Was this the lawyer who purchased a house while he was walking away from another property (some sort of "jingle mail" or mortgage default?) I seem to remember something about that last year...
As I understand it, the law says it's illegal to aid breaches of copyright.
So why isn't Microsoft charged as a co-defendant? Seems to me that more people use Windows to pirate copyright material - after all, people who use F/LOSS don't feel as much *need* to pirate copyrighted software.
We could also add the news media, for reporting this story, thus telling people how to get the stuff. They're sure "aiding breaches of copyright law". And the makers of large hard drives, iPods and iPod-like devices, mp3 phones, photocopiers, cameras, flash drives, blank cd and dvd media, and anything else that "aids breaches of copyright."
The whole "aiding breaches of copyright law" is a slippery slope. Who to prosecute becomes a question of individual judgment, not of law.
The '90s called - they want their business plan back.
Web hosting is a dirt-cheap commodity. Also, if you don't need anything complicated, there are tons of free hosting services out there as well. Unless you have a specific value-add to offer, forget it.
[One researcher] is particularly interested in places that are heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus."
Nah, he's just getting ready to ask for a defense research grant to look for life forms that use phosphorus the way we use arsenic... "imagine the weaponizing possibilities."
If that fails, he's going to ask for a bailout and a "retention bonus."
Ditto - but back in the 70's. What next - wide ties and lapels, bell-bottoms and flood pants, nehru jackets and peasant skirts, platform shoes and disco?
Well, what the heck, if you can't get bail-out money, at least get research grant money.
I'd go back to slackware or FreeBSD if stability were a big issue in today's distros, but I haven't run into too many problems with my current distro (openSUSE 11.1). The people whining about KDE 4.0 didn't bother reading all the warnings when they were installing their distro.
It was clearly labeled as not ready for prime time. Either that, or I'm psychic, and if the latter were true, I'd have the winning lottery numbers, which I don't.
It was right there in bold when I installed openSUSE.
But more importantly, even your link says it's a test release, so they can get feedback...:
For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute, several distributions have notified us that they will have KDE 4.0 packages available at or soon after the release
No rewrite of history necessary. Everyone knew this was alpha-quality software. The distros made it clear during the install process that this was just for getting a first look at KDE 4x. The only ones doing the whining are those who didn't bother to get a clue.
So ask them to port it to aalib or libcaca to create KDE - ASCII ART EDITION. That should run fine on a 486 with a 256k video card, 32 megs of ram, and a monochrome vga or hercules monitor (all of which should be available for free if you poke around a bit:-)
Unlike everyone who is bitching and moaning, I read the notes about how KDE 4.0 was just a preview, do not use, do not install on production machines, etc... so I continued to use KDE 3.5 until 4.2 came out. Now I switch back and forth - my work machine has 4.2 and runs like a charm, complete with rotating desk cube and all the other neat features.
My laptop runs both - in dual monitor mode (17" 1400x900 laptop + 26" 1920x1200 primary screens) - with no issues.
I hope not. I'm have used kubuntu since 0606 and been happy about it and recommended it to everybody. But I stayed on 0804 with still has kde 3.5, and now I'm looking for an alternative distro.
Ubuntu / Kbuntu are bastardized distros. Ubuntu has to learn that there's a difference between trying to create a more user-friendly distro and "more Windows-like experience". And Xubuntu is a mess.
Still KDE 3.5 - so perhaps this will be the KDE user's distro of choice?
Not in this lifetime. KDE 4.2 runs fine, including the wobbly windows and rotating desk cube, on decent hardware.
Debian, on the other hand... well, it kind of sucks. Someone made the mistake of installing it on one of their home boxes, and... well, lets just say it feels OLD.
Every time you load the program into memory, you're creating a derivative work. The copy in memory is NOT an exact binary copy of what's on the disk - in the case of binaries, the loader patches addresses (hence modifying a copy of the "original work"), links to libraries, etc; in the case of scripts, the interpreter creates a modified, derived work when it creates the parse tree from the script, before script execution.
As you can see, you *have* to have the ability to create derived works, or the program is without use or purpose.
