IANAL, but claiming in a legal document something that you know is false can land you in deep doodoo.
The DVD lawyers have protected themselves from this in some way, I imagine. I didn't read the letter THEY wrote, so for all I know it could be the same as those letters that come in the mail with big bold letters on the front saying "YOU HAVE ONE TEN MILLION DOLLARS".
Ya know, just because the people making DVDs would like it if it were so doesn't make DVDs software and buying a DVD a license to use that software.
I'm even skeptical that "Click to Agree" license agreements for Software would be legally binding if someone had a good lawyer and there wasn't a law specifically adressing the issue.
Anyhow, I've bought DVDs before. I've bought a DVD player before. Not once did I ever agree to any license agreement, therefore no license agreement applies.
Copyright law still applies, but I do not owe my eternal soul to a movie studio just because I purchased City Of Lost Children on DVD.
If MS ported IE 5 well to Linux, I guarantee you there would be a distribution that would put IE5 as it's default browser in place of Netscape.
Netscape never told anyone they couldn't put a competing browser on the desktop instead.
There is no reason why a standards-compliant browser could not be used instead of Netscape (other than the fact that a standards-compliant browser doesn't yet exist).
And finally, Netscape does not hold a monopoly. "The rules change when you're number 1."
If Netscape had used their early monopoly on browsers to force all ISPs to sign an agreement that they would never distribute any web browser but Netscape, that would have been monopolistic anti-competitive practices. Netscape's monopoly was never complete enough and did not last long enough for that to happen.
I think every OS should have the ability to render HTML and run Java applets. My biggest fear about Mozilla is that it is turning into Communicator 5. I sincerely hope it will be simple to make a lightweight browser-and-nothing-else out of it.
I agree with you that metaphors get way out of hand and are a poor argument tool.
However, I think your counter argument actually re-inforced the other's points.
What purpose does it serve to integrate a radio with the car's computer allowing anyone that steals the radio to disable the vehicle? Or, for a radio frequency to inhibit the operations of said vehicle causing a safety hazard?
What purpose does it serve to integrate a browser with poor security with an OS, allowing any malicious ActiveX complete control over the OS?
What real benifits does "Integrating" the browser with the OS give you that a properly COM/DCOM/OLE/ActiveSquigy/HeyBaby2000 enabled 3rd party browser wouldn't be able to do? And don't say "speed" as Microsoft did a wonderful job of convincing the Judge that performance was not impacted when IE was removed when they manufactured false evidence.
Maybe it's time for Lemon Laws in the software industry.
The internet is partially responsible for the slump in PC sales.
Before the internet, everything on your computer got faster and every version of software needed faster hardware.
Along comes the internet, and even a 56K modem isn't fast enough to feed an average computer what it needs. The internet must cater to the masses stuck on slow internet connections, which limits software. People don't need new faster computers because the network is the bottleneck. A faster computer can't draw a GIF faster than the 56K can download it!
The "Broadband" we have now isn't really enough either. When we have enough bandwidth coming into our homes to watch at least 2 channels of HDTV over the internet, you'll see the PC market heat up again. VR will grow (Quake 3 + MUD,MOO,MUSH,etc).
I think Steve Jobs was right about one thing. The PC is not becoming obsolete in the face of PDAs and cellphones. Instead, it is becoming the hub of a digital lifestyle.
You're right, that is *my* funky ass reading of the constitution and these are my own ramblings. IANAL and so-forth. Just as priests should not be the only people to attempt to interpret religous scriptures (atheists would agree with this, as they interpret it as a bunch of hooey), lawyers are not the only people who should attempt to interperet the constitution and law.
I was speaking of the spirit of the constitution. Obviously, people have felt the same way about this before. Witness the trouble one of the networks (NBC?) got in for using explosives to make car's light on fire because that's what they were telling a story about, and gosh dernit those dang cars were supposed to light up!
The CBS logo superimpose is not so bad, but it's a dangerous precedent for "the news". If a reporter films a riot and then re-broadcasts it and claims it's live, they would be in deep trouble. Does the fact that it was only edited two (or so) frames ago by a computer change the fact that it is edited material being sold as live?
