If you leave the heat on or water running for the week while you are on vacation do you expect the power or water company to just eat the bill?
If you apply what he was saying to heating bills then the situation would be that he would be prepared to pay more for flat rate unmetered heating bills than the average he would expect under metered usage. I don't think that's hard to understand, even if you wouldn't be prepared to pay more for unmetered access yourself. What's whether he would 'expect' the company to eat the bills got to do with anything? He was commenting on what sort of arrangement he would be prepared to pay more for.
Personally I signed up for a service advertised as always on, unmetered, 512/256 internet access. Obviously I expect to get that BUT if they got their assumptions or sums wrong and find they can't afford to provide that at the price then of course they have every right to tell me they can no longer provide that service, with respect to periods not yet paid for.
However, re your statement:
Actually, you're in the minority of broadband customers. More than 80% want fast web pages and quick email.
Do you have any stats to back that up? On the face of it it sounds extremely unlikely, at least if you're talking about consumer service, but I'd be interested to see the evidence.
Even on slashdor I can't imagine that many home users drooling at the thought of fast email downloads.
Re:May as well be the first to say it
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AOL Sues Spammers
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This has been discussed before. You aren't charged for the cost of AOL cd delivery, so it's not the same as spam.
It costs me my time to wade through all this rubbish, and potentially missed opportunities by misclassifying a legitimate letter.
Would you be happier if I hired someone else to sort my mail as that way it would cost me money instead of time? My time is valuable to me and every bit as much a real cost.
Re:May as well be the first to say it
on
AOL Sues Spammers
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· Score: 1
And one other thing: fighting spam has nothing to do with "free speech" for two reasons. First, the first amendment of the constitution does not enumerate your rights; it instead is a list of restrictions on the government, specifically Congress although case law has made it clear that those restrictions apply to all branches of government at all levels. AOL isn't the government, nor is any other ISP. Free speech arguments, therefore, cannot apply to AOL.
Whilst I agree with you that it is not a free speech issue for other reasons, the courts are a branch of government and restraining someone from speaking by means of suing them raises free speech issues every bit as much as any other government issue. The courts themselves recognise this. The fact that AOL is a private entity bringing the case is not more relevant than if it were a private entity lobbying for a new law. Court rulings are always government action.
"Only the incompetent would wait until violence is the last refuge."
Is that supposed to mean that any one who wasn't incompetent would use violence even though they had other options open to them, or what does it mean? Can't say that it makes any sense to me.
The Mad Hatter said, "Jam is served every other day." Alice protested, "But there was no jam yesterday either!" "That's right," said the Mad Hatter. "The rule is: always jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, never jam today...because today is not every other day!"
It was the White Queen not the Mad Hatter.
`I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!' the Queen said. `Twopence a week, and jam every other day.'
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, `I don't want you to hire ME -- and I don't care for jam.'
`It's very good jam,' said the Queen.
`Well, I don't want any TO-DAY, at any rate.'
`You couldn't have it if you DID want it,' the Queen said. `The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam to-day.'
What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?
Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.
An ad in a newspaper is just an invitation to treat, you could still change your mind and never agree to sell the car to anyone.
A web site is intially the same, but once someone clicks to buy though there must be at least an offer, a message on screen saying that the order has been placed seems like acceptance to me, making a binding contract. If not then almost certainly receipt of an email confirming the order would make for a binding contract. I'm notfamiliar with any case law directly concerning web sites in this context though, just working from basic principles.
What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.
I think that's a stupid comment. I wouldn't change my mind about what I thought was the correct resolution in that situation. Are you saying that your opinion would change day to day if you were one day a seller and the next a buyer? That's pathetic.
A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.
It depends on whether a contract has actually been entered into. Once it has of course they're bound to honor it.
Whether the goal is actually to attract users to Linux or to keep it a plaything of geeks and afficianados is hard to judge, going by comments on/. and other fora.
The reason for that is that there is no such thing as "the" goal. Different people have different goals. Some people actively want Linux use to grow, some actively want it to stay "exclusive" others don't care or have a different kind of agenda completely.
Your goals aren't automatically the same as mine just because we've both made posts to Slashdot. Neither are anyone elses.
I'm not trying to be a troll here, but the UN has demonstrated, quite effectively, its inability and unwillingness to enforce anything.
Not yet they haven't, but when the USA attacks Iraq in violation of the UN charter and the UN is powerless to do anything about it, that'll pretty much clinch it.
Nope. Consider the physical-property equivalent: I steal something from you. Do you have the right to come steal it back? No.
