and does not address my original point which is that Joe Sixpack does not typically install a beta OS.
Do you have any proof of this? Because my experience seems to indicate otherwise... the only people I know who are playing with the betas are relative n00bs who got all excited about "I'm going to be running Vista!"
Or have one of your friends turn in one of your papers... when they nail him for plaigerism, he asks for proof that it was a copy (of course, you've cross-licensed a paper with one he's given you:-)
How many companies have to buy more licenses because they lost their original keys, even though they have the install CD?
How many people have had to buy a new retail license because their original one that came pre-installed is lost (esp. for laptops) ?
It's not that small a group - and this will snare a lot of legit users. Look at the 15% - 20% false positives "you have a pirated OS" that WGA was giving...
As for Joe Sixpack trying out beta systems - if he's been running XP prior to SP2, he's been running beta software.
Do you really believe that your average Joe SixPack, who decided to try it out because his brother-in-law brought the CD over, is going to be able to recover?
Its marketing, pure and simple.
It'll also ensnare more than a few with keys that have been revoked since they originally installed, and force the rest to sign up for WGA and accept the weekly "phone home". And this is just a few of the consequences off the top of my head.
No, I don't trust them. But then again, I'n not in the unfortunate position of having to.
Microsoft created a product that, IF USED CORRECTLY (and programmed to correctly), works just fine.
And what was the name of this mysterious product? Its certainly nothing that has seen the light of day.
Its certainly not any version of Windows, with that wonderful "surf the net, get your patches automatically... oops, you're already owned before you have a chance to install the first patch" user experience...
It can't be Microsoft Office, which confuses the heck out of most people when doing even simple tasks... and leaks all your edits, private annotations, revision history, etc., as well as piggybacking macro viruses...
It can't be Outlook... "where am I going to send your files today"
Internet Explorer, with the "sploit of the day?" Nah.
The simple fact is that if all a person is using is those 4 pieces of software, replacing them with linux, openoffice, thunderbird and firefox is doing them a favour.
Heck, someone even came out with a replacement for Clippy that runs under linux. http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
Is it cheesy? Yes. That's the whole point.
"Well, yes, however I don't see why would a person living off of repairing broken Windows would suggest that people would use something that doesn't break as often..."
Perhaps he wants to differentiate himself from everyone else... maybe get a bit of "word of mouth" going?
Person A: My computer keeps getting bogged down by viruses
Person B: Mine used to also. Then I took it to __INSERT_NAME_HERE__ and I don't even need a virus scanner any more
Person A: Can I have their email/telephone/web site?
It would be nice if they did, because I've had to uninstall every one I've bought. All the way back to 3.0. It wouldn't be that hard for them to come up with an uninstaller that removed all their files, leaving any user-added and 3-rd party files and directories intact.
Come to think of it, it wouldn't be that hard to make a rescue CD that did exactly that:
Install OS
boot off of rescue cd - it mounts the partition, takes inventory of all files on drive, saves list (usb, special file, whatever)
comes time to uninstall - just remove all those files
Any time you install a new program:
before installing updates - get list of all current files
install / update
get list of all new/changed files - add new files to list of uninstallable files
You could also do this for applications. It would be like an enhanced "system rollback."
Most jurisdictions have laws against unfair or unconscionable contracts (one-sided contracts with provisions not in the publics' interest - google for "contract of adhesion"). Any school attempting to misappropriate would be on sorry legal footing.
Which leads me to this interesting thought - since turnitin never even LOOKS at the paper, just copies it without authorization, it seems to me that what the students should do is this:
write their papers
register the copyright with the copyright office
after turnitin copies it, hit them with a DMCA violation
ask for $150,000 statutory damages per incident as per the copyright act (this is the limit for works that are registered - you don't have to prove damages if the work is registered).
My point is that people don't even have to think of that for +90% of all devices that use computers - its a given. Its only in the PC world that its EXPECTED that everything will work like shite, crash all the time, and require constant patching to even maintain bsic functionality... and that even then, it will somehow get "bit rot", "dll hell", "registry corruption" and require a fresh install every so often.
Perhaps you don't remember how Windows used to offer to "help" by "offering" removing OS/2 or other boot loaders (Win 3.0/3.1 days) rather than silently overwriting the mbr?
You had the option then of not disturbing your original boot-loader, which you could then update yourself to add Windows to the list of bootable OSes.
Somehow or other Microsoft "lost" this capability... intentionally.
