Two of the nice things about XForms (for anybody who writes HTML forms today) are (well, will be):
1) information is submitted as an xml document... which means you can structure info as opposed to HTML forms' "flat" name-value pairs. Given the great tools for validating and manipulating xml structures in memory, this means less (and simpler) code (both validation and "business" processing) on the server side.
2) Xforms offers more elegant solutions to the behaviour vs. appearance issues of HTML forms. Changing an html multi-select to a series of checkboxes requires all kinds of tedious changes to your code ("selected" vs. "checked", etc) - it's not brain surgery but you wind up with those real ugly jsp/php/whatever pages for complex forms, especially a reloadable data-driven form used for adding or editing records: i know i've got a couple of monster forms that i just don't want to touch any more.
Of course, two of the bad things about XForms (gotta be fair):
1) No browser currently supports them out of the box. The first browsers will (just guessing) in late 2004, and you won't be able to count on most of your site users having native support until quite a while after that. It's december 2003 and 6% of my hits come from Netscape 4.x
2) XForms are waaaaay more complicated than HTML forms. It's kind of hard to justify the kind of effort needed to master xforms when it won't be a resume star for another two years or so (again, just guessing). On the other hand, i remember "you will need a table-capable browser to view this site". At some point it will be worth bitinig the bullet and learning this stuff, and early adopters end up ahead of the curve.
Check out chiba (http://chiba.sourceforge.net) - server side xforms processing (generates html for the client and then maps back to xml instance data on the server side). It's a pretty decent project (GPL) - you can deploy the sample war on tomcat and be poking a stick at the examples in no time, and the developpers are present on the mailing list and make a fair go at helping you if you have any problems.
and let's also remember that they've broken this contract in the past and paid the penalty for it. I'd say Apple computers probably just thinks of this as the cost of doing business - judging from past behaviour they must have been pretty sure than Apple records would object./t
I think that's unlikely to happen, as the RIAA (probably) wouldn't give these unaffiliated labels access to the information. Remember that the RIAA is only sueing people who share content under copyright to RIAA members. Industry associations don't represent an industry, they represent the interests of their members (and in a manner weighted by the relative size of the member in quetion).
I'd have to say that filling in one of these forms is a bad idea because the exchange isn't fair: you're admitting to a crime for which the other party can't really grant you amnesty - they promise not to sue you, but that's not the same as granting you immunity from prosecution for this crime./t
DirecTV's campaign began with a series of raids on Internet Web sites. Armed with Digital Millennium Copyright Act , DirecTV paid visits to well-known online vendors like Whiteviper, took over their Web sites ("where are they now?"), and went home with their customer records. sounds like they went after the people that sold them, not the people that make them. I could be wrong, their own website does make mention of "civil and criminal actions brought by DIRECTV against those who illegally design, manufacture, market, sell, or use devices that allow access to satellite signals without payment to DIRECTV", but i can't seem to find IBM Smart Cards, Motorola or Samsung Electronics in their hall of shame. In fact, i can't find any of the companies listed in the google directory under Computers > Hardware > Systems > Smartcards > Manufacturers.
Well now harriet nyborg, let's not get carried away. Just because DirectTV and their lawyers interpret the law this way doesn't make it so: that's only if the judge agrees with them. I don't think this issue is about the great social inustices of our century, it's just about a mid level clerk somewhere at some big company who ran some numbers through a spreadsheet. If ten percent of the people you goose come up with the thirty five hundred, then you've made (9000 x 0.1) x 3500 = three million, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, minus the cost of stamps. Not too shoddy. If they truely belived their own FUD they'd sue the companies that manufacture this equipment - it stands to reason that they'd make more money that way. Except, of course, that they don't have a foot to stand on and that these other companies know it, and so do their lawyers. Suit. Counter-suit. Advantage... well, the lawyers.
Assuming you're being ironic but can't resist that reply button. Claiming that smart cards and the tools to use and program them are primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications is like claiming that DNS is primarily useful for finding pr0n. What's next, banning hand guns because they're primarily useful for shooting people?
Yesh, but data from several customers was compromised. So, Axciom, please make sure that a disgruntled former employee of customer X can't access the data of customer Y...
Doesn't it kind of sound like this server he "cracked" was some kind of ftp drop box used by a whole bunch of customers to upload data files... and that the permissions weren't set up by a smart sysadmin? Of course, "polite" users never stray outside their directory...
