In a few of the examples cited, esp. OpenAL. The name is an obvious play on OpenGL's name and reputation. Thus is one of said products sucked, OpenGL's rep could be on the line as well. In this case, it appears that SGI's request is well founded.
By reading the above message, you ("screwed") agree to the following terms set forth by me
("JustCallMeGawd").
(1) Under no circumstances will "screwed" discuss
or repeat any text in the above message with
anyone not bound by this legal agreement.
(2) "screwed" agrees to pay a subscription fee
of $900.00 US for every week that said message
is remembered.
(3) "screwed" acknowledges that under the DCMA,
"JustCallMeGawd" retains ownership of any ideas expressed or implied by the above message as well as any information (aka thoughts) inspired directly or indirectly by said message.
(4) Should any of the above terms and conditions be violated by "screwed", "screwed" will remit a fine of $100,000,000.00 and "screwed"'s eternal soul to "JustCallMeGawd" within 14 days.
What are the odds of microsoft releasing all the DirectX and Windows API specs1 into public domain or adopting another standard (or *nix compatability layer)? While it might have some detrimental impact on short-term revenue on the OS front, in the long term you would see more and more small to medium sized businesses adopting various microsoft products to mix and match them with those of other operating systems, such as visual basic or microsoft access running on Linux. While not all-powerful, their quick development capabilities are somewhat lacking in linux and these two products, in paticular, would be purchased en masse.
~Cannis.
"I want to work for the NSA but my History grade
keeps bringing down my GPA, I guess I'll work
in Silicon Valley instead."
You're going about this all wrong. Its obvious that fighting this in court because whomever has the most money wins, so let the MPAA/RIAA/Whoever win for now. Let them make illegal to reverse engineer any and all encryption/encoding technology. Then all we need to do is write a simple crypto algorythem using a ceaser shift (read: a=b, b=c, c=d, etc.) and include this in the agreement:
"Free for individual, personal use. All other entities and individuals using this software for any other reason other than personal entertainment MUST subscribe to this software that will entitle unlimited use for a small fee of one billion dollars per week. Cash or certified banks checks only please..."
Ta da, now they either REALLY REALLY want to access it, or they use it illegally and you sue them for damages.
Slashdot Mirror
My LCD screens (2 Notebooks - IBM Thinkpad thats 4 years old and a Compaq thats under 1 year) only fail when I drop them on the hard, hard concrete. :)
In a few of the examples cited, esp. OpenAL. The name is an obvious play on OpenGL's name and reputation. Thus is one of said products sucked, OpenGL's rep could be on the line as well. In this case, it appears that SGI's request is well founded.
By reading the above message, you ("screwed") agree to the following terms set forth by me
("JustCallMeGawd").
(1) Under no circumstances will "screwed" discuss
or repeat any text in the above message with
anyone not bound by this legal agreement.
(2) "screwed" agrees to pay a subscription fee
of $900.00 US for every week that said message
is remembered.
(3) "screwed" acknowledges that under the DCMA,
"JustCallMeGawd" retains ownership of any ideas expressed or implied by the above message as well as any information (aka thoughts) inspired directly or indirectly by said message.
(4) Should any of the above terms and conditions be violated by "screwed", "screwed" will remit a fine of $100,000,000.00 and "screwed"'s eternal soul to "JustCallMeGawd" within 14 days.
What are the odds of microsoft releasing all the DirectX and Windows API specs1 into public domain or adopting another standard (or *nix compatability layer)? While it might have some detrimental impact on short-term revenue on the OS front, in the long term you would see more and more small to medium sized businesses adopting various microsoft products to mix and match them with those of other operating systems, such as visual basic or microsoft access running on Linux. While not all-powerful, their quick development capabilities are somewhat lacking in linux and these two products, in paticular, would be purchased en masse.
~Cannis.
"I want to work for the NSA but my History grade
keeps bringing down my GPA, I guess I'll work
in Silicon Valley instead."
Guys, guys...
You're going about this all wrong. Its obvious that fighting this in court because whomever has the most money wins, so let the MPAA/RIAA/Whoever win for now. Let them make illegal to reverse engineer any and all encryption/encoding technology. Then all we need to do is write a simple crypto algorythem using a ceaser shift (read: a=b, b=c, c=d, etc.) and include this in the agreement:
"Free for individual, personal use. All other entities and individuals using this software for any other reason other than personal entertainment MUST subscribe to this software that will entitle unlimited use for a small fee of one billion dollars per week. Cash or certified banks checks only please..."
Ta da, now they either REALLY REALLY want to access it, or they use it illegally and you sue them for damages.
I wonder if they're dropping it because of the .NET competition or maybe they just realized nobody needs a fridge with a T1 connection.