"Most users in this world are tied to a certain operating system (due to the simple lack of equally user-friendly alternatives), and software that comes bundled with it."
They may prefer it, but they aren't "tied" to it. They are free to learn to use one of the alternatives (and this is the first I've seen someone label the Mac "less user friendly").
"Many users are also tied to specific software that they use at work."
Then it is the employer that is bound by the EULA, not the individual.
"If I like Quake, but not the EULA that id software dishes out, I'd probably sign up and play, for the simple reason..."
...that you don't dislike the EULA enough to give up Quake to avoid it. Thus, you _chose_ to accept the EULA.
"Just what purpose does reading the EULA serve,..."
It tells you what you are getting into, should you choose to accept it.
"...when pressing the "I Decline" button is simply not an alternative?"
There is always an alternative. You aren't going to starve to death or die of exposure just because you choose not to use some particular piece of software.
"The root of the problem here is that every single piece of software is a little monopoly..."
None of the software on my computer is a monopoly of any kind.
"You'll usually be able to find two boxes of cereal with similar taste, manufactured by two different corporations."
Many people say otherwise. They insist that there is absolutely no acceptable substitute for the Exploding CatHead(TM) cereal they saw on the morning cartoons. Most of these people are under 10 years old. Sometimes I suspect that most computer users are of a similar mental age.
"That's kinda tough when you have developers on your system. How the hell are they going to actually _run_ stuff?"
On a scratch partition which should be the only one on the system that isn't noexec, writeable only by root, or read-only. Give each developer a directory in the scratch filesystem and symlink it into his $HOME. This also will protect you when one of those programs they want to run goes amuck.
"...what if a user, frustrated because he can't run some app in his $HOME, turns to/tmp,/var/tmp,/usr/tmp..."
/tmp and/var should be noexec partitions.
"Sure, mount your root fs...
Only root needs write permission on the root filesystem.
or/usr fs noexec..."
/usr should be read-only.
..."when these dirs are not mounted on a seperate filesystem..."
"Don't nations worldwide have control over how their physical locations are addressed?"
So you figure that the SA government should be able to regulate how US map publishers spell SA place names? A German publisher of industrial indexes should have to get permission from the SA government to list the phone numbers of SA businesses?
"Slashdot has a bit of sensationalism along with opinnions and sometimes unreliable sources that prevent me from believing everything I read on it."
If you believe everything you read in the newspapers you are a gullible fool. Conventional media are no more accurate, truthful, or unbiased than Slashdot. The difference is that here you find out about the inaccuracies, etc. Newspapers publish corrections only under threat of lawsuit, and then on an obscure back page weeks or months after the event.
"I can see where a large OSS project could get unwieldy really quickly with 100's of hobby developers scattered across the globe. As the number of "free" developers involved goes up, I'm sure the number of problems skyrockets."
"If the creators of the Archos portable MP3 player had patented their design of the firmware, then the DMCA would protect them from others reverse engineering their product..."
The DMCA has nothing to do with patents. Besides, if they had patented the stuff there would be no need to reverse engineer. You could just read the patents.
"...wondering about the ability of a switched psu to properly drive a tube amplification stage..."
Five volts will make the filament glow nicely. That's all it will take to convince the tube enthusiasts that the sound is better. No need for the tube to actually do anything.
To be somewhat less sarcastic, a small switcher could supply 100 volts or so for the plate, or they could use one of the 12 volt tubes that were developed for car radios.
"I am not willing to use force, or hire someone else to use force, against someone whose only relevant action has been the creation of a popular format."
You've got it exactly backwards. It is the owners of file format patents who are using force to compell the rest of us to pay them for the use of the format. We are proposing the _cessation_ of the use of force.
"The solution to this problem isn't to violate the property rights of the owner of the format but to simply refuse to use it."
A patent is not a property right. It is a temporary monopoly granted (and enforced) by the governement, supposedly for the benefit of society.
"The Organization header is meant to identify the organization the user belogs to or the machine, the news server itself."
The machine referred to is the one the article originates from, not the first server it propagates to. Why do you think that news clients insert the "Organization" header to begin with?
"From an NNTP point of view, the "organization" is really the provider hosting the news service,"
The organization is clearly intended to be that of the author of the article.
"They're doing exactly what a lot of other providers have been doing for years."
A lot of providers have been screwing up news in all sorts of ways for years.
Slashdot Mirror
"Most users in this world are tied to a certain operating system (due to the simple lack of equally user-friendly alternatives), and software that comes bundled with it."
They may prefer it, but they aren't "tied" to it. They are free to learn to use one of the alternatives (and this is the first I've seen someone label the Mac "less user friendly").
"Many users are also tied to specific software that they use at work."
Then it is the employer that is bound by the EULA, not the individual.
"If I like Quake, but not the EULA that id software dishes out, I'd probably sign up and play, for the simple reason..."
...that you don't dislike the EULA enough to give up Quake to avoid it. Thus, you _chose_ to accept the EULA.
"Just what purpose does reading the EULA serve,..."
It tells you what you are getting into, should you choose to accept it.
"...when pressing the "I Decline" button is simply not an alternative?"
There is always an alternative. You aren't going to starve to death or die of exposure just because you choose not to use some particular piece of software.
"The root of the problem here is that every single piece of software is a little monopoly..."
None of the software on my computer is a monopoly of any kind.
"You'll usually be able to find two boxes of cereal with similar taste, manufactured by two different corporations."
Many people say otherwise. They insist that there is absolutely no acceptable substitute for the Exploding CatHead(TM) cereal they saw on the morning cartoons. Most of these people are under 10 years old. Sometimes I suspect that most computer users are of a similar mental age.
"For now on, you might just want to read the EULA before you click 'accept'."