People who are using these 'release candates' the way that Microsoft intends them should have no problem. These are not targeted as 'free trial versions' for the warez crowd. These are pre-release test versions for developers.
No... this RC is available to the whole world, intentionally. The idea is to get as many people to use it as possible, and hope that their inertia will cause them to pop for the full purchase price next July.
And any self-respecting geek has secondary test machines capable of trying this stuff out, not just spare partitions or drives.
I have spare machines, but I'm not worried about using spare partitions on my main box to test new linux distros - after all... its not like I'm using it to test some virus-prone trojan-ware OS. One 250-gig hd is devoted just to spare testing partitions, another 250-gig is my/home, etc...
"Most people" are not in the target audience of a preview operating system, with poor hardware support (lack of drivers) and potentially unstable features.
"Most people" have been using your definition of a "preview operating system" for years (potentially unstable features).
Keeping in line with the "Betas are the new Alphas, RCs are the new Betas", its true the the "Gold Masters" have really been Betas for more than two decades. That's "The Microsoft Way."
But from what I've been hearing, Windows XP might be ready for release sometime later this year...:-)
The school would be well within its rights simply to refuse that papers with copyright notices be submissible for a grade. They could just fail you outright. The truth is, as a student you basically don't own the work you turn in for a grade.
WFT?
OF COURSE you own any original work you submit. Copyright is automatic. This is not "work for hire" in any sense of the word, not at the high school level, and certainly not at the university level (turnitin.com also infringes university students' copyrights).
University of Colorado Success StoryPlagiarism was a serious problem at the University of Colorado, despite an academic...
You can easily make a fair use argument, it's being used purely for educational, non-profit purposes. And let's be honest, none of these students is actually producing anything that's inherently valuable, we're talking high school level papers here. Their proprietary attitude towards the utterly useless things they're writing is kind of amusing.
You also said:
You can easily make a fair use argument, it's being used purely for educational, non-profit purposes.
turnitin is not an educational institution, nor is it a non-profit. They do not have the same right to "fair use" vis educational institutions that the schools do. In fact, they have less right to look at these papers than the school janitor (at least he or she could claim they were reading it to make sure it wasn't something that was accidently tossed in the recycling bin).
Fair use by educational institutions is very specific. For example, for live performances of plays, one of the restrictions is that it has to be on school grounds.
Better yet, put the essay in a sealed envelope, and the terms of the EULA on the outside, with the "by opening this envelope you agree to the following terms and conditions..."
Better from a legal point of view than the "shrinkwrap click-through EULAs", which you can't even read until you're actually running the product for the first time.
You seem to not understand the terms of the EULA for unreleased Microsoft software.
Seeing as I wasn't shown any EULA before downloading, and I don't have to run the install program - just move my now-LEGIT copy of the files from the iso to another place on the same hard drive (just mount the iso on one of the loopback devices), your comment about EULAs is a non sequitur.
Not that I'd bother using it - but for those who want the option, this is one way to use Microsoft dlls for those who still think they have to.
But now I bet that in the admission rules it will be written that "student give fully and eternally the right to the school to copy and dsitribute any essay they give back for a notation, for any usage. "
With the way things are going, it wouldn't surprise me.
Put copyright notice on every page of your essay
School submits it to turnitin
Sue everyone in the chain for copyright violations
Microsoft does NOT represent the majority of the computing universe.
The majority of the computing universe is in embedded processors - and you won't see them calling beta code a "release candidate."
Would you want your car, your cell phone, your landline, your dvd player, your television, your monitor, your lcd display, your printer, your scanner, your microwave, your coffee maker, your watch, your calculator, and everything else running code that was as crappy as Microsofts "Gold Master", never mind RC?
Just because Microsoft doesn't have a clue doesn't mean everyone else has to buy in. The majority haven't, because people won't put up with that sh*t. Its only in the PC world that people have come to the point where something that's even mediocre exceeds expectations.
Anyone who got XP pre-installed, and doesn't have their recovery disks (or their recovery disks are b0rked), is shit out of luck. Ditto if they haven't got their disk for their mother board, their video card, etc.
Same goes for anyone who bought a retail version, or has the original cd, but can no longer read the teeny tiny almost unreadable micro-font that they printed the product key in, so they can't re-activate it. Or its deteriorated with age, because they were stupid enough to put the sticker on the PC as per the bogus instructions saying you "had" to put the license key sticker on your PC, instead of keeping it in a safe place.
That "WHOOSH" noise you just heard was the Original Poster's question flying right over your head.
