I'm not saying that those programs will never work, i'm saying that they currently do not. This has nothing to do with the command-line vs gui argument. And yes, anything you can do with the command-line you "should" be able to do in a gui enviroment if someone or yourself codes an application to do it. Ranting about gnome vs kde and x is besides the point, thats a different argument all together and has nothing to do with this topic. My point is that current apps pootch config files... and that these apps are aimed at making linux easier. The person who posted above me said that making linux easier does not make weaken it. This was my example that pootched config files does weaken linux... this being a result of making linux easier. Eventually it will be ok and everything will be straightened out... but as of right now I'm not all too worried about it.
Most linux drivers are not written by companies, they are written by open source people. Driver creation only has to do with how open the hardware vender is. The reason matrox cards are so supported is because they are very friendly to open source by releasing hardware specs, etc. I think people are a little lost comparing linux to windows. They are not the same thing and are not aimed at the same markets. For programming and server stuff I use linux. For games and dvd i use windows. The example i gave was just that an example. I currently only have one piece of hardware not supported by linux which is the live drive for the soundblaster live. Just recently they released a driver for the midi sequencer in the soundblaster live which was not written by creative. Saying that people who buy hardware are gamers is an ignorant statement to make. Nvidia releases drivers for everything for linux because they do, not because people want to play games on linux. A geforce 2 isn't just for games its for everything. The video card is the only piece of hardware that affects games anyway... processor does but thats supported anyway, same thing with motherboard, ram, harddrive, etc. Games currently do not need anything that is not already out at a reasonable price. There is currently nothing that will run on a Geforce 3 card that will not run on my Geforce 2. Eventually yes, but now no and linux supports all that anyway so drivers are not an issue.
Transgaming has nothing to do with hardware support. Linux will never emulate drivers... as those are part of the kernel. If a game works on windows because windows has the display adapter device driver and linux doesn't then it won't work on linux no matter what you do. Transgaming is currently not opensource either... they are some mutant form which is their decision and i respect that. But if they do not get their $100,000 a month then they will not release their code into the wine project and will not become true open source and i don't see them getting $5 a month from 20,000 people anytime soon. As for loki, well they have a bad business model anyway but i still think theirs is a more logical one for linux. Linux needs linux apps, not ripped off half working windows ones. Example, can I ask you if you have ever used wine? If so then you know how it works and how transgaming is in for a hell of alot of work. If not i suggest you get a copy of it and try running some win programs. I still think loki has a better chance since if they write their apps in opengl its a matter of alittle changes and a recompile to port it to making a working game.
I think linux is easy enough... if someone wants to make linux into windows go ahead, but keep it out of the main kernel releases so the rest of us have a choice. I personally don't care how many people use linux, its not that big of a deal. As for you quote on making linux easier not taking away from its power thats just absurb. The programs that make it easier (linuxconf or mandrakes installer for example) mess up stuff all the time. Most due because the application assumes too much power over your system, including stuff that only you should do. The other thing is more of a social thing... linux is not ready for wide spread use. Currently there are thousands of brilliant developers working on it and it should continue as such. Can you say that about windows in the same lite? Not exactly in dealing with percentages. It is a proven fact that for the most part linux has a more computer educated based than windows. The progress being made in linux right now is due to that base. The average linux user knows how to run a server and write programs. I would say that at least 80% of windows users can't do that. And that is a reason to not dumbing down linux on top of the pootching those programs due to config files.
let them keep using windows. I've had enough trouble trying to get my father and girlfriend to switch to linux hell with it. I think what your missing here is that loki may go bankrupt but linux will not and whether or not anyone else is using it i could care less. I use it because i like it. If someone wants to play games and they can't get it to work on linux, then use windows. Its not that big of a deal.
