But IMO it isn't true if we measure the "price" in time or nerves you spend "wrestling" with you "smart", "feature packed" and whatever phone while trying to make something which should be easy on the mobile phone, like making a call or sending a text message.:)
Because I suspect software for phones (that part of software which we can call "smart", i.e. not that part which handles signal processing etc. but those calendars, games, address books,...) is done "as ussual" thus it is done quickly, looks nice... but has bugs, is slow,...
Given few years, it'll improve. But by that time there will be another round of new features and they may be again "done quickly".:)
I just hope that there are enought people willing to buy "simple" (but quick, stable,...) phones for "free market" to deliver some.
All creative things are more or less based on other creative things done earlier.
A lot of things created... say... not that recently... is public domain.
I'm in a way current co-owner of those public domain works.
I'm quite sure some of the things RIAA members claim as their own and are demanding "a cut" from are based on "partly mine" public-domain things.
So if they want "a cut" then I want "a cut" too.
And while "my cut" is not comming as expected (i.e. not that big part of recently created things is entering public-domain anytime soon for the benefit of civilization/mankind) I want money - cut from their cut.
This new technology is merely designed to enforce the rules that MPAA customers have already agreed to. If you didn't agree to them (I didn't), don't worry about them.
Article is about Motion Picture Laboratories - organization which is yet to come with some technology. So for now I have no reason to shut them down, I'm just suspicious.
Why I'm suspicious. Becuase all the fuss and buzz regarding DRM, copy-protection,... which is comming from members of RIAA and MPAA and others which associate with them somehow.
I agree that it is wrong when someone agree to condisions of say DVD sale and then broke them by ripping the DVD and giving copies away (or, even worse, selling them).
But I do not like the proposed measures to solve that. Measures like DRM. Becuase measures like DRM:
are (or will be) paid even by me whether or not I'm buying stuff from music/movie companies - all it take is that I'm buying computers, recordable media, paying taxes (i.e. I'm merely living),...
are assuming that I'm guilty of say that DVD copying without proving it - I'm fined no mater what
Of course above points are partialy hypotetical, because some measures are yet to come into my life.
But I'm alredy angry at those "consumers" which are broking the "agreements" and angry at those "companies" for coming up with such "inconvenient" measures which are misfiring even on other "not guilty" parties. And maybe I'm just more angry at those copanies though while they are the parties which are doing things that causing me trouble. And angry also at politicians and IT companies, which are also doing similar things on behalfe of helping entertainment industry.
And who's the primary source trouble of that trouble? Companies, because they are too greedy? Customers, because they are unvilling to respect the (mostly intelectual) work of others? Well, one study says one thing, another something opposite. Maybe the truth is somewehere in-between. And solutions should take that into account.
While I see (I hope) what you're trying to say and I even agree, I have to poke into your argument (I'm curious):
While we may and must call the deal between one drsquare and one landlord as "agreement" what do we call it when (almost) all the landlors form a "coalition" and all of them enforce very similar "rules" which are... say... more in favor of landlords?
With such "coalition" there is very small amount of better (for drsquare) offers from landlords which are not in "coalition" thus majority of drsquare-s of the world are unable to get "decent agreement".
IMO in such case it is logical that drsquare-s form their own "coalition" too and start "the war" with "the coalition of landlords". And wars tend to have quite different and sometimes bizzare-whatever rusel. And while the landlords started it...
While I do not like wars I for sure will at least try to fight if someone attacks me. So maybe that's the rationale behing this "Your rights online" and "MPAA/RIAA/..." thing?
I'm using E-Mail Security With Procmail for just that: proactive detection (plus sanitation). It works quite well, especialy considering its price and no need for frequent automatic updates (though they are available, sort of).
I think it's great how people are so trusting of all the non-MS companies to think that if they were in the same situation Microsoft is, they wouldn't do the exact same thing.
IMO the point is to not to let any company get to such position. The point is not trying to find one which wont abuse such position and thus can be loved.:)
Better sue everyone who has visited the website in question but never purged their temporary internet files folder.
plus visitors that also never purged their memory in their own brain using some suitable and "safe" (i.e. "no leftover memories") technique, like blowing a head with hand-granade, etc.