According to this version, the person in question wasn't an Acxiom employee but rather a former employee of one of their clients who still had legitimate access to the server in question (so his employers had been lax in notifying Acxiom to shut off his access). OTOH, the article also mentions that data from several of their clients was compromised, albeit in encrypted form, which is still somewhat shoddy for a company of this type: if the guy had been able to access his ex-employer's data then the blame is on them (the ex-employer), but if he can get at stuff from other companies then Acxiom has some explaining to do./t
And were the RIAA's subpoenas for theft by conversion or for copyright infringement? In the context of the "Great Downloading Debate of 2003", "theft" is public-relations speak, dumbed down for the masses, (overly) simplistic moral high ground seeking by, well, THEM. When we start spouting this crayola black and white view of the situation, then we're one step closer to buying their line: that p2p file sharing of copyrighted music will kill music. Period. This is *not* a simple matter! Can you honestly tell me that kids getting sued for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for having a handfull of songs in their shared folder doesn't give you the chills? Doesn't the punishment seem way out of whack with the crime?
I'm guessing the people with broadband internet connections don't buy a pirate CD until they have at least tried to download it off KaZaa. It could make for an interesting argument that P2P acts as a gateway to participating in other forms of copyright infringement - i mean, if you're willing to download you'll be willing to buy from some dodgy geezer down at Camden market, right? Until one day they find you dead in the train station toliets with a mariah carey LP stuck in your arm.
They really just don't care about the law or intellectual property, they just want CDs that cost two pints of beer rather than four. There's a whole field of social science dedicated to explaining this deviant behaviour: it's called economics ("reflected sound of underground spirits" if you're a Prachett fan). These people just think that the value of the CD to them is closer to 2 pints than 4 pints. One man's pirate is another man's free agent.
Indeed - just because it's not *theft* doesn not mean it's OK to do it. The RIAA likes to call it theft because it simplifies the whole concept in the mind of Joe Sixpack: it is a bad thing to take other people's stuff. By the time you've explained "infringement" Mr. Sixpack has switched to stanley cup replays. If you're explaining, you're losing.
Interestingly enough, the big broadcasters dragged the original cable tv stations into court because they were "stealing" their content. The MPAA dragged sony into court over video recorders, because they could be used to "steal" their movies. In he first case, the courts settled on a mandatory licensing scheme (so cable had to pay the networks but they were allowed to keep rebroadcasting their content - how come Napster wasn't offered a deal like this?) and in the second case the court found that there was a potential for significant noninfringing use for the technology (and you have to be deep in the **AA's pockets to claim that the same can't be said for P2P tech) and the case was dismissed. Today, pay per view / cable / video rental / etc makes BILLIONS for copyright holders, money that they would not be making if it had been left up to them (which it is being today)
1) CD Piracy is a world wide phenomenon (take a walk around Istambul one of these days) whereas broadband access is available to less than 1% of the world's population. Let's stop thinking like a bunch of fat old white guys. No matter what fantastic numbers you pull out of your ass, i will counter with 1.3 billion chinese and 1 billion indians, so don't even go there.
2) In a lot of places where pirates do most of their business, you CAN'T buy the real McCoy - it's pirate or nothing. During the cold war, there used to be a thriving black market for taped copies of western LPs which were unavailable for political reasons. Try and get amazon to deliver to mogadishu somalia.
3) By all means go after the duplicators: after all we won the war on drugs by attacking the supply side so i'm sure it will work here as well. People will continue to buy pirate music/download mp3s as long as their perceived price/benefit breakdown is greater than buying the real thing, and other people will supply that market as long as it exists. And yes, there is a price associated with downloading music./t
or 7) Because of the definition of the word "theft"
theft \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny. Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.(Emphasis mine) See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery. 2. The thing stolen. [R.] If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, . . . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii. 4. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (C) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Why exactly are the ISPs so concerned with the user privacy? [snip] Fighting the RIAA will cost them money, just to protect privacy? What have they to gain from that?
One of two things: 1) It costs them money to comply with the RIAA demands. They need to have staff looking up ip addresses, cross referencing them with billing records, etc etc. If the RIAA starts tacking more and more requests into a single envelope that starts to get expensive. 2) Marketing. If you have a lot of broadband customers and the money to play legal games, then this is a great way to get some good publicity amongst a very attractive target demographic.
