and allies are.
Yes, RMS sometimes looks too fanatical. But it's quite possible that all this wouldn't have started if he wasn't.
Maybe you're right about that. But maybe the time has come to move beyond it. Perhaps the maturity of a movement can be measured by it's openess to mainstream implimentations rather than strict adherence to idealistic (read: unrealistic) fundamentalism.
Consider the difference between a Green party or Libertarian party candidate who expects to get no more than single digit voter support. They can "afford" to be radical. Imagine, however, that one of these guys gets elected to something. I don't think they would be forced to moderate to at least a small degree in order to accommodate...shall we say, the realities of holding actual power rather than just bitching about the peole who do? Yes I think that fits.
Amen to that. I think it's very short-sighted for the free software community to constantly knock the Establishment Corporations when they try to incorporate free software ideas. I mean think about it - you won! They're adopting your methods and models! Complaining that they're not doing it completely because they haven't entirely abandoned other methods of software developmennt/distribution is ridiculous.
If you think about it, a free software company which becomes a huge success might likely do so by also selling proprietary add-ons. I'm thinking of the linux distro which finally becomes user-friendly enough to get desktop marketshare worth a damn. Or, it could go from the other end...a traditional software company might incorporate free software but also continue to make and sell proprietary add-ons (Apple).
Both cases are likely to draw the ire of these free software fundamentalists.
Slashdot Mirror
the "collective right" theory says nobody has standing to challenge any infringements upon the second amendment.
Yes I think it means no individual has constitutional standing to challenge infringement. The constitution doesn't guarantee me a right to drive a car either.
if these rights do not belong to individuals (not this "collectivist" bullshit), then they can not be rights
No, they belong to state and local governments. That "collectivist bullshit."
And perhaps not. I suspect that people like you and I will argue this stuff for ages. It may never be resolved until there is a true consensus with regard to the issue. At that time we should ammend the Constitution to be clearer.
Yeah, yeah. Mac "addicts" get irate when their platoform and thier favorite company gets knocked. Even when they get knocked fairly. But do non-Mac users ever wonder why? This article is a prime example.
The article is a cheap attempt at generating traffic through the use of overly-provocative (if not downright misleading) information. Clearly the message they are trying to tease readers with is that the iPod has some serious flaws and that other manufacturers are doing better in these areas. What they don't go out of their way to point out is that the iPod, generally speaking, is hands-down the best thing going. You have to get to the last sentence of this FUD-filled article to get that bit of truth.
Your preposterous claim, "the aclu says the People don't have the right to own firearms" doesn't match up with the information at the address I provided. To wit: "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one" (i.e., not a "nonexistent" one as you're suggesting).
"Help! The ACLU is coming to take our guns!" Please. The Supreme Court of the United States of America is more hostile to your precious guns than the ACLU ever was.
the aclu says the People don't have the right to own firearms
Bullshit.
I really didn't expect a response on that point, but I'm not sure if you are engaging in discourse, or trying to sling mud at someone who disagrees with your political leanings
I took a long stab toward guessing your political persuasion and probably, in retrospect, should have kept my big mouth shut.
I also voted for Nader in 2000 (in Wisconsin where thank goodness Bush didn't win so I can still sort of sleep at night). I don't for a second believe that Bush is the lesser evil. I think he's a horrible president, perhaps the worst one in my lifetime. Jerry Brown, there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Yeah, I might vote for him. But not if he were running independent against a Democrat and Bush. No way. I'm voting for the Democrat this time. Even if it's Joe freakin' Lieberman!
In any case, forgive my uncalled for outburst. I just got done reading Joe Conason's Big Lies: The right-wing propaganda machine and how it distorts the truth and Al Franken's Lies and the lying liars who tell them: A fair and balanced look at the right. So I'm chock-full of Liberal ammo!
Imply what you will about my political affiliations
I would guess that you're cynical enough to vote republican (or libertarian) on the pretense that if you can't save the world at least you're voting your own pocketbook. And you would be voting according to your own financial interests, too. If you're making, say, a quarter mil a year or better.
Left/right wing has meant pretty much nothing in terms of who votes for what bill that infringes civil rights
Two words for you: John Ashcroft.
Seriously, I do see your point: politics is dirty and money talks across party lines. But there is a very real and meaningful difference between the parties in this regard.
In his remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson praised Republicans for their 'overwhelming majority.
