Small problem with that for Microsoft. They know that the OS just isn't that important to a user: it's the *applications* that keep people on your platform. If all Windows users start getting used to (and liking) Firefox & Thunderbird, then it's that much smaller a jump for them to migrate to Linux instead of staying on Windows.
That would be BAD for Microsoft. Therefore, they will be discouraging all movement off of their applcations to alternatives. The bad publicity doesn't matter if they can still dominate as a platform for computing, and require everyone to run Windows.
As long as the software in question is GPL (or other Free license), I don't see how anyone should be up in arms over this. The software is Free (as in speech): if someone wants to port it to Windows, it is entirely up to them.
I can understand encouragement to keeping it off of Windows, but being indignant about it is plain hypocritical.
That's an interesting interpretation, but I'm not sure that it is accurate.
You're right in that the clause you quoted seems to essentially useless. However, the part that is made illegal in the DMCA is the "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof" of any "technological measures" to defeat copy protection schemes. Translation: You may not distribute anything that will allow others to bypass the DRM. This does not mean, however, that you are not free to develop your own method to defeat the DRM. This was intentional, I believe, since the SCOTUS had already ruled on fair use: they could not make it illegal to exercise it, and it would be challenged (likely successfully) in short order.
The court had not said that it must be easy to claim fair use, only that it not be illegal to do so. They also did not say that Congress could not pass a law that restricts trade in "technological measures" to overcome DRM: that has yet to be heard.
The DMCA makes no mention of any acts of engineering being illegal. What you do for yourself is still entirely your business.
So, in summary, I stand by what I said. The way I read it, fair use of copyrighted materials (DRM'ed or not), is legal. Trafficking in the knowledge that permitted that fair use, however, is not.
Actually it is still perfectly legal, regardless of what manufacturers and publishers might think or even want.
Read the text of the DMCA carefully. Pay particularly attention to section 1201, subsection c (Sorry, I don't have a link handy). There is a specific exemption in it that says that it shall not infringe on fair use.
This is essentially correct.
So really, the only time the DMCA can be applied to someone is when they were breaking the law already anyways (even if the DMCA weren't law), which makes the DMCA redundant at best, and a waste of everyone's time at worst.
Incorrect.
The DMCA does not restrict fair use of any copyrighted materials: you may legally bypass any DRM in your way and make non-commercial copies to your heart's content. BUT, the DMCA also makes it (civilly and criminally) illegal to distribute "circumvention devices", free software or otherwise.
Essentially, you can break the DRM, but you can't ever tell anyone how you did it. You can legally reclaim fair use only if you are technically saavy enough. This is why the EFF wants to mount a challenge to this act: it is a restriction on free speech.
Precisely. A poor lens with a hi-res CCD means that the terrible blurriness of your photo will be captured in vivid detail:-)
I've got digicam almost 5 years old (Nikon Coolpix 990). Only 3.3 megapixels, and still capable of taking shots that blow the doors off most of today's cheaper 5MP cameras due to its awesome quality lens.
The servers' OS isn't important, it's the apps that run on them.
If a "business critical" app comes out that requires Longhorn on the desktop, you can bet that they'll swap out the servers to Windows if it's impossible to make Longhorn work on a Linux network ("impossible", as in MS holds patents over interoperability with certain Longhorn features, not that it wouldn't be technically feasible.)
This is precisely why business needs to get on the Linux bandwagon in a big way over the next couple of years: to create a critical mass of non-MS infrastructure that can exist outside of a legally-binding (due to patents) "Island of Microsoft" before Longhorn is released.
As I recall, Daimler-Chrysler & AutoZone were not sued because of any fault with Linux per se, but rather that their use of Linux supposedly broke a clause in their existing/past contract with SCO covering the use of their UNIX product.
Just like the IBM case, those lawsuits were not alledging copyright or patent infringment, but rather contract law. It's just the noise they generate for the press makes it seem like that is what the cases are all about.
So, no, these two examples have nothing to do with an end user being sued for copyright or patent infringment by that end user's "vendor". We're still waiting for the first example of this, as far as I know. I agree, I think it is ludicrous to sue the end users. That's kind of identifying a copyright violation on a record, then suing everyone who bought the CD or listened to a song off it on the radio for infringment. It's stupid!