You may be right that there's no US law against it. IANAL.
However, someone further below posted a section of the FCC contract which obligates the news to try to be truthfull. I wish I could moderate that one up.
Calling yourself "The News" implicitly obligates you to try and tell the truth.
The US Constitution gaurantees the freedom of the press. Any reasonable person can see that does not mean "any industry calling themselves the press has the right to print anything they want and not be held liable for slander or misleading the public."
The press is free to tell the truth (unless classified, yada yada). As soon as it knowingly stops telling the truth, the people involved ar no longer "the press", and are liable for libel and slander lawsuits as well as criminal prosecution.
Rule of the universe: Freedom and Responsiblity run in parrallel.
P.S. Don't forget that people without cable may not have any choice but CBS for news.
An angry man walks up to Bill Gates and says, "Behind all that money, you're still just a NERD!".
Gates looks at him and says, "You know, if I had a million dollars for every time someone called me a nerd... Oh... nevermind. I do."
If I were Bill Gates, instead of stepping down as CEO of MS, I'd leave completely, buy Apple or Be, and try and crush MicroSoft. You know, just for the hell of it. Of course, BillG selling all his stock at once would seriously hurt MS as it is.
Beowulf (clustering is not linux's innovation, but dirt-cheap clustering?)
Also, innovations is a sketchy subject. Linux is an OS for the developers, and as such has every feature developers need, which other NIXen have had for a while before linux came out.
In consumer-land, innovation means "inventing something consumers think they can't live without even though humanity has for thousands of years before."
Also, innovations is a sketchy subject. Linux is an OS for the developers, and as such has every feature developers need, which other NIXen have had for a while before linux came out.
In consumer-land, innovation means "inventing something consumers think they can't live without even though humanity has for thousands of years before."
I was going to say something clever about the AL in HAL being for AOL, but my brain's not working right now and insinuating that HP would be merged with AOL is just, well, revolting.
"Daddy, why would a computer in 2001 use a bunch of flash RAM cards when SCSI hard disks would be better?"
I was thinking more along the lines of a certified kernel hacker as someone who a company would hire if they wanted to port Linux or FreeBSD to the Rolex or something.
While being among the top 10 contributors to the linux kernel is definitely certification enough to many of us, there's only 10 people in the top 10 whereas there may be many more with such talent out there if they could get a piece of paper to say so and make money off of it.
If fast is the be-all end all for you as a user, you can always choose a theme that does put the buttons close together.
However, I believe the previous poster had a point. The default theme should have the exit button seperate from the other commands because most users (especially if they have cheap and/or dirty mice) will occaisionally hit exit on accident. The lost time from redoing lost work is most definitely greater than the lost time of moving the mouse an inch more.
Also, with wheel mice becoming more popular, the mouse is less often on the scrollbar.
I agree, this is a story to let people laugh/scream at MS.
But the hole you pointed out has major differences to this article. o This article is about a bug that was originally a 'feature' designed to track users. o MS has been aware of the exploit since September, and done nothing. o There are many real exploits actually being used. This is not just a theoretical security risk. o WebTV is marketed to people who don't understand computers at all, and probably don't even own one. There is no way for them to fix bugs. Since MS/WebTV has asked the customers to put complete faith in them, it is 100% MS/WebTV's responsibility for this fundamental design failure.
The security hole you linked to o HAS ALREADY BEEN FIXED o didn't affect all users o had viable workarounds even if the code hadn't been fixed o was the result of a bug, not a fundamental design failure. Bugs are unavoidable. Stupid things like intentionally extending certain standards to allow a web page to send e-mail 100% as if it were the user viewing the web page is just stupid and should never have made it past the Detailed Design Document.
This article does have a purpose, however. MS has ignored this serious privacy/security issue for MONTHS!! They've clearly demonstrated that they are sitting on their thumb about this, and therefore the only way to get them to move is some good old-fashioned bad publicity. I doubt we have many WebTV users reading Slashdot, but publicity also warns the WebTV users about the problem.