Actually, once I qualify it to being after 1964 I could just go ahead and say "Democrats fight for your rights and Republicans don't." If I wished, however, to make a statement about who fights for what prior to '64 I'd have to use "left" and "right" because, as you point out, there used to be a bunch of Southern Democrat "Dixiecrat" racists bastards in the Democratic party.
Now they're Republicans.
The true purpose of voting is to give the American public a feeling that they chose things to be the way they are
The American public does choose things to be the way they are. The only sense in which one can say that they don't is the sense in which they are manipulated by the powers that be (corporate, monied interests in most cases).
[the ACLU] care more about pushing a left-wing agenda than defending the rights of all Americans.
In point of fact, it is the "left-wing" of American politics which has been the champion of people's rights. "Right-wing" politicians have been on the wrong side of these issues for over thirty years. At least since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And incidentally, the ACLU does fight for the rights of all Americans. They have fought right along side Republicans in the past. Such as when they fought the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law as a violation of the first amendment. Conservatives everywhere had to STFU about the good ol' ACLU on that one. But everyone forgets so quickly. Especially as the ACLU is often at odds with Conservatives...but this is primarily because conservatives are so often at odds with the Bill of Rights. Go figure.
Mac fans can't win on these stories. First an alarmist article claiming that they are "forcing" paid upgrades by not fixing security holes in existing systems. Hundreds of Apple-bashing posts later, it comes out that they are indeed patching the existing systems. You come on here to point this out and say "see? They ARE fixing it!" and someone comes behind you and says "big fucking deal! this is what everyone else would do!"
Following Apple-related discussions on Slashdot is like riding on a bus with no steering: it careens onto the right shoulder, heads back toward the middle, only to screetch onto the left shoulder, back toward the middle...
Actually Canon has been doing this for a while. The A series has always had a pretty decent spread of manual "advanced" controls when one considers that they are, after all, compact point-n-shoots. There's nothing new about the A70. Not that I'm kocking it. We bought 3 of them (so far) in my workplace and we love them. I actually recommend the A70 to almost everyone who asks which digital camera they should buy. It's just too good a deal. Great image quality, easy-as-pie but still with full manual mode. Most people would be surprised to learn that full manual aperture and shutter speeds as well as manual focus are available on these inexpensive gems.
I myself shoot a PowerShot G2. The G series also is a compact point-n-shoot with a full spread of manual controls.
...by using iTunes to rip CDs [to AAC] or the Apple Music Store [to purchase AAC files] you are limiting your ability to use those files [since they not only contain DRM, but cannot be played in some software or on some MP3 portable devices].
...all of Microsoft's efforts at distributing music [i.e. as partners with music distributing sites] involve the use of WMA format and DRM. Those files, of course, are no more useable than AAC...
Not to beat a dead horse here, but some are bound to mis-understand this. It sounds as if you're saying "if you rip your own CDs using iTunes the resulting files are a) DRM'd and b) unplayable in anything but an iPod. That is, of course, wrong on both counts. Nothing's preventing you from ripping your CDs as MP3s. Nothing's preventing you from putting those files on anything that will play them. The files are in no way copy protected.
Even if you for reasons of efficiency choose to rip the files from your CD collection as AAC (.m4a I think) they aren't "protected" or "restricted" in any way. The problem you'd run into is one of practicality: neither your car stereo manufacturer nor your portable mp3 player manufacturer have licensed MPEG4 technology for their devices and thus cannot play the files. At present, the only external device capable of doing so is Apple's iPod. In principle, nothing's stopping any one from licensing this technology from the mpeg group. That is, in fact, what they want I'm sure. One supposes that if the iTMS remains a leader in legit music downloads other players will jump on board to be able to play the format.
I'm betting they're considerably less usable. All of the previous models used to do legal music downloads have resulted in severely restricted files which are often a) rented, not sold b) literallly unplayable in any player besides the designated one c) unburnable or burnable in a very limited way, sometimes even requiring an extra fee. I think there has been one lonely exception to that rule and in that case the service was pimping independent "never heard of 'em" artists who were much more afraid of obscurity than of piracy.
Yeah couldn't they find an organization that allowed all kids in? The Boy Scouts of America isn't exactly a paragon of inclusion.
Change it if you need to for compatibility with your car stereo/portable player. AAC is probably more efficient otherwise.
I'm not "declaring it dead" I'm merely pointing out the large disconnect between it's actual, present importance as opposed to the importance ascribed to it by readers of slashdot.
Ogg support is obviously a good thing (tm).
Someone has to say this out loud: nobody * gives a rats behind about Ogg Vorbis.
