Perhaps however, you're trying to feed the family and it's riding on this idea...
There are many ways to support one's family. Some of them involve robbing banks, some of them involve protection rackets, and some of them involve restricting information. Others involve providing value to someone without constraining their further use of that value. This includes manufacturing, services, etc.
There are plenty of ways to earn money that preserve everyone's freedom.
Perhaps. But if the copyright system weren't there, then the GPL would be unnecessary because we could share anything.
The GPL is a compromise designed for use in a less-than-ideal world. In an ideal world, there would be no copyright and sharing would be the natural thing to do.
You claiming that a bunch of greedy downloaders are 'tuFF and righteous rebels' and that there is a 'political dynamic to it all' falls flat on it's face.
Which post were you reading? For me, politics is the process by which restrictions of personal behavior are managed. I don't view a rejection of copyright as politic, I view it as self-interest.
Greedy downloaders don't care about politics. The people who care about politics are those that think it's OK to restrict the public's freedoms if it means someone can make money.
By golly, if you're going to rebel, do something significant.
I call bullshit. You are trying to style yourself,
and others who are ripping off other peoples' work as high minded revolutionaries. What a crock
No, we're not high-minded. We reject other peoples' attempts to control us, a very selfish view, I agree.
Do you view artists as servants that should perform at your feet for your pleasure
and be happy about it?
If they can't earn money by telling me what configurations of atoms and sequences of bits I can't pass on to my friends, I don't ask that they grovel at my feet. Let them find other jobs.
Thanks for alerting me to my messed up homepage link. I deleted my files on the server recently (I graduated in the Spring) and have a new homepage.
We don't copy software and music because we're trying to help the music industry; we do it because we can, and doing this doesn't harm anyone. Anyone, that is, except for those people that think they can tell us what we can say or share.
Yet we try to present music sharing as "helping the music industry!" It's like telling King George that Britain will benefit from granting the colonies self-rule. Sometime the reality will strike: music sharers don't care about the music industry and they don't care about the artists. Sales will eventually fall.
Better that we tell the industry what our resistance is really about: We reject the government's copyright system that makes Federal authorities into thugs that enforce the music companies' restrictions of our freedom to spread information to whomever we want.
You claim that Star Wars was a certain way, and the Matrix was a certain way, but isn't that also a unilateral opinion? If I recall correctly, I said that:
any randomly selected committee of fans could
have told the director "This is crap!"
I base this statement on personal experience. The vast majority of Star Wars fans I know consider Episodes I and II to be crap. If you will honestly claim that the majority of Star Wars fans you know thinks Episodes I and II were a refreshing change after that "space western" The Empire Strikes Back, then do so.
I find it amusing that you would compare a movie that features a walking cross between an amphibian and an anti-Jamaican racial slur with Elizabeth. But that's my personal opinion, I won't foist it on you.
What I am saying is: "How can directors go from making a movie that's so popular to producing something that people hate? Because people watch it anyway!" The public lulls directors into thinking they are gods.
In all honesty, I think you've hit on a very good moniker there. It conveys just the right sense of the ridiculous nature of these companies' existences.
Agreed. But the problem is (as always) the people who make movies are, in general, egomaniacs. Witness George Lucas' destruction of the perfectly good Star Wars franchise and the Wachowskis' failure in The Matrix: Revolutions. In both cases, any randomly selected committee of fans could have told the director "This is crap!"
Unfortunately, directors' egocentrism is reinforced by scores of loyal fans who will go and see the movies because of a (vain) hope that the director will deliver "this time." That's why I'm not going to watch RotK unless I see good reviews from Tolkien purists.
Maybe in the future when killer CGI is cheap, people will be able to redo the Lord of the Rings, but it will most likely be an underground production, as I don't think New Line is going to be very eager to give up their movie rights. Perhaps a similar thing will happen for Star Wars.
If it ever consistently failed to return useful results, or was discovered to be misleading you, it would be replaced by a better competitor.
I'd like to think that. Certainly if it failed to return useful results, that would damage it. But I don't think one could compete with Google simply on the basis of "Hey, we don't filter out the Anarchist's Cookbook!" (Note: Google doesn't censor this as of this writing.)
People who are completely unable to trust end up in mental hospitals.
The kind of people who end up in mental hospitals are those who believe everybody is involved in a huge conspiracy to "get" them. This is an irrational belief that everybody else's self-interest runs counter to one's own.