Your post doesn't make much sense... but linux can do games, just needs alittle fighting to get it done. The thing is people don't want to fight so with windows ease to use and the number of games already out... gamers may as well stick to windows. And i'm not talking about "everyone" i would like to make clear. I'm talking about linux users. If you are a linux user and want to play windows games, I would recommend you use to windows for those games. I know its a pain in the ass but it'll probably be quicker than reconfiguring wine.
do we want a watered down linux that everyone uses, or the linux we already have? Look... I'm not a linux elitest who says only "smart people should use linux" but I don't know how much I like the idea of running windows games on linux. I have alot of respect for what the wine people have done considering how gnarly the win32 api is (i've worked with it... ick), however thats the problem. Linux is relativly clean and well built, so why do we want to incorporate horribly written apis and code into our base? Alot of microsoft games don't even work right on microsoft computers with all the hidden hooks in win32, why would we assume that they'll work on linux? Another issue is the fact that sircam was demonstrated to run on wine, are we going to compromise security to play a few windows games? I'm on Draeker's side, if you want windows games then damnit, use windows. Of course there's always the "lets see if we can do it" argument which is a pretty good one, otherwise linux never even would of been here... but lets keep it at that. Now if they want to write some entertainement apps, why don't they write a quality dvd app (yes i know about the css licensing fees) because livid sucks or write some true linux games. As for me, if I get my hands on a windows computer game... I plan to use it in windows which is about the only thing I do in windows (except dvd). Its too much hassle to go figiting around with wine (I couldn't even imagine how random wine is right now with what works and not incorporating directx... i shudder at the thought).
ps - Also if we keep a model of copying microsoft we'll find outselves always playing catch-up. For instance I got my hands on windows xp and was playing with wine and found that wine has no problem with win 2k advanced server or win me but seg faults on notepad.exe that comes with win xp. I know xp is officially supported however xp has a compatibility layer thing that allows programs to run as if they were win95 or winnt or win2k (its actually pretty cool). But it just makes me wonder just how much did microsoft break in releasing xp?
Ok... in a perfect world I would love to see a Sun/Linux/BSD system, it would be beautiful. However thats never the case. I work at the student help desk of a small-middle sized college which uses Unix (Solaris) and Linux for it's servers and Windows for its labs and to be entirely honest we recommend windows pcs to students. Why? Because they already know how to use it and because its much easy to fix (although we have to do it more often). The servers are nearly flawless (although they provide their fair share of problems) and when a lab machine bombs we just reimage it. Its a lovely system. The students have no idea that their email, online classes, internet and discussion boards are controlled by Linux and Sun. All they know is that they point IE or Aol at webmail and they get their email. Currently we're having trouble deciding about XP and it seems that we're about ready to tell Microsoft to shove it. We've discussed moving everything to linux in the face of rising licensing cost but that will most likely be a huge headache. I've had enough trouble explaining to people how to use Microsoft Word which they own let alone switching them to Star Office. In an educated world, everyone would use *nix based software... but thats not and most likely will never be the case. (IMHO of course)
You never seriously worried about that did you? Jeez... some people are really paranoid. Ok, aol-warner and ms-nbc are bad enough. But they will never merge... ever. Microsoft has already won the browser war (netscape is dead). Now they target the other things oem's put on the desktop which basically is Real, Aol and Java. With xp java is kicked out. 1 down (although I strongly believe that java is very important to the future of linux and sun), 2 to go. Real will be crushed if it doesn't appear on windows at all, and it seems that more and more people are realising that yeah sure real is well compressed, but its quality sucks. As for aol, now that microsoft has won the browser war, now they move to the content war. Aol is too big to be smothered by microsoft, but once xp is in wide scale use, i bet the rate of new msn subscribers shoots up over aol's new suscriber rate. So no you don't have to worry about that. However, I am very very very please that Aol/Compuserve/Netscape/Warner/Nullsoft is moving to gecko. Maybe now with all of them spending money on the development of the engine, mozilla will finally get to where it truly contends with IE. (IMHO of course)
Casio has had thing thing for awhile from what I've heard... and I've personally seen a watch that could take pictures in a store in NYC (sometime in April or March). As for "color" whats the point if you can still only see the pictures in black&white. Seems like a waste of space to me, especially with the fact that this thing cost more than a digital camera. Although I'll admit that its cool technology.
