I have absolutely no idea is I'm repeating someone else there's already way too many posts to this thread.
When you're naming 2 - 30 machines then it's time to have some fun. We had a bunch of machines at WPI named after Buckaroo Banzai. You could do interesting things running printjobs from a machine called realsoon.
Anywho, after so many machines I think it's more important for the names to start being meaningful to you. You'll be so busy trying to manage all of these machines that anything informative in a name will help.
So, my suggestion is to combine OS, date of installation, and some location coding into the name. You can offer CNames if people need to telnet into these machines and make them easy to find, but you'll need good information for the managers. Also, I'd invest some good money right now on monitoring and inventory tools.
Yeah, it's boring, but it's practical. If you find yourself managing 4,000+ machines then you're life will be exciting enough without funny names.
While you're correct in saying that software has to be paid for, you're being too narrow in looking for the money.
Examples, in house development. Companies have their own stables of programmers building the tools they need/want for competitive advantage. What if they devoted 60-70% of those resources to working on Open Source projects that get them closer to their goal? Remember, if you don't distribute an OS project then you don't have to distribute the improved code. So, if three different companies working for different things all contributed towards the development of the base utilities then they all get a return far in proportion to the initial investment.
Second, schools. These institutions get money from grants, endowments, and tuition. They have a bunch of students and professors working there. Why not utilize Open Source to keep costs down and contribute back to that community? Again, return versus investment.
Finally, the Open Source people aren't trying to keep you from making a living selling software. The main complaint most of us have (or well to be honest at least I have) with MS is that they use their position to fight illegally. If it were just a matter of "may the best code win" then I think everyone would be perfectly willing to just roll up their sleeves and duke it out.
Remember, software isn't the beginning and ending of economics. For most people and companies software is just a means to an end. (Point of Sale systems in stores, Web Servers for e-businesses, accounting systems, etc.) For the average production company software is only an overhead cost driving up the overall cost of their products. And if you look at the Fortune 500, Microsoft is pretty far down the list.
The lessons of history have shown the following: companies are always trying to decrease their costs, monopolies tend to get broken up, and everyone hates bullies.
(Btw - the difference between software, and IP, versus physical things is that sharing the one doesn't decrease the value to the current owner. Two people can use the same software at the same time and both derive the same benefit, thus doubling the return. It's tough for two people to share the same airplane and fly in different directions.)
Open source would probably be better associated with the communal approach that some people embraced back in the 60's (not having been there it's purely hear-say for me).
I like to think that there are a few things that really drive the open source movement. The first is that ol' "itch I want to scratch" motivation. Somebody sees something that should be improved and/or created and launches off to work on it. Hopefully that process finds a bunch of "me-too" people and it blossoms (hence the SourceForge and FreshMeat ppl).
The second thing that drives open source is community. People want to contribute and/or show-off with their peers. How better to gain respect/kudos then to provide a useful tool? Fortunately there are enough people around that there is a community willing to contribute and build up instead of merely tearing down.
Finally, communication. The fact that you can have the main kernel people who work on Linux cooordinate efforts between the US, Norway, Sweden, etc. increases the power of the community. If only 1% of the programmers want to contribute to Open Source projects, then having a larger pool to draw from makes that 1% a bigger overall group of people.
Open Source "versus" proprietary isn't communism versus capitalism. It's really not versus anything. It's an idea that people use for differing goals. The main, and the best one, is to create good useful software. Some other people choose to use it as a rallying cry against all things proprietary (or more specifically against all things MS), but that's just how a particular group of people use the idea, it's not Open Source in and of itself.
First off, Microsoft does the same thing. The only difference is that their automatic search goes to Microsoft and they log there rather than having to do the more obvious redirect.
Second off, this is only if you use the search button. If you go to google.com and type in your search then Netscape/AOL gets no information.
Now, let's imagine if they got all the information from you. A unique ID string and all your search queries. They compile this data on your for an entire year. Great. Now, what the hell do they do with it? The only possible use for this would be to detect your string, cross-reference and munge all of this data, and present you with a slightly more targeted pop-up ad.
Well, guess what, another company already tried this. Remember them? They were called DoubleClick. In that case they had hundreds of web sites helping them to gather all of this information about browsers and what did they do with it? They couldn't turn a profit, they couldn't even target ads very well (if at all).
