Lead by a guy hiding in NY while his followers get themselves killed either by burning themselves or by getting thrown in jail for eternity
When an organisation is led by a leader that doesn't put themselves in the line of fire, they are criticised for cowardice. Why is this never applied to governments?
You can do what you like with your own XBox, but when you start distributing that stuff, you're entering murky waters. The MAME case is simple, they're distributing MS property (the linked development library code) and so are SOL. In terms of mod chips, and free software that doesn't use MS libraries, then that's a little different, but see my other comment.
No, copyright was enacted origionally as a censorship tool,
This being a primarily US forum, I was referring to US copyright.
Hardware, being a physical thing, is inherently scarce, and on that point your copyright analogy falls in upon itself.
The market for XBox software is not a physical thing.
Once I have bought a piece of hardware it is mine and I can do with it whatever I want. I can modify it, sell it, rent it out, smash it with a hammer, or use it as a fishtank and there's not a goddamned thing they can do about it.
True, but you can't necesarily use the intellectual property contents of said piece of hardware. The tricky point is where you draw the line - does writing code that runs on an XBox require the use of MS intellectual property? This question could be resolved, as I suggested, by the creation of a legal safe harbour that protects the console market. If it's in the interests of the general public, then a law can reasonably be enacted. Those that want a general purpose computing device that they can run free games on can still buy a PC at commodity prices. By refusing MS the right to safely create a low cost of entry console, you're pissing in the pool. Everybody loses, because consoles become too expensive to be a practical business model.
There is a reasonable case to be made for protecting the console makers. Copyright law was enacted for exactly the same reasons, and not many people are arguing for copyright to be abolished. Without the low cost of entry, there would be no consoles. The public want to buy consoles for $300, so a legal safe harbour can be created by protecting the console maker's right to get a royalty on the games. I don't see a problem with this. However, there is currently no such legal safe harbour, and people that have already bought XBox consoles should be able to hack legally, only when the law changes should new purchasers be banned from hacking.
Knocking down two 100+ story buildings is less sinful than polygamy?
It can't be classified as sinful in and of itself, you have to look at the colntext - sometimes acts of war are not considered sinful. The commandment could be read as "Thou shalt not commit murder", instead of the more common "Thou shalt not kill". I'm not justifying the destruction of the World Trade Centre, but it can't be dismissed as inherently sinful without consideration of the justifications of the perpetrators. You can reject those justifications and call it sinful, but they shouldn't just be ignored.
Just because it's still capable of transeferring files doesn't mean that it's providing a useful service.
They will only be spoofing files by their own artists - if they start offering fake files that appear to be by my string quartet, then I'll be very upset, and so will my fans (hypothetically - I don't have a string quartet). So peer to peer file sharing will still be possible, but you won't get Dr. Dre, or Metallica on them.
Mozilla on Win32 seems to think that the link is to a.exe file and tries to save "Potomac Tech Journal.exe" to my hard drive! Anyone got a moz-friendly link?
I agree. Brainless junk like "As almost all links indirectly point to the Radikal articles we can abolish the web now" is just flamebait. I see geeks come out with this crap a lot - it's as if they treat the law like it was computer code, and take the most twisted but literally plausible interpretation that suits their case. I'm remaining agnostic for now about the rights and wrongs of the case in hand, but I know straw men when I see them.
That is an excuse for programmers to have bad/lazy coding habits and not program with security in mind..
I disagree entirely - I'm always looking for bugs in my software, because I know that there always will be bugs to find. If you mistakenly believe that perfection can be achieved, you might mistakenly believe that it has been.
I didn't know Half Life was based on Q2. I can see the relationship in the graphical style, which I like - my main beef with Q3 and Unreal (I know they aren't related) is that everything is really glowy and shiny. Halo is even worse for this - everything looks like it's made of slightly melted metallic plastic.
Thanks! I already have a copy of "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Weinberg, and I'm looking for a copy of "Quality Software Management Volume 1: Systems Thinking". Hey, I've just found one here! Today is a good day.
So if they make a modification to WINE, it gets refused by the maintainer, but they distribute the modified version with Lindows anyway, where do we get the source?
Stan Lipmann mentioned that they use a lot of Perl in his talk at the ACCU Conference in the UK. He was up on the podium with Herb Sutter, being grilled over the flames of "why have you defected to Microsoft?"
When the Palace of Westminster was re-built after the war, Churchill insisted that the Commons chamber be too small to accommodate all members. That way, when there's important business at hand and everyone's attending, there are a load of members standing, and the place just looks heaving. It adds a real sense of urgency.