Belief that leaders of organizations prefer that their members quietly accept the leaders' views is based upon a rational belief that people prefer others' self-interest to be aligned with their own. I'd like it if everyone agreed with me.:)
A desire to have one's own self-interest be independent of anyone else's (not opposite, just independent) isn't paranoia. It's based on sound evolutionary principles. In Ghost in the Shell, Motoko Kusanagi says very accurately:
"If we all reacted the same we'd be predictable. And there's more than one way to view a situation. What's true for the group is also true for the individual. It's simple. Overspecialize and you breed in weakness. It's slow death."
I agree that it is not the GUI per se that is the instrument of oppression. It is, instead, the adoption of mediated tools to access information.
For instance, when I want to find something on the Internet, I use Google. I trust that if I type in two words, Google will find me Web pages that contain those two words. I have no idea how they do this, because they keep it secret.
This is the dangerous thing. The Merovingian (watch Matrix II Reloaded!) would love it: I type in words and I get links and I click them, with no idea of why I got them!
Nowadays, that's reasonable (although Google is already starting to remove links that are extremely unpopular or expose them to lawsuits). But in the future, Google's mediation of my interface to the Web could really hamper me.
If at that point, I continue to use Google with no understanding of how to spider the Web for myself, I'm screwed. My searches will be controlled by Google, and I will be jacked in to their particular Matrix, seeing only information they choose to purvey.
Similarly, right now I use a PowerBook for everything. I have a Japanese DVD (Spirited Away) that I want to watch. But I can't, because the firmware in my DVD-ROM drive locks me out. I have allowed another company to mediate my experience of the data on the DVD. They have chosen to limit what I can see, and because I don't understand their hardware (i.e. I can't reprogram their BIOS) I am at their mercy.
The GUI can be a powerful tool. It can enable one to visualize what is going on in an extremely detailed fashion. But if I don't know what's being visualized, and what simplifications are being made, and how they're being performed, I'm screwed if I want to do it any differently.
Have you watched Serial Experiments Lain? It is a Japanese animation about a little girl that is slowly sucked into the world of the Internet. In her school, they learn programming and she has a textbook that describes the architecture of her computer. In effect, this is what all who want complete self-determination need: a textbook that tells us how the tools we use to process data do it.
This makes non-self-determination an attractive option. Most people will simply choose to take what they are given and to hell with how it's processed or from what source. They will eventually end up looking at a data-feed and occasionally clicking on interesting bits of information. This may be a satisfying way of life.
Then there will be the Merovingians, holding all the keys. They will understand the workings of the data-feeds and will, through subtle manipulation, be able to tap the vast computing power of the hardware that underlies them. They will also control all the drones.
The fight is happening right now. The media companies are the Merovingians, and consumers of media are being herded into smaller and smaller squares. Some will squeeze out of the barriers, and form a Zion of resistance, of hard-fought lives on the fringes of the information society. Some will join the Merovingians. But most will enter the Matrix.
As Roac son of Carc would say, I will not say if this be good or bad. But I will say that I want to be in Zion.
my point is that it all comes down to Suspension of Disbelief, and if you... can't grok that then why are you watching Science Fiction in the first place?
Science fiction is about the implications potential future advancements of technology might have. The best science fiction takes current technology and makes realistic assumptions about its future, making as few unsubstantiated leaps as possible yet creating an interesting future with interesting problems that form the foundation for a story.
Superhuman foresight, on the other hand, is not science fiction but rather simple surrealism, unless the author deliberately postulates some link between concepts of time (such as modern quantum theory) and the human brain.
Of course, you are right that movie science fiction tends to fall into the trap of "if the CGI guys can make a technology look good, it's justifiable to put it into the movie" -- hence Neo's ability to see the machines.
It is hard to respect a writer who equates Linux zealots, with people that seek nothing less than the complete failure of our modern society and who are willing to fight to death for it.
Whoa!
Wait a sec... there are many people who legitimately oppose modern society and hope that the organizations that underpin it will fail.
For instance, I feel that the (US) government, for instance, is establishing a society in which any activity that moves money into deep pockets is per se good and therefore protected by legislation.
I would love to see that society fail, and I cheer every day for my personal heroes, the coders who break encryption algorithms and leak code, and prove the long-term unfeasibility of this system.
I would describe these people as people that seek the end of our "modern" Intellectual Property regime and are willing to risk arrest for it. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - except these freedom fighters are not killers, but crackers.
