How the hell is this "socialist", for God's sake?? This is you, the taxpayer, paying for top quality software to which you would have access indefinitely, because it is GPLed. But now you're going to lose that because a convicted monopolist doesn't want the competition. Wake up and smell the coffee! Microsoft is all over your government like a cheap suit. If you don't do something, they'll be telling you what you can and cannot do instead of just your government.
Come on! You can't possibly mean this. What if the computer isn't normally connected to the internet. For all you know, the person recorded the whole collection from CDs. Maybe they never connect to the internet. Why should they have to do so to listen to music they legitimately copied from CDs that they paid for? Perhaps they do sometimes connect to the internet, but have to use a dial-up connection and pay for it? How is dialling up "zero (0) extra effort"?
I think the only conclusion from this incident is that thinking people will not use WMA to store music. I can't imagine anyone concluding anything different.
Ok, so you can turn off the "screw me in the ass" option? I'd like to know, what's the catch? Will this feature be going away in future versions? Someone, please fill me in.
I think the point is that you will have no control over whether the option is there or not. Depending on Microsoft's policy (which could change) they could take the option away with a service pack. You'll probably find that your Windows EULA permits them to do this.
Surely that depends on how many tracks? (And indeed on how much of each track must be played). What if they had 100 tracks? What about 500 tracks? Or 1000 tracks? Even if it's only a few seconds of each track, that starts to mount up. Not to mention the effort required to start each track.
That isn't true. As I took great pains to amplify in my second paragraph, the public benefits from taxes paid by MS on their profits. And not only MS. Say Garage Logic Software, a small start-up, has a great idea for an enhancement to Collaborate.
I'm finding it difficult to follow your argument. You're saying that the public benefits from the taxes MS pays when they improve Collaborate and then charge the public again for? If MS pays taxes on the money they make from distributing CollaboratePlus! surely it's only a small proportion of the money they've received? My "paying twice" argument holds and is strengthened by your example. Your Garage Logic argument is bogus, as with non-GPLed software, there's no guarantee that the best enhancement wins in the market-place. Garage Logic could make a fantastic update to the original technology and then have it die in the market against MS's mediocre update, because MS bundles their update with the latest Windows or Service Pack. This is an effect of having a monopolist in the OS market.
The flaw in your argument is this: MS can't render it useless, only public preferences can render it useless. If the public at large (who also paid for the basic development) chooses to use the enhanced MS implementation over the public domain implementation, then I'm afraid you are just SOL.
This really makes no sense at all. MS has an effective monopoly on the OS market. They are not averse to leveraging that monopoly for their own benefit. If they bundle CollaboratePlus! with Windows, that is what the public will use. It has nothing to do with competition in the market. Where have you been for the last three years? Do you really believe that MS software dominates the market because it is superior? Or does their SW dominate because of their (illegal) willingness to use their monopoly to drive competitors out of the market?
Okay, you asked, here's the flaw. You're assuming MS would be forced to use the GPL code and contribute their improvements back to the community. Actually, the more likely outcome is that they would eschew the GPL code altogether, and simply develop their own product which re-implemented the features of Collaborate. [...] Whereas if they create their own closed source implementation of Collaborate, they maintain control over their own IP.
I don't understand the point you're making, as a BSD-style license allows exactly this sort of thing. Once someone (MS in this example) has changed the code they are under no obligation to redistribute the source code. And the point about them creating their own software, without using Collaborate is irrelevant, since they can do that anyway, irrespective of its license (assuming the software in question doesn't include patented technology, but that's another argument altogether).
Further, the contention that you are paying for the software twice is disingenuous. This is just as true for Linux as it is for Windows. There is plenty of software in your boxed set of Red Hat based on technology developed on government funding. Even if the implementation of TCP/IP is original, the original development of the technology was done at government expense. If you're going to be honest, you have to factor in the cost of the original development of the technology, not just the cost of the specific implementation.
This I don't understand. The cost issue is not relevant, because I can download all the software you mention for nothing if I want, from any number of different sources.
The question is, after I have contributed to the cost of developming the software, can someone else use this software (for which I've paid as well as they've paid) and then render it useless for me unless I pay them again? That's what my Collaborate example was supposed to illustrate.
Then, say Collaborate is useful to general ledger programs so MS uses it in MS Money and Intuit uses it in Quicken and Quickbooks. This decreases the costs to both companies and market forces bring down the cost of the packages relative to the benefit gained by the tax funded library.
This doesn't work if the software isn't stand-alone. The original article was talking about standards for things, which implies that programs are going to interoperate in some way. So if a monopolist changes the SW and can make the market accept the change, they gain an advantage by virtue of being a monopolist.