..this could be the call to arms of MS gettingready to start trying to collect/stifle with their patent suite.
I believe it unlikely that Microsoft will start to pull out the patent weaponry against anyone at this time.
A patent attack is different from claiming copyright infringment in the code: SCO public propaganda aside, remedying copyright violations (if any exist) is a relatively trivial matter of rewriting the sections of code proven to have been unlawfully copied. Patent violation, on the other hand, is far more serious to Free software. A successful suit of patent infringment would very likely declare that key functionality of a program (not the code itself) is illegal, thus crippling the target.
As you pointed out, there are many players like IBM who will seriously fight for any Linux on any moves like this by Microsoft. MS would not look good in the press trying to wage this war, and could very easily lose big in court, as well.
This strikes me more of an extension of the FUD campaign: scare potential Linux switchers that there may be IP issues, then note that they will protect you if you stay. Never mind that many Linux vendors provide similar protection. Never mind that there are no facts to back up the scare, only innuendo. It doesn't matter. Anything to keep companies on Windows until they're safely trapped into Longhorn in a few years.
Then.. you may see the lawsuits from MS! As I understand it, they've patented a bunch of stuff that will be part of Longhorn, and any interoperation attempts with it on a network will be violating their patents. They will attempt to make Microsoft an island: continue to not support others' technologies, but also keep others from supporting theirs. No more Samba, WINE, Crossover, no more opening Office files in anything but Office, hell maybe even no more viewing web pages served from MS servers if they like! You will then have the choice of using Windows exclusively, or using alternatives exclusively (with all of the migration headaches cranked up to the maximum, since it could not be a gradual migration, but rather a complete flip-the-switch to a whole new IT infrastructure for any company considering doing this).
They also stand a greater chance of success in court at this point (clear violations of their patents). It will still be risky from a PR standpoint, and they may not play that card unless Linux starts putting a serious hurt on Microsofts revenue streams, but it will be far more viable goal if they choose to at the point they have their patent cards in hand and patent-encumbered software in wide use.
So the strategy at MS will be more FUD on top of FUD, desperately trying to keep people off of Linux for the next five years or so, until Longhorn is entrenched. For MS, Linux cannot be permitted to gain enough of a marketshare that a significant chunk of the IT industry could survive being unbeholden to them. Hold on, the noise from Redmond is going to get much louder over the next while. Plus, I'm sure another SCO-alike or two may be thrown in as well to keep the pot stirred. Anything to keep business and government off of Linux at all costs.
So, long-winded rant finally at end, the best thing that we can do is to encourage Linux deployments in government and big business. Any and all effort to make such moves possible is a good thing, far more so (in my opinion) than working on stuff aimed at the home user (games, media players, etc). The home user will not save Linux: we will be marginalized any possibly even forced into hiding for using "illegal" software if this goes badly. We need heavy hitters on our side, a lot of them, and we need them soon. They don't have to care about Free software, only have their bottom lines threatened by its potential extinction!
you basically are legally allowing something and then making it so hard to accomplish that only a very small portion of the population can benefit from that legal provision
This is precisely what the DMCA already does. It forbids the "trafficking" (for want of a better word) in devices (programs or physical objects) that circumvent copy protection schemes. If a copy protection scheme does not permit fair use, it is not illegal to reclaim those fair use rights by disabling the scheme. It is, however, illegal to tell anyone else how you did it. That potentially leaves only the technical elite to be able to legally use the media in a fair manner. This effect is, of course, exactly as intended by the law.
As you stated, making things difficult is entirely permitted by copyright law. Where the DMCA is legally objectionable is that it creates ban is on the communication of an idea (ie: free speech), and I hope a case which can address gets successfully heard at the Supreme Court soon!
IMO, only if MS keeps it closed, secret and has no licensing options will this hurt OSS.
Whether the codec will be closed or secret is irrelavent. If the spec is not published, someone will reverse-engineer it. Therefore, there will undoubtably be ways to technically play this media on Linux/BSD/etc.
Legally, however, is a totally different issue. Sure, there will be licensing options. How much do you want to bet that there will be no options compatible with FOSS (ie. free of cost and distribution restrictions)?
Eventually there will be a legal means to play these on Linux (just like TurboLinux allows you to pleay WMP9 and DVDs on their distro). However, it runs counter to the FOSS goals of restriction-free software, and therefore has no chance of widespread acceptance.