It then occurred to me that many groups and institutions exhibit the reverse of emergence: you have complex, smart people making up your system, but when you get them together you get stupid decisions.
Pattern: less inteligent components => more inteligent system, more inteligent components => less inteligent system.
It looks like in the second case "inteligence" of each unit is used to lower the performance of a system as a whole. That indicates to me for example selfishnes of a unit. Or that such "better" units does not fit well together.
The first vase then reminds me also of UNIX phylosophy of building small specialized programs which in sum make great OS. Whereas...
I have plenty;) , just cant find anyone who will take me seriously...
Can I read them somewhere?
I'm not game developer but I am developer and I sometimes think about making games... but I'm not artist, so while I know you can have good game without good graphics (think of times when people used Ataris, Commodores, Sinclairs,...) I have yet to come-up with some simple idea which is not just "reinvention" of something old and will be great even without fancy graphics. But back to topic: I can read your ideas and I promise I wont laugh.:)
IANAL, but in case of FBI agents doing it, it depens on whether they have wiretap warrant for it. Or maybe more precisely, it depens on whether judge thinks they need one (and then whether they have one) or not.
'to find a way that companies can implement these technologies in code that would get distributed with open source products, but the source code wouldn't be published itself.'
This indicates, where MS sees danger for their business/monopoly.
This also indicates, where people should look for solutions to the "MS monopoly".
When there will be no other choice (i.e. no content without DRM plus being forced by I do not know who or what to see/hear/... some content). I hope that means "never".
what DRM would you accept as a consumer?
None. But in market reality that means "the less, the better". So if "free market" is working that means I should be able to get reasonable content for reasonable price without any DRM. Why should I pirate content if it is more conveniet to get some legally in better quality for acceptable price? And if that works alsmost for everybody, that means almost nobody would be pirating so why wasting money, time and nerves on DRM?
or do you feel that DRM in any form is ridiculous?
Yes, I do. It's like saying "all your base belong to us.". Or like saying "for us you are just a thief".
And ussualy it's also like saying "we are fat lazy gyus, we want to make a lot of money from you and while we feel like you are not paying us enought we want to at least make your life more miserable so you can think about it twice and give us more money so *maybe* we stop torturing you".
Tagged packets get both less restrictive rules for passage and a private highway lane to drive on.
IMO if telcos/cables do that, they're in trouble becuase it means they have to erect some restrictions first.:)
(either direct: like shaping bellow physical capacity; or indirect: by physicaly using say 2mbps pipe to "transport" 3mbps of traffic requested by customers)
The net effect is that any packet that isn't tagged will only get "best effort" service, which means whatever is left. ...
The beauty of this approach is that they're NOT explicitly doing anything to the 3rd party service applications. They're just identifying and tagging their own services, which is within their rights.
If such tagging and prioritization should have the effect desired by telcos/cables, they have to fill the network with a lot of prioritized traffic (or vice versa, lower the amount of other traffic). This will make "best effort" worser to the desired point.
But such "desired point" would also mean than streaming from net radio stations will also be bad, that instant mesaging gets less "instant",..., even web browsing gets less responsive.
Customers will notice that. And it can make them go to other ISPs. Or to push regulators so they push telcos/cables.
Telcos/cables can avoid that by prioritizing (almost) everything *but* 3rd party VoIP. But that's dangerously close to "excluding 3rd party VoIP" and that's what regulators are (or should be) watching and trying to prevent.
Well, IMO capitalism is good but has one quirk which nobody solved yet:
Capitalism stops working well when "the thing" stops growing because there is no space to grow left anymore.
There are stages (but beware, I'm not economist, that's just my observation or my opinion, whatever):
While "the market" is in development and there is a lot of "land not taken", there are lots of businesses wich are growing and "taking the land". And there is competion and all the "fruits of competiton" which are good for customers.
