Surely the whole point of the capitalist market economy is that something is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it. "Caveat emptor" - up to the client to decide whether they are so anal that they want to know the DNA composition or not - me, I'll settle for Salmon eggs because I'm not interested in the supposed higher quality of Beluga caviar with its price tag.
The problem is people are buying Salmon eggs, but being told it is (and being charged for) Beluga caviar.
Is there some health reason why canis lupus is verboten?
Since dog meat is illegal to sell [in that location], it is a given that any of it being sold has not been subject to any sort of meaningful quality control. Which means you might be eating a purebred St Bernard, strangely missing from the household of the richest man in the area, or you might be eating whichever mangy, disease-ridden, mongrel was unlucky enough to be in the alley behind the restaurant twenty minutes ago.
So, yes, in places where dog is illegal to sell there are almost certainly health reasons why it is a bad idea.
but it is also not the governments responsibility to police labeling. current laws are already in place to say that labels must be correct. It is up to the buyer to to decided whether or not they are being duped.
The buyer frequently has no practical way to determine whether or not they are being duped before the fact. Further, when said 'duping' can result in death or serious injury, it is most certainly the Government's job to get involved.
They are the same company who abandoned working Silverlight for PPC just about a month ago.
So because they're not developing for obselete hardware that even _Apple_ probably won't release their next OS for, they'll never release a Mac version *at all* ?
Everything I've learned about operating system design implies that Windows might be secured, but has a design that makes it much, much, much harder to achieve.
Like change system files? Nope. How about bind to privileged ports? Nope.
It can send spam, participate in DDoS attacks, act as a repository for kiddy porn, or just wait to take advantage of the next 0-day local privilege exploit.
In short, lack of root-level access is a minor annoyance to malware, not a critical problem.
So... it can mess up my documents? Darn.
Yes. It can mess what are most likely the most important and least-replaceable data on your machine. This doesn't bother you ?
Slashdot's primary audience is technophiles and I expect the majority of them have had experience with Vista.
Of course, since these types of people are incredibly resistant to change (just look at how many immediately change the new "XP Style" Start Menu back to the "Classic Start Menu"), most of them probably didn't run Vista for more than half an hour or so before making up their mind.
However, that has nothing to do with Vista, because it was stupid design. And while the hardware still isn't ready for it, even if it were, it'd be a stupid design.
What ? PCs capable of running Vista well cost less than $500.
I think MS screwed up by launching vista so soon before the hardware was really ready for it.
When Vista was released hardware capable of running it well (dual core, 2G RAM) was around US$750, and high-end boxes from as long as 7 years ago (possibly with minor upgrades) could run it acceptably.
When Vista was released, it was targeted at slightly-above-baseline hardware at the time. Since the vast, vast majority of people get Windows through a new PC purchase - and the few upgrading existing PCs usually have higher-end machines - I fail to see why this was even a slight problem.
Usually stores do have the facility for the check-out person to enter the code and weigh the fruit themselves at the checkout, but as they only do this when tourists come to town (or the OAPs who forget) they don't remember the codes off the top of their heads and have to spend a while looking them up.
In Australia, it is standard for the "checkout chick" to weigh fruit & veg (or anything else) as part of of the checkout process. The scales are built into the bench/barcode scanner and it takes maybe a second longer than a typical barcode scan.
(Which resulted in a bit of minor confusion and embarrassment the first time I visited a grocery store in Switzerland after we moved here.)
Having seen both systems in action, I'm in favour of having it done at the checkout. It doesn't add any meaningful amount of time, is more convenient for the customer and removes the ability for dishonest people to game the system by deliberately using an incorrect label on their goods.
If the EULA is enforceable, then this IS an issue of copyright infringement. The EULA is what grants the end user the ability to make copies (from DVD to HDD, backups, etc). It is the license which grants the purchaser the right to install the OS!
Indeed. But unreasonable restrictions are not enforceable. I can't slap an EULA on my piece of software saying you can only use it when you're wearing red underwear, for example.