So, in a way, you're right in that this won't "hurt", since we're presently already in this situation with DVDs. However, the ones licensing DVD's technology are not convicted monopolists hell-bent for the destruction of FOSS.
Sorry, but right there sums up every reason why attempting any of what you suggest is going to be nearly impossible.
See, Linux and most everything in a distro is Free software, meaning you can't force anyone to do anything. If you create a solution that proves to be wonderful for both a developer and end user, then great. But even then, there is no authority within the community to dictate the standards you suggest. To do so is counter to the point of Free software.
The Linux world will always be more "fractured" then the Windows world, and as a result it will hold back adoption with home users. To find a way to force a change to this is impossible, and even if it were it would damage the essense of what makes Linux what it is.
Still, at least we can be thankful that the guys at MS still haven't got a clue how to deal with the rise of Linux and friends. I'm frankly baffled at how they came up with this idea in the first place.
As others above have stated, this is, in fact, a way of dealing with Linux. They start leaning on governments and PC manufacturers selling in Asian countries about piracy issues. However, lean too hard and the same groups just might start seriously looking at using this Linux thing as an alternative. Preinstall Linux on a bunch of new PCs, users start seeing how good it is, Windows stranglehold starts to wither. A scenario that Microsoft cannot allow to happen. So they have to do what is necessary to make sure that Windows (any Windows) is priced attractively enough to continue to be preinstalled everywhere.
Instead of undercutting their price on "genuine XP", they release the crippled version that they damned well know will be deleted and replaced with a pirated copy XP on the vast majority of PCs. And they won't care. They make some money where none was earned before, and on top of that they slow the adoption of Linux.
Why won't the crippled OS be replaced with Linux instead of pirated XP? Simple, people generally don't like change: most folks will never take action to voluntarily make a major change (which switching to Linux from Windows most certainly is). These changes only happen for most people when it is foisted upon them by a trusted authority. The vast majority of users simply won't ever switch to Linux without being directly instructed to, or when given a substantial benefit to their bottom line. As long as some version of Windows is preinstalled on as many machines as possible, and it only costs a few bucks more than the few machines that might have Linux preinstalled, Microsoft will keep almost all of them within the hive.
So, contrary to your point, I would say that Microsoft has actually made a stride toward dealing with Linux in a very positive (for them) way.
I got the same scam: unfortunately for me, I clicked "Send" at the same moment I realized that it didn't "feel right". I immediately changed my eBay password, then a google search confirmed the scam.
The bug of the main body of text occasionally running over into the left menu section seems to have been rectified. I know I've seen others who have noticed the same problem with Mozilla.
I've gone into dozens of articles and page refreshes, and everything looks correct now.
Thank you. My "F5" key is forever grateful!
Re:Changed the view of the US?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
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· Score: 2, Informative
The highlight was the 1980 US/USSR hockey match for the gold medal.
Not to nitpick too much, but this famous game was NOT for the gold medal, it was a semi-final match. The USA squad still had to beat Finland in the final to get the gold.
Not that we Canadians still don't believe that was just a huge cosmic fluke, and all, but....;-)
There is also a tidal-power plant in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Like these ones, it was built as a test of the technology. Only it's already been around for 20 years.
It puts out 20 MW, and is on the Bay of Fundy, where you will find the truly highest tides in the world.
The guy is so good, you know that he'll never do anything stupid enough to lose. There have likely been many like him on this show, but they never had this chance (the limit on 5 wins cut them off).
It will take another super-duper geek to beat him. Is this the future of Jeopardy? "Unbeatable" champions that just win for months at a time? Personally, that'll get boring quick. Having a heroic run once in a while is thrilling: having it happen all the time is just dull. Michael Schumacher's dominance has similarly turned me off of F1 racing.
Methinks another rule change may be in the making for next season: a cap on earnings. Maybe $1,000,000 is the right amount.
BTW, I'm REALLY looking forward to a "Tournament of Champions" where he can square off against some of the others that got cut off at 5 wins. I think he'd do well (likely very well), but he'd certainly not be a lock to beat some of the others we've seen on this show in the past.
They are relaxed about casual pirating. Adobe knows exactly the point you raised: that pirated copies of expensive software (in the hands of students) is the perfect way of ensuring that employers (and therefore schools) will not look at cheaper competing tools, since the "standard" package is known by all.