Once "all the land" is occupied, bigger businesses start to either eat or kill smaler ones. At this stage there is still competition but it's dissapiering as the number of businesses is dropping.
Finaly "all the land" is occupied by one or very few businesses and that's when "the shit hits the fans". And that's what have to be solved somehow.
One obvious and "easy looking" solution is to make "the land" bigger. But that (at the end) effectively means to make more people for which we need to expand into space. With that approach we can solve, mitigate or avoid "stage 3" till we reach another limit (like we fill all the glalaxy).
From a practical standpoint, TCPA is incompatible with the Linux philosophy of open-source modifications
IMO this is not exactly correct - is it against Linux philosophy of open-source modifications to secure my Linux box so nobody except me can make modifications to it?
TCPA used in such way (i.e. in interest of user, not supplier, not government,...) is quite in line with Linux philosophy of "you're in control":).
But, as with all weapons, it has two edges. So, beware!:)
Did Red Hat, SuSe, Debian et all come out with a patched kernel for this even when Linus didn't?
I do not know. And while I did not (yet) purchased Linux OS from neither of them, I do not care.
But being a paid customer of some Linux distributor, well I would care very much.
But we're back to what I alredy written about "for free" and "paid" in regard to patches.
Unfortunately the "manage it yourself, Linux is free" argument is in direct conflict with the "Linux is a great alternative to MS's and Sun's stuff," yet often these are two ideas that are in direct conflict with one another. When an operating system/kernel is being pushed as being enterprise quality as much as Linux has in the last few years, then it's not unreasonable to expect a certain level of quality from the maintainers,...
Those two sets of arguments are IMO not in coflict because each one applies to different people (to two different not intersecting sets of people):
those who get Linux for free: Only "it's free, be gratefull" argument applies to them. Those people can get some more confidence in Linux by seeing commercial offerings based on Linux but they have no one to give demands to. Unless they pay, but that will make them members of second set.:)
paying customers of Linux distributors: "Linux is great/good/enterprise ready/whatever" arguments applies to such people. The "free (as in beer)" argument not, because they paid. Those people can take advantage mainly from "free as in speech" attributes of Linux and also feel comfortable that there are alternatives to the product they purchased (either other commercial products or other free products). While they can manage paches for themselves, thay also can and should require such work from their vendor. (That also applies to paid customers of vendors of products which do not have "free" alternatives, like Windows or I Photoshop but that's off-topic here)
Yes, I'm shocked that you assume people have no life and can maintain a set of patches for their kernel just like you do.
So if I understand your statement correctly you value your time highly and thus you want others to manage the paches for you.
But...
IMO also Linus & co. value their own time highly and while they are commiting (part of) it to do you a favor (by providing you with software for free) you should be more gratefull.
If you do not want to manage those patches yourself, find someone else who will do that for you for free instead of Linus & co. and hope he will be more "responsive" to your needs.
Or hire somebody to do that - then you can give demands and orders to this Somebody.
... and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?
Maybe not sued but they still have to pay (or alredy paid) for such lawsuits. Where does Microsoft get the money from? From customers. Thus, if Microsoft is sued, costs are charged to their customers (more or less directly).
And IANAL, users can't be responsible for patent or copyright infrigement in software products they did not developed. Only those who actualy put the "questionable" code into the product should be responsible.
Thus, if customer is charged money for "indemnification" from IP lawsuits related to software he is using then he is not doing good purchase. No metter from whom he is purchasing (Microsoft, Sun, Red Hat, Linus & co.,...) and for what price ($1, $100, $1'000,...). IMHO.
The whole "indemnification issue" from (at least some) software vendors looks to me like in best case like "Hey, customer. You know, todays IP laws suks and we are not sure whether we have some stolen-or-something IP in our products so while we do not want to pay the bill for such fucked-up system, you'll pay but to make you more comfortable with that, let us agree that we will call it indemnification and it means we are protecting you from bad-guys.".
Or, in worst case "Hey, customer. We stole some IP from others and put it into our product. It's great because we make money from you thanks to work of others. And because they may sue us, you have to pay us for indemnification so we do not go out of business. And while today IP laws suks, we can make all this fishy arrangement look like we are doing you a favor.".