(I am NOT an advocate of "let's make M$ fix the problem by exploiting some poor SOB who happened to choose Windows for some reason")
I doubt Interbase is obsolete. I bet it's just unsellable. The people probably left either because they refused to work with open source developers or were tired of their company being spun-off, folded-in, lather, rinse, repeat. Interbase as a product can't compete with MS SQL marketing or deployment.
It is a great value-add to Borland dev-tools. It makes sense to open-source it.
That's one of the key areas where open-source makes sense. Cool technology will not be killed simply because there is not enough financial incentive to maintain it.
Since SQL Server was based totally on Sybase, I highly doubt they could open-source it even if they wanted to. One of the biggest problems for companies like Borland trying to open-source some of their flagship products is cross-licensed technology. They can open-source what they wrote, but not what other people wrote.
Now, if Sybase was open-sourced... Hmm. That would have an interesting effect on SQL Server customers.
Yeah, but don't forget, TP was faster, better, and cheaper than any of it's competitors. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the optimizing technology and dirty little hacks from TP are still being used today.
I do agree that open sourcing TP would be good, but they are a profit-driven company. If open-sourcing TP would give away too many currently used trade secrets, it's less likely to happen.
Yes, but every software DVD player that you get for "free" comes with hardware that you paid for.
Either the software or hardware DVD player for you PC had to pay license fees and sign the license agreement to some sort of DVD control board. This may be the DVDCA, I'm not sure.
More importantly (and this goes a little against what ESR was claiming -- as well as being regurgitated from other/. posts I've read), open source DVD players on ANY platform would not need to sign license agreements for DVD technology, and therefore would not have to support any of the unwanted features of DVD.
For example, they wouldn't have to play the mandatory FBI warning at the beginning of the movie.
Most importantly, probably, they would not have to obey region-locking of the DVDs. This would be bad for content makers, since if they sold a movie for 10 rupees in india (dirt cheep) and $30 US in the USA, then people could by it over the internet for the cheaper price.
I say, screw 'em! I think region locking is unfair. If I had relatives in France and brought my DVD collection of American movies, I wouldn't be able to watch them? If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan. With DVD region locking, I wouldn't be able to watch a movie I had paid for!
Under Windows you have Windows until something goes wrong or you try and push the capabilities past what the interface designers intended. Then you realize that you have the worst command line of any modern PC OS, ridiculous strange behavior because of the DOS legacy (8.3 filenames anyone?) and in the case of Win9x, actual DOS still running underneath.
You also have a poorly implemented registry system, with parts that are purposefully obfuscated to prevent users from mucking around and 0 gaurantee that the information in the registry has any correlation to the data on your hard drive.
Case in point: Adding a new hard drive. I booted in linux and copied the complete contents of my old hard drive to my new hard drive. I booted off the new hard drive and everything worked fine. I then booted with BOTH hard drives plugged in. Quelle surprise, the drive letters where screwed up and all the software I had installed on my D drive was now actually installed on my E drive. The registry still believed they were on the D drive and therefore nothing worked. I've tried changing the drive letters, but strangely enough that option is greyed out. I got it working eventually, of course, since I am not afraid to muck with the registry.
So, yes,/dev/hda1 is more confusing to someone who's been using DOS or Windows than C:, but it's all about a more solid foundation. Windows has a pretty paint job, but the foundation is made out of a bunch of toothpicks and glue.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but claiming in a legal document something that you know is false can land you in deep doodoo.
The DVD lawyers have protected themselves from this in some way, I imagine. I didn't read the letter THEY wrote, so for all I know it could be the same as those letters that come in the mail with big bold letters on the front saying "YOU HAVE ONE TEN MILLION DOLLARS".
What?
Ya know, just because the people making DVDs would like it if it were so doesn't make DVDs software and buying a DVD a license to use that software.
I'm even skeptical that "Click to Agree" license agreements for Software would be legally binding if someone had a good lawyer and there wasn't a law specifically adressing the issue.
