1.Will Steam on Linux have a negative impact on your abillity to do whatever you want with the other binaries on your system? Will the DRM (or anti-cheat system) require specific binaries to be validated somehow? (e.g. to prevent attaching gdb to Steam DRM protected binaries or modifying GPU, keyboard and mouse drivers to build an aimbot that feeds events to the game in a way that is indistinguishable from real inputs) and 2.Will Steam on Linux result in the creation of new devices that restrict user freedom (rumors say that the Linux work is a precursor to a Valve gaming console running Linux. Whether that console would contain restrictions is unknown)
To my mind as a Gentoo user (and someone who is squarely in the Open Source camp) it is acceptable to use proprietary software on a free software OS if no free alternative exists (and in the case of the Valve games, no free alternative is ever going to exist) and where the other option is to use the proprietary software on as proprietary OS. What I dont support is anything that seeks to take away my rights to use the free software I run as I see fit (which is why I have a standing boycott of companies like HTC that continue to violate the GPL by not releasing kernel source for their devices alongside the release of the devices and why I refuse to own any handset that will not allow me to replace the Kernel and root operating system should I choose to do so)
Considering the number of times the US government has had a hand in (or is alleged to have a hand in) all kinds of covert ops to overthrow (or attempt to overthrow) various foreign governments it doesn't like (Iran in 1953, Pinochet in 1973, Guatemala in 1954, Bay of Pigs and others) I doubt the US would bat an eyelid at doing what it needed to do to stop an important state like California leaving the union if whichever lobby group or special interest group was lobbying the hardest wanted them to get involved.
The Connectix lawsuit was all to do with the fact that unlike a real PlayStation unit, the Connectix product did not (and could not) carry out the checks that identify if the disk is a genuine disk or an unauthorized copy.
Microsoft may have discovered lobbyists but their lobbyists didn't save them from EU rulings (Windows N with no media player, the "Browser Choice" screen etc). There is no reason to think the EU wouldn't be interested in investigating other abuses of monopoly power by Microsoft (including anything to do with secure boot)
There is a limit to how low Nokia can go with the hardware specs (and hence cost) and still be able to get acceptable performance out of the Linux Kernel with any semblance of a GUI on top. Even more so if its a phone and needs to be able to run a baseband (has there ever been a phone running the Linux kernel that hasn't had a separate baseband CPU for it).
Plus, many carriers (especially in the US) would be likely to call a phone like this (Linux+QML) a Smartphone anyway (especially if you can write your own QML apps)
Replacing SSL as an encryption standard is not necessary. (at least if you don't use the variants vulnerable to that BEAST attack) What is necessary is to replace the system of certificates with a new way to validate that the computer you are connecting to is the one you think you are connecting to, one that doesn't have the costs usually associated with SSL certificates and one that isn't vulnerable to compromise of a single CA ala DigiNotar.
If you want music for your collection, YouTube + one of the many YouTube to MP3 options is one way to get a specific song that their anti-piracy detection methods probably cant pick up. That or downloading from any number of websites offering music for download (including file sharing sites)
For movies & TV, if you want to watch something once (and dont care so much about the quality) YouTube is a good way to do it if you can find a copy. If YouTube doesn't have it, plenty of other video sites that probably do...
Plenty of options that dont involve using P2P software to download mainstream content (although I wish YouTube would do more about the people who upload the dodgy videos saying "we cant upload this film to YouTube because its been blocked but go to dodgyvideosite.com to watch it" with a link to some dodgy scam site)
When the recent Ghostbusters FPS was released, there was a deal done between Atari (the publishers of the game) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to make the game exclusive to the Sony platforms in the European/Australian market for a period of time. Had this not happened, I would probably have been willing to walk into my local EB Games and buy a copy for my PC.