The introduction of the original NES Game Genie was met by fierce opposition from Nintendo. Nintendo sued Galoob in the case Galoob v. Nintendo, claiming that the Game Genie created derivative works in violation of copyright law. Sales of the Game Genie initially stopped in the U.S., but not in Canada. In many gaming magazines of the time, Galoob placed Game Genie ads saying "Thank You Canada!" However, after the courts found that use of the Game Genie did not result in a derivative work, Nintendo could do nothing to stop the Game Genie from being sold in the U.S. Sega, on the other hand, fully endorsed the product with their official seal of approval. Before the lawsuit was filed, Galoob offered to make the Game Genie an officially licensed product but was turned down by Nintendo.
It's clear that the Game Genie does create a derived work. It's also clear that derived works are not necessarily banned by copyright. Where it would stop is with redistribution of the work (in the case of Nintendo, a bin of the moddede game), as apposed to the Game Genie itself.
That being said, I think this whole discussion is a tempest in a tea-pot. Simply put, you sell them the script along with an agreement saying that it is protected copyright, that the customer has the NON-TRANSFERRABLE right to use the software, as well as create enhancements or modifications for their own internal use, but does not have the right to redistribute the software.
Make sure you make it non-transferrable - with the waves of bankruptcies and amalgamations going around, you don't want to see your work get a "Second Life" well beyond the intended scope of the original agreement.
Parent poster's theory: "The only way you can "ensure getting paid" is by not giving the client any freedom (or source) at all - the whole point of the open business models is that the customer can pick up your code and go pay someone else to support it, and that's ironically why you can charge a premium."
Actual practice: "They wrote it, so it's probably cheaper + safer (fewer bugs will creap in alongside the new features wo want to add) for us to get them to modify it than to get someone who has to get up to speed on it."
Only source that's widely distributed and used will get 3rd-party support. Otherwise, customers are pretty much married to the devs.
It's not just in the UK. We also have them in North America, in apartment buildings, etc. Of course, you can "broadcast" on channel 3 by plugging the video out from your dvd or vcr into the wall jack. One of my friends used to interrupt the Saturday morning cartoons with 5-10 minutes of p0rn.
Cats are lazy. If they're not hungry, they won't chase a rat. A *dog*, on the other hand, will chase a rat, a mouse, a cat, a squirrel, a skunk, a car...
"So, sure, in the very short term they can probably live a year or two off just porting their existing arcade games to every platform out there. But in the long run I can't help feeling that Sega is making itself less and less relevant. They're hardly making games any more. They're making more and more ports and emulations of games they made 10 years ago, with the occasional rehash, remake or sequel thrown in.
How long _can_ they live off innovation and good ideas they had in the 90's?"
Lets see:
[X] Hollywood does it
[X] The TV Networks do it
[X] The RIAA is still milking 30-year-old tunes
[X] Book publishers do it
[X] Everyone trying to become the next facebook is doing it
[_] GM... uh, they didn't do it (copy the asians)
"The UK's Odeon chain is installing 3D projectors in many of its cinemas. These new projectors will deliver 3D images at a resolution of 2K (2,048x1,080 pixels). To put that in context, that's roughly twice the resolution of a movie on a Blu-ray disc"
Where do they get their "twice the resolution?" blu-ray/hi-def is 1920x1080. We're only talking a difference of less than 7% - not "roughly twice the resolution."
I doubt may slashdotters would consider the lower-res 1280x720 as "really hi-def" any more.
I use linux exclusively at home, and a combination of linux and bsd at work. I haven't bought a Windows machine since 1996, with the exception of my current laptop, which has only run linux since a few months after I bought it last year. A few quibbles:-)
Actually, it's the more modern hardware that is better supported. Everything works fine on my less-than-one-year-old laptop; can't say the same for a 4-year-old machine. Standardization has helped this. Computers more than 3-4 years old should be junked or relegated to server status - they don't have the guts to give a satisfactory desktop experience compared to even a new $300 machine today ($300 gets you a 64-bit box w. a couple of gigs of ram, a 160 gig hd, etc. Why screw around with something from the turn of the century that doesn't have full hardware support?)