Slashdot Mirror
Now, lets assume we both are "educated people" with me being the "slightly less educated" one.
Then I have a question:
Why exactly we want rights for people who do not have "basic knowledge"?
They would cost about the same.
... if measured by money.
But IMO it isn't true if we measure the "price" in time or nerves you spend "wrestling" with you "smart", "feature packed" and whatever phone while trying to make something which should be easy on the mobile phone, like making a call or sending a text message. :)
Because I suspect software for phones (that part of software which we can call "smart", i.e. not that part which handles signal processing etc. but those calendars, games, address books, ...) is done "as ussual" thus it is done quickly, looks nice ... but has bugs, is slow, ...
Given few years, it'll improve. But by that time there will be another round of new features and they may be again "done quickly". :)
I just hope that there are enought people willing to buy "simple" (but quick, stable, ...) phones for "free market" to deliver some.
IIUTC (If I Understand Things Correctly):
Maybe that's how the "deal" should be made?
Broadly we are in agreement.
So now we get to specific things:
This new technology is merely designed to enforce the rules that MPAA customers have already agreed to. If you didn't agree to them (I didn't), don't worry about them.
Article is about Motion Picture Laboratories - organization which is yet to come with some technology. So for now I have no reason to shut them down, I'm just suspicious.
Why I'm suspicious. Becuase all the fuss and buzz regarding DRM, copy-protection, ... which is comming from members of RIAA and MPAA and others which associate with them somehow.
I agree that it is wrong when someone agree to condisions of say DVD sale and then broke them by ripping the DVD and giving copies away (or, even worse, selling them).
But I do not like the proposed measures to solve that. Measures like DRM. Becuase measures like DRM:
Of course above points are partialy hypotetical, because some measures are yet to come into my life.
But I'm alredy angry at those "consumers" which are broking the "agreements" and angry at those "companies" for coming up with such "inconvenient" measures which are misfiring even on other "not guilty" parties. And maybe I'm just more angry at those copanies though while they are the parties which are doing things that causing me trouble. And angry also at politicians and IT companies, which are also doing similar things on behalfe of helping entertainment industry.
And who's the primary source trouble of that trouble? Companies, because they are too greedy? Customers, because they are unvilling to respect the (mostly intelectual) work of others? Well, one study says one thing, another something opposite. Maybe the truth is somewehere in-between. And solutions should take that into account.
While I see (I hope) what you're trying to say and I even agree, I have to poke into your argument (I'm curious):
While we may and must call the deal between one drsquare and one landlord as "agreement" what do we call it when (almost) all the landlors form a "coalition" and all of them enforce very similar "rules" which are ... say ... more in favor of landlords?
With such "coalition" there is very small amount of better (for drsquare) offers from landlords which are not in "coalition" thus majority of drsquare-s of the world are unable to get "decent agreement".
IMO in such case it is logical that drsquare-s form their own "coalition" too and start "the war" with "the coalition of landlords". And wars tend to have quite different and sometimes bizzare-whatever rusel. And while the landlords started it ...
While I do not like wars I for sure will at least try to fight if someone attacks me. So maybe that's the rationale behing this "Your rights online" and "MPAA/RIAA/..." thing?
> > > I think sometimes everyone is a sheep
> > If that's what you think, then so do > I!
> ME TOO
MOOOO
:)I'm using E-Mail Security With Procmail for just that: proactive detection (plus sanitation). It works quite well, especialy considering its price and no need for frequent automatic updates (though they are available, sort of).
I think it's great how people are so trusting of all the non-MS companies to think that if they were in the same situation Microsoft is, they wouldn't do the exact same thing.
IMO the point is to not to let any company get to such position. The point is not trying to find one which wont abuse such position and thus can be loved. :)
Until someone figures out how to disable that "feature" in Longhorn.
Or downgrade to previous release of Windows.
Or even switch to something else (here I'm showing my optimistic side by assuming there will be something else to switch to :) .
