"The Economy" is something that _WE_ created.... there is no intrinsic economy created by some supreme being.. and we shouldn't get carried away considering it as something holy that needs to be studied.
Why not? You say that as if there is something wrong with studying things created by man? Like, say, Computers? History? Sociology? Art?
Why should Economics not be studied? Given how important it is, I can't see how a better understanding would not help us.
That said, a lot of economic theory appears (to me, a non-economist) to be snake-oil and alchemy combined with wishful thinking and a good dose of oversimplification.
But I excuse that. Things don't turn into stringent science overnight, it takes time to figure out how to study something. Science is more than just finding stuff out, it's just as much finding the ways to find stuff out. Economics just hasn't found theirs yet.
The new standard IBM PC with MS-DOS was a low price solution compared to the alternative of mainframe applications.
Yes, and a Big Mac is a low price solution compared to the alternative of a 5-course dinner banquet.
The PC didn't compete with the mainframe. It still doesn't, really.
I think you were thinking about minis, e.g. PDP:s, VAXen, and the like. They competed for the same space as the PC, as an office computer. Those were killed off by the PC:s, obviously to the extent that some have even forgotten them completely!
As for "Low cost alternative", I do agree. The PC was a low cost alternative to a mini, and Microsoft Windows made the PC a low-cost alternative to the Mac.
I disagree. Well, I don't know about this particular type of auction (i.e. online), I've only been to real-live ones, most of them for failed dot-coms.
It's really a question of the crowd. The dot-com ones I've been to had a large number of used-computer dealers in the crowd, and so it was natural for the prices to end up at just below what you'd pay at an ordinary used shop.
Usually you could get a reasonable deal on hardware, but nothing spectacular, basically the same you would've gotten in a used shop with some haggling.
However, the other stuff, e.g. furniture and so on, which was usually quite nice, went for practically nothing. The computer dealers weren't interested, and I suppose the used furniture dealers didn't suppose this small stuff was worth their time.
Now you could've made a real killing on that stuff. At least at the one's I've attended.
The difference between the Korean war and our current debacle?
Another notable difference would be that the Korean war had full UN support. In fact there are still UN troops in the Korean DMZ, mostly Swiss and Swedish, IIRC.
(note: Communist China was not represented in the UN until the 60's.)
I don't see how coming to Unix from the Windows world is a bad thing. At least not if you do want Linux to be viable on the desktop. Because that's where the Linux-on-the-desktop users are going to be coming from.
These are the same people who say that Linux/Unix will never be ready for the desktop.
That is so wrong, it's slanderous. Mono was started by Miguel de Icaza for pete's sake!!. The guy started Gnome, Gnumeric, Midnight Commander, Ximian and Mono. I cannot name any single person who has done more for Linux on the desktop than that guy. And you say he says Linux will never be ready for the desktop??!
Just because a business could offer a service, doesn't mean that they're required to do so.
I didn't imply they were required to do so, other than in the sense I belive they are required to do so if they wish to have the mindshare and visiblity on the web that they have had in the newspaper industry.
They might also face restrictions imposed by the original source of the photo
Certainly, but not most of them. NYT has staff photographers. Besides that, I can hardly imagine a major difference in cost between publishing a non-print-quality image for a limited time period and indefinetly. Indeed, the costs could very well be outweighed by increasing their existing business in the sale of quality reproductions.
What do they gain by making that archive available?
Well I stated those points above: Marketing, visibility, name recognition, and likely, increased business. At the least less lost business, since there are obviously competitors providing the aforementioned services.
In an interesting coincidence, just an hour or so ago, I was looking for an article I read online in the NYT. Specifically, I was looking for an interesting image which was in the article. (Not for any specific use, I just wanted to show a friend.)
Besides the fact that the article is in the archive now (yet less than a month old!) and costs money, the page also informs you that:
Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. Our photos are available for purchase, please click here for more information.
Clicking the link reveals that you can order a photographic print for $95, and that's if they have it.
I don't even want a photographic print! A 200x200 pixel bitmap would be fine! (and hardly damaging to their photo sales)
As the article points out, why would anyone casually link to a NYT story? There is simply no point in linking to something most can't access without paying.
Well, Miguel helped create Gnome and Midnight Commander too, didn't see them mentioned either..
Seriously though, I don't think Mono is that important, yet. The main reason, I believe, for buying Ximian was their Desktop and Connector products, whereas the Mono part was a strategic investment.
However, any means of bringing about state B has been made illegal.
Certainly not. Mr. Joe could suddenly die from a massive cerebral haemorrhage, for instance.