AutoCAD has been riding this bus for freaking ever. Were it not for its installed base and every student getting their free copy, a competing (and certainly cheaper) CAD package would have knocked them off long ago.
They publicly claim to have their panties in a knot over this (after all, they might actually scare or guilt a few people into buying their copy), but in reality they know that if they succeeded in eliminating pirated copies, they would only be killing themselves in the long term.
Awesome post. Logical and well thought out, and shows why these laws are flawed. Hope you don't mind, I've copied your bolded paragraph, and I want to use it when trying to explain these issues to others. Thanks.
Yes, but SOCAN originally asked for much more, they were only granted the levies you quote.
I think that I heard that a 20GB Creative Nomad would have been taxed for $420 under their initial proposal. Until they stop asking for ludicrous sums, I will hold them in scorn.
... the same folks who are responsible for us Canadians paying a levy on every CD-R, cassette, MP3 player, and (if they have their way) every friggen hard drive we buy! Glad to see they lost this battle.
It's a lobby for the Canadian recording artists. They are supposed to be compensated for illegal copying, in exchange for a much more lenient definition of "legal" copying in our laws than in the USA.
Of course, like all Canadian programs, it ends up creating a huge government-paid organization to police this whole subsidy. Can't really say if this is better or worse than clogging up the courts, as is the case in the States.
Last time I looked 'we' stronly believe in copyright enforcement when / as it applies to GPL or other FOSS licensed material. But when the shoe's on the other foot, suddenly people who go to a fair bit of trouble to steal a copyright work are *victims*? I think not.
Yes, "we" strongly believe in copyright enforcement ("we" in the reasonable-headed group of/.ers). That means living up to the agreement of the licence that the material was given out with. That means that if you break the agreement, you remedy it (by a number of means, including replacing offending code with new code, GPL'ing the application, cross-licencing the code from the author, or stop distributing the product). None of these involve criminal prosecution in any way, nor is it appropriate.
I seriously doubt that many here really think that jail time is appropriate punishment for the lazy coder at some corporation who inserted a module from GPL'ed sources to save himself some work. Or even for the management at said corporation who encouraged the practice to reduce development costs. Yet that is what we have for the copiers of "IP" belonging to big media.
if the best way you can think of 'dealing' is to cry wolf about how people without respect for others property are 'victims'... well you can expect more of the same kind of legislation.
The best way to deal with this offence is in line with deed done: financially. Charging the offender for actual damages (likely about $20) plus appropriate punitive damages (a couple thousand at most) is the sane way to deal with this "crime". Taking a violation of civil law and making the punishment a criminal offence, with such rediculously small impact (please show me a credible study that proves any financial losses from shitty camcorder movies), is just stupid.
He mentioned that Mandrake 10 (running KDE 3.2, I presume) responded substantially slower than W2K on the same machine. I believe him. W2K (and XP, for that matter) is snappier in general use on that vintage of hardware. I have a K6-2 450 with 512M RAM, and the extra memory still is not fast enough to let my distro (currently SuSE 9.0 upgraded to KDE 3.2) seem even remotely as quick as XP on the same machine.
It makes no difference whether or not a current distro feels faster today than one from 6 years ago on similar hardware (a claim I question, BTW). Here, today, MDK 10 "feels" slower than W2K. This is true. No arguments change this fact.
I've never had time to fool with Gentoo: some don't think that compiling yourself makes a bit of difference, others swear by it. I'm assuming that there is some truth to the gospel of Gentoo, and that many zealots can't all be wrong! True, the computer's waiting on the user most of the time, but the moment that *I* want the computer to respond to me is when I notice that it's being sluggish, and I would probably appreciate that extra half-second here and there. It would just feel better, somehow.;-)
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Small problem with that for Microsoft. They know that the OS just isn't that important to a user: it's the *applications* that keep people on your platform. If all Windows users start getting used to (and liking) Firefox & Thunderbird, then it's that much smaller a jump for them to migrate to Linux instead of staying on Windows.
That would be BAD for Microsoft. Therefore, they will be discouraging all movement off of their applcations to alternatives. The bad publicity doesn't matter if they can still dominate as a platform for computing, and require everyone to run Windows.