Think about it people. Yeah, it stinks that they're gathering this information. Yeah, they should be more forthcoming about what happens when you hit that Search button. Sure you can go an boycott them and add this to the '1 bazillion + 1 reasons that AOL is evil' list, but in the end, what does this get them?
Rampant movie piracy in Asia means that we have to have region encoded DVD's and electronic devices that won't copy anything without going "mother may I" to the RIAA and MPAA?
Have you seen some of these pirated movies? Someone walks into a theater with a freakin' cam corder and films the film. Or, they borrow the actual film from a friend who works there and they do the transfer that way. How do ANY of the proposed DRM (Digital Rights Minimization) tools going to prevent that?
The single biggest complaint that most of us have is that there is no logic to support the laws that the industry is asking for. The last time the MPAA went this crazy against a technology it was the Video Recorder. Fortunatly, they picked on Sony and ran up against a company that was willing and able to fight. This lead to the fair-use laws and one of the largest ancillary markets for the movie industry ever. You think they'd learn from the past and look for the money making angle.
Actually, in that case they were calling into question the logic behind certain zoning restrictions. Many municipalities have placed zoning restrictions over certain types of businesses based on the concept of "network effects". This was aimed at bars and strip clubs by saying that these businesses would attract unwelcome people into the neighborhood. These people would, of course, have the effect of depressing property values.
In the case of VoyeurDorm the argument was made that since the company "operated" on the Internet, the normal objection to these "network effects" was moot. No clientele were actually driving to the site to view this, in fact, they were sitting in the privacy of their own home watching via their computer.
So, this case wasn't about the law/lawlessness of the Internet, just that since the actual "business" didn't occur in the physical location in question, then restrictions based on physical location were moot.
Actually, Yahoo makes a perfect example for this. In that case, the Yahoo France site properly and promptly complied with French law. Yahoo's complaint was that France then went after the US-based Yahoo.com site and were trying to make them comply with French law as well.
If ElcomSoft only had assets in Russia than there would be a good case that US laws don't apply to them. The US could probably try to get them on some Import violations for sending copies of the software into the US, but it would have to be proved that the DMCA applies in cases like that. Since it appears that ElcomSoft has a physical presence (servers and employees) within the US then they have to abide by US laws. (It would be even more interesting to see if they have a US-based business entity as well.)
Remember that old '95 Consent Decree? They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar that time. Illegal restrictive contracts.
How 'bout Stacker? Copyright violation.
DR-DOS? Hmm, I wonder if you can charge a computer program with slander?
It has been proven throughout this trial that Microsoft is more than willing to threaten and bully anyone it can to get its own way.
Now to the more interesting statement: "the market wants a single company in that position". Where do you draw that conclusion from? If anything, the rise of standards like HTTP and HTML, the growth of Linux, the new world of Web Services, and initiatives like the Liberty Alliance show that "the market" wants standards. The numerous misstarts of Microsoft's Software Assurance Program (SAP, they should fire the guy who thought that one up) shows that "the market" is getting fed up with Microsoft's stong-arm tactics.
Yes there have been non-monopoly related crimes committed by MS (especially the Stacker incident). The problem is that if MS is allowed to keep its monopoly then there's no way to keep them from committing the monopoly-related abuses (shoving IE into the market) that it has committed recently.
Fair Use rights included making copies for friends. Mainly any non-commercial reproduction was allowed. The problem comes when the commercial aspect creeps in. This is where they caught Napster, the fact that the company was attempting to make money by providing this service.
Fair Use always allowed you to make a compilation tape and send it to a friend. The record companies weren't all that worried back then because of 1) the time it takes to dupe a tape, 2) the degradation of multi-generation copies, and 3) the wear and tear a "master" tape would suffer for making multiple copies.
Ignoring a license does not make it "legally available for free". At the time somewhere around 50% or more of Netscape's revenues game from browser sales.
Again, even if you and your friends chose not to pay for it, a number of people, and more importantly, OEM's WERE paying for it. When that revenue stream dried up they were forced to take another approach.
>It has NOTHING to do with elephants, mammals in general, or any kind of pink lifeform.
Hmm, seems like you have far too much knowledge about the virus writer. Especially to exclude mammals. Mr. Ashcroft and his "Defenders of Liberty" (tm) will be having a few words with you soon.
Congratulations. You have almost successfully rewrote history.