Anyhow, I've bought DVDs before. I've bought a DVD player before. Not once did I ever agree to any license agreement, therefore no license agreement applies.
Copyright law still applies, but I do not owe my eternal soul to a movie studio just because I purchased City Of Lost Children on DVD.
That's easy.
If MS ported IE 5 well to Linux, I guarantee you there would be a distribution that would put IE5 as it's default browser in place of Netscape.
Netscape never told anyone they couldn't put a competing browser on the desktop instead.
There is no reason why a standards-compliant browser could not be used instead of Netscape (other than the fact that a standards-compliant browser doesn't yet exist).
And finally, Netscape does not hold a monopoly. "The rules change when you're number 1."
If Netscape had used their early monopoly on browsers to force all ISPs to sign an agreement that they would never distribute any web browser but Netscape, that would have been monopolistic anti-competitive practices. Netscape's monopoly was never complete enough and did not last long enough for that to happen.
I think every OS should have the ability to render HTML and run Java applets. My biggest fear about Mozilla is that it is turning into Communicator 5. I sincerely hope it will be simple to make a lightweight browser-and-nothing-else out of it.
I agree with you that metaphors get way out of hand and are a poor argument tool.
However, I think your counter argument actually re-inforced the other's points.
What purpose does it serve to integrate a radio with the car's computer allowing anyone that steals the radio to disable the vehicle? Or, for a radio frequency to inhibit the operations of said vehicle causing a safety hazard?
What purpose does it serve to integrate a browser with poor security with an OS, allowing any malicious ActiveX complete control over the OS?
What real benifits does "Integrating" the browser with the OS give you that a properly COM/DCOM/OLE/ActiveSquigy/HeyBaby2000 enabled 3rd party browser wouldn't be able to do? And don't say "speed" as Microsoft did a wonderful job of convincing the Judge that performance was not impacted when IE was removed when they manufactured false evidence.
Maybe it's time for Lemon Laws in the software industry.
Don't forget
PREVIEW
FIX
PREVIEW
FIX
PREVIEW
SUBMIT
The internet is partially responsible for the slump in PC sales.
Before the internet, everything on your computer got faster and every version of software needed faster hardware.
Along comes the internet, and even a 56K modem isn't fast enough to feed an average computer what it needs. The internet must cater to the masses stuck on slow internet connections, which limits software. People don't need new faster computers because the network is the bottleneck. A faster computer can't draw a GIF faster than the 56K can download it!
The "Broadband" we have now isn't really enough either. When we have enough bandwidth coming into our homes to watch at least 2 channels of HDTV over the internet, you'll see the PC market heat up again. VR will grow (Quake 3 + MUD,MOO,MUSH,etc).
I think Steve Jobs was right about one thing. The PC is not becoming obsolete in the face of PDAs and cellphones. Instead, it is becoming the hub of a digital lifestyle.
You're right, that is *my* funky ass reading of the constitution and these are my own ramblings. IANAL and so-forth. Just as priests should not be the only people to attempt to interpret religous scriptures (atheists would agree with this, as they interpret it as a bunch of hooey), lawyers are not the only people who should attempt to interperet the constitution and law.
I was speaking of the spirit of the constitution. Obviously, people have felt the same way about this before. Witness the trouble one of the networks (NBC?) got in for using explosives to make car's light on fire because that's what they were telling a story about, and gosh dernit those dang cars were supposed to light up!
The CBS logo superimpose is not so bad, but it's a dangerous precedent for "the news". If a reporter films a riot and then re-broadcasts it and claims it's live, they would be in deep trouble. Does the fact that it was only edited two (or so) frames ago by a computer change the fact that it is edited material being sold as live?
Just more ramblings...
You may be right that there's no US law against it. IANAL.
However, someone further below posted a section of the FCC contract which obligates the news to try to be truthfull. I wish I could moderate that one up.
It's not that simple.
Calling yourself "The News" implicitly obligates you to try and tell the truth.