The problem is not counting sales (although it would be better than the counter)... the problem is isos. A better way may be if the linux distributers and mirrors installed tracking software on downloads. That might give a more reasonable total on top of the sales. Of course if there was some tracking software everytime a new install is done... then we wouldn't have this problem.
ps - of course we could just make up numbers like microsoft
How is this informative? It would be like saying that windows xp is great because it includes ie, whatever revision of explorer.exe they're on and that its better than windows Me.
your getting free mixed up... free as in speech does not imply free as in beer in any way. The US govt doesn't care about free as in speech, at least not in the software sense for its taxes. Linux may be free as in speech and the isos may be free as in beer, but store bought distributions are not free as in beer. They cost money and in the US, money is taxed. IMHO of course.
I would think that the best solution for the users would be if DRM was done away with all together and we lived in a society (world) of free information and media. However these are just dreams and the fact is that the dmca is going to be tough to get rid of. With that in mind here might be some changes that would make things more "friendly" for the user.
1) I have a real problem with the current protection scheme on cds and dvds (computer or audio/video, games it doesn't matter). The problem is that current laws seem to say that when you purchase this media that you are entitled to the actual physical disk and whatever media is included on it. So if you buy a game and it becomes damaged then you're out the money you paid for that game. I believe that this hurts the user and saves the company, as in these licenses suck. I personally feel that the physical disk should not have anything to do with this when you purchase something and that you are entitled to the media. Hence you should be allowed to make backups of everything you own that is software related. Currently somethings work under this (you can make copies of cds on tape as long as you don't sell them, and roms are legal as long as you own the game although I believe emulators are not *shrugs shoulders*), however dvds don't and in the future more stuff should be going to dvd. Of course if I want to illegally make copies I can (theres all kinds of stuff out there to do this) but you should see my point that I should not have to illegally do anything to something I own.
2) Streaming media will probably end up a rental or subscription fee which I'm not sure if I have a good argument against at this moment. I mean its hard to argue with video stores and thats how I see most of that going.
3) E-books have proven to be just a bad idea anyway. Nobody (apologies to those who are e-book fans) seems to care all that much when titles are still printed paper. Eventally I'd imagine that the publishers in time will start to only release large amounts (not just some Steven King book) of books to e-book, forcing people to switch. However, if I have a friend and I recommend and own a book, I'll let them borrow it. Will e-books work the same? Can you trade materials as long as you don't sell them. I have a feeling this is going to be an ugly fight.
4)Software subscription (ala Microsoft) is not going to work even if forced. Look I love linux but I know its currently not ready for the masses. However Microsoft's idea of a Microsoft Bill (like a cable or telephone bill) is just alittle to ambitious and I'd imagine that this is going to hurt them. On a side note, if Microsoft benefits from its monopoly then how can they justifiably argue that distributing copies of pirated windows hurts them?
Media protection is definitly going to become an interesting topic of discussion over the next 20 years or so. I wonder if we'll start to see different licenses as we do in the computer world (digital media is nowhere near as old as computer software... with the first cases being cds about 10-15 years ago). Will some publishers allow a GPL type license, who knows... all I know is that these laws have to stop because ultimately the user gets hurt.
ps - I think its funny if a company gains enough market share to be called a monopoly then the govt claim them to be detrimental to competetion. But if a bunch of companies (collusion) gain up to start a board (hmm... sony, sharp, etc and dvd technology) that regulates what you can and can not do with something and what companies can and cannot do with something (why don't we see any legal open source dvd plays? because the damn license fees cost a fortune for css) then thats legal. Well... maybe us users should start the coalition for user rights (sort of like a union) to keep a say in what rights the company and the users have.
ok, i'm done... oh my bad about posting this twice, I screwed up the first time.
i already posted a comment telling the guy that it was a good troll... i realize i was trolled, anything else would be utterly stupid. The fact that people sit around waiting for trolls is even stupider. What I wrote, I wrote quickly and without thinking... -retards
I don't usually follow trolls... but this guy is absolutely ridiculous. Linux does not support SMP? Then what do you call what my machine is doing right now? VB lower level than c? How??? Windows was writtin in C? Granted... this article was kind of linux FUD, but saying that 1 windows box could beat 3 linux boxes... well the only way I see that is if you installed linux on a 486 with 16 megs of ram and were too stupid to believe that it would take on a dual xeon machine with a gig of ram running win 2k advanced server. Thats shit man... absolutly shit. Look, I run a dual pIII system with a gig of ram under both linux (kernel 2.4.7, although that has some vm problems all in itself) and win2k advanced server and I'd be the first to say that there really is no noticable difference between the two (except windows does have more applications, and linux is easier to program). So my point is shut the hell up you damn troll.
ps- How hard would it be for slashcode to start a troll filter (besides labeling trolls -1) which just wipes out this crap. As I said before... the only reason I followed this troll is because he serisously pissed me off by being such a choad.