First off, Netscape WAS NOT FREE. Granted most people chose to ignore the Shareware-like license and just download and use the product. I do know many people who actually did go and buy it. That, however, is not the real problem.
The problem came with Microsoft's licenses with OEM, ISP's, and Application Developers. Microsoft illegally used the leverage that it had with the Windows license to force Compaq to stop bundling Netscape on their machines. (Something that Compaq was paying for becaue they felt that their customers wanted it.) Microsoft offerred "bounties" to ISP's for getting their customers to change from Netscape. Finally, Microsoft signed restrictive contracts with Application Developers to allow them access to necessary technical information about Windows 95.
All the while Microsoft was pouring Billions of dollars into the development of IE and artificially welding it into their OS.
As to your algebra and worries/questions about whether things are clear or not, that was what the whole trial was for. Microsoft presented their side of the case, the DoJ presented it's. Microsoft "lost" (found guilty of the various violations). At this stage of the trial, the only question is the N punishments. The X things wrong have already been established. (The DoJ did have the opportunity to press for additional things wrong, but decided to forego that for reasons unkown.)
Or the Jeep's replacement that we call the HumVee: HMMWV - High Mobility Multi-Wheel Vehicle
Frankly the more colorful military acronyms are usually "obfuscated" using the radio letters. My favorite is the ol' Charlie Foxtrot which is the obfuscation of the acronym CF which of course stands for Cluster Fornication (yeah, cleaned it up a bit).
Boeing has been using augmented reality for some time now to help the people who are wiring up the new airplanes. The glasses project the relevant portion of the wiring diagram over the section that the worker is looking at.
All of the various privacy concerns are unfounded at the moment. The large challenge with any AR system is to figure out what you're looking at. For it to work with people you would either need some kind of facial recognition system built-in or the person would have to be willingly broadcasting a location AND identity signal to be used by such a system.
Personally, I think the best Sci Fi example of this stuff is in California Vodoo Game. In this case Niven and Barnes used AR to deal with the fact that the previously expected Star Trek hologram technology hasn't been able to catch up to "reality" yet. The neat thing about that was that you had the combination of AR and MMORPG technology blended together to make LARP'ing really fun. (If you couldn't decipher all of those acronyms than you probably wouldn't be interested anyway.)
First off, there are still nine dissenting states. Many people in Congress and throughout the DoJ are openly criticizing this settlement. The initial results from the public comment period certainly aren't giving it any glowing reviews and they seem to have a relatively skeptical judge running the show right now.
If bribery is so damn rampant you'd think Microsoft would be able to buy better results. Yeah the settlement stinks of "sell out", but imagine how much worse it could be.
Microsoft has Billions of dollars kicking around. If they could really buy themselves out of a conviction then they certainly aren't hurting in the ol' pocketbook. Seems like things aren't as cut and dry as we think. Otherwise, someone probably owes Microsoft a substantial refund.
Hmmm, imagine if politicians had a EUBA (End Users Bribery Agreement): By accepting this money the politician promises to do the following: 1) Nothing. Note: This influence (hereinafter referred to as THE PRODUCT) comes AS IS. No warranty or actual changes of opinion or action are guaranteed with this product.
I'd recommend an icon of someone hammering a square peg into a round hole.
Seriously, I applaud these people for their time and efforts. There are going to be a lot of very confused thieves in the world if this really catches on.
BTW - anyone know of a site or FAQ that sets the "ground rules" for case mods?
News flash: Product fails because no one's buying it.
Anyways, PC's are a LUXURY, not a necessity. You can either afford the box or you can't. Plus, how much of that cost is actually Windows? No one knows, no one's talking.
The average consumer thinks Windows is "included" with their PC purchase. That means that in their mind it's free, not a major portion of the actual cost. As long as that price is hidden it won't be a factor in a purchasing decision.
The single best thing we could get out of an MS settlement (since we're not going to get the break-up that they deserve) would be to require all PC sales adds to prominently display the cost of Windows and the percentage of total cost that it represents. That would certainly open a few eyes.
Wait one second. How could multiple Bnet clones lead to people stop buying Starcraft and Warcraft?
The argument for bnetd is that it allows licensed game owners to use an alternative network. You're making Blizzard's argument with your last line. People STILL NEED TO BUY Starcraft, et. al. even if they use bnetd to play over the internet. If people are using bnetd because they don't want to buy the software and have a valid CD key then they're breaking the law.