But because of the deal done between Atari and Sony, I was unable to buy the game and rather than wait for it to become available I downloaded it. Not only that, I have blacklisted Atari and will not buy any of their games in future (not that it matters much, pretty much all what Atari has published lately isn't worth playing anyway)
Exclusivity deals and other BS are one of the big driving factors leading people towards piracy. And dont get me started regarding the whole BS surrounding 3D blu-ray and the fact that you would probably need to buy at least 6 different 3DTVs in order to get all the 3D films released so far on blu-ray because of all the deals done between studios and TV makers (Last time I checked, the only way to legally get Avatar 3D on blu-ray is to buy a Panasonic TV or Blu-Ray player or to buy a second-hand copy from someone who bought Panasonic)
The bigger problem with DSL is that many ISPs either limit the speed so much that its useless or they have given up altogether and ceded the market to the cable companies.
If ISPs who offered ADSL actually offered the latest technology (ADSL2+) and at "maximum speed" (i.e. the best speed you can get based on how far from the ADSL kit you are) AND had DSL in more phone exchanges, it might be a better option.
Ask Microsoft about the "not frequently updated" part. All these continued updates to the XBOX 360 (mostly to find even more obnoxious ways to shove ads down your throat wile making the content you might actually want to, ya know, BUY, harder to find) seem to be coming more and more frequently.
Sony is much the same (although most of their updates these days seem to be about blocking whatever piracy-enabling hack the hackers have figured out for the last update)
All the theaters I have been to here in Australia specifically ban people from leaving their cellphones on during the movie, usually with a message on the screen before the film starts telling people to turn them off (although when I went to see Amazing Spider-Man, they had someone checking bags and asking people to turn their devices off, might have been to stop people cam-cording the film rather than cellphones specifically)
And I have not yet experienced any situation where someone is being annoying with a cellphone during the actual film so it obviously works.
Why they cant do this in the US is beyond me. I bet that the number of people who would complain to the theater because of the new rules is far outweighed by the number of people who will start going back because of said rules. If you absolutely NEED to be contactable, put the phone on silent or vibrate and leave the theater to use it or dont go to the movies in the first place.
Is there such a thing as actual TV news in the US anymore instead of the so-called "news" put out by entities like Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC etc? I think "The News Hour" (on PBS in the US and SBS in Australia) is watchable but how does it go on bias and agendas?
But I am in a somewhat safe liberal seat and writing to Steve Irons is likely to get no response or some sort of canned response about how important this is for the security of our nation.
What would it take to get a government (and president) in the US that actually respects the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties of ordinary Americans?
Or is the US so far gone that nothing can ever fix it?
As an N900 user, I say they should NOT release another N900, they should release something that's like an N900 but BETTER.
Re-design the USB port so it cant come loose and render the phone as good as dead. Improve the battery life. Give it an up-to-date browser and rendering engine. Have less closed-source software on the device (especially in the lower level libraries).
Add a maps app with better (and more up-to-date) maps and better features (e.g. easy way to search for specific streets/landmarks/etc and get walking directions to that location)
Support missing features like Cell Broadcast SMS and the various WiFi encryption standards.
The problem (like other things in the computer security world such as HIPAA, PCI etc) is that the banks will do the things that will make the lawyers happy and/or reduce the banks risk and not the things that will actually improve security.
Instead of requiring that OEMs shipping Ubuntu ("Ubuntu Certified" or whatever) install the Canonical signing keys, they should require that the machines be shipped with secure boot turned off by default (i.e. it will boot any bootloader that doesn't specifically care about secure boot)
That way all the issues about keys and GPL3 and OEM lock-downs and stuff don't matter.
Reasons why getting companies to open-source stuff is hard include: 1.They may not have the code anymore (or it may be in some archive vault somewhere and difficult to find) 2.3rd parry copyrights on the code (e.g. licensed game engines, licensed middle-ware etc) 3.3rd party patents (e.g. anything that supports any flavor of MPEG or e.g. the Creative Labs patent that ID hard to work around in releasing the Doom 3 source code) 4.Licensing (e.g. movie or sports tie-ins) 5.Cheating or hacking (publishing the code may make it easier to cheat or hack the program) 6.NDAs (e.g. the NDAs for platforms like the XBOX 360, PS3, WII or the hardware NDAs for things like PowerVR GPUs or the NDAs for anti-piracy solutions that may be integrated with the code) 7.They may still be using some or all of the code (or derivative versions of it) in current software. 8.They may not want to open source something old and not-sold-anymore if the result would be competing against things they are still selling. 9.They may not want to give their competitors an edge by opening up code that their competitors might want. and 10.Cost to review the codebase and make sure that you are free of the above items
It depends on the company, smaller companies are more likely to be willing to either release the code or to do a deal (as happened with Blender) whereas larger companies are less willing to entertain either open sourcing directly or to sell the rights (either to the software as a while or to the codebase but not the data/game/whatever).