Look at the wording in the subject heading - boot loaders - plural. NOT just the Microsoft boot loader.
... in other words, it replaces any existing boot-loader with its own brain-dead one, and if you have other operating systems installed, you have to reinstall a proper multi-boot-loader (not a Microsoft-only one).
A friend of mine had a similar experience 2 weeks ago when he bought a new 320-gig drive, doing a fresh install under XP, so I don't think its limited to just Vista...
Slashdot Mirror
and does not address my original point which is that Joe Sixpack does not typically install a beta OS.
Do you have any proof of this? Because my experience seems to indicate otherwise ... the only people I know who are playing with the betas are relative n00bs who got all excited about "I'm going to be running Vista!"
Or have one of your friends turn in one of your papers ... when they nail him for plaigerism, he asks for proof that it was a copy (of course, you've cross-licensed a paper with one he's given you :-)
How many people have had to buy a new retail license because their original one that came pre-installed is lost (esp. for laptops) ?
It's not that small a group - and this will snare a lot of legit users. Look at the 15% - 20% false positives "you have a pirated OS" that WGA was giving ...
As for Joe Sixpack trying out beta systems - if he's been running XP prior to SP2, he's been running beta software.
Do you really believe that your average Joe SixPack, who decided to try it out because his brother-in-law brought the CD over, is going to be able to recover?
Its marketing, pure and simple.
It'll also ensnare more than a few with keys that have been revoked since they originally installed, and force the rest to sign up for WGA and accept the weekly "phone home". And this is just a few of the consequences off the top of my head.
No, I don't trust them. But then again, I'n not in the unfortunate position of having to.
And what was the name of this mysterious product? Its certainly nothing that has seen the light of day.
Its certainly not any version of Windows, with that wonderful "surf the net, get your patches automatically ... oops, you're already owned before you have a chance to install the first patch" user experience ...
It can't be Microsoft Office, which confuses the heck out of most people when doing even simple tasks ... and leaks all your edits, private annotations, revision history, etc., as well as piggybacking macro viruses ...
It can't be Outlook ... "where am I going to send your files today"
Internet Explorer, with the "sploit of the day?" Nah.
The simple fact is that if all a person is using is those 4 pieces of software, replacing them with linux, openoffice, thunderbird and firefox is doing them a favour.
Heck, someone even came out with a replacement for Clippy that runs under linux. http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/ Is it cheesy? Yes. That's the whole point.
The stock market as a whole is only a zero-sum game in a flat market with no new companies entering and no old companies leaving.
"Well, yes, however I don't see why would a person living off of repairing broken Windows would suggest that people would use something that doesn't break as often..."
Perhaps he wants to differentiate himself from everyone else ... maybe get a bit of "word of mouth" going?
Person A: My computer keeps getting bogged down by viruses
Person B: Mine used to also. Then I took it to __INSERT_NAME_HERE__ and I don't even need a virus scanner any more
Person A: Can I have their email/telephone/web site?
It would be nice if they did, because I've had to uninstall every one I've bought. All the way back to 3.0. It wouldn't be that hard for them to come up with an uninstaller that removed all their files, leaving any user-added and 3-rd party files and directories intact.
Come to think of it, it wouldn't be that hard to make a rescue CD that did exactly that:
Any time you install a new program:
You could also do this for applications. It would be like an enhanced "system rollback."
Sounds to me like there's a need / demand for some sort of open-source / creative commons - type plays.
Of course, all this begs the question as to why schools that teach play writing as a class don't produce stuff worth "producing" (I know, bad pun :-).
Most jurisdictions have laws against unfair or unconscionable contracts (one-sided contracts with provisions not in the publics' interest - google for "contract of adhesion"). Any school attempting to misappropriate would be on sorry legal footing.
Good nit-pick. You're right.
Which leads me to this interesting thought - since turnitin never even LOOKS at the paper, just copies it without authorization, it seems to me that what the students should do is this:
My point is that people don't even have to think of that for +90% of all devices that use computers - its a given. Its only in the PC world that its EXPECTED that everything will work like shite, crash all the time, and require constant patching to even maintain bsic functionality ... and that even then, it will somehow get "bit rot", "dll hell", "registry corruption" and require a fresh install every so often.
Perhaps you don't remember how Windows used to offer to "help" by "offering" removing OS/2 or other boot loaders (Win 3.0/3.1 days) rather than silently overwriting the mbr?