For the vast majority of users, email, docs, IM and browsing are 90 to 100% of their needs. If they're using an older machine, they're also using older games (that ran under both Win9x and xp) that they can run under wine. Those old machines aren't going to be running the latest games anyway
The console market is where the game action is - most particularly Nintendo. Look at how Microsoft just killed Flight Simulator, Age of Empires, etc. They see the PC game market as taking potential sales away from the xbox and the possibility of "rental streams" for games a la Steam.
Microsoft is dying. The rot set in a long time ago, and it's going to take some time for them to get under a 2/3 market share, but once that happens, the descent from 2/3 to 1/10 will be extremely rapid. People who don't understand tipping points will be shocked at how fast it will hit, but it's just history repeating itself. Just look at GM.
Most software either has equivalents in the open-source world, or DOES work. What's your problem with that? It's not like the Windows API is something new.
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't their first-ever layoff. Just the first that ever made such a huge media splash.
Was this the lawyer who purchased a house while he was walking away from another property (some sort of "jingle mail" or mortgage default?) I seem to remember something about that last year ...
So why isn't Microsoft charged as a co-defendant? Seems to me that more people use Windows to pirate copyright material - after all, people who use F/LOSS don't feel as much *need* to pirate copyrighted software.
We could also add the news media, for reporting this story, thus telling people how to get the stuff. They're sure "aiding breaches of copyright law". And the makers of large hard drives, iPods and iPod-like devices, mp3 phones, photocopiers, cameras, flash drives, blank cd and dvd media, and anything else that "aids breaches of copyright."
The whole "aiding breaches of copyright law" is a slippery slope. Who to prosecute becomes a question of individual judgment, not of law.
The '90s called - they want their business plan back.
Web hosting is a dirt-cheap commodity. Also, if you don't need anything complicated, there are tons of free hosting services out there as well. Unless you have a specific value-add to offer, forget it.
That can't compete with a cluster of playstations
On both cost and power consumption, the playstations beat the crap out of intel chips when it comes to numeric analysis.
Nah, he's just getting ready to ask for a defense research grant to look for life forms that use phosphorus the way we use arsenic ... "imagine the weaponizing possibilities."
If that fails, he's going to ask for a bailout and a "retention bonus."
1st Amendment:
Proposed September 29, 1789
Enacted December 15, 1791
The first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights) weren't there "from the start".
Ditto - but back in the 70's. What next - wide ties and lapels, bell-bottoms and flood pants, nehru jackets and peasant skirts, platform shoes and disco?
Well, what the heck, if you can't get bail-out money, at least get research grant money.
I'd go back to slackware or FreeBSD if stability were a big issue in today's distros, but I haven't run into too many problems with my current distro (openSUSE 11.1). The people whining about KDE 4.0 didn't bother reading all the warnings when they were installing their distro.
It was clearly labeled as not ready for prime time. Either that, or I'm psychic, and if the latter were true, I'd have the winning lottery numbers, which I don't.
It was right there in bold when I installed openSUSE.
But more importantly, even your link says it's a test release, so they can get feedback ...:
No rewrite of history necessary. Everyone knew this was alpha-quality software. The distros made it clear during the install process that this was just for getting a first look at KDE 4x. The only ones doing the whining are those who didn't bother to get a clue.
So ask them to port it to aalib or libcaca to create KDE - ASCII ART EDITION. That should run fine on a 486 with a 256k video card, 32 megs of ram, and a monochrome vga or hercules monitor (all of which should be available for free if you poke around a bit :-)
Unlike everyone who is bitching and moaning, I read the notes about how KDE 4.0 was just a preview, do not use, do not install on production machines, etc ... so I continued to use KDE 3.5 until 4.2 came out. Now I switch back and forth - my work machine has 4.2 and runs like a charm, complete with rotating desk cube and all the other neat features.
My laptop runs both - in dual monitor mode (17" 1400x900 laptop + 26" 1920x1200 primary screens) - with no issues.
My home server - who cares, right?
Gnome? I've never liked it.
On slackware? Fess up - you're piping your pr0n through aalib or libcaca as ASCII-art. Otherwise, you're not really hard-core.