Arguments about freeness are to bring up the question of why bnetd is needed. B.Net's use only requires a licensed copy of the software. No monthly fee or anything else. So, if the system is available to all legal owners of the game, there's no additional costs, and the system is relatively responsive, again, why are we creating a clone?
The big problem comes in with the CD-Key checker. Obviously bnetd cannot implement and/or enforce this.
So, this all comes to down to why. Why is bnetd being written? Is Battle.Net really that unresponsive? Has Blizzard suddenly started trying to charge money for it? What exact need does bnetd address? It would seem the main advantage to bnetd these days is to allow Internet play of non-licensed versions of Blizzard's products.
So, what is the "signifigant non-infringing use" for bnetd?
Additionally note: Licenses aren't "if it's not enumerated then it's excluded". Blizzard does have a pretty good case that one of the main uses of bnetd would be to abuse their copyrights (non-licensed use).
1) And you thought MEMORY leaks killed programs...
and
2) Going into that super important customer meeting after the water coolant just let go leaving a huge wet spot on the front of your pants: "No, really, it was my laptop!"
I know most of my friends wouldn't want to accidentally click on the ol' goatse link either. The problem is where those "filters" draw the line. Should they keep the youngsters from getting to goatse or to slashdot? How would it handle displaying a slashdot thread when there happens to be one profanity laden troll appearing in the list? How does it handle the difference between a Breast Cancer and a Big Breasts site?
There are two large objections to filters: 1) They just don't work. They have some level of success and depending on their filtering method have a level of false positives AND negatives. 2) It still comes down to some group's opinion of what is good and bad. Truely, these are noble ideas, and it is a nice thought to protect people from the more "colorful" sections of the 'Net, but how do you distinguish all those shades of grey? Data comes to fast and the whole is way too complicated to do it manually, and computers are just too gosh darn stupid to do it programatically.
Perjury: : the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath (Source m-w.com)
So, perjury has nothing to do with free speech. Perjury probably falls closer to items like contract law. It also has to do with swearing an oath and there are even protections in the Constitution against self-incrimination to help protect yourself in said situations.
Other restrictions to free speech are related to injurious statements. Slander and libel are both statutes that cover the improper use of free speech. In those cases it is deliberately using false-hoods or misstatements to injur a person or their reputation. Later these protections were extended to cover corporations as well. Death threats are covered under criminal intent. Finally, the "yelling fire" one is covered under criminal intent as well. In that case you are deliberately attempting to cause panic and probably end up indirectly injuring someone during the resulting evacuation.
The problem is in the realm of "potential harm". This is where bad laws like COPA and ratings associations step in. Using laws to "protect" us from content that we can very well protect ourselves from is absurd. First, a law is far too inflexible to deal with this dynamic world, second it leads us to the level of the "most easily offended" people dictating to the rest of the world.
Finally, if it can't be identified cleanly and completely, it shouldn't be restricted. This is why "Hate Speech" is protected. Give me a strong definition of Hate Speech and what the boundaries of it are. Where is the boundry between a misguided bigoted rant and a dangerous hate group's manifesto drawn? The test of "most reasonable people will agree" is not quantitative enough to allow laws to be written that cannot be abused in the future.
In all cases of restricting free speech we should strongly err on the side of the cautious and only restrict when absolutely necessary and with very clearly defined limits to the restrictions.
I think Blizzard is within its rights to try to stop these emulators.
First off, B.Net is a free service run at Blizzard's expense. The only catch is that you need a licensed copy of the game to connect to it. Second, they already have basic LAN connectivity (which doesn't require valid CD key's btw) for LAN parties and office shenanigans. Finally, they've been relatively responsive to upgrades to improve connectivity.
The use of B.Net ensures that everyone's patched to the same level and you don't have to worry about compromised servers trying to hack your client. Sure you need a licensed copy of StarCraft or other, but that's pretty small compared to the others with monthly access fees.
Slashdot Mirror
I have absolutely no idea is I'm repeating someone else there's already way too many posts to this thread.
When you're naming 2 - 30 machines then it's time to have some fun. We had a bunch of machines at WPI named after Buckaroo Banzai. You could do interesting things running printjobs from a machine called realsoon.
