Actually, in most cases they loose, cause they're making totally groundless complaints. For an example, try this site. Same subject. Same law. Scientology lost.
Most ISP's have caught onto the complaints being groundless, and for many years now they've been ignoring RTC's letters, however with the new law, the ISP has to shut it down regardless.
Sorry, I was continuing with the implied simplification of each and every issue to just 'for' and 'against', depending on which party
Obviously for most individual issues, there are many different possible views. However, it's totally invalid to presume that just because someone holds one viewpoint, it automatically implies which viewpoint they hold on another issue.
I think the 'obviousness' defense is more appropriate in this case.
A system running an X server can display clients either running on the same system, or running on another system. This has been true for many years.
A MS Windows system, with appropriate software, run an X server, and display clients running on another system.
It doesn't take much brains to work out that with appropriate software, it should be possible to do the opposite, to run a client on the MS Windows system and display it on the X server.
Once you've decided to do it, how would you do it? Hooking into the display API's seems pretty obvious to me, pretend to be an accelerated graphics card, and you're away.
Of course, this is the patent office which granted a patent on the xor cursor hack, something which has been independently invented thousands of times because it's so obvious.
Patents just don't fit well with software. Use copyright to protect your programs is appropriate, it stops someone from taking your work and selling it as their own. Using a patent prevents some from selling their own work, even if the patent owner doesn't have any intention of making similar software.
There have already been instances of abuses under the Digitial Millenium act, for example Sue Mullaney's webpage, which was discussed in Salon and also on her own page.
You seem to be the one who's reading stuff which isn't there.
ESR talks about "Communism" in the above referenced article. The vast majority of the article is in the abstract, only one sentence is specific to China. Epeeist starts this thread by saying "He can keep his libertarian politics and naive statements about communism to himself.". You then start talking about the actions of the Chinese government.
The two are not equvilant, one can be a supporter of a system practiced by a government without being a supporter of the government. If you wish to criticise Epeeist's views on communism then you should do it purely upon the qualities of communism.
I don't think that you can say that china->government == communism.
I think it's fair to say that "The Linux Community" (If such a thing exists) doesn't condone the actions of the US government, such as crypto export restrictions, the CDA, S795 etc.
This however does not translate to an automatic condemnation of capitalism.
Both Kodak & Fuji make disposible cameras, and both companies make many different models. I'd be suprised if they are all identical, perhaps the cheaper ones are thrown out, while the more complex ones are recycled?
We already have anonymous calling, because you can walk into any convience store and buy a prepaid calling card with cash, which can be used at any phone to make calls which can't be traced back. (Obviously they can identify that a call was made, but not who made it, and there are many more phones which make 1-800 numbers usable than make long distance numbers)
This would just be a new way to acomplish the same thing.
One of the nice things I remember going back to my NCR tower days was the ability to take a core dump even when the system hadn't paniced.
On the NCR tower this was done by toggling a switch to get into the boot ROM, then choosing appropriate options, then the memory would be written to the dump device.
This helped us diagnose many strange crashes where the system wasn't functioning correctly, but it hadn't actualy paniced, for example, one system had init die, which made logging in a bit hard, but the kernel was still running.
I've missed this feature on more recent PCish hardware, as they don't really have a boot ROM.
Perhaps someone would like to make a more Linux biased BIOS, which could include these sort of nice features.
You've never tried to lift a person in a wheelchair up even a few stairs have you?
Even with the most lightweight chair, it's hard work, and VERY VERY scary for the disabled person, who never knows if he's going to be tipped out onto the floor.
Your neighbourhood would have to be very small to only include one disabled person.
I suspect that it will be rumoured to be every Friday until it is actually released.
BTW, the reason for announcing it at 6:30 on Friday is to minimize the affect on the stock market, now that MS is part of the Dow Jones index. I can't think that that bodes well for Microsoft.
Can you imagine having to pay 5000$ to put in a wheelchair ramp, as well as getting it approved, getting permits, haveing it inspected, etc... just so ONE person can shop in your store?!
If there was only one disabled person in the world, then you might have a point. However, there is a growing % of the population who are disabled.
As for your silly walmart example. Reasonable accomidation includes having assistants assist you. A store doesn't have to have braille price stickers if they have an assistant who will read out the prices on request.
Go into control panel->Accessibility options. You can configure 9 different options to make windows more accesable. Go into other panels, eg tweek UI, and you'll find a lot more, for example increasing the doubleclick time.
Or do they tab through, listening to ALT text at each tab stop? That's pretty much it (Subsitute listening with reading for braile terminals).
I'm a part-time photographer selling the occasional black & white print. Does the ADA apply to me also? If so, how would I comply?
It applies to all businesses. You have to make reasonable accomidations. If you have a online catalog, you should put descriptions of the photographs with them. This allows a blind person to buy a photo for their friend. As a bonus, it would also mean that your pictures might get found in a search engine.
That's the silly thing about people who complain about the ADA and making accomidations, almost every one will also have benefits for non-disabled people too, without major cost, and often without any cost at all. For example, my apartment is one which is designed as an accessable apartment. What does this mean? Basically, it means that the lightswitches are lower and the power sockets are higher than in a conventinal apartment. Costs nothing for the builder to do, but means that someone in a wheelchair can reach them.
No, he claimed that she "didn't like the stairs (all three of them)". It's very hard for a non-disabled person to know exactly what a disabled person can do. It certainly can be very hard for an amputee to go up and down stairs.
If the company had made the reasonable accomidation required by law, then there would have been no case, and if in the future a wheelchair bound person came along, then they would be able to use the office.
Try it yourself. Look at the keypad on an ATM in the US, or the same manufacturers ATM in say Brazil. You'll find the identical part. It make no sense to have a special keypad just for when it's legally mandated.
Slashdot Mirror
Most ISP's have caught onto the complaints being groundless, and for many years now they've been ignoring RTC's letters, however with the new law, the ISP has to shut it down regardless.
Not everyone's requirements are the same. It's not possible for one package to meet those requirements when they are fundementally incompatable.
This gives us 3 solutions:
Personally, out of this list, I'd much rather have multiple similar packages than either of the alternatives.
Obviously for most individual issues, there are many different possible views. However, it's totally invalid to presume that just because someone holds one viewpoint, it automatically implies which viewpoint they hold on another issue.
goto.com has a green circular logo on a yellow background.
go.com had a green circular logo on a yellow background.
www.goto.com has an portal page with links to catagories like auctions, real estate and small business.
www.go.com has an portal page with links to catagories like auctions, real estate and small business.
Obviously these two companies are in the same line of business, and the two logos are similar, so this to me looks like a reasonable trademark case.
If you take any two unrelated issues, you can find people who support all 4 possible options. Who is left & who is right?
A system running an X server can display clients either running on the same system, or running on another system. This has been true for many years.
A MS Windows system, with appropriate software, run an X server, and display clients running on another system.
It doesn't take much brains to work out that with appropriate software, it should be possible to do the opposite, to run a client on the MS Windows system and display it on the X server.
Once you've decided to do it, how would you do it? Hooking into the display API's seems pretty obvious to me, pretend to be an accelerated graphics card, and you're away.
Of course, this is the patent office which granted a patent on the xor cursor hack, something which has been independently invented thousands of times because it's so obvious.
Patents just don't fit well with software. Use copyright to protect your programs is appropriate, it stops someone from taking your work and selling it as their own. Using a patent prevents some from selling their own work, even if the patent owner doesn't have any intention of making similar software.
So did the US, until 1976.
Many books were copied in the US and the author lost all rights to them, simply because of the US's strange pre-Berne copyright laws.
ESR talks about "Communism" in the above referenced article. The vast majority of the article is in the abstract, only one sentence is specific to China. Epeeist starts this thread by saying "He can keep his libertarian politics and naive statements about communism to himself.". You then start talking about the actions of the Chinese government.
The two are not equvilant, one can be a supporter of a system practiced by a government without being a supporter of the government. If you wish to criticise Epeeist's views on communism then you should do it purely upon the qualities of communism.
I think it's fair to say that "The Linux Community" (If such a thing exists) doesn't condone the actions of the US government, such as crypto export restrictions, the CDA, S795 etc.
This however does not translate to an automatic condemnation of capitalism.
This?
This isnt' terribly sinister, as someone in a suit often has poor visibility, restricted motion, and is particuarly in need of regular rest breaks.
Both Kodak & Fuji make disposible cameras, and both companies make many different models. I'd be suprised if they are all identical, perhaps the cheaper ones are thrown out, while the more complex ones are recycled?
This would just be a new way to acomplish the same thing.
On the NCR tower this was done by toggling a switch to get into the boot ROM, then choosing appropriate options, then the memory would be written to the dump device.
This helped us diagnose many strange crashes where the system wasn't functioning correctly, but it hadn't actualy paniced, for example, one system had init die, which made logging in a bit hard, but the kernel was still running.
I've missed this feature on more recent PCish hardware, as they don't really have a boot ROM.
Perhaps someone would like to make a more Linux biased BIOS, which could include these sort of nice features.
Who's worried about the stockmarket going up?
Even with the most lightweight chair, it's hard work, and VERY VERY scary for the disabled person, who never knows if he's going to be tipped out onto the floor.
Your neighbourhood would have to be very small to only include one disabled person.
I suspect that it will be rumoured to be every Friday until it is actually released.
BTW, the reason for announcing it at 6:30 on Friday is to minimize the affect on the stock market, now that MS is part of the Dow Jones index. I can't think that that bodes well for Microsoft.
If there was only one disabled person in the world, then you might have a point. However, there is a growing % of the population who are disabled.
As for your silly walmart example. Reasonable accomidation includes having assistants assist you. A store doesn't have to have braille price stickers if they have an assistant who will read out the prices on request.
Go into control panel->Accessibility options. You can configure 9 different options to make windows more accesable. Go into other panels, eg tweek UI, and you'll find a lot more, for example increasing the doubleclick time.
I'm a part-time photographer selling the occasional black & white print. Does the ADA apply to me also? If so, how would I comply?
It applies to all businesses. You have to make reasonable accomidations. If you have a online catalog, you should put descriptions of the photographs with them. This allows a blind person to buy a photo for their friend. As a bonus, it would also mean that your pictures might get found in a search engine.
That's the silly thing about people who complain about the ADA and making accomidations, almost every one will also have benefits for non-disabled people too, without major cost, and often without any cost at all. For example, my apartment is one which is designed as an accessable apartment. What does this mean? Basically, it means that the lightswitches are lower and the power sockets are higher than in a conventinal apartment. Costs nothing for the builder to do, but means that someone in a wheelchair can reach them.
If the company had made the reasonable accomidation required by law, then there would have been no case, and if in the future a wheelchair bound person came along, then they would be able to use the office.
Try it yourself. Look at the keypad on an ATM in the US, or the same manufacturers ATM in say Brazil. You'll find the identical part. It make no sense to have a special keypad just for when it's legally mandated.
It could have got a tax credit for installing a ramp to accomidate her, which would have paid for the ramp.
Once the ramp is installed, you can use it for other purposes as well.