Ok maybe Tivo should have done a little research to see if anyone has any outstanding patents (it seems Motorola did (research)), but patenting the pause button is a little silly. Ok, I can perfectly understand the fact that this company is suing Tivo for use of a practice (I don't even consider this technology) that they own without appropriate royalties, etc. However what I don't understand is how the govt can possibly justify giving somebody a patent on something mundane as pausing television. If it was the technology of pausing television then yes (all the hardwork went into developing that technology). But for the concept? What if someone had patented the idea of a button on an html page. (Bare with me here). Its not all that different, neither were implemented technology. Would the world wide web consortium have violated that patent when they decided on html? I know the comparison is kind of rediculous, but isn't the idea of patenting a concept alittle rediculous too? In a perfect world/democracy an idea should be open, with technique being patenable. That seems to be the best way of conserving competitiveness while protecting accomplishment.
Check out http://www.pcremotecontrol.com/, it has a windows program that once registered works really well (I got it to work with an old ibm aptiva remote). Also, why don't you try to make you own? I wrote a program in java using the javax.comm api that once a button is clicked on the remote it uses the java.awt.Robot to move the mouse. Granted its not a fully working remote program, but if i was willing to dump more time into it, it would be. Also check out c programming for linux... i'd imagine it shouldn't be that hard, being that from my understanding you treat the serial controller as file by reading and writing from it. Possibly using fstream in c++??? Good luck...
Don't get me wrong... I love amd. I can still remember my first athlon... but sadly... I now run Intel. Why??? Because at the time... intel was the only one to offer dual processors. Yeah amd is cheaper... but its not helping. Think about this in economic terms, say amd sells 100 processors at $100, and Intel sells 50 processors at $200... who wins? Yeah they may gross the same money (ignoring expenses,etc)but who can play this game longer? Its not AMD. AMD makes an excellent product, and its a shame that being better than intel is leading them to collapse. But this is what happens... look at netscape vs microsoft in the browser wars. Same thing. "He who has the most pairs of boxers can go the longest without doing laundry". Sorry AMD.
As posted above... it definitly seems that the nforce is going to be a dual or could we say quad board. Now that would be a hell of a machine. I'm currently using a dual pIII 1 gig on a Vp6... and its a great box, however the single memory bus with pc133 is a pretty decent hit. We may find that this chipset will be the one... quoting the matrix in regards to taking AMD to a new level of domination.
So some other people have had problems with 2.4.7 (Redhat 7.2 beta)? How many people out there are actually using 2.4.8,and.9 and if so... do they handle swap better? There should be no reason why a box with 512 megs of ram should be swapping running xmms (i'm not kidding... after being up for about an hour just running X, Gnome and xmms... my computer hits the swap... of course i fixed this (more ram, hasn't swapped yet) but its a little concerning about the aggressivness of the kernel to swap. I'd be appreciative if anyone who has used one of the new kernels could tell us whether swapping is handled a little more gracefully.
Look, I'm not for censorship or any other limiations imposed on my freedom... but it is ultimately the broadband companies decision on what they will do with their lines. Saying "they shouldn't worry about this, they just move packets" as posted somewhere above is completely missing the point. If I ran a broadband company I would certainly shutdown what I considered a threat to the greater good of my customers. Whether that is a worm/virus/trojan box or someone running a high traffic porn/X10 site doesn't matter. The fact remains that those companies own the connection and can do as they please with it. So what if they block port 80? Is it really crucial for someone paying a company $40 a month for a decent connection to bitch about? Is that going to cost that someone serious money? I doubt it... and if it is, maybe they should invest in a line that doesn't restrict their access such as a larger backbone. If you don't like the rules of the game, then don't play it.