The US Constitution gaurantees the freedom of the press. Any reasonable person can see that does not mean "any industry calling themselves the press has the right to print anything they want and not be held liable for slander or misleading the public."
The press is free to tell the truth (unless classified, yada yada). As soon as it knowingly stops telling the truth, the people involved ar no longer "the press", and are liable for libel and slander lawsuits as well as criminal prosecution.
Rule of the universe: Freedom and Responsiblity run in parrallel.
P.S. Don't forget that people without cable may not have any choice but CBS for news.
An angry man walks up to Bill Gates and says, "Behind all that money, you're still just a NERD!".
Gates looks at him and says, "You know, if I had a million dollars for every time someone called me a nerd... Oh... nevermind. I do."
If I were Bill Gates, instead of stepping down as CEO of MS, I'd leave completely, buy Apple or Be, and try and crush MicroSoft. You know, just for the hell of it. Of course, BillG selling all his stock at once would seriously hurt MS as it is.
Tivo.
Empeg.
Beowulf (clustering is not linux's innovation, but dirt-cheap clustering?)
Also, innovations is a sketchy subject. Linux is an OS for the developers, and as such has every feature developers need, which other NIXen have had for a while before linux came out.
In consumer-land, innovation means "inventing something consumers think they can't live without even though humanity has for thousands of years before."
Tivo.
Empeg.
Also, innovations is a sketchy subject. Linux is an OS for the developers, and as such has every feature developers need, which other NIXen have had for a while before linux came out.
In consumer-land, innovation means "inventing something consumers think they can't live without even though humanity has for thousands of years before."
H->I A->B L->M hence HAL->IBM
yada yada yada.
I was going to say something clever about the AL in HAL being for AOL, but my brain's not working right now and insinuating that HP would be merged with AOL is just, well, revolting.
"Daddy, why would a computer in 2001 use a bunch of flash RAM cards when SCSI hard disks would be better?"
I was thinking more along the lines of a certified kernel hacker as someone who a company would hire if they wanted to port Linux or FreeBSD to the Rolex or something.
While being among the top 10 contributors to the linux kernel is definitely certification enough to many of us, there's only 10 people in the top 10 whereas there may be many more with such talent out there if they could get a piece of paper to say so and make money off of it.
Whatever certifications there are, there must be different levels.
Something like
o Fundamentals
o System Administrator
o Kernel Hacker^H^H^H^H^H^HDeveloper
o Guru
o Kung-Fu Master
Having an MCSE does not guarantee that someone is stupid, but there's plenty of really stupid people I've seen with their MCSEs.
Who needs Star Wars on DVD when you could be watching City of Lost Children on DVD!
If fast is the be-all end all for you as a user, you can always choose a theme that does put the buttons close together.
However, I believe the previous poster had a point. The default theme should have the exit button seperate from the other commands because most users (especially if they have cheap and/or dirty mice) will occaisionally hit exit on accident. The lost time from redoing lost work is most definitely greater than the lost time of moving the mouse an inch more.
Also, with wheel mice becoming more popular, the mouse is less often on the scrollbar.
I agree, this is a story to let people laugh/scream at MS.
But the hole you pointed out has major differences to this article.
o This article is about a bug that was originally a 'feature' designed to track users.
o MS has been aware of the exploit since September, and done nothing.
o There are many real exploits actually being used. This is not just a theoretical security risk.
o WebTV is marketed to people who don't understand computers at all, and probably don't even own one. There is no way for them to fix bugs. Since MS/WebTV has asked the customers to put complete faith in them, it is 100% MS/WebTV's responsibility for this fundamental design failure.
The security hole you linked to
o HAS ALREADY BEEN FIXED
o didn't affect all users
o had viable workarounds even if the code hadn't been fixed
o was the result of a bug, not a fundamental design failure. Bugs are unavoidable. Stupid things like intentionally extending certain standards to allow a web page to send e-mail 100% as if it were the user viewing the web page is just stupid and should never have made it past the Detailed Design Document.