I've never accepted an EULA. I never will.
"Just curious, How many posters to Slashdot graduated from English 101?"
None, since one cannot graduate from English 101 at all. Many of us received very good grades for it, though.
"Only root can write? How can developers create executables then when they can't write them to the filesystem?"
Read what I wrote:
"On a scratch partition which should be the only one on the system that isn't noexec, writeable only by root, or read-only."
Get it? The scratch system _is_ both writeable by the developers and exec. Nothing else is.
"And besides: It still doesn't prevent a trojaned app to start a daemon that hooks the developers tty."
It first has to get itself installed. Want to name a few that have suceeded?
"It's very hard to stop these kind of attacks."
I guess that's why Linux is plagued with thousands
of keylogger trojans.
"That's kinda tough when you have developers on your system. How the hell are they going to actually _run_ stuff?"
/tmp, /var/tmp, /usr/tmp..."
/var should be noexec partitions.
/usr fs noexec..."
On a scratch partition which should be the only one on the system that isn't noexec, writeable only by root, or read-only. Give each developer a directory in the scratch filesystem and symlink it into his $HOME. This also will protect you when one of those programs they want to run goes amuck.
"...what if a user, frustrated because he can't run some app in his $HOME, turns to
/tmp and
"Sure, mount your root fs...
Only root needs write permission on the root filesystem.
or
/usr should be read-only.
..."when these dirs are not mounted on a seperate filesystem..."
Such systems are not configured securely.
"But what if your local debian mirror becomes compromised? Would you notice? I doubt it. Will apt notice? I don't think so."
How is the cracker going to get himself added to the Debian keyring?
"Oh ye of little understanding..."
/home is mounted noexec, as it should be?
Indeed.
"What if a "virus" just nukes your $HOME?"
What if
A secure system is configured so that only root can install executables.
Why would you run ./configure as root? And the only make command you might need to run as root is 'make install'.
If you want to be paranoid you could download only official Debian source packages and always check the signatures.
"But shouldn't the GOVERNMENT of South Africa decide who controls the .za domain..."
They can do whatever the hell they want inside SA, but why should they have any say over what goes into databases located in other countries?
"If they cannot perform their functions in a less confrontational manner, perhaps its time we handed control back to where it used to be."
Right. Let's give it back to the US DoD.
"Don't nations worldwide have control over how their physical locations are addressed?"
So you figure that the SA government should be able to regulate how US map publishers spell SA place names? A German publisher of industrial indexes should have to get permission from the SA government to list the phone numbers of SA businesses?
Hint: the root servers are not in South Africa.
Osheroff is right. It's crackpottery.
"Slashdot has a bit of sensationalism along with opinnions and sometimes unreliable sources that prevent me from believing everything I read on it."
If you believe everything you read in the newspapers you are a gullible fool. Conventional media are no more accurate, truthful, or unbiased than Slashdot. The difference is that here you find out about the inaccuracies, etc. Newspapers publish corrections only under threat of lawsuit, and then on an obscure back page weeks or months after the event.
"I can see where a large OSS project could get unwieldy really quickly with 100's of hobby developers scattered across the globe. As the number of "free" developers involved goes up, I'm sure the number of problems skyrockets."
I guess that's why Debian is a total failure.
"Hope they mention "DO NOT EAT" in regards to the silica packets ;)"
Don't do that in the Italian version.
"Is this just too much work for our lazy American manufacturers to do?"
I certainly hope so. Those Hungarian manuals, on the other hand, sound like just the thing.
"If the creators of the Archos portable MP3 player had patented their design of the firmware, then the DMCA would protect them from others reverse engineering their product..."
The DMCA has nothing to do with patents. Besides, if they had patented the stuff there would be no need to reverse engineer. You could just read the patents.
"...wondering about the ability of a switched psu to properly drive a tube amplification stage..."
Five volts will make the filament glow nicely. That's all it will take to convince the tube enthusiasts that the sound is better. No need for the tube to actually do anything.
To be somewhat less sarcastic, a small switcher could supply 100 volts or so for the plate, or they could use one of the 12 volt tubes that were developed for car radios.
"I am not willing to use force, or hire someone else to use force, against someone whose only relevant action has been the creation of a popular format."
You've got it exactly backwards. It is the owners of file format patents who are using force to compell the rest of us to pay them for the use of the format. We are proposing the _cessation_ of the use of force.
"The solution to this problem isn't to violate the property rights of the owner of the format but to simply refuse to use it."
A patent is not a property right. It is a temporary monopoly granted (and enforced) by the governement, supposedly for the benefit of society.
"These are some ideas on when and how file formats should enter the public domain, just like trademarks do when they become "generic"."
They should never leave the public domain. The notion that file formats should be patentable is ludicrous.
"Now, the MEMS projection chip does not have to be any particular size,..."
Yes it does. Go read up on diffraction.
"...this "superior" Lunix operating system's complete lack of Unicode support..."
Try Linux. It's had Unicode for years.
The correct answer to question 9 is 1. No one is alleging that FooCorp is infringing any patents.
"fdisk /mbr works nicely for that..."
/mbr workd for nothing but overwriting the boot loader.
fdisk
"...we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own."
Name a species of animal that is suitable for life on its own.
"The Organization header is meant to identify the organization the user belogs to or the machine, the news server itself."
The machine referred to is the one the article originates from, not the first server it propagates to. Why do you think that news clients insert the "Organization" header to begin with?
"From an NNTP point of view, the "organization" is really the provider hosting the news service,"
The organization is clearly intended to be that of the author of the article.
"They're doing exactly what a lot of other providers have been doing for years."
A lot of providers have been screwing up news in all sorts of ways for years.