I guess i should throw in a third option: 3) They're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and their belief that a consumer's rights to privacy outweigh a company's *right* to profit./t
Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch. Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us! Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches? Peasant 1: Burn them! Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches? Peasant 1: More witches! Peasant 2: Wood! Sir Bedevere: Correct. Now, why do witches burn? Peasant 3:...because they're made of... wood? Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood? Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her! Sir Bedevere: But don't we also build bridges out of stone? Peasant 1: Oh yeah. Sir Bedevere: Now, does wood float in water? Peasant 1: No, no... Throw her into the pond! Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water? Peasant 1: Bread! Peasant 2: Apples! Peasant 3: Very small rocks! Peasant 2: Cherries! Great lumpy gravy! Peasant 3: Crutches! King Arthur: A Duck! Sir Bedevere: Exactly!
OBDisc:I don't know anything about your product...
Seems to me that if it's a modular/plugin architecture then the framework and some modules can be OSS whilst other modules are proprietary. As i understand it, this is how the netbeans IDE works. (let's try not to get bogged down flaming SUN's Public License - i'm sure this kind of thing could work under an Apache License as well)
CDBaby aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - they're doing it because it's potentially very good for their bottom line. If your music sells no units they still have the profit off your fourty dollars. If you happen to be the next big thing, they have the 9% off your online sales. And at no risk whatsoever to themselves.
Taken side by side with the recent article about how lab mice may be psychotic i can smell trouble. Surely there's a guideline somewhere about not creating insane super mice - you just know it'll look like a bad idea in retrospect./t
You could prove copyright infringement without access to the source if the system had the same bugs as yours did (well, at least you could make a strong case for it) or if the infringing software had the same easter eggs as the copyrighted version then you know they're busted. Most people would say "that would never happen" but don't be so sure: the reason people rip off other people's code is to save money and doing a line by line review takes time... and that costs money./t
Because the people who own the rights to the code will sue the users of this code as well as the corporation (in this case, Microsoft) which ripped it off - ie it's the Timeline datamart patent infringment case./t
Not really all that much about the "Organizational Model for Open Source". No discussion of "incubator" sites like sourceforge. No mention of technologies like CVS that make distributed development possible, or at least a lot easier. No comparison with the trend in outsourcing development. No discussion about the differences between "true" open source and such no-fork aberrations as "community source" or whatnot.
well at least it renders correctly in Mozilla.
For some real insight into how/why/when the open source development model makes sense, read your classics:
Slashdot Mirror
Two of the nice things about XForms (for anybody who writes HTML forms today) are (well, will be):
/t
1) information is submitted as an xml document... which means you can structure info as opposed to HTML forms' "flat" name-value pairs. Given the great tools for validating and manipulating xml structures in memory, this means less (and simpler) code (both validation and "business" processing) on the server side.
2) Xforms offers more elegant solutions to the behaviour vs. appearance issues of HTML forms. Changing an html multi-select to a series of checkboxes requires all kinds of tedious changes to your code ("selected" vs. "checked", etc) - it's not brain surgery but you wind up with those real ugly jsp/php/whatever pages for complex forms, especially a reloadable data-driven form used for adding or editing records: i know i've got a couple of monster forms that i just don't want to touch any more.
Of course, two of the bad things about XForms (gotta be fair):
1) No browser currently supports them out of the box. The first browsers will (just guessing) in late 2004, and you won't be able to count on most of your site users having native support until quite a while after that. It's december 2003 and 6% of my hits come from Netscape 4.x
2) XForms are waaaaay more complicated than HTML forms. It's kind of hard to justify the kind of effort needed to master xforms when it won't be a resume star for another two years or so (again, just guessing). On the other hand, i remember "you will need a table-capable browser to view this site". At some point it will be worth bitinig the bullet and learning this stuff, and early adopters end up ahead of the curve.
Check out chiba (http://chiba.sourceforge.net) - server side xforms processing (generates html for the client and then maps back to xml instance data on the server side). It's a pretty decent project (GPL) - you can deploy the sample war on tomcat and be poking a stick at the examples in no time, and the developpers are present on the mailing list and make a fair go at helping you if you have any problems.
and let's also remember that they've broken this contract in the past and paid the penalty for it. I'd say Apple computers probably just thinks of this as the cost of doing business - judging from past behaviour they must have been pretty sure than Apple records would object. /t
I think that's unlikely to happen, as the RIAA (probably) wouldn't give these unaffiliated labels access to the information. Remember that the RIAA is only sueing people who share content under copyright to RIAA members. Industry associations don't represent an industry, they represent the interests of their members (and in a manner weighted by the relative size of the member in quetion).