* By "nobody" I actualy mean that only a very tiny minority of people who listen to music will a) know what it is and b) care enough about it for it to influence his/her purchase decision.
Listening to slashdot folks go on and on in discussion after discussion about it gets a little silly. It's almost as if readers here believe that the iPod would sell 10% more units if only it supported this codec. (This is of course ridiculous.) We sit around and discuss how "the industry" is reacting to Ogg, when in fact it's hard to imagine how it could be less relevant to anyone except the tiny, tiny minority of people who a) use Linux on the desktop and b) are willing and able to shell out for a portable digital music player and c) aren't just going to dual boot windows to do it. (Regarding point b one wonders how 'willing' a lot of these guys are, they way they go on about how they build their own Linux boxes for $0.79 out of junk parts from thier basement Comodore graveyard, but I digress.)
And don't even get me started on the tragically misguided "I won't participate in any music sales scheme that doesn't involve zero compression, zero copy protection" ethos.
Some people persist in saying that Windows isn't less secure, it's just a bigger target! Just today someone forwarded this to me from a David Pogue column in the New York Times. Sorry I don't have a link.
g gedin /bal-mac082803,0,1353478.column
***
I also wrote that Mac OS X and Linux are virus-free because
they offer virus writers a much smaller "audience" than
Windows -- a notion that's been much repeated in the press,
most recently last week's BusinessWeek cover story.
That, as it turns out, is a myth, no matter who repeats it.
There's a much bigger reason virus writers don't like Mac OS
X and Linux.
"Unix [which underlies Mac OS X] and Linux ARE more secure,"
wrote one reader. "They have been developed, open-source
style, by people who know exactly what they are doing. Unix
and Linux have had at least 10 years of battling hackers to
better themselves. This leads to an extremely secure
environment."
Many of you also pointed out simple design decisions that
make Mac OS X and Linux much more secure than Windows XP.
For example:
* Windows comes with five of its ports open; Mac OS X comes
with all of them shut and locked. (Ports are back-door
channels to the Internet: one for instant-messaging, one for
Windows XP's remote-control feature and so on.) These ports
are precisely what permitted viruses like Blaster to
infiltrate millions of PC's. Microsoft says that it won't
have an opportunity to close these ports until the next
version of Windows, which is a couple of years away.
* When a program tries to install itself in Mac OS X or
Linux, a dialog box interrupts your work and asks you
permission for that installation -- in fact, requires your
account password. Windows XP goes ahead and installs it,
potentially without your awareness.
* Administrator accounts in Windows (and therefore viruses
that exploit it) have access to all areas of the operating
system. In Mac OS X, even an administrator can't touch the
files that drive the operating system itself. A Mac OS X
virus (if there were such a thing) could theoretically wipe
out all of your files, but wouldn't be able to access anyone
else's stuff -- and couldn't touch the operating system
itself.
* No Macintosh e-mail program automatically runs scripts
that come attached to incoming messages, as Microsoft
Outlook does.
Evidently, I'm not the only columnist to have fallen for
this old myth; see
http://www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/plu
for another writer's more technical apology. But the
conclusion is clear: Linux and Mac OS X aren't just more
secure because fewer people use them. They're also much
harder to crack right out of the box
***
I think a big part of it is you have to hold the thing in your hands. Otherwise you can't really understand how deliciously Apple's computers - especially their laptops - are engineered. Other laptops in comparison feel like plastic pizza boxes with the heft of a concrete mason block and sport all the fit-and-finish of a 3rd-grade science project completed the night before.
Then there's OS X. Having a Unix OS specifically engineered to integrate perfeclty with your hardware is a huge thing. Once you get used to that it's very hard to go back. Hell, I still get giddy over the idea that I can run Office and Photoshop and other commercial apps on Unix at all.
Also on the software front there's Apple's end-to-end multimedia solutions: iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, etc. They make similar applications look like cheap knock-offs. And in some cases they are.
Notice how cleverly Apple sneaks...
It seems you and others here have cast Apple in the role of RIAA puppet. A company that desperately wants to kill your fun and prevent you from doing what you want with what you bought. I don't believe that at all. I believe Apple thought about making illegal copying and distribution difficult, and probably not at all about reselling. They probably don't care, beyond the fact that it's impractical to a degree that probably not many people will bother, thus making it irrelevant for them.