I agree with you about the way GPL works, but your analogy is wrong. If someone comes and steals my car then by definition I can't "steal" it back because it's mine, but I can go round to where they've parked it, get in and drive it away. It's mine, I have every right to take it back.
The key word in your statement is "rent". If you have specific license from the copyright holder in exchange for money, then it's fine. If you don't it's not.
Renting a sculpture doesn't imply any sort of license from the copyright holder. You could rent, or buy, a sculpture without having any dealings with the copyright holder and without ever knowing who that is.
Okay, I should have paid more attention to your last paragraph where you do comment on the applicability of EULAs. Still it's pretty much fundamental to the whole discussion. At least by all appearances there are no conditions attached to the purchase.
well, I am a lawyer (almost), and I'm afraid that under the common law (in the UK and probably in the US too) if you know there are going to be conditions attached to a purchase -- even if you don't know what they are, then by going ahead with the purchase you're assumed to have agreed to the terms.
Okay, I'm definitely not a lawyer and it's some years since I got my law degree (in the UK) but I'm interested to know how far you take this view.
The basic principle that if I offer you £500 for a box "knowing" that you'll attach conditions to it and you agree "knowing" that I'm aware of those conditions and wouldn't be making the offer otherwise... sure, sounds like we're setting ourselves up for a court battle if the deal's an important one, but in principle agreed.
But going beyond that... are you saying that if I offer a shopkeeper £250 for a product, he takes my money, I take the product and I know that there's a fair chance that the manufacturer (with whom I have had no contact) has left a slip of paper inside the sealed box that has some conditions written on it that I have somehow entered into a contract with the manufacturer? Or that the terms on that paper have somehow become part of my contract with the shopkeeper, even if he doesn't care about them in the least? If that's what you're saying then I'd really like to hear a cite. If you're saying something else then could you clarify?
People don't just crave tastes, whether they know it or not they want fats and carbohydrates and the various chemicals in their foods.
I don't believe that all the artificial sweetners and diet drinks have solved people wanting sugar. They may well help someone who is consciously applying will power, but it isn't just a matter of "I had something sweet so I'm satisfied".
When someone wants a bacon sandwich they'll doubtless associate that with the taste of the sandwich because that's one of the most obvious conscious effects of eating the sandwich. But if you produce a fat free substitute that taste identical I thikn they'll still feel empty, or missing something, and they'll still remedy that by going and getting some food that IS fatty, whether they rationalise that by taste or anything else.
the USA has around 260million people. That's a lot for europe or other places to compare to
If you check the US Government figures for population by country you'll note that whilst USA is third on the list (albeit a distant third to China and India) that if you go down the list a bit, adding up Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain... that combined they surpass the USA rather easily with more EU countries (smaller ones) still to be counted, and more joining too.
Which isn't to suggest that population is some sort of ultimate metric for the comparison of countries (in any event the EU and the USA are very different in nature, at least at present) just that 260 million isn't as many as you seem to think it is.
I think most people would interpret a request to pray as a suggestion that they try to send some sort of message to a god or gods, but possibly there are others meanings in use. What do you mean when you suggest people "pray"?
Do us all a favor and go kill yourself. I don't fucking care if you are religious or not, you don't have to attack those of us that are.
Reread his post and then your response and see if you can work out which of you was attacking someone. He very mildly responded to a request that everyone pray. You suggested that he kill himself. I assume that your religion isn't one of the ones that advocates tolerance?
When big music and big movies fail at thwarting P2P "at the top", they will, and this is a guarantee, start booting in doors and arresting/suing Joe Average for running Limewire and grabbing what appears to be a copyright movie or song.
They could sue, sure, and I'd expect that to happen at some point to make a number of "example" cases. I'm not convinced that it'll help much but it's certainly worth them trying. I can't see any basis for arrests though, nor for booting in doors.
Tracking down P2P users would be absolutely trivial.
Agreed. On any "standard" system at least, the ip address is going to be easily available to anyone you're downloading from or uploading to. With appropriate court orders they're going to be able to match ip to name+address in enough cases to be able to make those examples.
Contrary to the YRO sentiment believed on Slashdot, the majority of the general populace would support such actions if presented with big media's side of things.
This is where I don't agree with you. The whole argument is supposed to be that most people are all for file sharing. That's the justification for the DMCA and all the rest of it. It's the reason why they would be suing people at all. If you believe that it's a minority who are sharing files and that the majority are shocked by this then there's no need for any of this. The whole problem (from the perspective of the RIAA and MPAA) is that (at least they believe) most people will eagerly join in with the file sharing. Most people don't have any moral problem with it. Try asking a few friends.