/t
I'd have to say that filling in one of these forms is a bad idea because the exchange isn't fair: you're admitting to a crime for which the other party can't really grant you amnesty - they promise not to sue you, but that's not the same as granting you immunity from prosecution for this crime.
nope - you may *have* to exceed the speed limit in order to void an accident. better fined than dead.
DirecTV's campaign began with a series of raids on Internet Web sites. Armed with Digital Millennium Copyright Act , DirecTV paid visits to well-known online vendors like Whiteviper, took over their Web sites ("where are they now?"), and went home with their customer records.
sounds like they went after the people that sold them, not the people that make them. I could be wrong, their own website does make mention of "civil and criminal actions brought by DIRECTV against those who illegally design, manufacture, market, sell, or use devices that allow access to satellite signals without payment to DIRECTV", but i can't seem to find IBM Smart Cards, Motorola or Samsung Electronics in their hall of shame. In fact, i can't find any of the companies listed in the google directory under Computers > Hardware > Systems > Smartcards > Manufacturers.
Well now harriet nyborg, let's not get carried away. Just because DirectTV and their lawyers interpret the law this way doesn't make it so: that's only if the judge agrees with them. I don't think this issue is about the great social inustices of our century, it's just about a mid level clerk somewhere at some big company who ran some numbers through a spreadsheet. If ten percent of the people you goose come up with the thirty five hundred, then you've made (9000 x 0.1) x 3500 = three million, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, minus the cost of stamps. Not too shoddy. If they truely belived their own FUD they'd sue the companies that manufacture this equipment - it stands to reason that they'd make more money that way. Except, of course, that they don't have a foot to stand on and that these other companies know it, and so do their lawyers. Suit. Counter-suit. Advantage... well, the lawyers.
Assuming you're being ironic but can't resist that reply button. Claiming that smart cards and the tools to use and program them are primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications is like claiming that DNS is primarily useful for finding pr0n. What's next, banning hand guns because they're primarily useful for shooting people?
/t
Yesh, but data from several customers was compromised. So, Axciom, please make sure that a disgruntled former employee of customer X can't access the data of customer Y...
Doesn't it kind of sound like this server he "cracked" was some kind of ftp drop box used by a whole bunch of customers to upload data files... and that the permissions weren't set up by a smart sysadmin? Of course, "polite" users never stray outside their directory...
According to this version, the person in question wasn't an Acxiom employee but rather a former employee of one of their clients who still had legitimate access to the server in question (so his employers had been lax in notifying Acxiom to shut off his access). OTOH, the article also mentions that data from several of their clients was compromised, albeit in encrypted form, which is still somewhat shoddy for a company of this type: if the guy had been able to access his ex-employer's data then the blame is on them (the ex-employer), but if he can get at stuff from other companies then Acxiom has some explaining to do. /t
And were the RIAA's subpoenas for theft by conversion or for copyright infringement? In the context of the "Great Downloading Debate of 2003", "theft" is public-relations speak, dumbed down for the masses, (overly) simplistic moral high ground seeking by, well, THEM. When we start spouting this crayola black and white view of the situation, then we're one step closer to buying their line: that p2p file sharing of copyrighted music will kill music. Period.
This is *not* a simple matter! Can you honestly tell me that kids getting sued for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for having a handfull of songs in their shared folder doesn't give you the chills? Doesn't the punishment seem way out of whack with the crime?
I'm guessing the people with broadband internet connections don't buy a pirate CD until they have at least tried to download it off KaZaa. It could make for an interesting argument that P2P acts as a gateway to participating in other forms of copyright infringement - i mean, if you're willing to download you'll be willing to buy from some dodgy geezer down at Camden market, right? Until one day they find you dead in the train station toliets with a mariah carey LP stuck in your arm.
/t
They really just don't care about the law or intellectual property, they just want CDs that cost two pints of beer rather than four.
There's a whole field of social science dedicated to explaining this deviant behaviour: it's called economics ("reflected sound of underground spirits" if you're a Prachett fan). These people just think that the value of the CD to them is closer to 2 pints than 4 pints. One man's pirate is another man's free agent.
Why thank you Mr. Coward ;)
/t
Indeed - just because it's not *theft* doesn not mean it's OK to do it. The RIAA likes to call it theft because it simplifies the whole concept in the mind of Joe Sixpack: it is a bad thing to take other people's stuff. By the time you've explained "infringement" Mr. Sixpack has switched to stanley cup replays. If you're explaining, you're losing.