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I'm not saying that those programs will never work, i'm saying that they currently do not. This has nothing to do with the command-line vs gui argument. And yes, anything you can do with the command-line you "should" be able to do in a gui enviroment if someone or yourself codes an application to do it. Ranting about gnome vs kde and x is besides the point, thats a different argument all together and has nothing to do with this topic. My point is that current apps pootch config files... and that these apps are aimed at making linux easier. The person who posted above me said that making linux easier does not make weaken it. This was my example that pootched config files does weaken linux... this being a result of making linux easier. Eventually it will be ok and everything will be straightened out... but as of right now I'm not all too worried about it.
Most linux drivers are not written by companies, they are written by open source people. Driver creation only has to do with how open the hardware vender is. The reason matrox cards are so supported is because they are very friendly to open source by releasing hardware specs, etc. I think people are a little lost comparing linux to windows. They are not the same thing and are not aimed at the same markets. For programming and server stuff I use linux. For games and dvd i use windows. The example i gave was just that an example. I currently only have one piece of hardware not supported by linux which is the live drive for the soundblaster live. Just recently they released a driver for the midi sequencer in the soundblaster live which was not written by creative. Saying that people who buy hardware are gamers is an ignorant statement to make. Nvidia releases drivers for everything for linux because they do, not because people want to play games on linux. A geforce 2 isn't just for games its for everything. The video card is the only piece of hardware that affects games anyway... processor does but thats supported anyway, same thing with motherboard, ram, harddrive, etc. Games currently do not need anything that is not already out at a reasonable price. There is currently nothing that will run on a Geforce 3 card that will not run on my Geforce 2. Eventually yes, but now no and linux supports all that anyway so drivers are not an issue.
Transgaming has nothing to do with hardware support. Linux will never emulate drivers... as those are part of the kernel. If a game works on windows because windows has the display adapter device driver and linux doesn't then it won't work on linux no matter what you do. Transgaming is currently not opensource either... they are some mutant form which is their decision and i respect that. But if they do not get their $100,000 a month then they will not release their code into the wine project and will not become true open source and i don't see them getting $5 a month from 20,000 people anytime soon. As for loki, well they have a bad business model anyway but i still think theirs is a more logical one for linux. Linux needs linux apps, not ripped off half working windows ones. Example, can I ask you if you have ever used wine? If so then you know how it works and how transgaming is in for a hell of alot of work. If not i suggest you get a copy of it and try running some win programs. I still think loki has a better chance since if they write their apps in opengl its a matter of alittle changes and a recompile to port it to making a working game.
I think linux is easy enough... if someone wants to make linux into windows go ahead, but keep it out of the main kernel releases so the rest of us have a choice. I personally don't care how many people use linux, its not that big of a deal. As for you quote on making linux easier not taking away from its power thats just absurb. The programs that make it easier (linuxconf or mandrakes installer for example) mess up stuff all the time. Most due because the application assumes too much power over your system, including stuff that only you should do. The other thing is more of a social thing... linux is not ready for wide spread use. Currently there are thousands of brilliant developers working on it and it should continue as such. Can you say that about windows in the same lite? Not exactly in dealing with percentages. It is a proven fact that for the most part linux has a more computer educated based than windows. The progress being made in linux right now is due to that base. The average linux user knows how to run a server and write programs. I would say that at least 80% of windows users can't do that. And that is a reason to not dumbing down linux on top of the pootching those programs due to config files.
let them keep using windows. I've had enough trouble trying to get my father and girlfriend to switch to linux hell with it. I think what your missing here is that loki may go bankrupt but linux will not and whether or not anyone else is using it i could care less. I use it because i like it. If someone wants to play games and they can't get it to work on linux, then use windows. Its not that big of a deal.