Apple has NO interest in preventing you from reselling music that you've bought. Or at least no more than a record company has in preventing you from reselling a CD that you bought from them. Sure, they'd rather someone bought a new copy but what the hell. The only thing they really, really care about is the idea that you might transfer (sell or give away) music you bought from them without deleting your own copy.
I'd bet my last $0.99 that Apple's only real concern when designing the iTMS was that illegal copying and distribution be difficult. They probably didn't think any more about reselling beyond "gee, I guess that would be tough unless you gave the person your login credentials..."
And incidentally, I don't think the term "used" can meaningfully be applied to digital files like MP3 or AAC. There wouldn't be very much reason to price the resale cheaper than the original. Unless you factor in that Brittany isn't quite the hot commodity she was when you bought her music.
I'm not arguing that there aren't differences between Apple's license and the GPL. I'm perfectly aware of that fact. What I'm saying is that the tone of the discussion about those differences would imply that Apple is trying to engage in some kind of nefarious deception. The consequent frenzy of Apple bashing completely ignores the fact that they are one of the major player in the biz who is making great strides in adopting the methods pioneered the free/open source software movement. The fact that this is a Good Thing gets lost in the shuffle, as they are branded thieves and liars for less than 100% compliance to a model that hasn't yet proven fit for making a single dime...and hasn't resulted in a single consumer software application worth a damn.
The solution won't come from the Democrats or Republicans
(But it will come from right-wing Libertarians!)
It won't come from any one politician, no matter how spiffy their website or fiery their oration
(I don't like Howard Dean!)
Instead it has to come from the bottom foundations of society.
(Poor people have to change. They have to become less needy. And they should probably dress nicer. I mean really.)
When the lawyer urges you to sue, spit on his shoes
(After all, what's a few fatal accidents people when you consider everything that tire company does for the economy! You should see my portfolio, by the way. Woohoo!)
When the politician promises you money if you vote for him, walk away.
(Only if he promises you welfare benefits. If he promises you tax breaks, that's okay. The term "corporate welfare" is so gosh darned unfair. And voting is bad for the proletariat anyway. Makes them uppity.)
When you professor tells you that your condition is the result of evil meat-eating while male Europeans, drop the class.
(Because everyone knows scientific inquiry can't be trusted. They keep focusing on things that are "true." What is "true" anyway? Does it help our stock dividends? Does it repeal the death tax? I don't think so!)
All of this just goes to show that there are people in the hippie free software movement who will never, ever accept or approve of anything less than total compliance with their GPL license. If a company doesn't use GPL licensing for their software: evil. If they use it for one product and not another: evil. If they use free software licensing for some of their stuff while their competitors use totally proprietary licensing: they're even more evil because they're just trying to appear like they aren't evil. But they are.
I think GNU-Linux and the open source and free software movmement is an incredible thing that should be encouraged and nurtured. I cheer at their successes. I use Linux both at work and at home. Yay for them. For us all. But I think this community can clearly go too far in what it expects/demands of proprietary software development companies who try to adopt open source principles.
Apparently releasing half your software under an open source license isn't any better than releasing none of it. It's all seen as some sort of subterfugue, an attempt to "dupe" the open source community into thinking the company is "cool." You people need to chill the hell out and realize who your friends and allies are.
Yes, RMS sometimes looks too fanatical. But it's quite possible that all this wouldn't have started if he wasn't.
Maybe you're right about that. But maybe the time has come to move beyond it. Perhaps the maturity of a movement can be measured by it's openess to mainstream implimentations rather than strict adherence to idealistic (read: unrealistic) fundamentalism.
Consider the difference between a Green party or Libertarian party candidate who expects to get no more than single digit voter support. They can "afford" to be radical. Imagine, however, that one of these guys gets elected to something. I don't think they would be forced to moderate to at least a small degree in order to accommodate...shall we say, the realities of holding actual power rather than just bitching about the peole who do? Yes I think that fits.
Amen to that. I think it's very short-sighted for the free software community to constantly knock the Establishment Corporations when they try to incorporate free software ideas. I mean think about it - you won! They're adopting your methods and models! Complaining that they're not doing it completely because they haven't entirely abandoned other methods of software developmennt/distribution is ridiculous.
If you think about it, a free software company which becomes a huge success might likely do so by also selling proprietary add-ons. I'm thinking of the linux distro which finally becomes user-friendly enough to get desktop marketshare worth a damn. Or, it could go from the other end...a traditional software company might incorporate free software but also continue to make and sell proprietary add-ons (Apple).
Both cases are likely to draw the ire of these free software fundamentalists.