You had the option then of not disturbing your original boot-loader, which you could then update yourself to add Windows to the list of bootable OSes.
Somehow or other Microsoft "lost" this capability ... intentionally.
No ... this RC is available to the whole world, intentionally. The idea is to get as many people to use it as possible, and hope that their inertia will cause them to pop for the full purchase price next July.
I have spare machines, but I'm not worried about using spare partitions on my main box to test new linux distros - after all ... its not like I'm using it to test some virus-prone trojan-ware OS. One 250-gig hd is devoted just to spare testing partitions, another 250-gig is my /home, etc ...
"Most people" have been using your definition of a "preview operating system" for years (potentially unstable features).
Keeping in line with the "Betas are the new Alphas, RCs are the new Betas", its true the the "Gold Masters" have really been Betas for more than two decades. That's "The Microsoft Way."
But from what I've been hearing, Windows XP might be ready for release sometime later this year ... :-)
WFT?
OF COURSE you own any original work you submit. Copyright is automatic. This is not "work for hire" in any sense of the word, not at the high school level, and certainly not at the university level (turnitin.com also infringes university students' copyrights).
You could have at least checked the home page of turnitin.com before making an unfounded (and wrong) assumption.
You wrote:
However:
(from the turnitin home page
You can easily make a fair use argument, it's being used purely for educational, non-profit purposes. And let's be honest, none of these students is actually producing anything that's inherently valuable, we're talking high school level papers here. Their proprietary attitude towards the utterly useless things they're writing is kind of amusing.
You also said:
turnitin is not an educational institution, nor is it a non-profit. They do not have the same right to "fair use" vis educational institutions that the schools do. In fact, they have less right to look at these papers than the school janitor (at least he or she could claim they were reading it to make sure it wasn't something that was accidently tossed in the recycling bin).
Fair use by educational institutions is very specific. For example, for live performances of plays, one of the restrictions is that it has to be on school grounds.
Better yet, put the essay in a sealed envelope, and the terms of the EULA on the outside, with the "by opening this envelope you agree to the following terms and conditions ..."
Better from a legal point of view than the "shrinkwrap click-through EULAs", which you can't even read until you're actually running the product for the first time.
Seeing as I wasn't shown any EULA before downloading, and I don't have to run the install program - just move my now-LEGIT copy of the files from the iso to another place on the same hard drive (just mount the iso on one of the loopback devices), your comment about EULAs is a non sequitur.
Not that I'd bother using it - but for those who want the option, this is one way to use Microsoft dlls for those who still think they have to.
Some fool wrote:
User pdpTrojan's last 24 comments:20 out of 24 at -1
If the final quality of Vista matches the quality of its defenders, Linux damn well better be ready for everybody's desktop.
But now I bet that in the admission rules it will be written that "student give fully and eternally the right to the school to copy and dsitribute any essay they give back for a notation, for any usage. "
With the way things are going, it wouldn't surprise me.
Fair Use doesn't cover making complete copies.
Microsoft does NOT represent the majority of the computing universe.
The majority of the computing universe is in embedded processors - and you won't see them calling beta code a "release candidate."
Would you want your car, your cell phone, your landline, your dvd player, your television, your monitor, your lcd display, your printer, your scanner, your microwave, your coffee maker, your watch, your calculator, and everything else running code that was as crappy as Microsofts "Gold Master", never mind RC?
Just because Microsoft doesn't have a clue doesn't mean everyone else has to buy in. The majority haven't, because people won't put up with that sh*t. Its only in the PC world that people have come to the point where something that's even mediocre exceeds expectations.
Anyone who got XP pre-installed, and doesn't have their recovery disks (or their recovery disks are b0rked), is shit out of luck. Ditto if they haven't got their disk for their mother board, their video card, etc.
Same goes for anyone who bought a retail version, or has the original cd, but can no longer read the teeny tiny almost unreadable micro-font that they printed the product key in, so they can't re-activate it. Or its deteriorated with age, because they were stupid enough to put the sticker on the PC as per the bogus instructions saying you "had" to put the license key sticker on your PC, instead of keeping it in a safe place.
That "WHOOSH" noise you just heard was the Original Poster's question flying right over your head.
Look at the wording in the subject heading - boot loaders - plural. NOT just the Microsoft boot loader.
So no, it doesn't play nice with boot loaders.
A friend of mine had a similar experience 2 weeks ago when he bought a new 320-gig drive, doing a fresh install under XP, so I don't think its limited to just Vista ...