For example, it would be almost impossible to convince a large company like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Atari or Ubisoft to open source any of their stuff. (or in many cases to even support modding of their titles or share information/tools modders would need)
That manufacturers continue to release brand new devices running Gingerbread with no upgrade path to Ice Cream Sandwich whatsoever. And its not like these are devices that started development long before ICS appeared, some of them are devices that were likely early enough in their development phase that they could easily have started work on an ICS port at that point (and in some cases even potentially switched to ICS before the release)
Google already has certification requirements for a "Google" device that has Play/Marketplace, gmail etc on it. Some things I think Google should add to those requirements that would benefit Android: 1.They should tell OEMs that after , any not-yet-released devices that want certification MUST be running Ice Cream Sandwich or at the very least have a defined upgrade path to ICS. 2.They should tell OEMs that Google must be the default search engine (after all, the search is a big part of how Google makes its money on Android) 3.They should tell OEMs that they must fully comply with the license of any and all software they are shipping on the phone (including the GPLv2 for the Linux Kernel). No more of this "its industry standard practice to release kernel source weeks/months after the binaries have shipped" BS that some OEMs *cough*HTC*cough* keep pulling again and again.
Slashdot Mirror
1.Will Steam on Linux have a negative impact on your abillity to do whatever you want with the other binaries on your system? Will the DRM (or anti-cheat system) require specific binaries to be validated somehow? (e.g. to prevent attaching gdb to Steam DRM protected binaries or modifying GPU, keyboard and mouse drivers to build an aimbot that feeds events to the game in a way that is indistinguishable from real inputs)
and 2.Will Steam on Linux result in the creation of new devices that restrict user freedom (rumors say that the Linux work is a precursor to a Valve gaming console running Linux. Whether that console would contain restrictions is unknown)
To my mind as a Gentoo user (and someone who is squarely in the Open Source camp) it is acceptable to use proprietary software on a free software OS if no free alternative exists (and in the case of the Valve games, no free alternative is ever going to exist) and where the other option is to use the proprietary software on as proprietary OS. What I dont support is anything that seeks to take away my rights to use the free software I run as I see fit (which is why I have a standing boycott of companies like HTC that continue to violate the GPL by not releasing kernel source for their devices alongside the release of the devices and why I refuse to own any handset that will not allow me to replace the Kernel and root operating system should I choose to do so)
Considering the number of times the US government has had a hand in (or is alleged to have a hand in) all kinds of covert ops to overthrow (or attempt to overthrow) various foreign governments it doesn't like (Iran in 1953, Pinochet in 1973, Guatemala in 1954, Bay of Pigs and others) I doubt the US would bat an eyelid at doing what it needed to do to stop an important state like California leaving the union if whichever lobby group or special interest group was lobbying the hardest wanted them to get involved.
The Connectix lawsuit was all to do with the fact that unlike a real PlayStation unit, the Connectix product did not (and could not) carry out the checks that identify if the disk is a genuine disk or an unauthorized copy.
Microsoft may have discovered lobbyists but their lobbyists didn't save them from EU rulings (Windows N with no media player, the "Browser Choice" screen etc). There is no reason to think the EU wouldn't be interested in investigating other abuses of monopoly power by Microsoft (including anything to do with secure boot)
There is a limit to how low Nokia can go with the hardware specs (and hence cost) and still be able to get acceptable performance out of the Linux Kernel with any semblance of a GUI on top. Even more so if its a phone and needs to be able to run a baseband (has there ever been a phone running the Linux kernel that hasn't had a separate baseband CPU for it).