If the RIAA et al can get the support of the majority then that's all they need, no further action is required.
It's ok to agree/disagree with DRM, but not in public documents with your employers name on them.
Seems like that's a matter between him and his employer. Are you oppposed to anyone ever stating an opinion publically in the course of their employment?
if we stopped filesharing, network traffic would be down 40-60%. the ISPs would have more profit.
Filesharing is a major selling point for broadband in particular. If you remove 40-60% of what people are using a service for then you are going to lose customers.
Ignore the ruling. What are the courts going to do, issue another ruling that says, "we really mean it this time?"
Probably first there would be essentially an ultimatum, yes. Beyond that, start putting people in prison for contempt of court. Board level people I would imagine.
IIRC, I believe a US judge ruled that the France vs Yahoo ruling didn't stand.
What the US judge ruled was that he / the US legal system were not going to enforce France's ruling. That doesn't make France's ruling on their own laws any more or less valid, just pretty much irrelevant:)
Same here, the US is perfectly entitled to try anyone it likes in accordance with its laws and hand down verdicts. If Kazaa has no assets in the USA then officials elsewhere are entitled to roll their eyes / laugh/ politely decline (in accordance with local established practice) when asked to enforce the verdicts. If Australia (or wherever) thinks that the USA has jurisdiction then they might even enforce whatever judgment the court reaches. Or maybe not.
I agree with you. I'm not sure in what respect you thought you were disagreeing with what I'd said but I think it can only arise from my post having been unclear. Either that or I've totally misread your post.
It is up to the courts of each nation to determine whether anything Kazaa has done constitutes a crime in their country, taking into account where it happened, where Kazaa are, where the people affected by it are, what the phase of the moon is if their laws say that's relevant etc etc.
If Lichtenstein has a law on their books saying that anyone with red hair anywhere in the world is committing a crime under Lichtenstein law then it's up to their courts to interpret and apply that. Enforcing it might be a problem of course.
Same goes for the US courts determining whether Kazaa's actions constitute a breach of US law. It's their job to decide if their laws give them jurisdiction, and if they do then it's their job to determine whether there has been a breach of those laws.
Every jurisidction gets to consider the case with its own courts, assuming that someone brings it to their courts. There can not be one case somewhere that settles the matter, because the answer is (potentially) different for every jurisdiction.
No automatic right to having another country help any of them actually enforce their judgments of course, and I doubt that the Australian courts greatly care what the US courts think they have jurisdiction over, unless they reach the same answer themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
If you leave the heat on or water running for the week while you are on vacation do you expect the power or water company to just eat the bill?
If you apply what he was saying to heating bills then the situation would be that he would be prepared to pay more for flat rate unmetered heating bills than the average he would expect under metered usage. I don't think that's hard to understand, even if you wouldn't be prepared to pay more for unmetered access yourself. What's whether he would 'expect' the company to eat the bills got to do with anything? He was commenting on what sort of arrangement he would be prepared to pay more for.
Personally I signed up for a service advertised as always on, unmetered, 512/256 internet access. Obviously I expect to get that BUT if they got their assumptions or sums wrong and find they can't afford to provide that at the price then of course they have every right to tell me they can no longer provide that service, with respect to periods not yet paid for.
However, re your statement:
Actually, you're in the minority of broadband customers. More than 80% want fast web pages and quick email.
Do you have any stats to back that up? On the face of it it sounds extremely unlikely, at least if you're talking about consumer service, but I'd be interested to see the evidence.
Even on slashdor I can't imagine that many home users drooling at the thought of fast email downloads.
This has been discussed before. You aren't charged for the cost of AOL cd delivery, so it's not the same as spam.
It costs me my time to wade through all this rubbish, and potentially missed opportunities by misclassifying a legitimate letter.
Would you be happier if I hired someone else to sort my mail as that way it would cost me money instead of time? My time is valuable to me and every bit as much a real cost.
And one other thing: fighting spam has nothing to do with "free speech" for two reasons. First, the first amendment of the constitution does not enumerate your rights; it instead is a list of restrictions on the government, specifically Congress although case law has made it clear that those restrictions apply to all branches of government at all levels. AOL isn't the government, nor is any other ISP. Free speech arguments, therefore, cannot apply to AOL.
Whilst I agree with you that it is not a free speech issue for other reasons, the courts are a branch of government and restraining someone from speaking by means of suing them raises free speech issues every bit as much as any other government issue. The courts themselves recognise this. The fact that AOL is a private entity bringing the case is not more relevant than if it were a private entity lobbying for a new law. Court rulings are always government action.
"Only the incompetent would wait until violence is the last refuge."