In short, your definition of "terrorist" is, I would say, inaccurate. Better to say that a terrorist is someone who is willing to kill, injure, abduct, or otherwise harm people who aren't doing anything wrong, to achieve political ends. I will agree that this is distinct from anything even the most die-hard Linux zealot would do.
Although the urge to punch those SCO people in the face occasionally does cause twitching in my arm:)
Chances are you're trolling. Consider this a bite if you like.
Thousands die each year in auto accidents, mainly because of simple negligence on the part of drivers. This is a huge problem, a challenge to society to make its drivers more responsible. Yet it hardly ever makes the national news.
On the other hand, a couple of assholes blow up an office building, killing hundreds, and the media makes a huge brouhaha. Note the wording the original poster used:
...more attention than it deserved.
These guys' dream was to die for their religion. A secondary dream was to make America fear them, little fish though they were. Voila, the media has handed their prize to them on a plate. Americans have been driven into a 9/11 paranoia by the media, elevating these assholes to legendary martyrs among the idiots who revere such things (of whom there are many).
And tell me, what possible good does hearing about terrorism do us? At least with SCO we know there's a community out there that will support us if we resist SCO's lawsuits, and we are aware of the fraudulence of SCO's claims. All we get from the WTC reporting is "Arabs are really devious and want to kill you! True Americans hate them!"
I, for one, categorically refuse to hate Arabs. So I'm left (if I give a shit at all about the threat of terrorism) juggling worries about poisoned water supplies, terrorist-cut power, planes crashing into (or cars blowing up) the building I'm occupying, people opening fire randomly and killing me, gas attacks, etc. If I'm not careful, I'm going to become a paranoid, join the NRA, and move to Montana.
Now, about respect for the dead. Think about it - suppose my kid dies in an auto accident, or in a shooting, etc. I get a funeral at best. Now, some people die in an office building, and they get their names scrolled down a huge sheet at the Super Bowl! Why?
If you had friends who died in the WTC disaster, then by all means mourn them. But don't expect everyone else to kowtow to them or you.
I just wish you were there instead of them
The words of a child. This is why I'm expecting you to respond with a "YHBT YHL HAND".
Re:Looks great
on
iWorkstations?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Apple products (and I admit this isn't one) tend to look nice but not be as generally versatile and adaptable to peoples' needs.
What!? I dispute that statement. Consider the PowerBook for instance. (I know the PB because I just bought one.)
To transfer files to/from any other box: plug an
ethernet cable into the (built-in) e-net plug (it doesn't
have to be a crossover cable). Open System Preferences
from the Apple menu; click Sharing; then check FTP
access.
To use an external monitor: plug it in.
To make a disc image from a CD, open Disk Copy
and select "New -> Image from Device" from the File
menu.
Simplicity. Point 1 in favor of the Mac.
To use virtually any Free app, install Fink, Fink
Commander and X11. Click on the name of the app in
Fink Commander, then the Install button, and it's
installed, with all dependencies.
To add storage devices, plug them in to the USB or
FireWire (IEEE-1394) port. They're automatically
detected.
So, how many sysadmins do you know that would be good riot cops?
Sending US soldiers to put up fiber would be a little weird if crime is rampant; however, if a bunch of specialists want to do their part, let 'em - that's what your parent is saying.
Good people, I have copied the Brookhave Press Release below, in case of Slashdotting of the server, of just in case you with to save our goverment a few nickels in bandwidth cost, nickels that might be better used to spread freedom, and democracy throughout the world.
Wow! Thanks for the tip - Now I'm going to transfer the original link to the k1dd13z at irc://efnet/#dd05.
I don't think it's that simple. The US government isn't making the mistake on the Net that they made in Iraq; rather, we're slowly but surely bending other governments to our will.
One of the things we're creating right now is a regime in which all countries wanting to do business in the global marketplace must have laws allowing holders of IP (mainly American, of course) to exert power in their countries.
Also, as we pressure other countries' police forces into cooperating with our FBI (first on terrorism, but soon on other things), a new regime will develop in which breakers of one country's (mainly America's) laws can be arrested in another country.
Companies and our government would be foolish to do anthing as dramatic and sudden as you suggest. But as our notions of individual rights propagate through the new international regimes I describe, other countries will slowly become like we are.
Scott McNealy said that, but the vision was implemented by others.