Plus, many carriers (especially in the US) would be likely to call a phone like this (Linux+QML) a Smartphone anyway (especially if you can write your own QML apps)
My guess is that (if Gatekeeper is enabled) every binary loaded by the system must be signed by Apple or else it wont load.
Replacing SSL as an encryption standard is not necessary. (at least if you don't use the variants vulnerable to that BEAST attack)
What is necessary is to replace the system of certificates with a new way to validate that the computer you are connecting to is the one you think you are connecting to, one that doesn't have the costs usually associated with SSL certificates and one that isn't vulnerable to compromise of a single CA ala DigiNotar.
Will the RIAA be sending the Iranian government a cease and desist notice for violating its copyright on the song?
If you want music for your collection, YouTube + one of the many YouTube to MP3 options is one way to get a specific song that their anti-piracy detection methods probably cant pick up.
That or downloading from any number of websites offering music for download (including file sharing sites)
For movies & TV, if you want to watch something once (and dont care so much about the quality) YouTube is a good way to do it if you can find a copy. If YouTube doesn't have it, plenty of other video sites that probably do...
Plenty of options that dont involve using P2P software to download mainstream content (although I wish YouTube would do more about the people who upload the dodgy videos saying "we cant upload this film to YouTube because its been blocked but go to dodgyvideosite.com to watch it" with a link to some dodgy scam site)
When the recent Ghostbusters FPS was released, there was a deal done between Atari (the publishers of the game) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to make the game exclusive to the Sony platforms in the European/Australian market for a period of time.
Had this not happened, I would probably have been willing to walk into my local EB Games and buy a copy for my PC.
But because of the deal done between Atari and Sony, I was unable to buy the game and rather than wait for it to become available I downloaded it. Not only that, I have blacklisted Atari and will not buy any of their games in future (not that it matters much, pretty much all what Atari has published lately isn't worth playing anyway)
Exclusivity deals and other BS are one of the big driving factors leading people towards piracy. And dont get me started regarding the whole BS surrounding 3D blu-ray and the fact that you would probably need to buy at least 6 different 3DTVs in order to get all the 3D films released so far on blu-ray because of all the deals done between studios and TV makers (Last time I checked, the only way to legally get Avatar 3D on blu-ray is to buy a Panasonic TV or Blu-Ray player or to buy a second-hand copy from someone who bought Panasonic)
The bigger problem with DSL is that many ISPs either limit the speed so much that its useless or they have given up altogether and ceded the market to the cable companies.
If ISPs who offered ADSL actually offered the latest technology (ADSL2+) and at "maximum speed" (i.e. the best speed you can get based on how far from the ADSL kit you are) AND had DSL in more phone exchanges, it might be a better option.
AMD has actually committed to supporting Coreboot on their CPUs and chipsets.
Ask Microsoft about the "not frequently updated" part.
All these continued updates to the XBOX 360 (mostly to find even more obnoxious ways to shove ads down your throat wile making the content you might actually want to, ya know, BUY, harder to find) seem to be coming more and more frequently.
Sony is much the same (although most of their updates these days seem to be about blocking whatever piracy-enabling hack the hackers have figured out for the last update)
All the theaters I have been to here in Australia specifically ban people from leaving their cellphones on during the movie, usually with a message on the screen before the film starts telling people to turn them off (although when I went to see Amazing Spider-Man, they had someone checking bags and asking people to turn their devices off, might have been to stop people cam-cording the film rather than cellphones specifically)
And I have not yet experienced any situation where someone is being annoying with a cellphone during the actual film so it obviously works.
Why they cant do this in the US is beyond me. I bet that the number of people who would complain to the theater because of the new rules is far outweighed by the number of people who will start going back because of said rules. If you absolutely NEED to be contactable, put the phone on silent or vibrate and leave the theater to use it or dont go to the movies in the first place.
Is there such a thing as actual TV news in the US anymore instead of the so-called "news" put out by entities like Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC etc?