Is that supposed to mean that any one who wasn't incompetent would use violence even though they had other options open to them, or what does it mean? Can't say that it makes any sense to me.
Alice protested, "But there was no jam yesterday either!" "That's right," said the Mad Hatter. "The rule is: always jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, never jam today...because today is not every other day!"
It was the White Queen not the Mad Hatter.
What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?
Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.
An ad in a newspaper is just an invitation to treat, you could still change your mind and never agree to sell the car to anyone.
A web site is intially the same, but once someone clicks to buy though there must be at least an offer, a message on screen saying that the order has been placed seems like acceptance to me, making a binding contract. If not then almost certainly receipt of an email confirming the order would make for a binding contract. I'm notfamiliar with any case law directly concerning web sites in this context though, just working from basic principles.
What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.
I think that's a stupid comment. I wouldn't change my mind about what I thought was the correct resolution in that situation. Are you saying that your opinion would change day to day if you were one day a seller and the next a buyer? That's pathetic.
A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.
It depends on whether a contract has actually been entered into. Once it has of course they're bound to honor it.
Whether the goal is actually to attract users to Linux or to keep it a plaything of geeks and afficianados is hard to judge, going by comments on /. and other fora.
The reason for that is that there is no such thing as "the" goal. Different people have different goals. Some people actively want Linux use to grow, some actively want it to stay "exclusive" others don't care or have a different kind of agenda completely.
Your goals aren't automatically the same as mine just because we've both made posts to Slashdot. Neither are anyone elses.
With a precedent like that, how was drugs prohibition implemented without requiring an amendment, or was no amendment ever required?
I'm not trying to be a troll here, but the UN has demonstrated, quite effectively, its inability and unwillingness to enforce anything.
Not yet they haven't, but when the USA attacks Iraq in violation of the UN charter and the UN is powerless to do anything about it, that'll pretty much clinch it.
Nope. Consider the physical-property equivalent: I steal something from you. Do you have the right to come steal it back? No.
I agree with you about the way GPL works, but your analogy is wrong. If someone comes and steals my car then by definition I can't "steal" it back because it's mine, but I can go round to where they've parked it, get in and drive it away. It's mine, I have every right to take it back.
The key word in your statement is "rent". If you have specific license from the copyright holder in exchange for money, then it's fine. If you don't it's not.
Renting a sculpture doesn't imply any sort of license from the copyright holder. You could rent, or buy, a sculpture without having any dealings with the copyright holder and without ever knowing who that is.
Okay, I should have paid more attention to your last paragraph where you do comment on the applicability of EULAs. Still it's pretty much fundamental to the whole discussion. At least by all appearances there are no conditions attached to the purchase.
well, I am a lawyer (almost), and I'm afraid that under the common law (in the UK and probably in the US too) if you know there are going to be conditions attached to a purchase -- even if you don't know what they are, then by going ahead with the purchase you're assumed to have agreed to the terms.
Okay, I'm definitely not a lawyer and it's some years since I got my law degree (in the UK) but I'm interested to know how far you take this view.
The basic principle that if I offer you £500 for a box "knowing" that you'll attach conditions to it and you agree "knowing" that I'm aware of those conditions and wouldn't be making the offer otherwise... sure, sounds like we're setting ourselves up for a court battle if the deal's an important one, but in principle agreed.
But going beyond that... are you saying that if I offer a shopkeeper £250 for a product, he takes my money, I take the product and I know that there's a fair chance that the manufacturer (with whom I have had no contact) has left a slip of paper inside the sealed box that has some conditions written on it that I have somehow entered into a contract with the manufacturer? Or that the terms on that paper have somehow become part of my contract with the shopkeeper, even if he doesn't care about them in the least? If that's what you're saying then I'd really like to hear a cite. If you're saying something else then could you clarify?
Thanks
People don't just crave tastes, whether they know it or not they want fats and carbohydrates and the various chemicals in their foods.
I don't believe that all the artificial sweetners and diet drinks have solved people wanting sugar. They may well help someone who is consciously applying will power, but it isn't just a matter of "I had something sweet so I'm satisfied".
When someone wants a bacon sandwich they'll doubtless associate that with the taste of the sandwich because that's one of the most obvious conscious effects of eating the sandwich. But if you produce a fat free substitute that taste identical I thikn they'll still feel empty, or missing something, and they'll still remedy that by going and getting some food that IS fatty, whether they rationalise that by taste or anything else.
the USA has around 260million people. That's a lot for europe or other places to compare to
If you check the US Government figures for population by country you'll note that whilst USA is third on the list (albeit a distant third to China and India) that if you go down the list a bit, adding up Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain... that combined they surpass the USA rather easily with more EU countries (smaller ones) still to be counted, and more joining too.