This article does have a purpose, however. MS has ignored this serious privacy/security issue for MONTHS!! They've clearly demonstrated that they are sitting on their thumb about this, and therefore the only way to get them to move is some good old-fashioned bad publicity. I doubt we have many WebTV users reading Slashdot, but publicity also warns the WebTV users about the problem.
(I am NOT an advocate of "let's make M$ fix the problem by exploiting some poor SOB who happened to choose Windows for some reason")
I doubt Interbase is obsolete. I bet it's just unsellable. The people probably left either because they refused to work with open source developers or were tired of their company being spun-off, folded-in, lather, rinse, repeat. Interbase as a product can't compete with MS SQL marketing or deployment.
It is a great value-add to Borland dev-tools. It makes sense to open-source it.
That's one of the key areas where open-source makes sense. Cool technology will not be killed simply because there is not enough financial incentive to maintain it.
Since SQL Server was based totally on Sybase, I highly doubt they could open-source it even if they wanted to. One of the biggest problems for companies like Borland trying to open-source some of their flagship products is cross-licensed technology. They can open-source what they wrote, but not what other people wrote.
Now, if Sybase was open-sourced...
Hmm. That would have an interesting effect on SQL Server customers.
Yeah, but don't forget, TP was faster, better, and cheaper than any of it's competitors. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the optimizing technology and dirty little hacks from TP are still being used today.
I do agree that open sourcing TP would be good, but they are a profit-driven company. If open-sourcing TP would give away too many currently used trade secrets, it's less likely to happen.
of course, the 'article' did look suspiciously (sp?) like an email. Knowing ESR, that's probably a randomly generated sig or something.
Yes, but every software DVD player that you get for "free" comes with hardware that you paid for.
/. posts I've read), open source DVD players on ANY platform would not need to sign license agreements for DVD technology, and therefore would not have to support any of the unwanted features of DVD.
Either the software or hardware DVD player for you PC had to pay license fees and sign the license agreement to some sort of DVD control board. This may be the DVDCA, I'm not sure.
More importantly (and this goes a little against what ESR was claiming -- as well as being regurgitated from other
For example, they wouldn't have to play the mandatory FBI warning at the beginning of the movie.
Most importantly, probably, they would not have to obey region-locking of the DVDs. This would be bad for content makers, since if they sold a movie for 10 rupees in india (dirt cheep) and $30 US in the USA, then people could by it over the internet for the cheaper price.
I say, screw 'em! I think region locking is unfair. If I had relatives in France and brought my DVD collection of American movies, I wouldn't be able to watch them? If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan. With DVD region locking, I wouldn't be able to watch a movie I had paid for!
Correction.
/dev/hda1 is more confusing to someone who's been using DOS or Windows than C:, but it's all about a more solid foundation. Windows has a pretty paint job, but the foundation is made out of a bunch of toothpicks and glue.
Under Windows you have Windows until something goes wrong or you try and push the capabilities past what the interface designers intended. Then you realize that you have the worst command line of any modern PC OS, ridiculous strange behavior because of the DOS legacy (8.3 filenames anyone?) and in the case of Win9x, actual DOS still running underneath.
You also have a poorly implemented registry system, with parts that are purposefully obfuscated to prevent users from mucking around and 0 gaurantee that the information in the registry has any correlation to the data on your hard drive.
Case in point: Adding a new hard drive.
I booted in linux and copied the complete contents of my old hard drive to my new hard drive. I booted off the new hard drive and everything worked fine. I then booted with BOTH hard drives plugged in. Quelle surprise, the drive letters where screwed up and all the software I had installed on my D drive was now actually installed on my E drive. The registry still believed they were on the D drive and therefore nothing worked. I've tried changing the drive letters, but strangely enough that option is greyed out. I got it working eventually, of course, since I am not afraid to muck with the registry.
So, yes,
oh yeah, one last thought.
Demand ~ Value/Cost
The higher something costs, the less demand there is for it.
(Sheesh, what the heck is with me today. I sound like some economics student or something.)