Better sue everyone who has visited the website in question but never purged their temporary internet files folder.
plus visitors that also never purged their memory in their own brain using some suitable and "safe" (i.e. "no leftover memories") technique, like blowing a head with hand-granade, etc.
:)
It then occurred to me that many groups and institutions exhibit the reverse of emergence: you have complex, smart people making up your system, but when you get them together you get stupid decisions.
Pattern: less inteligent components => more inteligent system, more inteligent components => less inteligent system.
It looks like in the second case "inteligence" of each unit is used to lower the performance of a system as a whole. That indicates to me for example selfishnes of a unit. Or that such "better" units does not fit well together.
The first vase then reminds me also of UNIX phylosophy of building small specialized programs which in sum make great OS. Whereas ...
I have plenty ;) , just cant find anyone who will take me seriously ...
Can I read them somewhere?
I'm not game developer but I am developer and I sometimes think about making games ... but I'm not artist, so while I know you can have good game without good graphics (think of times when people used Ataris, Commodores, Sinclairs, ...) I have yet to come-up with some simple idea which is not just "reinvention" of something old and will be great even without fancy graphics. But back to topic: I can read your ideas and I promise I wont laugh. :)
And to the grandparent ..
You've got the meaning of my previous reply.
What about you? Any ideas?
:)
IANAL, but in case of FBI agents doing it, it depens on whether they have wiretap warrant for it. Or maybe more precisely, it depens on whether judge thinks they need one (and then whether they have one) or not.
'to find a way that companies can implement these technologies in code that would get distributed with open source products, but the source code wouldn't be published itself.'
This indicates, where MS sees danger for their business/monopoly.
This also indicates, where people should look for solutions to the "MS monopoly".
When Would You Accept DRM?
When there will be no other choice (i.e. no content without DRM plus being forced by I do not know who or what to see/hear/... some content). I hope that means "never".
what DRM would you accept as a consumer?
None. But in market reality that means "the less, the better". So if "free market" is working that means I should be able to get reasonable content for reasonable price without any DRM. Why should I pirate content if it is more conveniet to get some legally in better quality for acceptable price? And if that works alsmost for everybody, that means almost nobody would be pirating so why wasting money, time and nerves on DRM?
or do you feel that DRM in any form is ridiculous?
Yes, I do. It's like saying "all your base belong to us.". Or like saying "for us you are just a thief".
And ussualy it's also like saying "we are fat lazy gyus, we want to make a lot of money from you and while we feel like you are not paying us enought we want to at least make your life more miserable so you can think about it twice and give us more money so *maybe* we stop torturing you".
Tagged packets get both less restrictive rules for passage and a private highway lane to drive on.
IMO if telcos/cables do that, they're in trouble becuase it means they have to erect some restrictions first. :)
(either direct: like shaping bellow physical capacity; or indirect: by physicaly using say 2mbps pipe to "transport" 3mbps of traffic requested by customers)
The net effect is that any packet that isn't tagged will only get "best effort" service, which means whatever is left.
...
The beauty of this approach is that they're NOT explicitly doing anything to the 3rd party service applications. They're just identifying and tagging their own services, which is within their rights.
If such tagging and prioritization should have the effect desired by telcos/cables, they have to fill the network with a lot of prioritized traffic (or vice versa, lower the amount of other traffic). This will make "best effort" worser to the desired point.
But such "desired point" would also mean than streaming from net radio stations will also be bad, that instant mesaging gets less "instant", ..., even web browsing gets less responsive.
Customers will notice that. And it can make them go to other ISPs. Or to push regulators so they push telcos/cables.
Telcos/cables can avoid that by prioritizing (almost) everything *but* 3rd party VoIP. But that's dangerously close to "excluding 3rd party VoIP" and that's what regulators are (or should be) watching and trying to prevent.
Well, IMO capitalism is good but has one quirk which nobody solved yet:
Capitalism stops working well when "the thing" stops growing because there is no space to grow left anymore.