CMU's Mach (1985), Andrew Tanenbaum's
Amoeba (1986), and Plan 9 (1987) were OSes that made a network into a computer.
To be fair, Sun does have ChorusOS , but that seems to have died the death (i.e. gone Sun Public Source) despite Scott's best intentions.
I don't know about slides, but pdfscreen is much faster than the method you suggest.
I have thrown together presentations in two hours (and that's counting planning) using nothing but pdflatex, the pdfscreen package, and xfig that had non-TeX users asking, "How did you do that?"
About the only thing I can think of that PowerPoint does and pdfscreen does not, is embedding video.
That would be great... one could have a system by which there are "competing" packages for certain roles (vi vs emacs,etc.)
Then, whichever package gets chosen more stays. Of course, one would need somehow to fork it so that the forks could compete... but, given OSS politics, that shouldn't be too hard to do. (Lucid Emacs, anyone?)
Threat and warning are similar. I would draw the distinction here:
If I tell you that rocks may fall on your car if you go along a certain road, I am warning you about falling rocks.
If I tell you my goons will drop rocks on your car if you go along a certain road, I am threatening you with falling rocks.
The company has a choice whether it will prosecute the DMCA violation. This is not a capital crime where the state must prosecute. Therefore, the company's letter is a statement of "we will drop rocks on you" more than one of "rocks will fall on you."
Slashdot Mirror
There are plenty of ways to earn money that preserve everyone's freedom.
The GPL is a compromise designed for use in a less-than-ideal world. In an ideal world, there would be no copyright and sharing would be the natural thing to do.
Which post were you reading? For me, politics is the process by which restrictions of personal behavior are managed. I don't view a rejection of copyright as politic, I view it as self-interest.
Greedy downloaders don't care about politics. The people who care about politics are those that think it's OK to restrict the public's freedoms if it means someone can make money.
I don't care what you think is significant.Thanks for alerting me to my messed up homepage link. I deleted my files on the server recently (I graduated in the Spring) and have a new homepage.
Yet we try to present music sharing as "helping the music industry!" It's like telling King George that Britain will benefit from granting the colonies self-rule. Sometime the reality will strike: music sharers don't care about the music industry and they don't care about the artists. Sales will eventually fall.
Better that we tell the industry what our resistance is really about: We reject the government's copyright system that makes Federal authorities into thugs that enforce the music companies' restrictions of our freedom to spread information to whomever we want.
I find it amusing that you would compare a movie that features a walking cross between an amphibian and an anti-Jamaican racial slur with Elizabeth. But that's my personal opinion, I won't foist it on you.
What I am saying is: "How can directors go from making a movie that's so popular to producing something that people hate? Because people watch it anyway!" The public lulls directors into thinking they are gods.
In all honesty, I think you've hit on a very good moniker there. It conveys just the right sense of the ridiculous nature of these companies' existences.
Unfortunately, directors' egocentrism is reinforced by scores of loyal fans who will go and see the movies because of a (vain) hope that the director will deliver "this time." That's why I'm not going to watch RotK unless I see good reviews from Tolkien purists.
Maybe in the future when killer CGI is cheap, people will be able to redo the Lord of the Rings, but it will most likely be an underground production, as I don't think New Line is going to be very eager to give up their movie rights. Perhaps a similar thing will happen for Star Wars.
I'd like to think that. Certainly if it failed to return useful results, that would damage it. But I don't think one could compete with Google simply on the basis of "Hey, we don't filter out the Anarchist's Cookbook!" (Note: Google doesn't censor this as of this writing.)
People who are completely unable to trust end up in mental hospitals.
The kind of people who end up in mental hospitals are those who believe everybody is involved in a huge conspiracy to "get" them. This is an irrational belief that everybody else's self-interest runs counter to one's own.
Belief that leaders of organizations prefer that their members quietly accept the leaders' views is based upon a rational belief that people prefer others' self-interest to be aligned with their own. I'd like it if everyone agreed with me. :)
A desire to have one's own self-interest be independent of anyone else's (not opposite, just independent) isn't paranoia. It's based on sound evolutionary principles. In Ghost in the Shell , Motoko Kusanagi says very accurately:
This does not contradict my point. If you are indeed capable of writing your own search engine, congratulations: you are among the liberated.
For instance, when I want to find something on the Internet, I use Google. I trust that if I type in two words, Google will find me Web pages that contain those two words. I have no idea how they do this, because they keep it secret.