It's not irrelevant, because OEMs have specific permission from copyright holders to make a copy of EOM versions by pre-installing (it's common for them to include the additional right to make copies by generating stock disk images that include the OEM software). As is the case with corporate site licenses, OEM software licenses are very different from those included with retail shrink-wrapped software that's meant to be sold to end-users.
It *is* irrelevant to the overall point, which is that computers can be sold with software - even non-"OEM" software - without that being a copyright violation.
It is under copyright law.
You are suggesting that changing a piece of software's configuration defaults, and/or installing additional software (eg: to support additional hardware), then selling the computer, are copyright infringment.
Again, given the frequency with which this happens, it is difficult to see how it is - or could be considered - copyright infringement.
There is a specific exception to this under fair use provisions for software if the alterations are required as a step in making it work, but this exception specifically and uniquely applies to the end-user of the software, not those selling it to that end-user (unless of course the seller is the software's copyright holder).
Why should there be a distinction drawn between an end user and someone providing a service for the end user ? You are basically insisting that any work done by software vendors which is not explicitly allowed in the EULA, should be considered copyright infringement, because it either involves a) modifying the default state of the software (thereby creating a "derivative"), or b) "distribution" (by virtue of providing the customer with multiple copies instead of a single original).
The crux of this case is going to be whether the "must be installed on Apple-labelled hardware" is a reasonable EULA restriction.
Note that the viral parts of the GPL which make any project that includes GPL code itself subject to the GPL depend on the above copyright law definition of a derived work, otherwise companies like MS would be able to get away with incorporating as much GPL stuff as they like in closed-source systems by the simple act of altering or adding some trivial bits of code.
I don't care about the GPL, and it's irrelevant to this discussion.
He said evidence. If there is evidence of such beings (hypothetical), it would be wrong of scientists to ignore it just because they're atheist, right?
If there is such evidence, it wouldn't be supernatural, and hence scientists' religious beliefs (or lack thereof) would be irrelevant.
The vast majority of PCs come with OEM software because it costs them a fraction of what they'd have to pay for a retail version.
Pretty sure Quicken, et al, don't have "OEM software" (even if they do, it's irrelevant to the overall point).
A shop-front might well get around the copyright violation issues if (a) Psystar could show that only people who visited them got such a pre-installation, and (b) that the installation was directly from the shrink-wrapped media sold to the customer, and didn't include any alterations (derivative works) that didn't come from Apple via the usual end-user channels.
An "alteration" is not inherently a derivative work. Changing configuration files, adding drivers, etc. These do not constitute a "derivative work" (or shouldn't, in a sane system).
PC vendors who install hardware drivers, or preconfigure for customers (eg: setting up internet access), or preinstall requested software, are not creating derivative works, nor are they infringing copyright.
PC vendors can only pre-install stuff they have specific permission from copyright holders to pre-install.
Then a helluva lot of PC vendors are breaking copyright law. This may be true (although I'm very skeptical, if for no other reason than the lack of lawsuits), but even if it is then that law is broken and should be fixed.
Asking somebody to install something you've bought while you are physically present would count as fair use. Buying a PC with the software already installed on it however requires permission from whoever owns the copyright.
Um... most PC makers are paid to preinstall that other stuff. Or they license it.
If I buy a PC from a local small business and ask them to preinstall, say, Quicken for me, I sincerely doubt that either Quicken is paying them, or they've got a special licensing agreement.
Psystar is distributing two copies to a consumer: DVD and HDD; they only have the license to distribute the DVD (as permitted by first sale doctrine).
Again, this is suggesting that a PC vendor cannot sell a PC with software preinstalled. Since this is exceptionally common, it is difficult to believe it is illegal.
Small PC shops theoretically license Windows in order to preinstall on their PCs.
What about all the other stuff they might preinstall ?
A great example is drying clothes, it produces heat and takes lots of electricity. During the summer, this makes your A/C run more to balance the heat when people are already consuming the most electricity out of the whole year.