Anywho, after so many machines I think it's more important for the names to start being meaningful to you. You'll be so busy trying to manage all of these machines that anything informative in a name will help.
So, my suggestion is to combine OS, date of installation, and some location coding into the name. You can offer CNames if people need to telnet into these machines and make them easy to find, but you'll need good information for the managers. Also, I'd invest some good money right now on monitoring and inventory tools.
Yeah, it's boring, but it's practical. If you find yourself managing 4,000+ machines then you're life will be exciting enough without funny names.
While you're correct in saying that software has to be paid for, you're being too narrow in looking for the money.
Examples, in house development. Companies have their own stables of programmers building the tools they need/want for competitive advantage. What if they devoted 60-70% of those resources to working on Open Source projects that get them closer to their goal? Remember, if you don't distribute an OS project then you don't have to distribute the improved code. So, if three different companies working for different things all contributed towards the development of the base utilities then they all get a return far in proportion to the initial investment.
Second, schools. These institutions get money from grants, endowments, and tuition. They have a bunch of students and professors working there. Why not utilize Open Source to keep costs down and contribute back to that community? Again, return versus investment.
Finally, the Open Source people aren't trying to keep you from making a living selling software. The main complaint most of us have (or well to be honest at least I have) with MS is that they use their position to fight illegally. If it were just a matter of "may the best code win" then I think everyone would be perfectly willing to just roll up their sleeves and duke it out.
Remember, software isn't the beginning and ending of economics. For most people and companies software is just a means to an end. (Point of Sale systems in stores, Web Servers for e-businesses, accounting systems, etc.) For the average production company software is only an overhead cost driving up the overall cost of their products. And if you look at the Fortune 500, Microsoft is pretty far down the list.
The lessons of history have shown the following: companies are always trying to decrease their costs, monopolies tend to get broken up, and everyone hates bullies.
(Btw - the difference between software, and IP, versus physical things is that sharing the one doesn't decrease the value to the current owner. Two people can use the same software at the same time and both derive the same benefit, thus doubling the return. It's tough for two people to share the same airplane and fly in different directions.)
Open source would probably be better associated with the communal approach that some people embraced back in the 60's (not having been there it's purely hear-say for me).
I like to think that there are a few things that really drive the open source movement. The first is that ol' "itch I want to scratch" motivation. Somebody sees something that should be improved and/or created and launches off to work on it. Hopefully that process finds a bunch of "me-too" people and it blossoms (hence the SourceForge and FreshMeat ppl).
The second thing that drives open source is community. People want to contribute and/or show-off with their peers. How better to gain respect/kudos then to provide a useful tool? Fortunately there are enough people around that there is a community willing to contribute and build up instead of merely tearing down.
Finally, communication. The fact that you can have the main kernel people who work on Linux cooordinate efforts between the US, Norway, Sweden, etc. increases the power of the community. If only 1% of the programmers want to contribute to Open Source projects, then having a larger pool to draw from makes that 1% a bigger overall group of people.
Open Source "versus" proprietary isn't communism versus capitalism. It's really not versus anything. It's an idea that people use for differing goals. The main, and the best one, is to create good useful software. Some other people choose to use it as a rallying cry against all things proprietary (or more specifically against all things MS), but that's just how a particular group of people use the idea, it's not Open Source in and of itself.
First off, Microsoft does the same thing. The only difference is that their automatic search goes to Microsoft and they log there rather than having to do the more obvious redirect.
Second off, this is only if you use the search button. If you go to google.com and type in your search then Netscape/AOL gets no information.
Now, let's imagine if they got all the information from you. A unique ID string and all your search queries. They compile this data on your for an entire year. Great. Now, what the hell do they do with it? The only possible use for this would be to detect your string, cross-reference and munge all of this data, and present you with a slightly more targeted pop-up ad.
Well, guess what, another company already tried this. Remember them? They were called DoubleClick. In that case they had hundreds of web sites helping them to gather all of this information about browsers and what did they do with it? They couldn't turn a profit, they couldn't even target ads very well (if at all).
Think about it people. Yeah, it stinks that they're gathering this information. Yeah, they should be more forthcoming about what happens when you hit that Search button. Sure you can go an boycott them and add this to the '1 bazillion + 1 reasons that AOL is evil' list, but in the end, what does this get them?
Nada.
Ummm, RTFP!