Both these analogies are silly. The issue, stated in clear terms is this:
A) You have the right to make a backup copy of copyrighted material.
B) You are prohibited from circumventing copy-protection mechanisms on copyrighted material.
If something has a copy-protection mechanism, you cannot make a backup copy of copyrighted material without circumventing the copy-protection mechanism.
So the right (A) is in direct conflict with the prohibition (B).
However, (A) is not written in law. US copyright law (Title 17, sect 107) does not explictly specify what is 'fair use'. Making a backup-copy for personal use has been found to qualify as fair use through legal precedent. It is a common-law right.
The prohibition (B), however, is explicitly written in law, in the DMCA. It is statutory.
Thus B has precedence over A. You do not have the right to make a backup copy of copy-protected copyrighted materials.
But it appears that the crux of this case is that Red Hat must prove that the mis-stated earnings were the result of an honest mistake, not intentional fudging
Since when is guilt generally presumed?
Obviously Red Hat has spread some information which turned out to be false. Obviously they now know this information was false. But the plaintiffs must still prove that Red Hat knew this was false when they released the information.
Enron is not different in that respect either. The difference is that in the Enron case, the discrepancies were so huge that it is not reasonable to assume they didn't know.
There is no reasonable doubt there. Not in my mind anyway.
Probably not a good deal for the guy who hacked together a PHP script to conveniently display his web-page of pet photos.
But I could see how this could be a good deal for larger websites who're already running on x86. Given the speed and memory benefits of native code should have over interpreted, a sufficiently large website could save that sum on hardware upgrades alone.
And I suppose that would be the intended customer.
Who are you accusing? The parent or grandparent poster?
Because I certainly don't have a problem with nudity in any form (or swearing for that matter).
I was merely giving the grandparent poster the benefit of the doubt by assuming through the context that 'we' meant, 'we the people of the USA' and not 'mankind' and that 'never' meant in 'never in the history of the united states' and not 'never in the history of mankind'.
The US did start a few years ago, evolutionarily speaking. And during that period, they have not tolerated nudity in public or swearing.
You do realize you can acknowledge something as fact without necessarily agreeing with it?
Oh, and I disagree about "only showing up in repressive cultures or religions". Nudity and cursing are typical taboos, and taboos have existed in every culture we know of. A general observation one can make though, is that open societies have less taboos than more tribalistic ones. (This argument is persuasively put forward by Karl Popper in the first part of "Open society and its enemies", I suggest reading it if you want a more detailed definition of 'open' vs. 'tribalistic' societies)
Repression has little to do with it -that is a matter of how the taboos are enforced.
And *you* should learn to get the picture before talking about the Big one, and not assume a broader context than justified.
Far, far too much of the current US debate is all about ad hominem attacks. It never seems to matter what anyone says anymore..
It's all about "he's just out to sell his book/movie", "get attention" or "to further his/her career". Either that or it's about who they hung around with 30 years ago. Or who they've had sex with. Or if they've ever used drugs. Or how they used to feel differently, and therefore must be hypocrites.
From following the so-called debate, you wouldn't think anyone ever said anything just because they actually believed in it. Or that it could actually be, that someone with personal faults could actually be right, and that a person with a spotless reputation could be wrong about something?
It just makes me sick. And anyone thinks this posting is itself partisan in any way*, they need to seriously start thinking about what democracy is supposed to be about.
* Not counting people who truly advocate totalitarian systems, of course
Some think it is UFO fuel, so obviously the Intel engineers are in on the conspiracy! Obviously, they must be after using some of those top-secret UFO secrets in their chip design!!
.. Or perhaps they just realized that you can't trademark a number?
Statistically, only 30 people out of a group that size should have gotten cancer in their lifetimes.
That is wrong. That's not how statistics work.
Without doubting the statistic itself, the correct way of putting that would be "Statistically, the most likely number of cancer victims in a group that size would be only 30".
As others have pointed out, there may also be reason to doubt that statistic. When someone says "Experts say.." without providing a reference or anything more specific: Be sceptical.
Read, for example The European Patent Convention on the "Inventive Step" which is required for an invention to be patentable:
An invention shall be considered as involving an inventive step if, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art.
In the USA, the Patent Act (sec 103a) reads: A patent may not be obtained [...] if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. (emphasis mine)
The problem isn't the legal requirement, the problem is lack of enforcement due to lax, unwilling or just unskilled patent examiners, possibly coupled with a general "let it pass"-attitude.
I should clarify that.. Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal either. It's a gray area, subject to license agreements and so on.