There is so much wrong with this sentence it's difficult to know where to start....
Pro tips:
* Try a clothesline
* Try closing the door of the rooom the dryer is in so the AC doesn't have to try and counteract it.
The end user can make backups, but said end-user cannot then resell, gift, or give away said backups without running afoul of copyright law.
I'm pretty sure as long as they sell the original at the same time, it's ok. I certainly can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be.
It like this: I own a CD. I rip CD for myself. Can I then give away the "ripped" copies? Nope, that is distribution in the clearest sense. This has been seen in court several times already and that's pretty ironclad.
Of course, this isn't remotely similar to what Psystar is doing...
So as long as Psystar is only giving away unadulterated copies of OS X they are fine, but as soon as they install, modify and provide backup/restore copies, they run afoul of copyright.
That depends a great deal on what "modifications" they're making. Otherwise, for example, small PC shops wouldn't be able to preinstall the PCs they were selling with Windows, applications, hardware drivers and the like.
1. The Steve does not want Macs to become "common". Apple owes a great deal of its popularity to the perception that Macs are "special", "luxury", "high end", etc. Apple have no interest in the massive volume, commodity computer market.
2. The less hardware running their software, the more reliable it will appear to be.
Historically, the integration between MacOS and the hardware it ran on was much tighter. This isn't really true anymore, however, and hasn't been for a long time - the "generification" of Mac hardware began in the mid-late '90s, and these days Macs are just PCs.
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Surely the whole point of the capitalist market economy is that something is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it. "Caveat emptor" - up to the client to decide whether they are so anal that they want to know the DNA composition or not - me, I'll settle for Salmon eggs because I'm not interested in the supposed higher quality of Beluga caviar with its price tag.
The problem is people are buying Salmon eggs, but being told it is (and being charged for) Beluga caviar.
Which is fraud, plain and simple.
Is there some health reason why canis lupus is verboten?
Since dog meat is illegal to sell [in that location], it is a given that any of it being sold has not been subject to any sort of meaningful quality control. Which means you might be eating a purebred St Bernard, strangely missing from the household of the richest man in the area, or you might be eating whichever mangy, disease-ridden, mongrel was unlucky enough to be in the alley behind the restaurant twenty minutes ago.
So, yes, in places where dog is illegal to sell there are almost certainly health reasons why it is a bad idea.
but it is also not the governments responsibility to police labeling. current laws are already in place to say that labels must be correct. It is up to the buyer to to decided whether or not they are being duped.
The buyer frequently has no practical way to determine whether or not they are being duped before the fact. Further, when said 'duping' can result in death or serious injury, it is most certainly the Government's job to get involved.
They are the same company who abandoned working Silverlight for PPC just about a month ago.
So because they're not developing for obselete hardware that even _Apple_ probably won't release their next OS for, they'll never release a Mac version *at all* ?
Your logic is broken.
Everything I've learned about operating system design implies that Windows might be secured, but has a design that makes it much, much, much harder to achieve.
Please elaborate.
Like change system files? Nope. How about bind to privileged ports? Nope.
It can send spam, participate in DDoS attacks, act as a repository for kiddy porn, or just wait to take advantage of the next 0-day local privilege exploit.
In short, lack of root-level access is a minor annoyance to malware, not a critical problem.
So... it can mess up my documents? Darn.
Yes. It can mess what are most likely the most important and least-replaceable data on your machine. This doesn't bother you ?
Try Server 2008 for gaming. It rocks :-)
Vista SP1 == Server 2008 (for all practical purposes).
Slashdot's primary audience is technophiles and I expect the majority of them have had experience with Vista.
Of course, since these types of people are incredibly resistant to change (just look at how many immediately change the new "XP Style" Start Menu back to the "Classic Start Menu"), most of them probably didn't run Vista for more than half an hour or so before making up their mind.
I honestly dont have a single desktop computer with more than 512mb ram and I dont need more than that.
Good for you. Typically, just the firefox process on any of my machines is upwards of 300M.