Interestingly enough, the big broadcasters dragged the original cable tv stations into court because they were "stealing" their content. The MPAA dragged sony into court over video recorders, because they could be used to "steal" their movies. In he first case, the courts settled on a mandatory licensing scheme (so cable had to pay the networks but they were allowed to keep rebroadcasting their content - how come Napster wasn't offered a deal like this?) and in the second case the court found that there was a potential for significant noninfringing use for the technology (and you have to be deep in the **AA's pockets to claim that the same can't be said for P2P tech) and the case was dismissed. Today, pay per view / cable / video rental / etc makes BILLIONS for copyright holders, money that they would not be making if it had been left up to them (which it is being today)
1) CD Piracy is a world wide phenomenon (take a walk around Istambul one of these days) whereas broadband access is available to less than 1% of the world's population. Let's stop thinking like a bunch of fat old white guys. No matter what fantastic numbers you pull out of your ass, i will counter with 1.3 billion chinese and 1 billion indians, so don't even go there.
/t
2) In a lot of places where pirates do most of their business, you CAN'T buy the real McCoy - it's pirate or nothing. During the cold war, there used to be a thriving black market for taped copies of western LPs which were unavailable for political reasons. Try and get amazon to deliver to mogadishu somalia.
3) By all means go after the duplicators: after all we won the war on drugs by attacking the supply side so i'm sure it will work here as well. People will continue to buy pirate music/download mp3s as long as their perceived price/benefit breakdown is greater than buying the real thing, and other people will supply that market as long as it exists. And yes, there is a price associated with downloading music.
or 7) Because of the definition of the word "theft"
/t
theft
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.(Emphasis mine) See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
2. The thing stolen. [R.]
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, . . . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii. 4.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (C) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
... whilst increasing the amount of terror in somebody else's.
Why exactly are the ISPs so concerned with the user privacy? [snip] Fighting the RIAA will cost them money, just to protect privacy? What have they to gain from that?
/t
One of two things:
1) It costs them money to comply with the RIAA demands. They need to have staff looking up ip addresses, cross referencing them with billing records, etc etc. If the RIAA starts tacking more and more requests into a single envelope that starts to get expensive.
2) Marketing. If you have a lot of broadband customers and the money to play legal games, then this is a great way to get some good publicity amongst a very attractive target demographic.
I guess i should throw in a third option:
3) They're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and their belief that a consumer's rights to privacy outweigh a company's *right* to profit.
Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch. ...because they're made of... wood?
Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us!
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1: Burn them!
Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1: More witches!
Peasant 2: Wood!
Sir Bedevere: Correct. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3:
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her!
Sir Bedevere: But don't we also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Now, does wood float in water?
Peasant 1: No, no... Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1: Bread!
Peasant 2: Apples!
Peasant 3: Very small rocks!
Peasant 2: Cherries! Great lumpy gravy!
Peasant 3: Crutches!
King Arthur: A Duck!
Sir Bedevere: Exactly!
OBDisc:I don't know anything about your product...
/t
Seems to me that if it's a modular/plugin architecture then the framework and some modules can be OSS whilst other modules are proprietary. As i understand it, this is how the netbeans IDE works. (let's try not to get bogged down flaming SUN's Public License - i'm sure this kind of thing could work under an Apache License as well)
CDBaby aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - they're doing it because it's potentially very good for their bottom line. If your music sells no units they still have the profit off your fourty dollars. If you happen to be the next big thing, they have the 9% off your online sales. And at no risk whatsoever to themselves.
/t
Clever.
But on the other hand when everything is made by robots then the price of most manufactured goods will fall (free work force labouring away 24/7). /t
Taken side by side with the recent article about how lab mice may be psychotic i can smell trouble. Surely there's a guideline somewhere about not creating insane super mice - you just know it'll look like a bad idea in retrospect. /t
You could prove copyright infringement without access to the source if the system had the same bugs as yours did (well, at least you could make a strong case for it) or if the infringing software had the same easter eggs as the copyrighted version then you know they're busted. Most people would say "that would never happen" but don't be so sure: the reason people rip off other people's code is to save money and doing a line by line review takes time... and that costs money. /t
Because the people who own the rights to the code will sue the users of this code as well as the corporation (in this case, Microsoft) which ripped it off - ie it's the Timeline datamart patent infringment case. /t
You can use the RIAA Radar search engine to check whether a label is a member of the RIAA. (Amazon.com web services at work)
/t
well at least it renders correctly in Mozilla.
For some real insight into how/why/when the open source development model makes sense, read your classics:
the widely quoted but maybe a bit less widely read work of Eric S. Raymond