However, the right to reverse-engineer for interoperability purposes is clearly legal, and can't be waived by license agreements. (Norwegian copyright law, paragraph 39i).
Yes, well the difference here is that the burden of proof is reversed: Reverse-engineering is not generally legal -It is legal for interoperability purposes as an exception to the rule.
Since the fact that DVD-playing software, and the DVD encryption had been reverse-engineered was not in dispute, the burden of evidence was on the defense to prove that it was legal with the framework of 'fair-use' and interoperability.
They succeeded at that. However, it does not void the rule itself.
So in this case, I do feel it is more appropriate to assume it is illegal and present the legal options as special-cases, because that is how the law looks.
Let's be a bit more precise, since being precise is rather important in legal matters..
What the norwegian court found (in Norwegian) was:
"DVD-Jon" did not have the intention to promote piracy, but to enable playing on Linux, and enable making back-ups of his DVDs.
The court also found that there is a fair-use right to a backup copy. They also found that licenses voiding this right were unenforcable.
They also found that the reverse-engineering done by "the nomad" (not Jon himself) was done in order to obtain interoperability, and thus legal under Norwegian and European (91/250/EEC, article 6) law.
Hence, they found that decrypting DVDs using this information aquired through reverse-engineering in order to create backup-copies was legal.
Basically what I'm saying here, is that from the verdict, it is not clear that he would've been found innocent if the procecution had been able to prove he had created DeCSS with the intent to enable piracy.
So you can't generalize the ruling into "Decrypting DVD's is not illegal in Norway".
Slashdot Mirror
Excuse me?? What ivory tower did you just escape from?
We're talking about a private university here - since when did they supposedly put money over integrity? Seriously.
You mention Coca-Cola. Well they wouldn't support Duke, they practically have their own university already.
I'm not saying I think this stuff is good, but your comment suggests that this is something unusual. As if!
"The Economy" is something that _WE_ created.... there is no intrinsic economy created by some supreme being.. and we shouldn't get carried away considering it as something holy that needs to be studied.
Why not? You say that as if there is something wrong with studying things created by man? Like, say, Computers? History? Sociology? Art?
Why should Economics not be studied? Given how important it is, I can't see how a better understanding would not help us.
That said, a lot of economic theory appears (to me, a non-economist) to be snake-oil and alchemy combined with wishful thinking and a good dose of oversimplification.
But I excuse that. Things don't turn into stringent science overnight, it takes time to figure out how to study something. Science is more than just finding stuff out, it's just as much finding the ways to find stuff out. Economics just hasn't found theirs yet.
The new standard IBM PC with MS-DOS was a low price solution compared to the alternative of mainframe applications.
Yes, and a Big Mac is a low price solution compared to the alternative of a 5-course dinner banquet.
The PC didn't compete with the mainframe. It still doesn't, really.
I think you were thinking about minis, e.g. PDP:s, VAXen, and the like.
They competed for the same space as the PC, as an office computer. Those were killed off by the PC:s, obviously to the extent that some have even forgotten them completely!
As for "Low cost alternative", I do agree. The PC was a low cost alternative to a mini, and Microsoft Windows made the PC a low-cost alternative to the Mac.
A lot of people think Eclipse is more than decent.
How good the plug-ins are with respect to PHP beats me though.
I disagree. Well, I don't know about this particular type of auction (i.e. online), I've only been to real-live ones, most of them for failed dot-coms.
It's really a question of the crowd. The dot-com ones I've been to had a large number of used-computer dealers in the crowd, and so it was natural for the prices to end up at just below what you'd pay at an ordinary used shop.
Usually you could get a reasonable deal on hardware, but nothing spectacular, basically the same you would've gotten in a used shop with some haggling.
However, the other stuff, e.g. furniture and so on, which was usually quite nice, went for practically nothing. The computer dealers weren't interested, and I suppose the used furniture dealers didn't suppose this small stuff was worth their time.
Now you could've made a real killing on that stuff. At least at the one's I've attended.
The difference between the Korean war and our current debacle?
Another notable difference would be that the Korean war had full UN support. In fact there are still UN troops in the Korean DMZ, mostly Swiss and Swedish, IIRC.
(note: Communist China was not represented in the UN until the 60's.)
I don't see how coming to Unix from the Windows world is a bad thing. At least not if you do want Linux to be viable on the desktop. Because that's where the Linux-on-the-desktop users are going to be coming from.
These are the same people who say that Linux/Unix will never be ready for the desktop.
That is so wrong, it's slanderous. Mono was started by Miguel de Icaza for pete's sake!!.