It's easy not to use a lot of system resources if you're not actually doing anything.
However, that has nothing to do with Vista, because it was stupid design. And while the hardware still isn't ready for it, even if it were, it'd be a stupid design.
What ? PCs capable of running Vista well cost less than $500.
I think MS screwed up by launching vista so soon before the hardware was really ready for it.
When Vista was released hardware capable of running it well (dual core, 2G RAM) was around US$750, and high-end boxes from as long as 7 years ago (possibly with minor upgrades) could run it acceptably.
When Vista was released, it was targeted at slightly-above-baseline hardware at the time. Since the vast, vast majority of people get Windows through a new PC purchase - and the few upgrading existing PCs usually have higher-end machines - I fail to see why this was even a slight problem.
Usually stores do have the facility for the check-out person to enter the code and weigh the fruit themselves at the checkout, but as they only do this when tourists come to town (or the OAPs who forget) they don't remember the codes off the top of their heads and have to spend a while looking them up.
In Australia, it is standard for the "checkout chick" to weigh fruit & veg (or anything else) as part of of the checkout process. The scales are built into the bench/barcode scanner and it takes maybe a second longer than a typical barcode scan.
(Which resulted in a bit of minor confusion and embarrassment the first time I visited a grocery store in Switzerland after we moved here.)
Having seen both systems in action, I'm in favour of having it done at the checkout. It doesn't add any meaningful amount of time, is more convenient for the customer and removes the ability for dishonest people to game the system by deliberately using an incorrect label on their goods.
If the EULA is enforceable, then this IS an issue of copyright infringement. The EULA is what grants the end user the ability to make copies (from DVD to HDD, backups, etc). It is the license which grants the purchaser the right to install the OS!
Indeed. But unreasonable restrictions are not enforceable. I can't slap an EULA on my piece of software saying you can only use it when you're wearing red underwear, for example.
It's not irrelevant, because OEMs have specific permission from copyright holders to make a copy of EOM versions by pre-installing (it's common for them to include the additional right to make copies by generating stock disk images that include the OEM software). As is the case with corporate site licenses, OEM software licenses are very different from those included with retail shrink-wrapped software that's meant to be sold to end-users.
It *is* irrelevant to the overall point, which is that computers can be sold with software - even non-"OEM" software - without that being a copyright violation.
It is under copyright law.
You are suggesting that changing a piece of software's configuration defaults, and/or installing additional software (eg: to support additional hardware), then selling the computer, are copyright infringment.
Again, given the frequency with which this happens, it is difficult to see how it is - or could be considered - copyright infringement.
There is a specific exception to this under fair use provisions for software if the alterations are required as a step in making it work, but this exception specifically and uniquely applies to the end-user of the software, not those selling it to that end-user (unless of course the seller is the software's copyright holder).
Why should there be a distinction drawn between an end user and someone providing a service for the end user ? You are basically insisting that any work done by software vendors which is not explicitly allowed in the EULA, should be considered copyright infringement, because it either involves a) modifying the default state of the software (thereby creating a "derivative"), or b) "distribution" (by virtue of providing the customer with multiple copies instead of a single original).
The crux of this case is going to be whether the "must be installed on Apple-labelled hardware" is a reasonable EULA restriction.
Note that the viral parts of the GPL which make any project that includes GPL code itself subject to the GPL depend on the above copyright law definition of a derived work, otherwise companies like MS would be able to get away with incorporating as much GPL stuff as they like in closed-source systems by the simple act of altering or adding some trivial bits of code.
I don't care about the GPL, and it's irrelevant to this discussion.
He said evidence. If there is evidence of such beings (hypothetical), it would be wrong of scientists to ignore it just because they're atheist, right?
If there is such evidence, it wouldn't be supernatural, and hence scientists' religious beliefs (or lack thereof) would be irrelevant.
The vast majority of PCs come with OEM software because it costs them a fraction of what they'd have to pay for a retail version.
Pretty sure Quicken, et al, don't have "OEM software" (even if they do, it's irrelevant to the overall point).