This is the dangerous thing. The Merovingian (watch Matrix II Reloaded!) would love it: I type in words and I get links and I click them, with no idea of why I got them!
Nowadays, that's reasonable (although Google is already starting to remove links that are extremely unpopular or expose them to lawsuits). But in the future, Google's mediation of my interface to the Web could really hamper me.
If at that point, I continue to use Google with no understanding of how to spider the Web for myself, I'm screwed. My searches will be controlled by Google, and I will be jacked in to their particular Matrix, seeing only information they choose to purvey.
Similarly, right now I use a PowerBook for everything. I have a Japanese DVD (Spirited Away) that I want to watch. But I can't, because the firmware in my DVD-ROM drive locks me out. I have allowed another company to mediate my experience of the data on the DVD. They have chosen to limit what I can see, and because I don't understand their hardware (i.e. I can't reprogram their BIOS) I am at their mercy.
The GUI can be a powerful tool. It can enable one to visualize what is going on in an extremely detailed fashion. But if I don't know what's being visualized, and what simplifications are being made, and how they're being performed, I'm screwed if I want to do it any differently.
Have you watched Serial Experiments Lain? It is a Japanese animation about a little girl that is slowly sucked into the world of the Internet. In her school, they learn programming and she has a textbook that describes the architecture of her computer. In effect, this is what all who want complete self-determination need: a textbook that tells us how the tools we use to process data do it.
This makes non-self-determination an attractive option. Most people will simply choose to take what they are given and to hell with how it's processed or from what source. They will eventually end up looking at a data-feed and occasionally clicking on interesting bits of information. This may be a satisfying way of life.
Then there will be the Merovingians, holding all the keys. They will understand the workings of the data-feeds and will, through subtle manipulation, be able to tap the vast computing power of the hardware that underlies them. They will also control all the drones.
The fight is happening right now. The media companies are the Merovingians, and consumers of media are being herded into smaller and smaller squares. Some will squeeze out of the barriers, and form a Zion of resistance, of hard-fought lives on the fringes of the information society. Some will join the Merovingians. But most will enter the Matrix.
As Roac son of Carc would say, I will not say if this be good or bad. But I will say that I want to be in Zion.
Science fiction is about the implications potential future advancements of technology might have. The best science fiction takes current technology and makes realistic assumptions about its future, making as few unsubstantiated leaps as possible yet creating an interesting future with interesting problems that form the foundation for a story.
Superhuman foresight, on the other hand, is not science fiction but rather simple surrealism, unless the author deliberately postulates some link between concepts of time (such as modern quantum theory) and the human brain.
Of course, you are right that movie science fiction tends to fall into the trap of "if the CGI guys can make a technology look good, it's justifiable to put it into the movie" -- hence Neo's ability to see the machines.
I always thought the reason FM sucked was air (and denser stuff) introducing noise. There's a lot less stuff to go through in the home.
I doubt, though, that the FM solution would be as cheap as the original poster suggested, if you want decent hardware.
Tom Lehrer, as I recall, set them to music.
Wait a sec... there are many people who legitimately oppose modern society and hope that the organizations that underpin it will fail.
For instance, I feel that the (US) government, for instance, is establishing a society in which any activity that moves money into deep pockets is per se good and therefore protected by legislation.
I would love to see that society fail, and I cheer every day for my personal heroes, the coders who break encryption algorithms and leak code, and prove the long-term unfeasibility of this system.
I would describe these people as people that seek the end of our "modern" Intellectual Property regime and are willing to risk arrest for it. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - except these freedom fighters are not killers, but crackers.
In short, your definition of "terrorist" is, I would say, inaccurate. Better to say that a terrorist is someone who is willing to kill, injure, abduct, or otherwise harm people who aren't doing anything wrong, to achieve political ends. I will agree that this is distinct from anything even the most die-hard Linux zealot would do.
Although the urge to punch those SCO people in the face occasionally does cause twitching in my arm :)
Of course, at that time our friends at NEC
will have produced an embedded system that sells for about $10 and does the same thing.
Thousands die each year in auto accidents, mainly because of simple negligence on the part of drivers. This is a huge problem, a challenge to society to make its drivers more responsible. Yet it hardly ever makes the national news.