Your post doesn't make much sense... but linux can do games, just needs alittle fighting to get it done. The thing is people don't want to fight so with windows ease to use and the number of games already out... gamers may as well stick to windows. And i'm not talking about "everyone" i would like to make clear. I'm talking about linux users. If you are a linux user and want to play windows games, I would recommend you use to windows for those games. I know its a pain in the ass but it'll probably be quicker than reconfiguring wine.
do we want a watered down linux that everyone uses, or the linux we already have? Look... I'm not a linux elitest who says only "smart people should use linux" but I don't know how much I like the idea of running windows games on linux. I have alot of respect for what the wine people have done considering how gnarly the win32 api is (i've worked with it... ick), however thats the problem. Linux is relativly clean and well built, so why do we want to incorporate horribly written apis and code into our base? Alot of microsoft games don't even work right on microsoft computers with all the hidden hooks in win32, why would we assume that they'll work on linux? Another issue is the fact that sircam was demonstrated to run on wine, are we going to compromise security to play a few windows games? I'm on Draeker's side, if you want windows games then damnit, use windows. Of course there's always the "lets see if we can do it" argument which is a pretty good one, otherwise linux never even would of been here... but lets keep it at that. Now if they want to write some entertainement apps, why don't they write a quality dvd app (yes i know about the css licensing fees) because livid sucks or write some true linux games. As for me, if I get my hands on a windows computer game... I plan to use it in windows which is about the only thing I do in windows (except dvd). Its too much hassle to go figiting around with wine (I couldn't even imagine how random wine is right now with what works and not incorporating directx... i shudder at the thought).
ps - Also if we keep a model of copying microsoft we'll find outselves always playing catch-up. For instance I got my hands on windows xp and was playing with wine and found that wine has no problem with win 2k advanced server or win me but seg faults on notepad.exe that comes with win xp. I know xp is officially supported however xp has a compatibility layer thing that allows programs to run as if they were win95 or winnt or win2k (its actually pretty cool). But it just makes me wonder just how much did microsoft break in releasing xp?
Ok... in a perfect world I would love to see a Sun/Linux/BSD system, it would be beautiful. However thats never the case. I work at the student help desk of a small-middle sized college which uses Unix (Solaris) and Linux for it's servers and Windows for its labs and to be entirely honest we recommend windows pcs to students. Why? Because they already know how to use it and because its much easy to fix (although we have to do it more often). The servers are nearly flawless (although they provide their fair share of problems) and when a lab machine bombs we just reimage it. Its a lovely system. The students have no idea that their email, online classes, internet and discussion boards are controlled by Linux and Sun. All they know is that they point IE or Aol at webmail and they get their email. Currently we're having trouble deciding about XP and it seems that we're about ready to tell Microsoft to shove it. We've discussed moving everything to linux in the face of rising licensing cost but that will most likely be a huge headache. I've had enough trouble explaining to people how to use Microsoft Word which they own let alone switching them to Star Office. In an educated world, everyone would use *nix based software... but thats not and most likely will never be the case.
(IMHO of course)
You never seriously worried about that did you? Jeez... some people are really paranoid. Ok, aol-warner and ms-nbc are bad enough. But they will never merge... ever. Microsoft has already won the browser war (netscape is dead). Now they target the other things oem's put on the desktop which basically is Real, Aol and Java. With xp java is kicked out. 1 down (although I strongly believe that java is very important to the future of linux and sun), 2 to go. Real will be crushed if it doesn't appear on windows at all, and it seems that more and more people are realising that yeah sure real is well compressed, but its quality sucks. As for aol, now that microsoft has won the browser war, now they move to the content war. Aol is too big to be smothered by microsoft, but once xp is in wide scale use, i bet the rate of new msn subscribers shoots up over aol's new suscriber rate. So no you don't have to worry about that. However, I am very very very please that Aol/Compuserve/Netscape/Warner/Nullsoft is moving to gecko. Maybe now with all of them spending money on the development of the engine, mozilla will finally get to where it truly contends with IE. (IMHO of course)
Casio has had thing thing for awhile from what I've heard... and I've personally seen a watch that could take pictures in a store in NYC (sometime in April or March). As for "color" whats the point if you can still only see the pictures in black&white. Seems like a waste of space to me, especially with the fact that this thing cost more than a digital camera. Although I'll admit that its cool technology.
The problem is not counting sales (although it would be better than the counter)... the problem is isos. A better way may be if the linux distributers and mirrors installed tracking software on downloads. That might give a more reasonable total on top of the sales. Of course if there was some tracking software everytime a new install is done... then we wouldn't have this problem.
ps - of course we could just make up numbers like microsoft
How is this informative? It would be like saying that windows xp is great because it includes ie, whatever revision of explorer.exe they're on and that its better than windows Me.
your getting free mixed up... free as in speech does not imply free as in beer in any way. The US govt doesn't care about free as in speech, at least not in the software sense for its taxes. Linux may be free as in speech and the isos may be free as in beer, but store bought distributions are not free as in beer. They cost money and in the US, money is taxed. IMHO of course.