A shop-front might well get around the copyright violation issues if (a) Psystar could show that only people who visited them got such a pre-installation, and (b) that the installation was directly from the shrink-wrapped media sold to the customer, and didn't include any alterations (derivative works) that didn't come from Apple via the usual end-user channels.
An "alteration" is not inherently a derivative work. Changing configuration files, adding drivers, etc. These do not constitute a "derivative work" (or shouldn't, in a sane system).
PC vendors who install hardware drivers, or preconfigure for customers (eg: setting up internet access), or preinstall requested software, are not creating derivative works, nor are they infringing copyright.
Except the Quicken EULA doesn't say it cannot be installed! The OS X EULA does say it cannot be installed on a non-Apple branded machine.
Yes, which means the crux of this issue is an (hopefully unenforceable) EULA, not copyright infringement.
Well, at least it's only going to punish people who are illegally profiting from another's work. I don't see any reason to hate this law yet.
Don't worry, in fairly short order "profiting" will be redefined so as to encompass "normal people" as well.
PC vendors can only pre-install stuff they have specific permission from copyright holders to pre-install.
Then a helluva lot of PC vendors are breaking copyright law. This may be true (although I'm very skeptical, if for no other reason than the lack of lawsuits), but even if it is then that law is broken and should be fixed.
Asking somebody to install something you've bought while you are physically present would count as fair use. Buying a PC with the software already installed on it however requires permission from whoever owns the copyright.
So all Psystar need is a shopfront ?
Um... most PC makers are paid to preinstall that other stuff. Or they license it.
If I buy a PC from a local small business and ask them to preinstall, say, Quicken for me, I sincerely doubt that either Quicken is paying them, or they've got a special licensing agreement.
Psystar is distributing two copies to a consumer: DVD and HDD; they only have the license to distribute the DVD (as permitted by first sale doctrine).
Again, this is suggesting that a PC vendor cannot sell a PC with software preinstalled. Since this is exceptionally common, it is difficult to believe it is illegal.
Small PC shops theoretically license Windows in order to preinstall on their PCs.
What about all the other stuff they might preinstall ?
A great example is drying clothes, it produces heat and takes lots of electricity. During the summer, this makes your A/C run more to balance the heat when people are already consuming the most electricity out of the whole year.
There is so much wrong with this sentence it's difficult to know where to start....
Pro tips:
* Try a clothesline
* Try closing the door of the rooom the dryer is in so the AC doesn't have to try and counteract it.
The end user can make backups, but said end-user cannot then resell, gift, or give away said backups without running afoul of copyright law.
I'm pretty sure as long as they sell the original at the same time, it's ok. I certainly can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be.
It like this: I own a CD. I rip CD for myself. Can I then give away the "ripped" copies? Nope, that is distribution in the clearest sense. This has been seen in court several times already and that's pretty ironclad.
Of course, this isn't remotely similar to what Psystar is doing...
So as long as Psystar is only giving away unadulterated copies of OS X they are fine, but as soon as they install, modify and provide backup/restore copies, they run afoul of copyright.
That depends a great deal on what "modifications" they're making. Otherwise, for example, small PC shops wouldn't be able to preinstall the PCs they were selling with Windows, applications, hardware drivers and the like.
The restore discs count as distribution. The code on the computer HDDs itself probably count as distribution.
Are you suggesting that a hardware vendor selling - along with the original copy - preinstalled and backup copies of software is violating copyright ?
Why does Apple do things this way?
Two main reasons:
1. The Steve does not want Macs to become "common". Apple owes a great deal of its popularity to the perception that Macs are "special", "luxury", "high end", etc. Apple have no interest in the massive volume, commodity computer market.
2. The less hardware running their software, the more reliable it will appear to be.
Historically, the integration between MacOS and the hardware it ran on was much tighter. This isn't really true anymore, however, and hasn't been for a long time - the "generification" of Mac hardware began in the mid-late '90s, and these days Macs are just PCs.