Which isn't to suggest that population is some sort of ultimate metric for the comparison of countries (in any event the EU and the USA are very different in nature, at least at present) just that 260 million isn't as many as you seem to think it is.
I think most people would interpret a request to pray as a suggestion that they try to send some sort of message to a god or gods, but possibly there are others meanings in use. What do you mean when you suggest people "pray"?
Bhuddists pray... Shintoists pray... I even know agnostics that pray.
Can you explain what the word "pray" means when you use it?
Do us all a favor and go kill yourself. I don't fucking care if you are religious or not, you don't have to attack those of us that are.
Reread his post and then your response and see if you can work out which of you was attacking someone. He very mildly responded to a request that everyone pray. You suggested that he kill himself. I assume that your religion isn't one of the ones that advocates tolerance?
When big music and big movies fail at thwarting P2P "at the top", they will, and this is a guarantee, start booting in doors and arresting/suing Joe Average for running Limewire and grabbing what appears to be a copyright movie or song.
They could sue, sure, and I'd expect that to happen at some point to make a number of "example" cases. I'm not convinced that it'll help much but it's certainly worth them trying. I can't see any basis for arrests though, nor for booting in doors.
Tracking down P2P users would be absolutely trivial.
Agreed. On any "standard" system at least, the ip address is going to be easily available to anyone you're downloading from or uploading to. With appropriate court orders they're going to be able to match ip to name+address in enough cases to be able to make those examples.
Contrary to the YRO sentiment believed on Slashdot, the majority of the general populace would support such actions if presented with big media's side of things.
This is where I don't agree with you. The whole argument is supposed to be that most people are all for file sharing. That's the justification for the DMCA and all the rest of it. It's the reason why they would be suing people at all. If you believe that it's a minority who are sharing files and that the majority are shocked by this then there's no need for any of this. The whole problem (from the perspective of the RIAA and MPAA) is that (at least they believe) most people will eagerly join in with the file sharing. Most people don't have any moral problem with it. Try asking a few friends.
If the RIAA et al can get the support of the majority then that's all they need, no further action is required.
It's ok to agree/disagree with DRM, but not in public documents with your employers name on them.
Seems like that's a matter between him and his employer. Are you oppposed to anyone ever stating an opinion publically in the course of their employment?
if we stopped filesharing, network traffic would be down 40-60%. the ISPs would have more profit.
Filesharing is a major selling point for broadband in particular. If you remove 40-60% of what people are using a service for then you are going to lose customers.
Ignore the ruling. What are the courts going to do, issue another ruling that says, "we really mean it this time?"
Probably first there would be essentially an ultimatum, yes. Beyond that, start putting people in prison for contempt of court. Board level people I would imagine.
IIRC, I believe a US judge ruled that the France vs Yahoo ruling didn't stand.
:)
What the US judge ruled was that he / the US legal system were not going to enforce France's ruling. That doesn't make France's ruling on their own laws any more or less valid, just pretty much irrelevant
Same here, the US is perfectly entitled to try anyone it likes in accordance with its laws and hand down verdicts. If Kazaa has no assets in the USA then officials elsewhere are entitled to roll their eyes / laugh/ politely decline (in accordance with local established practice) when asked to enforce the verdicts. If Australia (or wherever) thinks that the USA has jurisdiction then they might even enforce whatever judgment the court reaches. Or maybe not.
I agree with you. I'm not sure in what respect you thought you were disagreeing with what I'd said but I think it can only arise from my post having been unclear. Either that or I've totally misread your post.
It is up to the courts of each nation to determine whether anything Kazaa has done constitutes a crime in their country, taking into account where it happened, where Kazaa are, where the people affected by it are, what the phase of the moon is if their laws say that's relevant etc etc.
If Lichtenstein has a law on their books saying that anyone with red hair anywhere in the world is committing a crime under Lichtenstein law then it's up to their courts to interpret and apply that. Enforcing it might be a problem of course.
Same goes for the US courts determining whether Kazaa's actions constitute a breach of US law. It's their job to decide if their laws give them jurisdiction, and if they do then it's their job to determine whether there has been a breach of those laws.
Every jurisidction gets to consider the case with its own courts, assuming that someone brings it to their courts. There can not be one case somewhere that settles the matter, because the answer is (potentially) different for every jurisdiction.
No automatic right to having another country help any of them actually enforce their judgments of course, and I doubt that the Australian courts greatly care what the US courts think they have jurisdiction over, unless they reach the same answer themselves.