As long as the software in question is GPL (or other Free license), I don't see how anyone should be up in arms over this. The software is Free (as in speech): if someone wants to port it to Windows, it is entirely up to them.
I can understand encouragement to keeping it off of Windows, but being indignant about it is plain hypocritical.
That's an interesting interpretation, but I'm not sure that it is accurate.
You're right in that the clause you quoted seems to essentially useless. However, the part that is made illegal in the DMCA is the "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof" of any "technological measures" to defeat copy protection schemes. Translation: You may not distribute anything that will allow others to bypass the DRM. This does not mean, however, that you are not free to develop your own method to defeat the DRM. This was intentional, I believe, since the SCOTUS had already ruled on fair use: they could not make it illegal to exercise it, and it would be challenged (likely successfully) in short order.
The court had not said that it must be easy to claim fair use, only that it not be illegal to do so. They also did not say that Congress could not pass a law that restricts trade in "technological measures" to overcome DRM: that has yet to be heard.
The DMCA makes no mention of any acts of engineering being illegal. What you do for yourself is still entirely your business.
So, in summary, I stand by what I said. The way I read it, fair use of copyrighted materials (DRM'ed or not), is legal. Trafficking in the knowledge that permitted that fair use, however, is not.
Actually it is still perfectly legal, regardless of what manufacturers and publishers might think or even want.
Read the text of the DMCA carefully. Pay particularly attention to section 1201, subsection c (Sorry, I don't have a link handy). There is a specific exemption in it that says that it shall not infringe on fair use.
This is essentially correct.
So really, the only time the DMCA can be applied to someone is when they were breaking the law already anyways (even if the DMCA weren't law), which makes the DMCA redundant at best, and a waste of everyone's time at worst.
Incorrect.
The DMCA does not restrict fair use of any copyrighted materials: you may legally bypass any DRM in your way and make non-commercial copies to your heart's content. BUT, the DMCA also makes it (civilly and criminally) illegal to distribute "circumvention devices", free software or otherwise.
Essentially, you can break the DRM, but you can't ever tell anyone how you did it. You can legally reclaim fair use only if you are technically saavy enough. This is why the EFF wants to mount a challenge to this act: it is a restriction on free speech.
Precisely. A poor lens with a hi-res CCD means that the terrible blurriness of your photo will be captured in vivid detail :-)
I've got digicam almost 5 years old (Nikon Coolpix 990). Only 3.3 megapixels, and still capable of taking shots that blow the doors off most of today's cheaper 5MP cameras due to its awesome quality lens.
The servers' OS isn't important, it's the apps that run on them.
If a "business critical" app comes out that requires Longhorn on the desktop, you can bet that they'll swap out the servers to Windows if it's impossible to make Longhorn work on a Linux network ("impossible", as in MS holds patents over interoperability with certain Longhorn features, not that it wouldn't be technically feasible.)
This is precisely why business needs to get on the Linux bandwagon in a big way over the next couple of years: to create a critical mass of non-MS infrastructure that can exist outside of a legally-binding (due to patents) "Island of Microsoft" before Longhorn is released.
As I recall, Daimler-Chrysler & AutoZone were not sued because of any fault with Linux per se, but rather that their use of Linux supposedly broke a clause in their existing/past contract with SCO covering the use of their UNIX product.
Just like the IBM case, those lawsuits were not alledging copyright or patent infringment, but rather contract law. It's just the noise they generate for the press makes it seem like that is what the cases are all about.
So, no, these two examples have nothing to do with an end user being sued for copyright or patent infringment by that end user's "vendor". We're still waiting for the first example of this, as far as I know. I agree, I think it is ludicrous to sue the end users. That's kind of identifying a copyright violation on a record, then suing everyone who bought the CD or listened to a song off it on the radio for infringment. It's stupid!
..this could be the call to arms of MS gettingready to start trying to collect/stifle with their patent suite.
I believe it unlikely that Microsoft will start to pull out the patent weaponry against anyone at this time.
A patent attack is different from claiming copyright infringment in the code: SCO public propaganda aside, remedying copyright violations (if any exist) is a relatively trivial matter of rewriting the sections of code proven to have been unlawfully copied. Patent violation, on the other hand, is far more serious to Free software. A successful suit of patent infringment would very likely declare that key functionality of a program (not the code itself) is illegal, thus crippling the target.