It's a LOCAL exploit. You have to be logged in to exploit it.
Hmmm, let me see if I understand this now:
Rampant movie piracy in Asia means that we have to have region encoded DVD's and electronic devices that won't copy anything without going "mother may I" to the RIAA and MPAA?
Have you seen some of these pirated movies? Someone walks into a theater with a freakin' cam corder and films the film. Or, they borrow the actual film from a friend who works there and they do the transfer that way. How do ANY of the proposed DRM (Digital Rights Minimization) tools going to prevent that?
The single biggest complaint that most of us have is that there is no logic to support the laws that the industry is asking for. The last time the MPAA went this crazy against a technology it was the Video Recorder. Fortunatly, they picked on Sony and ran up against a company that was willing and able to fight. This lead to the fair-use laws and one of the largest ancillary markets for the movie industry ever. You think they'd learn from the past and look for the money making angle.
Actually, in that case they were calling into question the logic behind certain zoning restrictions. Many municipalities have placed zoning restrictions over certain types of businesses based on the concept of "network effects". This was aimed at bars and strip clubs by saying that these businesses would attract unwelcome people into the neighborhood. These people would, of course, have the effect of depressing property values.
In the case of VoyeurDorm the argument was made that since the company "operated" on the Internet, the normal objection to these "network effects" was moot. No clientele were actually driving to the site to view this, in fact, they were sitting in the privacy of their own home watching via their computer.
So, this case wasn't about the law/lawlessness of the Internet, just that since the actual "business" didn't occur in the physical location in question, then restrictions based on physical location were moot.
Actually, Yahoo makes a perfect example for this. In that case, the Yahoo France site properly and promptly complied with French law. Yahoo's complaint was that France then went after the US-based Yahoo.com site and were trying to make them comply with French law as well.
If ElcomSoft only had assets in Russia than there would be a good case that US laws don't apply to them. The US could probably try to get them on some Import violations for sending copies of the software into the US, but it would have to be proved that the DMCA applies in cases like that. Since it appears that ElcomSoft has a physical presence (servers and employees) within the US then they have to abide by US laws. (It would be even more interesting to see if they have a US-based business entity as well.)
Microsoft is *NOT* a "Natural Monopoly".
Remember that old '95 Consent Decree? They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar that time. Illegal restrictive contracts.
How 'bout Stacker? Copyright violation.
DR-DOS? Hmm, I wonder if you can charge a computer program with slander?
It has been proven throughout this trial that Microsoft is more than willing to threaten and bully anyone it can to get its own way.
Now to the more interesting statement: "the market wants a single company in that position". Where do you draw that conclusion from? If anything, the rise of standards like HTTP and HTML, the growth of Linux, the new world of Web Services, and initiatives like the Liberty Alliance show that "the market" wants standards. The numerous misstarts of Microsoft's Software Assurance Program (SAP, they should fire the guy who thought that one up) shows that "the market" is getting fed up with Microsoft's stong-arm tactics.
Yes there have been non-monopoly related crimes committed by MS (especially the Stacker incident). The problem is that if MS is allowed to keep its monopoly then there's no way to keep them from committing the monopoly-related abuses (shoving IE into the market) that it has committed recently.
Actually, it's trickier than that.
Fair Use rights included making copies for friends. Mainly any non-commercial reproduction was allowed. The problem comes when the commercial aspect creeps in. This is where they caught Napster, the fact that the company was attempting to make money by providing this service.
Fair Use always allowed you to make a compilation tape and send it to a friend. The record companies weren't all that worried back then because of 1) the time it takes to dupe a tape, 2) the degradation of multi-generation copies, and 3) the wear and tear a "master" tape would suffer for making multiple copies.
Ignoring a license does not make it "legally available for free". At the time somewhere around 50% or more of Netscape's revenues game from browser sales.
Again, even if you and your friends chose not to pay for it, a number of people, and more importantly, OEM's WERE paying for it. When that revenue stream dried up they were forced to take another approach.
Still my favorite Mundi'ism from this speech:
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural."
It makes you pause and think about what he does with the ol' keyboard and mouse in the privacy of his own office.
I also find the complaint about a group offering an alternative being a bad thing. Oh well, I guess that's why he gets paid the big bucks.
>It has NOTHING to do with elephants, mammals in general, or any kind of pink lifeform.