The guy started Gnome, Gnumeric, Midnight Commander, Ximian and Mono. I cannot name any single person who has done more for Linux on the desktop than that guy. And you say he says Linux will never be ready for the desktop??!
Well, jeez.. his actions sure had me fooled.
Just because a business could offer a service, doesn't mean that they're required to do so.
I didn't imply they were required to do so, other than in the sense I belive they are required to do so if they wish to have the mindshare and visiblity on the web that they have had in the newspaper industry.
They might also face restrictions imposed by the original source of the photo
Certainly, but not most of them. NYT has staff photographers. Besides that, I can hardly imagine a major difference in cost between publishing a non-print-quality image for a limited time period and indefinetly. Indeed, the costs could very well be outweighed by increasing their existing business in the sale of quality reproductions.
What do they gain by making that archive available?
Well I stated those points above: Marketing, visibility, name recognition, and likely, increased business. At the least less lost business, since there are obviously competitors providing the aforementioned services.
In an interesting coincidence, just an hour or so ago, I was looking for an article I read online in the NYT. Specifically, I was looking for an interesting image which was in the article. (Not for any specific use, I just wanted to show a friend.)
Besides the fact that the article is in the archive now (yet less than a month old!) and costs money, the page also informs you that:
Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. Our photos are available for purchase, please click here for more information.
Clicking the link reveals that you can order a photographic print for $95, and that's if they have it.
I don't even want a photographic print! A 200x200 pixel bitmap would be fine! (and hardly damaging to their photo sales)
As the article points out, why would anyone casually link to a NYT story? There is simply no point in linking to something most can't access without paying.
They certainly deserve that Google ranking.
Well, Miguel helped create Gnome and Midnight Commander too, didn't see them mentioned either..
Seriously though, I don't think Mono is that important, yet. The main reason, I believe, for buying Ximian was their Desktop and Connector products, whereas the Mono part was a strategic investment.
However, any means of bringing about state B has been made illegal.
Certainly not. Mr. Joe could suddenly die from a massive cerebral haemorrhage, for instance.
Both these analogies are silly. The issue, stated in clear terms is this:
A) You have the right to make a backup copy of copyrighted material.
B) You are prohibited from circumventing copy-protection mechanisms on copyrighted material.
If something has a copy-protection mechanism, you cannot make a backup copy of copyrighted material without circumventing the copy-protection mechanism.
So the right (A) is in direct conflict with the prohibition (B).
However, (A) is not written in law. US copyright law (Title 17, sect 107) does not explictly specify what is 'fair use'.
Making a backup-copy for personal use has been found to qualify as fair use through legal precedent. It is a common-law right.
The prohibition (B), however, is explicitly written in law, in the DMCA. It is statutory.
Thus B has precedence over A. You do not have the right to make a backup copy of copy-protected copyrighted materials.
But it appears that the crux of this case is that Red Hat must prove that the mis-stated earnings were the result of an honest mistake, not intentional fudging
Since when is guilt generally presumed?
Obviously Red Hat has spread some information which turned out to be false. Obviously they now know this information was false.
But the plaintiffs must still prove that Red Hat knew this was false when they released the information.
Enron is not different in that respect either. The difference is that in the Enron case, the discrepancies were so huge that it is not reasonable to assume they didn't know.
There is no reasonable doubt there. Not in my mind anyway.
What a deal, what a deal!
Probably not a good deal for the guy who hacked together a PHP script to conveniently display his web-page of pet photos.
But I could see how this could be a good deal for larger websites who're already running on x86. Given the speed and memory benefits of native code should have over interpreted, a sufficiently large website could save that sum on hardware upgrades alone.
And I suppose that would be the intended customer.
Owing to the collapse of East Germany, there does not appear to be any copyright holder for this software.
I'm not certain the MAME guys should be so sure of that though. Had it had any commercial value whatsoever, you can bet someone would've claimed it.
There have been cases of rights disputes over Soviet creations, not to mention the big fuss over Tetris back in the day.
Who are you accusing? The parent or grandparent poster?
Because I certainly don't have a problem with nudity in any form (or swearing for that matter).
I was merely giving the grandparent poster the benefit of the doubt by assuming through the context that 'we' meant, 'we the people of the USA' and not 'mankind' and that 'never' meant in 'never in the history of the united states' and not 'never in the history of mankind'.
The US did start a few years ago, evolutionarily speaking. And during that period, they have not tolerated nudity in public or swearing.
You do realize you can acknowledge something as fact without necessarily agreeing with it?