I think "The News Hour" (on PBS in the US and SBS in Australia) is watchable but how does it go on bias and agendas?
Thanks for that link, looks like my password was not stolen.
But I am in a somewhat safe liberal seat and writing to Steve Irons is likely to get no response or some sort of canned response about how important this is for the security of our nation.
What would it take to get a government (and president) in the US that actually respects the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties of ordinary Americans?
Or is the US so far gone that nothing can ever fix it?
The biggest problem they will face is getting the hardware to run their new OS on, especially things like cellular chipsets.
As an N900 user, I say they should NOT release another N900, they should release something that's like an N900 but BETTER.
Re-design the USB port so it cant come loose and render the phone as good as dead. Improve the battery life. Give it an up-to-date browser and rendering engine. Have less closed-source software on the device (especially in the lower level libraries).
Add a maps app with better (and more up-to-date) maps and better features (e.g. easy way to search for specific streets/landmarks/etc and get walking directions to that location)
Support missing features like Cell Broadcast SMS and the various WiFi encryption standards.
The problem (like other things in the computer security world such as HIPAA, PCI etc) is that the banks will do the things that will make the lawyers happy and/or reduce the banks risk and not the things that will actually improve security.
Instead of requiring that OEMs shipping Ubuntu ("Ubuntu Certified" or whatever) install the Canonical signing keys, they should require that the machines be shipped with secure boot turned off by default (i.e. it will boot any bootloader that doesn't specifically care about secure boot)
That way all the issues about keys and GPL3 and OEM lock-downs and stuff don't matter.
Reasons why getting companies to open-source stuff is hard include:
1.They may not have the code anymore (or it may be in some archive vault somewhere and difficult to find)
2.3rd parry copyrights on the code (e.g. licensed game engines, licensed middle-ware etc)
3.3rd party patents (e.g. anything that supports any flavor of MPEG or e.g. the Creative Labs patent that ID hard to work around in releasing the Doom 3 source code)
4.Licensing (e.g. movie or sports tie-ins)
5.Cheating or hacking (publishing the code may make it easier to cheat or hack the program)
6.NDAs (e.g. the NDAs for platforms like the XBOX 360, PS3, WII or the hardware NDAs for things like PowerVR GPUs or the NDAs for anti-piracy solutions that may be integrated with the code)
7.They may still be using some or all of the code (or derivative versions of it) in current software.
8.They may not want to open source something old and not-sold-anymore if the result would be competing against things they are still selling.
9.They may not want to give their competitors an edge by opening up code that their competitors might want.
and 10.Cost to review the codebase and make sure that you are free of the above items
It depends on the company, smaller companies are more likely to be willing to either release the code or to do a deal (as happened with Blender) whereas larger companies are less willing to entertain either open sourcing directly or to sell the rights (either to the software as a while or to the codebase but not the data/game/whatever).
For example, it would be almost impossible to convince a large company like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Atari or Ubisoft to open source any of their stuff. (or in many cases to even support modding of their titles or share information/tools modders would need)
That first one should have been after a certain date, any not-yet-released devices
That manufacturers continue to release brand new devices running Gingerbread with no upgrade path to Ice Cream Sandwich whatsoever. And its not like these are devices that started development long before ICS appeared, some of them are devices that were likely early enough in their development phase that they could easily have started work on an ICS port at that point (and in some cases even potentially switched to ICS before the release)
Google already has certification requirements for a "Google" device that has Play/Marketplace, gmail etc on it.
Some things I think Google should add to those requirements that would benefit Android:
1.They should tell OEMs that after , any not-yet-released devices that want certification MUST be running Ice Cream Sandwich or at the very least have a defined upgrade path to ICS.
2.They should tell OEMs that Google must be the default search engine (after all, the search is a big part of how Google makes its money on Android)
3.They should tell OEMs that they must fully comply with the license of any and all software they are shipping on the phone (including the GPLv2 for the Linux Kernel). No more of this "its industry standard practice to release kernel source weeks/months after the binaries have shipped" BS that some OEMs *cough*HTC*cough* keep pulling again and again.