Hmm, seems like you have far too much knowledge about the virus writer. Especially to exclude mammals. Mr. Ashcroft and his "Defenders of Liberty" (tm) will be having a few words with you soon.
Congratulations. You have almost successfully rewrote history.
First off, Netscape WAS NOT FREE. Granted most people chose to ignore the Shareware-like license and just download and use the product. I do know many people who actually did go and buy it. That, however, is not the real problem.
The problem came with Microsoft's licenses with OEM, ISP's, and Application Developers. Microsoft illegally used the leverage that it had with the Windows license to force Compaq to stop bundling Netscape on their machines. (Something that Compaq was paying for becaue they felt that their customers wanted it.) Microsoft offerred "bounties" to ISP's for getting their customers to change from Netscape. Finally, Microsoft signed restrictive contracts with Application Developers to allow them access to necessary technical information about Windows 95.
All the while Microsoft was pouring Billions of dollars into the development of IE and artificially welding it into their OS.
As to your algebra and worries/questions about whether things are clear or not, that was what the whole trial was for. Microsoft presented their side of the case, the DoJ presented it's. Microsoft "lost" (found guilty of the various violations). At this stage of the trial, the only question is the N punishments. The X things wrong have already been established. (The DoJ did have the opportunity to press for additional things wrong, but decided to forego that for reasons unkown.)
Or the Jeep's replacement that we call the HumVee: HMMWV - High Mobility Multi-Wheel Vehicle
Frankly the more colorful military acronyms are usually "obfuscated" using the radio letters. My favorite is the ol' Charlie Foxtrot which is the obfuscation of the acronym CF which of course stands for Cluster Fornication (yeah, cleaned it up a bit).
Boeing has been using augmented reality for some time now to help the people who are wiring up the new airplanes. The glasses project the relevant portion of the wiring diagram over the section that the worker is looking at.
All of the various privacy concerns are unfounded at the moment. The large challenge with any AR system is to figure out what you're looking at. For it to work with people you would either need some kind of facial recognition system built-in or the person would have to be willingly broadcasting a location AND identity signal to be used by such a system.
Personally, I think the best Sci Fi example of this stuff is in California Vodoo Game. In this case Niven and Barnes used AR to deal with the fact that the previously expected Star Trek hologram technology hasn't been able to catch up to "reality" yet. The neat thing about that was that you had the combination of AR and MMORPG technology blended together to make LARP'ing really fun. (If you couldn't decipher all of those acronyms than you probably wouldn't be interested anyway.)
Has the government really been bought?
First off, there are still nine dissenting states. Many people in Congress and throughout the DoJ are openly criticizing this settlement. The initial results from the public comment period certainly aren't giving it any glowing reviews and they seem to have a relatively skeptical judge running the show right now.
If bribery is so damn rampant you'd think Microsoft would be able to buy better results. Yeah the settlement stinks of "sell out", but imagine how much worse it could be.
Microsoft has Billions of dollars kicking around. If they could really buy themselves out of a conviction then they certainly aren't hurting in the ol' pocketbook. Seems like things aren't as cut and dry as we think. Otherwise, someone probably owes Microsoft a substantial refund.
Hmmm, imagine if politicians had a EUBA (End Users Bribery Agreement): By accepting this money the politician promises to do the following:
1) Nothing.
Note: This influence (hereinafter referred to as THE PRODUCT) comes AS IS. No warranty or actual changes of opinion or action are guaranteed with this product.
I'd recommend an icon of someone hammering a square peg into a round hole.
Seriously, I applaud these people for their time and efforts. There are going to be a lot of very confused thieves in the world if this really catches on.
BTW - anyone know of a site or FAQ that sets the "ground rules" for case mods?
News flash: Product fails because no one's buying it.
Anyways, PC's are a LUXURY, not a necessity. You can either afford the box or you can't. Plus, how much of that cost is actually Windows? No one knows, no one's talking.
The average consumer thinks Windows is "included" with their PC purchase. That means that in their mind it's free, not a major portion of the actual cost. As long as that price is hidden it won't be a factor in a purchasing decision.
The single best thing we could get out of an MS settlement (since we're not going to get the break-up that they deserve) would be to require all PC sales adds to prominently display the cost of Windows and the percentage of total cost that it represents. That would certainly open a few eyes.