There are stages (but beware, I'm not economist, that's just my observation or my opinion, whatever):
While "the market" is in development and there is a lot of "land not taken", there are lots of businesses wich are growing and "taking the land". And there is competion and all the "fruits of competiton" which are good for customers.
Once "all the land" is occupied, bigger businesses start to either eat or kill smaler ones. At this stage there is still competition but it's dissapiering as the number of businesses is dropping.
Finaly "all the land" is occupied by one or very few businesses and that's when "the shit hits the fans". And that's what have to be solved somehow.
One obvious and "easy looking" solution is to make "the land" bigger. But that (at the end) effectively means to make more people for which we need to expand into space. With that approach we can solve, mitigate or avoid "stage 3" till we reach another limit (like we fill all the glalaxy).
Another ideas?
I'm quite sure that the idea of "shooting down The Twins in N.Y." sounded unlikely few years ago too.
From a practical standpoint, TCPA is incompatible with the Linux philosophy of open-source modifications
IMO this is not exactly correct - is it against Linux philosophy of open-source modifications to secure my Linux box so nobody except me can make modifications to it?
TCPA used in such way (i.e. in interest of user, not supplier, not government, ...) is quite in line with Linux philosophy of "you're in control" :) .
But, as with all weapons, it has two edges. So, beware! :)
Did Red Hat, SuSe, Debian et all come out with a patched kernel for this even when Linus didn't?
I do not know. And while I did not (yet) purchased Linux OS from neither of them, I do not care.
But being a paid customer of some Linux distributor, well I would care very much.
But we're back to what I alredy written about "for free" and "paid" in regard to patches.
Unfortunately the "manage it yourself, Linux is free" argument is in direct conflict with the "Linux is a great alternative to MS's and Sun's stuff," yet often these are two ideas that are in direct conflict with one another. When an operating system/kernel is being pushed as being enterprise quality as much as Linux has in the last few years, then it's not unreasonable to expect a certain level of quality from the maintainers, ...
Those two sets of arguments are IMO not in coflict because each one applies to different people (to two different not intersecting sets of people):
Yes, I'm shocked that you assume people have no life and can maintain a set of patches for their kernel just like you do.
So if I understand your statement correctly you value your time highly and thus you want others to manage the paches for you.
But ...
IMO also Linus & co. value their own time highly and while they are commiting (part of) it to do you a favor (by providing you with software for free) you should be more gratefull.
If you do not want to manage those patches yourself, find someone else who will do that for you for free instead of Linus & co. and hope he will be more "responsive" to your needs.
Or hire somebody to do that - then you can give demands and orders to this Somebody.
<irony>
Terrorists!!! Terrorists!!!
Quickly, we have to outlaw Santas and Kinkos!
</irony>
Now Microsoft will have to buy a new study that says what they want.
They deserved it if they choose to do it "the cheap way" (to save few bucks) and tried to base their argument on the study they did not pay. :)
Maybe not sued but they still have to pay (or alredy paid) for such lawsuits. Where does Microsoft get the money from? From customers. Thus, if Microsoft is sued, costs are charged to their customers (more or less directly).
And IANAL, users can't be responsible for patent or copyright infrigement in software products they did not developed. Only those who actualy put the "questionable" code into the product should be responsible.
Thus, if customer is charged money for "indemnification" from IP lawsuits related to software he is using then he is not doing good purchase. No metter from whom he is purchasing (Microsoft, Sun, Red Hat, Linus & co., ...) and for what price ($1, $100, $1'000, ...). IMHO.
The whole "indemnification issue" from (at least some) software vendors looks to me like in best case like "Hey, customer. You know, todays IP laws suks and we are not sure whether we have some stolen-or-something IP in our products so while we do not want to pay the bill for such fucked-up system, you'll pay but to make you more comfortable with that, let us agree that we will call it indemnification and it means we are protecting you from bad-guys.".
Or, in worst case "Hey, customer. We stole some IP from others and put it into our product. It's great because we make money from you thanks to work of others. And because they may sue us, you have to pay us for indemnification so we do not go out of business. And while today IP laws suks, we can make all this fishy arrangement look like we are doing you a favor.".