Besides, you are ignoring the fact that the legal issues of GPL require the larger work to be open sourced...
Well, that doesn't apply to aggregate works. So if you just distribute some piece of GPLed SW with Windows (ie you put it on one of the CDs), you're not obliged to open-source Windows itself (see the very last paragraph in Section 2 of the GPL. But you're right, I could have said "(L)GPLed", and that would have been clearer.
I still think my point stands: with (L)GPLed SW, the taxpayers get to use the software they paid for for ever. Companies don't have to suffer, however; if they want to charge for supporting the software, or for sticking it on a CD with their other software, they're able to do that. What they can't do is to take a piece of work that is free for anybody to use and then change it so that the people who originally had the right to use it need to pay again or have to become dependent on the company making the changes. I think the (L)GPL helps the taxpayer in this sense.
I think you need to consider this more carefully, if you're keen to get the best benefits out of your tax dollars. Here's a simple example: Suppose a government funded researcher creates a new approach to collaborating over the internet (call it Collaborate). This is a good thing; you paid your taxes, the govt gave some of it to this researcher, he created a new system and everyone benefits. However, if he didn't use the GPL, you could quite simply lose your benefit. Immediately after he publishes, you and Microsoft and all others who contributed taxes get the same access to the new technology. However, suppose MS decide that they really like this technology. They want to distribute it with MS Windows, but they decide to change it slightly. So they distribute CollaboratePlus! with Windows. However, the changes they made to Collaborate are closed source. So, you can continue to use Collaborate, but everyone using Windows is going to be using the non backward-compatible CollaboratePlus! Obviously, you can buy Windows if you like, but then you've paid twice for access to the technology (you paid through your taxes, remember).
Now contrast this with the situation if our researcher had GPLed Collaborate. Everyone who paid taxes (and everyone else as well, of course) benefits from the technology. MS can still distribute it with Windows, but if they want to "improve" it, they have to give the new version back to the people who paid for it.
Surely the GPL is better in this situation? I don't mean this as a rhetorical quetion, I'm genuinely interested to know whether you think there's a flaw in my argument.
Re:Can there ever be a fair match?
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Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 2
I just remembered there being some sort of controversy
Yeah, there was some debate about this on the various computer chess discussion boards. The programming team will be able to change the opening book during the match. I'm not sure about changing parameters to alter its style of play, but I assume that is allowed too.
Was he ever given a copy to play with? How was the question resolved?
I think the agreement was that it had to be made available one month (or maybe two/three months I can't remember) before the match. So it hadn't yet been shipped, but that was going to happen. I was a bit surprised to hear that Kramnik will be able to play with it on some sort of 8-processor box (similar to the one Fritz will use) before the match.
Re:Can there ever be a fair match?
on
Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 2
When Kramnik offered to play Fritz, he said "Fine, give me a copy of the program and let me play with it before hand." The creators of Fritz freaked out and everybody said "But then you'll be able to find the weaknesses and just exploit those!" Well, that's not Kramnik's fault -- if he found a human player that always made the same mistake, he'd certainly take advantage of it every time, right?
I spoke to the author of Fritz at the recent World Computer Chess Championships. I'm pretty certain he did not freak out; anyone who has any experience at all of computer chess knew that any strong player would ask for this in the wake of the Deep Blue II match against Kasparov. He was absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to play.
So what I'm wondering is, what has to happen in these matches in order for both sides to consider them fair fights?
I think that all that needs to happen is that both sides agree with the conditions. I don't think it's meaningful to try to make the conditions for both sides identical in this sense. When people ask "are chess programs as strong as the strongest grandmasters?", they mean chess programs as they are normally run, not some subset based on how humans play chess.
BTW I wasn't objecting to the law, which I think is a good idea. I was just wondering about the extent of this type of crime - I've heard that it's a "crime epidemic", as the tabloids love to call it, but I'd had no first-hand experience of it.
Well that is true of course, but it's not so simple. How is a "legitimate" businessperson to know that a phone has been stolen. Obviously most of them know, but in court I doubt if they could be convicted as the law stands...
Generally, the people changing the IMEI number are not the same people who steal the phones. So (at the moment) the former are acting legally, while the latter are criminals. This bill makes it illegal to assist criminals in this way.
Bart: "Errr... Mom, why don't you let me call the game?"
Unfair summary of a bog-standard article
on
Is Linux Dead?
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· Score: 2
The article doesn't say that Linux is dead, nor does it criticize Linux particularly. The summary of this slashdot article is rather misleading, IMHO. I'd advise slashdotters to read the MSNBC article before posting. To be honest, it's just one of those say-not-very-much "where is Linux up to" type articles. But it's more positive about Linux than most such pieces.