On the other hand, a couple of assholes blow up an office building, killing hundreds, and the media makes a huge brouhaha. Note the wording the original poster used:
These guys' dream was to die for their religion. A secondary dream was to make America fear them, little fish though they were. Voila, the media has handed their prize to them on a plate. Americans have been driven into a 9/11 paranoia by the media, elevating these assholes to legendary martyrs among the idiots who revere such things (of whom there are many).
And tell me, what possible good does hearing about terrorism do us? At least with SCO we know there's a community out there that will support us if we resist SCO's lawsuits, and we are aware of the fraudulence of SCO's claims. All we get from the WTC reporting is "Arabs are really devious and want to kill you! True Americans hate them!"
I, for one, categorically refuse to hate Arabs. So I'm left (if I give a shit at all about the threat of terrorism) juggling worries about poisoned water supplies, terrorist-cut power, planes crashing into (or cars blowing up) the building I'm occupying, people opening fire randomly and killing me, gas attacks, etc. If I'm not careful, I'm going to become a paranoid, join the NRA, and move to Montana.
Now, about respect for the dead. Think about it - suppose my kid dies in an auto accident, or in a shooting, etc. I get a funeral at best. Now, some people die in an office building, and they get their names scrolled down a huge sheet at the Super Bowl! Why?
If you had friends who died in the WTC disaster, then by all means mourn them. But don't expect everyone else to kowtow to them or you.
I just wish you were there instead of them
The words of a child. This is why I'm expecting you to respond with a "YHBT YHL HAND".
What!? I dispute that statement. Consider the PowerBook for instance. (I know the PB because I just bought one.)
- To transfer files to/from any other box: plug an
ethernet cable into the (built-in) e-net plug (it doesn't
have to be a crossover cable). Open System Preferences
from the Apple menu; click Sharing; then check FTP
access.
- To use an external monitor: plug it in.
- To make a disc image from a CD, open Disk Copy
and select "New -> Image from Device" from the File
menu.
Simplicity. Point 1 in favor of the Mac.- To use virtually any Free app, install Fink, Fink
Commander and X11. Click on the name of the app in
Fink Commander, then the Install button, and it's
installed, with all dependencies.
- To add storage devices, plug them in to the USB or
FireWire (IEEE-1394) port. They're automatically
detected.
Versatility. Point 2 in favor of the Mac.Style over substance, n'est[-ce] pas?
No. Style with substance.
Well, at least you have the courage to admit it.
So, how many sysadmins do you know that would be good riot cops?
Sending US soldiers to put up fiber would be a little weird if crime is rampant; however, if a bunch of specialists want to do their part, let 'em - that's what your parent is saying.
Wow! Thanks for the tip - Now I'm going to transfer the original link to the k1dd13z at irc://efnet/#dd05.
One of the things we're creating right now is a regime in which all countries wanting to do business in the global marketplace must have laws allowing holders of IP (mainly American, of course) to exert power in their countries.
Also, as we pressure other countries' police forces into cooperating with our FBI (first on terrorism, but soon on other things), a new regime will develop in which breakers of one country's (mainly America's) laws can be arrested in another country.
Companies and our government would be foolish to do anthing as dramatic and sudden as you suggest. But as our notions of individual rights propagate through the new international regimes I describe, other countries will slowly become like we are.
Scott McNealy said that, but the vision was implemented by others. CMU's Mach (1985), Andrew Tanenbaum's Amoeba (1986), and Plan 9 (1987) were OSes that made a network into a computer.
To be fair, Sun does have ChorusOS , but that seems to have died the death (i.e. gone Sun Public Source) despite Scott's best intentions.
I don't know about slides, but pdfscreen is much faster than the method you suggest.
I have thrown together presentations in two hours (and that's counting planning) using nothing but pdflatex, the pdfscreen package, and xfig that had non-TeX users asking, "How did you do that?"
About the only thing I can think of that PowerPoint does and pdfscreen does not, is embedding video.
That would be great... one could have a system by which there are "competing" packages for certain roles (vi vs emacs,etc.)
Then, whichever package gets chosen more stays. Of course, one would need somehow to fork it so that the forks could compete... but, given OSS politics, that shouldn't be too hard to do. (Lucid Emacs, anyone?)
Threat and warning are similar. I would draw the distinction here:
The company has a choice whether it will prosecute the DMCA violation. This is not a capital crime where the state must prosecute. Therefore, the company's letter is a statement of "we will drop rocks on you" more than one of "rocks will fall on you."