Ubuntu / Kbuntu are bastardized distros. Ubuntu has to learn that there's a difference between trying to create a more user-friendly distro and "more Windows-like experience". And Xubuntu is a mess.
Try openSUSE (and use this link to get all the media codecs with one click). Try Fedora. Try Mandriva Heck, try Slackware.
Not in this lifetime. KDE 4.2 runs fine, including the wobbly windows and rotating desk cube, on decent hardware.
Debian, on the other hand ... well, it kind of sucks. Someone made the mistake of installing it on one of their home boxes, and ... well, lets just say it feels OLD.
Every time you load the program into memory, you're creating a derivative work. The copy in memory is NOT an exact binary copy of what's on the disk - in the case of binaries, the loader patches addresses (hence modifying a copy of the "original work"), links to libraries, etc; in the case of scripts, the interpreter creates a modified, derived work when it creates the parse tree from the script, before script execution.
As you can see, you *have* to have the ability to create derived works, or the program is without use or purpose.
Just wanted to point out that not all modifications are also derivations, in the practical sense. This was decided with the Game Genie case, where it was held that the sale of a tool that allowed the user to alter the copy in memory did not in fact violate copyright law:
It's clear that the Game Genie does create a derived work. It's also clear that derived works are not necessarily banned by copyright. Where it would stop is with redistribution of the work (in the case of Nintendo, a bin of the moddede game), as apposed to the Game Genie itself.
That being said, I think this whole discussion is a tempest in a tea-pot. Simply put, you sell them the script along with an agreement saying that it is protected copyright, that the customer has the NON-TRANSFERRABLE right to use the software, as well as create enhancements or modifications for their own internal use, but does not have the right to redistribute the software.
Make sure you make it non-transferrable - with the waves of bankruptcies and amalgamations going around, you don't want to see your work get a "Second Life" well beyond the intended scope of the original agreement.
Not to pick a fight, but,
Only source that's widely distributed and used will get 3rd-party support. Otherwise, customers are pretty much married to the devs.
It's not just in the UK. We also have them in North America, in apartment buildings, etc. Of course, you can "broadcast" on channel 3 by plugging the video out from your dvd or vcr into the wall jack. One of my friends used to interrupt the Saturday morning cartoons with 5-10 minutes of p0rn.
Cats are lazy. If they're not hungry, they won't chase a rat. A *dog*, on the other hand, will chase a rat, a mouse, a cat, a squirrel, a skunk, a car ...
"So, sure, in the very short term they can probably live a year or two off just porting their existing arcade games to every platform out there. But in the long run I can't help feeling that Sega is making itself less and less relevant. They're hardly making games any more. They're making more and more ports and emulations of games they made 10 years ago, with the occasional rehash, remake or sequel thrown in. How long _can_ they live off innovation and good ideas they had in the 90's?"
Lets see:
[X] Hollywood does it ... uh, they didn't do it (copy the asians)
[X] The TV Networks do it
[X] The RIAA is still milking 30-year-old tunes
[X] Book publishers do it
[X] Everyone trying to become the next facebook is doing it
[_] GM
MBMBA - "Management By MBA"
FTFA:
"The UK's Odeon chain is installing 3D projectors in many of its cinemas. These new projectors will deliver 3D images at a resolution of 2K (2,048x1,080 pixels). To put that in context, that's roughly twice the resolution of a movie on a Blu-ray disc"
Where do they get their "twice the resolution?" blu-ray/hi-def is 1920x1080. We're only talking a difference of less than 7% - not "roughly twice the resolution."
I doubt may slashdotters would consider the lower-res 1280x720 as "really hi-def" any more.
Ketchup. LOTS of ketchup. Anything to hide the taste.
Microsoft is dying. The rot set in a long time ago, and it's going to take some time for them to get under a 2/3 market share, but once that happens, the descent from 2/3 to 1/10 will be extremely rapid. People who don't understand tipping points will be shocked at how fast it will hit, but it's just history repeating itself. Just look at GM.
Most software either has equivalents in the open-source world, or DOES work. What's your problem with that? It's not like the Windows API is something new.
As for games, why not check here?
I don't download any music - haven't in years. Quite simply,
Now, from the blurb: