...when i read these kinds of stories is download the code. you know it's gonna turn into some kind of contraband. they can't prosecute me for anything; it wasn't illegal when i downloaded it. maybe mattel will do something as idiotic as the mpaa and get the code introduced as evidence.
The censorware debate is just like "security through obscurity." American society loves to push things under the rug; hide it rather than understand it and hope it goes away.
Intelligent people know that when stable, well-adjusted individuals are exposed to pornography and violence, they aren't adversely impacted by it. So the question becomes: why aren't we raising stable, well-adjusted people? No one likes to answer that question, because it's a poor reflection on all these people pushing the censorware in the first place.
I think many people agree that censorware is bad. However, try to imagine being the author of this software. Making a product that actually works fairly is a daunting task. You'd have to do all kinds of statistical textual analyses, look at filenames referenced, probably examine links out of the document (even links in, something like what Google does). It would be a lot of difficult work. You could spend months, even years trying to get the thing to work properly and someone's BA paper about effects of porn or whatever might still throw it off. Basically, this is an AI job and it's tough It's why there's no ideal solution for spam filtering, either.
I don't think every censorware company is inherently evil, I just think they want to cover up the fact that they didn't have enough foresight to not jump on that bandwagon and make some money.
Sure, but it's trouble I have to go to. Every Linux distribution supports gzipped tar files, so why not use those? They're tried and true. RPM has all kinds of problems.
For the love of God, don't mention Napster in the same sentence as DeCSS, otherwise we'll never be watching DVDs in Linux. Napster is intended for theft, I don't care what retarded excuses people come up with.
I think you are correct; a lot of people justify their piracy with arguments about corporate greed. This justification is wrong. However, there is also a number of people who, like myself, believe that the RIAA deserves to be stigmatized because its methods of targeting pirates also target legitimate owners. Also, when the RIAA makes sweeping arguments like "we are losing x amount of money to pirates each year" and attempts to characterize people who listen to mp3s as thieves, it demonstrates to the public that it does not care much about legality either, since these are exaggerated figures and slander against legitimate users.
So, yes, there are pirates and they are wrong, but the RIAA has chosen to ignore consumer rights just as much as pirates choose to ignore the law. It would be nice if no one stole mp3s; the bullshit arguments of the RIAA against mp3s would really come to light then.
Of course, the other issue is that, if there is so much flaming on Gnome and Kde, why is it that people never argue over Enlightenment or Sawmill, or AfterStep and Window Maker? I'm not encouraging this, but I think that these flame sessions are getting quite childish.
My guess is that KDE and GNOME both aspire to be more than just window managers. They want to be your desktop environment. GNOME and KDE position themselves as free replacements to CDE and such. KDE and GNOME have also been hyped more than projects like Windowmaker (as far as I can tell). Supposedly, these two projects are what are going to bring people over from Windows. Sure.
Like other posters, I'd love to see font antialiasing done. It doesn't matter whether it's X or something else. If X can't do it, we should move to something that can.
Also, I have always wondered why the hell GNOME icons get rendered so poorly. Look at what happens when you specify an icon with an alpha channel in Windowmaker - it gets antialiased against the colors on the button, like it should. GNOME just draws it right over the button texture with no antialiasing. This looks awful. Is this an imlib issue?
I like C++. I like the STL. I think the language has come a long way and is pretty easy to use just as long as you're careful. My only problem is, how can anyone write code with it with all these totally varying compilers? Have you seen the Mozilla guidelines for portability in C++? They might as well not use C++ at all. The problem is that it was standardized two years ago and as far as I know there are no totally conformant compilers out there. Does anything support the export keyword? String streams (besides CodeWarrior)? It seems to be too difficult a language to implement a compiler for. Or maybe I'm just impatient; does it really take this long for standards to be adhered to?
No, I don't care. Windows succeeded in the corporate arena. What's so great aobut it? I think you are arguing that you want reliability in Linux. I think we all want this; I'm just saying that if it isn't reliable, you can't go yell at Linus because your interests weren't attended to.
The Onion is not a web-based paper. It's a regular paper made out of...paper! I have a few sitting on my floor right now. They just happen to have a website. Somebody give this man a clue, please.
I agree completely with the idea that Linux is not a business. I was using it before it became everyone's favorite OS. I was afraid then that people would try to turn it into a business. As soon as the community of developers starts attaching a high priorty to corporate demand, the fun, hobbyish aspect of Linux will die. It will just become another OS, bloated and overhyped by clueless journalists and IT management. If it fails on corporate standards, who cares?
Propaganda has made some interesting looking tiles, but for the most part this is what people call "filterbation." Good artwork minimizes use of filters.
RMS does not believe that software should be monetarily free. RMS and the FSF believe that software should be free in the sense that anyone is allowed to change it. If people want to charge money for software, the GNU folks are happy as long as the source to that software can be taken and changed by others freely.
You make some good points, but the majority of people out there are not audiophiles in the sense that they require the exact digital equivalent of what was recorded. If you were right, JPEG would have been dead years ago to a format like compressed TIFF. My point is that as long as lossy formats are indistinguishable to humans (and yes, it does take a very high encoding bitrate to be indistinguishable) they will dominate the Internet. Even when we all do have the bandwidth to be trading 90 MB WAV data, lossy formats will still be popular. It's like probabalistic versus deterministic algorithms; on today's hardware we could solve a lot of problems by brute force, but why do that when we can make our likelihood of error extremely small and use a much faster method? With a high enough bitrate, the odds that noise in your neighborhood or electrical interference (I'm just making these up as an example) mess up the sound are much higher than the odds that you'd be able to detect the difference from the original data with a human ear.
If you bought a DVD, you're well within your rights (or should be) to copy it. So claiming that DeCSS is used for copying is a moot point. Illegal copying is the issue, and it is more expensive to do than buying them retail.
You have brought up some great points. One thing I want to add to what I originally wrote is that I see no reason why these many emerging technologies can't coexist with the PC. If the stuff gets cheap enough, people will buy it.
One thing that I've noticed over the years is that people who think they're analyzing the industry are judging where it is at by what's at the forefront. For instance, when a new chip comes out, suddenly analysts look at that as the standard machine everyone's using. No way. We need to look at the state of the industry as some kind of average of what consumers are buying. Sure, execs are using all these wireless gizmos. But are consumers dumping their PCs? No way. Hell, I'm typing this on my Pentium 233 (that's right, not a PII or PIII).
Schools, libraries, universities, hospitals and government offices all have invested heavily in PCs and there are no signs of obsolescence. The undeniable fact that PC prices are dropping like crazy is a reason that people are only going to buy more. Frankly, I don't want some little gadget I'm going to sit on and break -- or worse yet -- lose. I like my PC.
Remember the network PC that was supposed to replace our clunky desktop machines?
No one ever complains that his or her eight track collection is going to rot. Bigger and better media are always on the horizon. Rearchive what's important, but not everything.
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Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Intelligent people know that when stable, well-adjusted individuals are exposed to pornography and violence, they aren't adversely impacted by it. So the question becomes: why aren't we raising stable, well-adjusted people? No one likes to answer that question, because it's a poor reflection on all these people pushing the censorware in the first place.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
I don't think every censorware company is inherently evil, I just think they want to cover up the fact that they didn't have enough foresight to not jump on that bandwagon and make some money.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
So, yes, there are pirates and they are wrong, but the RIAA has chosen to ignore consumer rights just as much as pirates choose to ignore the law. It would be nice if no one stole mp3s; the bullshit arguments of the RIAA against mp3s would really come to light then.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
My guess is that KDE and GNOME both aspire to be more than just window managers. They want to be your desktop environment. GNOME and KDE position themselves as free replacements to CDE and such. KDE and GNOME have also been hyped more than projects like Windowmaker (as far as I can tell). Supposedly, these two projects are what are going to bring people over from Windows. Sure.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Also, I have always wondered why the hell GNOME icons get rendered so poorly. Look at what happens when you specify an icon with an alpha channel in Windowmaker - it gets antialiased against the colors on the button, like it should. GNOME just draws it right over the button texture with no antialiasing. This looks awful. Is this an imlib issue?
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
If it's dead, then fighting it won't be a problem.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Schools, libraries, universities, hospitals and government offices all have invested heavily in PCs and there are no signs of obsolescence. The undeniable fact that PC prices are dropping like crazy is a reason that people are only going to buy more. Frankly, I don't want some little gadget I'm going to sit on and break -- or worse yet -- lose. I like my PC.
Remember the network PC that was supposed to replace our clunky desktop machines?
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.