I would think that the best solution for the users would be if DRM was done away with all together and we lived in a society (world) of free information and media. However these are just dreams and the fact is that the dmca is going to be tough to get rid of. With that in mind here might be some changes that would make things more "friendly" for the user.
1) I have a real problem with the current protection scheme on cds and dvds (computer or audio/video, games it doesn't matter). The problem is that current laws seem to say that when you purchase this media that you are entitled to the actual physical disk and whatever media is included on it. So if you buy a game and it becomes damaged then you're out the money you paid for that game. I believe that this hurts the user and saves the company, as in these licenses suck. I personally feel that the physical disk should not have anything to do with this when you purchase something and that you are entitled to the media. Hence you should be allowed to make backups of everything you own that is software related. Currently somethings work under this (you can make copies of cds on tape as long as you don't sell them, and roms are legal as long as you own the game although I believe emulators are not *shrugs shoulders*), however dvds don't and in the future more stuff should be going to dvd. Of course if I want to illegally make copies I can (theres all kinds of stuff out there to do this) but you should see my point that I should not have to illegally do anything to something I own.
2) Streaming media will probably end up a rental or subscription fee which I'm not sure if I have a good argument against at this moment. I mean its hard to argue with video stores and thats how I see most of that going.
3) E-books have proven to be just a bad idea anyway. Nobody (apologies to those who are e-book fans) seems to care all that much when titles are still printed paper. Eventally I'd imagine that the publishers in time will start to only release large amounts (not just some Steven King book) of books to e-book, forcing people to switch. However, if I have a friend and I recommend and own a book, I'll let them borrow it. Will e-books work the same? Can you trade materials as long as you don't sell them. I have a feeling this is going to be an ugly fight.
4)Software subscription (ala Microsoft) is not going to work even if forced. Look I love linux but I know its currently not ready for the masses. However Microsoft's idea of a Microsoft Bill (like a cable or telephone bill) is just alittle to ambitious and I'd imagine that this is going to hurt them. On a side note, if Microsoft benefits from its monopoly then how can they justifiably argue that distributing copies of pirated windows hurts them?
Media protection is definitly going to become an interesting topic of discussion over the next 20 years or so. I wonder if we'll start to see different licenses as we do in the computer world (digital media is nowhere near as old as computer software... with the first cases being cds about 10-15 years ago). Will some publishers allow a GPL type license, who knows... all I know is that these laws have to stop because ultimately the user gets hurt.
ps - I think its funny if a company gains enough market share to be called a monopoly then the govt claim them to be detrimental to competetion. But if a bunch of companies (collusion) gain up to start a board (hmm... sony, sharp, etc and dvd technology) that regulates what you can and can not do with something and what companies can and cannot do with something (why don't we see any legal open source dvd plays? because the damn license fees cost a fortune for css) then thats legal. Well... maybe us users should start the coalition for user rights (sort of like a union) to keep a say in what rights the company and the users have.
ok, i'm done... oh my bad about posting this twice, I screwed up the first time.
i already posted a comment telling the guy that it was a good troll... i realize i was trolled, anything else would be utterly stupid. The fact that people sit around waiting for trolls is even stupider. What I wrote, I wrote quickly and without thinking... -retards
Even if that was true they know now don't they? The law works in mysterious ways... especially when it involves money.
nevermind... you're a waste of time... i've already checked out your history... i'd say for an asshole you're a pretty good propaganda writer ;-)
I don't usually follow trolls... but this guy is absolutely ridiculous. Linux does not support SMP? Then what do you call what my machine is doing right now? VB lower level than c? How??? Windows was writtin in C? Granted... this article was kind of linux FUD, but saying that 1 windows box could beat 3 linux boxes... well the only way I see that is if you installed linux on a 486 with 16 megs of ram and were too stupid to believe that it would take on a dual xeon machine with a gig of ram running win 2k advanced server. Thats shit man... absolutly shit. Look, I run a dual pIII system with a gig of ram under both linux (kernel 2.4.7, although that has some vm problems all in itself) and win2k advanced server and I'd be the first to say that there really is no noticable difference between the two (except windows does have more applications, and linux is easier to program). So my point is shut the hell up you damn troll.
ps- How hard would it be for slashcode to start a troll filter (besides labeling trolls -1) which just wipes out this crap. As I said before... the only reason I followed this troll is because he serisously pissed me off by being such a choad.