It may be an Australian website, but the incident happened in the UK, at the Magna Centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. For anyone in the area, this place is well worth a visit. It's a huge old steel mill, perhaps 1/2 mile in length. It's been converted into an exhibition based on four themes, earth, air, fire and water. It's mostly aimed at kids, but there's plenty there for the curious adult too. Above all, the conversion job is excellent, with the lighting inside doing a wonderful job of showing the best of what is essentially a very large old shed. Highly recommended.
It's well worth reading the paper, because it's actually quite funny. But the thing that strikes me most about it is just how old fashioned it seems. I mean he advocates security through obscurity for God's sake! He believes that open source SW can't compete with closed source software, although he talks about Apache in the paper. He's clearly completely unaware of what the GPL represents and how it works.
Of course any normal person would be utterly humiliated to have their name associated with this piece of nonsense. Perhaps that's why it has been pulled? I'd be interested if Microsoft really did pay for it. If so, I think they should feel a little cheated. The standard of FUD required in 2002 is far higher than this. Even the mainstream press are going to tear this crap to pieces.
Before he died, former world chess champion Botvinnik claimed to have done this with his program "Pioneer". He even published a paper to this effect in the International Computer Chess Association Journal. His paper had errors in it and many people disputed the veracity of his findings, causing a huge dispute in the world of computer chess.
Incidentally, for those who are interested in more normal approaches to game tree search, the second issue of the ICCAJ which I've referenced above contains one of the most important papers in computer chess history, by Chrilly Donninger.
Is it possible to solve chess such that the 1st player will always win? I know that it would take a huge amount of resources, if possible at all, so it would be a good distributed project.
It's not known whether the game is a win for the first player. My guess would be that perfect chess played by both sides would result in a draw. It'll be a few million years before we know for sure.
Slashdot Mirror
How the hell is this "socialist", for God's sake?? This is you, the taxpayer, paying for top quality software to which you would have access indefinitely, because it is GPLed. But now you're going to lose that because a convicted monopolist doesn't want the competition. Wake up and smell the coffee! Microsoft is all over your government like a cheap suit. If you don't do something, they'll be telling you what you can and cannot do instead of just your government.
I think the only conclusion from this incident is that thinking people will not use WMA to store music. I can't imagine anyone concluding anything different.
I think the point is that you will have no control over whether the option is there or not. Depending on Microsoft's policy (which could change) they could take the option away with a service pack. You'll probably find that your Windows EULA permits them to do this.
[nice geeky solution snipped]
An alternative is to not use software that might prevent you from accessing copies that you legally made of music that you paid for.
Surely that depends on how many tracks? (And indeed on how much of each track must be played). What if they had 100 tracks? What about 500 tracks? Or 1000 tracks? Even if it's only a few seconds of each track, that starts to mount up. Not to mention the effort required to start each track.
I'm finding it difficult to follow your argument. You're saying that the public benefits from the taxes MS pays when they improve Collaborate and then charge the public again for? If MS pays taxes on the money they make from distributing CollaboratePlus! surely it's only a small proportion of the money they've received? My "paying twice" argument holds and is strengthened by your example. Your Garage Logic argument is bogus, as with non-GPLed software, there's no guarantee that the best enhancement wins in the market-place. Garage Logic could make a fantastic update to the original technology and then have it die in the market against MS's mediocre update, because MS bundles their update with the latest Windows or Service Pack. This is an effect of having a monopolist in the OS market.
This really makes no sense at all. MS has an effective monopoly on the OS market. They are not averse to leveraging that monopoly for their own benefit. If they bundle CollaboratePlus! with Windows, that is what the public will use. It has nothing to do with competition in the market. Where have you been for the last three years? Do you really believe that MS software dominates the market because it is superior? Or does their SW dominate because of their (illegal) willingness to use their monopoly to drive competitors out of the market?
I don't understand the point you're making, as a BSD-style license allows exactly this sort of thing. Once someone (MS in this example) has changed the code they are under no obligation to redistribute the source code. And the point about them creating their own software, without using Collaborate is irrelevant, since they can do that anyway, irrespective of its license (assuming the software in question doesn't include patented technology, but that's another argument altogether).
This I don't understand. The cost issue is not relevant, because I can download all the software you mention for nothing if I want, from any number of different sources.
The question is, after I have contributed to the cost of developming the software, can someone else use this software (for which I've paid as well as they've paid) and then render it useless for me unless I pay them again? That's what my Collaborate example was supposed to illustrate.
This doesn't work if the software isn't stand-alone. The original article was talking about standards for things, which implies that programs are going to interoperate in some way. So if a monopolist changes the SW and can make the market accept the change, they gain an advantage by virtue of being a monopolist.