Oh, and I disagree about "only showing up in repressive cultures or religions". Nudity and cursing are typical taboos, and taboos have existed in every culture we know of. A general observation one can make though, is that open societies have less taboos than more tribalistic ones.
(This argument is persuasively put forward by Karl Popper in the first part of "Open society and its enemies", I suggest reading it if you want a more detailed definition of 'open' vs. 'tribalistic' societies)
Repression has little to do with it -that is a matter of how the taboos are enforced.
And *you* should learn to get the picture before talking about the Big one, and not assume a broader context than justified.
When have we NOT held that public nudity and swearing in public are a bad thing?
No argument there.
Especially on the broadcast airwaves? When have we EVER allowed it?
Before 1978, when the Supreme Court found that the government had the right to regulate the obscene material in broadcasting.
Far, far too much of the current US debate is all about ad hominem attacks. It never seems to matter what anyone says anymore..
It's all about "he's just out to sell his book/movie", "get attention" or "to further his/her career". Either that or it's about who they hung around with 30 years ago. Or who they've had sex with. Or if they've ever used drugs. Or how they used to feel differently, and therefore must be hypocrites.
From following the so-called debate, you wouldn't think anyone ever said anything just because they actually believed in it. Or that it could actually be, that someone with personal faults could actually be right, and that a person with a spotless reputation could be wrong about something?
It just makes me sick. And anyone thinks this posting is itself partisan in any way*, they need to seriously start thinking about what democracy is supposed to be about.
* Not counting people who truly advocate totalitarian systems, of course
Some think it is UFO fuel, so obviously the Intel engineers are in on the conspiracy! Obviously, they must be after using some of those top-secret UFO secrets in their chip design!!
Statistically, only 30 people out of a group that size should have gotten cancer in their lifetimes.
That is wrong. That's not how statistics work.
Without doubting the statistic itself, the correct way of putting that would be "Statistically, the most likely number of cancer victims in a group that size would be only 30".
As others have pointed out, there may also be reason to doubt that statistic. When someone says "Experts say.." without providing a reference or anything more specific: Be sceptical.
Read, for example The European Patent Convention on the "Inventive Step" which is required for an invention to be patentable:
An invention shall be considered as involving an inventive step if, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art.
In the USA, the Patent Act (sec 103a) reads:
A patent may not be obtained [...] if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.
(emphasis mine)
The problem isn't the legal requirement, the problem is lack of enforcement due to lax, unwilling or just unskilled patent examiners, possibly coupled with a general "let it pass"-attitude.
I should clarify that.. Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal either. It's a gray area, subject to license agreements and so on.
However, the right to reverse-engineer for interoperability purposes is clearly legal, and can't be waived by license agreements.
(Norwegian copyright law, paragraph 39i).
Yes, well the difference here is that the burden of proof is reversed: Reverse-engineering is not generally legal -It is legal for interoperability purposes as an exception to the rule.
Since the fact that DVD-playing software, and the DVD encryption had been reverse-engineered was not in dispute, the burden of evidence was on the defense to prove that it was legal with the framework of 'fair-use' and interoperability.
They succeeded at that. However, it does not void the rule itself.
So in this case, I do feel it is more appropriate to assume it is illegal and present the legal options as special-cases, because that is how the law looks.
...somebody is very pissed off at having to pay shipping costs for a 10-ton hydroelectric turbine he never ordered.
You really should learn how to read.
Bragging about your new skills, eh?
The parent was referring to the arguments made during the trial, not the ruling.
Yes, that was the reference, and since the defense won, the implication would be that that was the finding of the court. It was not.
Besides which, the general argument "Decrypting DVD's is not illegal" was not the strategy put forward by the defense either.
Let's be a bit more precise, since being precise is rather important in legal matters..
What the norwegian court found (in Norwegian) was:
"DVD-Jon" did not have the intention to promote piracy, but to enable playing on Linux, and enable making back-ups of his DVDs.
The court also found that there is a fair-use right to a backup copy. They also found that licenses voiding this right were unenforcable.
They also found that the reverse-engineering done by "the nomad" (not Jon himself) was done in order to obtain interoperability, and thus legal under Norwegian and European (91/250/EEC, article 6) law.
Hence, they found that decrypting DVDs using this information aquired through reverse-engineering in order to create backup-copies was legal.
Basically what I'm saying here, is that from the verdict, it is not clear that he would've been found innocent if the procecution had been able to prove he had created DeCSS with the intent to enable piracy.
So you can't generalize the ruling into "Decrypting DVD's is not illegal in Norway".