The cure for admiration for the house of Lords is to see them at work.
Was it not ever thus - "Anyone who likes sausages and respects the law should not watch either of them being made" - I'm not sure where that quote comes from, but it's a good one.
In the last 15 years alone, software defects have wrecked a satellite launch, delayed an airport opening for a year, destroyed a Mars mission, killed four Marines in a helicopter crash, induced a U.S. Navy ship to destroy a civilian airliner, and shut down ambulance systems in London, leading to as many as 30 deaths.
And if there had been no software, what would the situation have been? None of the above would have happened - but there would be no Mars missions, no satellites, dramatically reduced air travel (not that that's entirely a bad thing), etc.- ie. software didn't just cause problems - it enabled all the situations in which a tiny number of problems occurred. It's the same with sueing a hospital - if the hospital hadn't tried to treat you, you'd probably be in a box anyway, so they didn't usually make the problem worse. Of course sometimes they do make it worse, but failing to make it better should not be a litigable situation. Especially not in a public health system like the UK.
I think the House of Lords is the best part of our democracy. It may seem counterintuitive that an unelected body enjoys this accolade, but it's true. I think it's basically because the farcical popularity contests that we call elections (on both sides of the pond) are a far cry from a decent, working democracy.
I just hope that Tony's reforms don't wreck the system entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
I was referring to distributing stuff to others. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
Tremble in awe of my low /.id!
You can do what you like with your own XBox, but when you start distributing that stuff, you're entering murky waters. The MAME case is simple, they're distributing MS property (the linked development library code) and so are SOL. In terms of mod chips, and free software that doesn't use MS libraries, then that's a little different, but see my other comment.
The market for XBox software is not a physical thing.True, but you can't necesarily use the intellectual property contents of said piece of hardware. The tricky point is where you draw the line - does writing code that runs on an XBox require the use of MS intellectual property? This question could be resolved, as I suggested, by the creation of a legal safe harbour that protects the console market. If it's in the interests of the general public, then a law can reasonably be enacted. Those that want a general purpose computing device that they can run free games on can still buy a PC at commodity prices. By refusing MS the right to safely create a low cost of entry console, you're pissing in the pool. Everybody loses, because consoles become too expensive to be a practical business model.
There is a reasonable case to be made for protecting the console makers. Copyright law was enacted for exactly the same reasons, and not many people are arguing for copyright to be abolished. Without the low cost of entry, there would be no consoles. The public want to buy consoles for $300, so a legal safe harbour can be created by protecting the console maker's right to get a royalty on the games. I don't see a problem with this. However, there is currently no such legal safe harbour, and people that have already bought XBox consoles should be able to hack legally, only when the law changes should new purchasers be banned from hacking.
http://www.potomactechjournal.com/displayarticlede tail.asp?art_id=53713
Mozilla on Win32 seems to think that the link is to a .exe file and tries to save "Potomac Tech Journal.exe" to my hard drive! Anyone got a moz-friendly link?
I agree. Brainless junk like "As almost all links indirectly point to the Radikal articles we can abolish the web now" is just flamebait. I see geeks come out with this crap a lot - it's as if they treat the law like it was computer code, and take the most twisted but literally plausible interpretation that suits their case. I'm remaining agnostic for now about the rights and wrongs of the case in hand, but I know straw men when I see them.
I didn't know Half Life was based on Q2. I can see the relationship in the graphical style, which I like - my main beef with Q3 and Unreal (I know they aren't related) is that everything is really glowy and shiny. Halo is even worse for this - everything looks like it's made of slightly melted metallic plastic.
Thanks! I already have a copy of "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Weinberg, and I'm looking for a copy of "Quality Software Management
Volume 1: Systems Thinking". Hey, I've just found one here! Today is a good day.
So if they make a modification to WINE, it gets refused by the maintainer, but they distribute the modified version with Lindows anyway, where do we get the source?
Stan Lipmann mentioned that they use a lot of Perl in his talk at the ACCU Conference in the UK. He was up on the podium with Herb Sutter, being grilled over the flames of "why have you defected to Microsoft?"
It seems to me, though, that it's even more open to bias than the HoL, in that there's only 9 members, and GWB gets to appoint two.
When the Palace of Westminster was re-built after the war, Churchill insisted that the Commons chamber be too small to accommodate all members. That way, when there's important business at hand and everyone's attending, there are a load of members standing, and the place just looks heaving. It adds a real sense of urgency.
I just hope that Tony's reforms don't wreck the system entirely.