Well, that doesn't apply to aggregate works. So if you just distribute some piece of GPLed SW with Windows (ie you put it on one of the CDs), you're not obliged to open-source Windows itself (see the very last paragraph in Section 2 of the GPL. But you're right, I could have said "(L)GPLed", and that would have been clearer.
I still think my point stands: with (L)GPLed SW, the taxpayers get to use the software they paid for for ever. Companies don't have to suffer, however; if they want to charge for supporting the software, or for sticking it on a CD with their other software, they're able to do that. What they can't do is to take a piece of work that is free for anybody to use and then change it so that the people who originally had the right to use it need to pay again or have to become dependent on the company making the changes. I think the (L)GPL helps the taxpayer in this sense.
Now contrast this with the situation if our researcher had GPLed Collaborate. Everyone who paid taxes (and everyone else as well, of course) benefits from the technology. MS can still distribute it with Windows, but if they want to "improve" it, they have to give the new version back to the people who paid for it.
Surely the GPL is better in this situation? I don't mean this as a rhetorical quetion, I'm genuinely interested to know whether you think there's a flaw in my argument.
Yeah, there was some debate about this on the various computer chess discussion boards. The programming team will be able to change the opening book during the match. I'm not sure about changing parameters to alter its style of play, but I assume that is allowed too.
I think the agreement was that it had to be made available one month (or maybe two/three months I can't remember) before the match. So it hadn't yet been shipped, but that was going to happen. I was a bit surprised to hear that Kramnik will be able to play with it on some sort of 8-processor box (similar to the one Fritz will use) before the match.
I spoke to the author of Fritz at the recent World Computer Chess Championships. I'm pretty certain he did not freak out; anyone who has any experience at all of computer chess knew that any strong player would ask for this in the wake of the Deep Blue II match against Kasparov. He was absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to play.
I think that all that needs to happen is that both sides agree with the conditions. I don't think it's meaningful to try to make the conditions for both sides identical in this sense. When people ask "are chess programs as strong as the strongest grandmasters?", they mean chess programs as they are normally run, not some subset based on how humans play chess.
BTW I wasn't objecting to the law, which I think is a good idea. I was just wondering about the extent of this type of crime - I've heard that it's a "crime epidemic", as the tabloids love to call it, but I'd had no first-hand experience of it.
Because the people who are stealing the phones are not the same people who are changing the IMEI numbers.
Well that is true of course, but it's not so simple. How is a "legitimate" businessperson to know that a phone has been stolen. Obviously most of them know, but in court I doubt if they could be convicted as the law stands...
(:-O)
Bummer!
Just out of interest, where do you live? I live in Manchester, and I don't think anyone I know has had a mobile phone stolen from their person.
Generally, the people changing the IMEI number are not the same people who steal the phones. So (at the moment) the former are acting legally, while the latter are criminals. This bill makes it illegal to assist criminals in this way.
Up until about a week ago, they'd performed well over 200 tests, all of which came up clean. I've not seen any figures since then.
Bart: "Errr... Mom, why don't you let me call the game?"
The article doesn't say that Linux is dead, nor does it criticize Linux particularly. The summary of this slashdot article is rather misleading, IMHO. I'd advise slashdotters to read the MSNBC article before posting. To be honest, it's just one of those say-not-very-much "where is Linux up to" type articles. But it's more positive about Linux than most such pieces.
It may be an Australian website, but the incident happened in the UK, at the Magna Centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. For anyone in the area, this place is well worth a visit. It's a huge old steel mill, perhaps 1/2 mile in length. It's been converted into an exhibition based on four themes, earth, air, fire and water. It's mostly aimed at kids, but there's plenty there for the curious adult too. Above all, the conversion job is excellent, with the lighting inside doing a wonderful job of showing the best of what is essentially a very large old shed. Highly recommended.
Of course any normal person would be utterly humiliated to have their name associated with this piece of nonsense. Perhaps that's why it has been pulled? I'd be interested if Microsoft really did pay for it. If so, I think they should feel a little cheated. The standard of FUD required in 2002 is far higher than this. Even the mainstream press are going to tear this crap to pieces.
The problem is finding the "winning strategies", as you put it. No-one gives a toss about how you store things. It's finding stuff that is difficult.
Incidentally, for those who are interested in more normal approaches to game tree search, the second issue of the ICCAJ which I've referenced above contains one of the most important papers in computer chess history, by Chrilly Donninger.
It's not known whether the game is a win for the first player. My guess would be that perfect chess played by both sides would result in a draw. It'll be a few million years before we know for sure.