Ok maybe Tivo should have done a little research to see if anyone has any outstanding patents (it seems Motorola did (research)), but patenting the pause button is a little silly. Ok, I can perfectly understand the fact that this company is suing Tivo for use of a practice (I don't even consider this technology) that they own without appropriate royalties, etc. However what I don't understand is how the govt can possibly justify giving somebody a patent on something mundane as pausing television. If it was the technology of pausing television then yes (all the hardwork went into developing that technology). But for the concept? What if someone had patented the idea of a button on an html page. (Bare with me here). Its not all that different, neither were implemented technology. Would the world wide web consortium have violated that patent when they decided on html? I know the comparison is kind of rediculous, but isn't the idea of patenting a concept alittle rediculous too? In a perfect world/democracy an idea should be open, with technique being patenable. That seems to be the best way of conserving competitiveness while protecting accomplishment.
Check out http://www.pcremotecontrol.com/, it has a windows program that once registered works really well (I got it to work with an old ibm aptiva remote). Also, why don't you try to make you own? I wrote a program in java using the javax.comm api that once a button is clicked on the remote it uses the java.awt.Robot to move the mouse. Granted its not a fully working remote program, but if i was willing to dump more time into it, it would be. Also check out c programming for linux... i'd imagine it shouldn't be that hard, being that from my understanding you treat the serial controller as file by reading and writing from it. Possibly using fstream in c++??? Good luck...
Don't get me wrong... I love amd. I can still remember my first athlon... but sadly... I now run Intel. Why??? Because at the time... intel was the only one to offer dual processors. Yeah amd is cheaper... but its not helping. Think about this in economic terms, say amd sells 100 processors at $100, and Intel sells 50 processors at $200... who wins? Yeah they may gross the same money (ignoring expenses,etc)but who can play this game longer? Its not AMD. AMD makes an excellent product, and its a shame that being better than intel is leading them to collapse. But this is what happens... look at netscape vs microsoft in the browser wars. Same thing. "He who has the most pairs of boxers can go the longest without doing laundry". Sorry AMD.
As posted above... it definitly seems that the nforce is going to be a dual or could we say quad board. Now that would be a hell of a machine. I'm currently using a dual pIII 1 gig on a Vp6... and its a great box, however the single memory bus with pc133 is a pretty decent hit. We may find that this chipset will be the one... quoting the matrix in regards to taking AMD to a new level of domination.
So some other people have had problems with 2.4.7 (Redhat 7.2 beta)? How many people out there are actually using 2.4.8,and.9 and if so... do they handle swap better? There should be no reason why a box with 512 megs of ram should be swapping running xmms (i'm not kidding... after being up for about an hour just running X, Gnome and xmms... my computer hits the swap... of course i fixed this (more ram, hasn't swapped yet) but its a little concerning about the aggressivness of the kernel to swap. I'd be appreciative if anyone who has used one of the new kernels could tell us whether swapping is handled a little more gracefully.
get yourself a new version of X... or check the patches, etc...
Look, I'm not for censorship or any other limiations imposed on my freedom... but it is ultimately the broadband companies decision on what they will do with their lines. Saying "they shouldn't worry about this, they just move packets" as posted somewhere above is completely missing the point. If I ran a broadband company I would certainly shutdown what I considered a threat to the greater good of my customers. Whether that is a worm/virus/trojan box or someone running a high traffic porn/X10 site doesn't matter. The fact remains that those companies own the connection and can do as they please with it. So what if they block port 80? Is it really crucial for someone paying a company $40 a month for a decent connection to bitch about? Is that going to cost that someone serious money? I doubt it... and if it is, maybe they should invest in a line that doesn't restrict their access such as a larger backbone. If you don't like the rules of the game, then don't play it.