Wait one second. How could multiple Bnet clones lead to people stop buying Starcraft and Warcraft?
The argument for bnetd is that it allows licensed game owners to use an alternative network. You're making Blizzard's argument with your last line. People STILL NEED TO BUY Starcraft, et. al. even if they use bnetd to play over the internet. If people are using bnetd because they don't want to buy the software and have a valid CD key then they're breaking the law.
Arguments about freeness are to bring up the question of why bnetd is needed. B.Net's use only requires a licensed copy of the software. No monthly fee or anything else. So, if the system is available to all legal owners of the game, there's no additional costs, and the system is relatively responsive, again, why are we creating a clone?
The big problem comes in with the CD-Key checker. Obviously bnetd cannot implement and/or enforce this.
So, this all comes to down to why. Why is bnetd being written? Is Battle.Net really that unresponsive? Has Blizzard suddenly started trying to charge money for it? What exact need does bnetd address? It would seem the main advantage to bnetd these days is to allow Internet play of non-licensed versions of Blizzard's products.
So, what is the "signifigant non-infringing use" for bnetd?
Additionally note: Licenses aren't "if it's not enumerated then it's excluded". Blizzard does have a pretty good case that one of the main uses of bnetd would be to abuse their copyrights (non-licensed use).
Two obvious ones:
1) And you thought MEMORY leaks killed programs...
and
2) Going into that super important customer meeting after the water coolant just let go leaving a huge wet spot on the front of your pants: "No, really, it was my laptop!"
You pick an extreme and make that your full case.
I know most of my friends wouldn't want to accidentally click on the ol' goatse link either. The problem is where those "filters" draw the line. Should they keep the youngsters from getting to goatse or to slashdot? How would it handle displaying a slashdot thread when there happens to be one profanity laden troll appearing in the list? How does it handle the difference between a Breast Cancer and a Big Breasts site?
There are two large objections to filters: 1) They just don't work. They have some level of success and depending on their filtering method have a level of false positives AND negatives. 2) It still comes down to some group's opinion of what is good and bad. Truely, these are noble ideas, and it is a nice thought to protect people from the more "colorful" sections of the 'Net, but how do you distinguish all those shades of grey? Data comes to fast and the whole is way too complicated to do it manually, and computers are just too gosh darn stupid to do it programatically.
Perjury: : the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath (Source m-w.com)
So, perjury has nothing to do with free speech. Perjury probably falls closer to items like contract law. It also has to do with swearing an oath and there are even protections in the Constitution against self-incrimination to help protect yourself in said situations.
Other restrictions to free speech are related to injurious statements. Slander and libel are both statutes that cover the improper use of free speech. In those cases it is deliberately using false-hoods or misstatements to injur a person or their reputation. Later these protections were extended to cover corporations as well. Death threats are covered under criminal intent. Finally, the "yelling fire" one is covered under criminal intent as well. In that case you are deliberately attempting to cause panic and probably end up indirectly injuring someone during the resulting evacuation.
The problem is in the realm of "potential harm". This is where bad laws like COPA and ratings associations step in. Using laws to "protect" us from content that we can very well protect ourselves from is absurd. First, a law is far too inflexible to deal with this dynamic world, second it leads us to the level of the "most easily offended" people dictating to the rest of the world.
Finally, if it can't be identified cleanly and completely, it shouldn't be restricted. This is why "Hate Speech" is protected. Give me a strong definition of Hate Speech and what the boundaries of it are. Where is the boundry between a misguided bigoted rant and a dangerous hate group's manifesto drawn? The test of "most reasonable people will agree" is not quantitative enough to allow laws to be written that cannot be abused in the future.
In all cases of restricting free speech we should strongly err on the side of the cautious and only restrict when absolutely necessary and with very clearly defined limits to the restrictions.
I think Blizzard is within its rights to try to stop these emulators.
First off, B.Net is a free service run at Blizzard's expense. The only catch is that you need a licensed copy of the game to connect to it. Second, they already have basic LAN connectivity (which doesn't require valid CD key's btw) for LAN parties and office shenanigans. Finally, they've been relatively responsive to upgrades to improve connectivity.
The use of B.Net ensures that everyone's patched to the same level and you don't have to worry about compromised servers trying to hack your client. Sure you need a licensed copy of StarCraft or other, but that's pretty small compared to the others with monthly access fees.