As you pointed out, there are many players like IBM who will seriously fight for any Linux on any moves like this by Microsoft. MS would not look good in the press trying to wage this war, and could very easily lose big in court, as well.
This strikes me more of an extension of the FUD campaign: scare potential Linux switchers that there may be IP issues, then note that they will protect you if you stay. Never mind that many Linux vendors provide similar protection. Never mind that there are no facts to back up the scare, only innuendo. It doesn't matter. Anything to keep companies on Windows until they're safely trapped into Longhorn in a few years.
Then.. you may see the lawsuits from MS! As I understand it, they've patented a bunch of stuff that will be part of Longhorn, and any interoperation attempts with it on a network will be violating their patents. They will attempt to make Microsoft an island: continue to not support others' technologies, but also keep others from supporting theirs. No more Samba, WINE, Crossover, no more opening Office files in anything but Office, hell maybe even no more viewing web pages served from MS servers if they like! You will then have the choice of using Windows exclusively, or using alternatives exclusively (with all of the migration headaches cranked up to the maximum, since it could not be a gradual migration, but rather a complete flip-the-switch to a whole new IT infrastructure for any company considering doing this).
They also stand a greater chance of success in court at this point (clear violations of their patents). It will still be risky from a PR standpoint, and they may not play that card unless Linux starts putting a serious hurt on Microsofts revenue streams, but it will be far more viable goal if they choose to at the point they have their patent cards in hand and patent-encumbered software in wide use.
So the strategy at MS will be more FUD on top of FUD, desperately trying to keep people off of Linux for the next five years or so, until Longhorn is entrenched. For MS, Linux cannot be permitted to gain enough of a marketshare that a significant chunk of the IT industry could survive being unbeholden to them. Hold on, the noise from Redmond is going to get much louder over the next while. Plus, I'm sure another SCO-alike or two may be thrown in as well to keep the pot stirred. Anything to keep business and government off of Linux at all costs.
So, long-winded rant finally at end, the best thing that we can do is to encourage Linux deployments in government and big business. Any and all effort to make such moves possible is a good thing, far more so (in my opinion) than working on stuff aimed at the home user (games, media players, etc). The home user will not save Linux: we will be marginalized any possibly even forced into hiding for using "illegal" software if this goes badly. We need heavy hitters on our side, a lot of them, and we need them soon. They don't have to care about Free software, only have their bottom lines threatened by its potential extinction!
Buying used is guaranteed, no-doubt-about-it legal. No copyright violation possible: you're buying the same copy as was sold originally.
In such a scenario, that copy has already benefitted the artist as much as it was designed to.
you basically are legally allowing something and then making it so hard to accomplish that only a very small portion of the population can benefit from that legal provision
This is precisely what the DMCA already does. It forbids the "trafficking" (for want of a better word) in devices (programs or physical objects) that circumvent copy protection schemes. If a copy protection scheme does not permit fair use, it is not illegal to reclaim those fair use rights by disabling the scheme. It is, however, illegal to tell anyone else how you did it. That potentially leaves only the technical elite to be able to legally use the media in a fair manner. This effect is, of course, exactly as intended by the law.
As you stated, making things difficult is entirely permitted by copyright law. Where the DMCA is legally objectionable is that it creates ban is on the communication of an idea (ie: free speech), and I hope a case which can address gets successfully heard at the Supreme Court soon!
IMO, only if MS keeps it closed, secret and has no licensing options will this hurt OSS.
Whether the codec will be closed or secret is irrelavent. If the spec is not published, someone will reverse-engineer it. Therefore, there will undoubtably be ways to technically play this media on Linux/BSD/etc.
Legally, however, is a totally different issue. Sure, there will be licensing options. How much do you want to bet that there will be no options compatible with FOSS (ie. free of cost and distribution restrictions)?
Eventually there will be a legal means to play these on Linux (just like TurboLinux allows you to pleay WMP9 and DVDs on their distro). However, it runs counter to the FOSS goals of restriction-free software, and therefore has no chance of widespread acceptance.
So, in a way, you're right in that this won't "hurt", since we're presently already in this situation with DVDs. However, the ones licensing DVD's technology are not convicted monopolists hell-bent for the destruction of FOSS.
FORCE companies to put ...
Sorry, but right there sums up every reason why attempting any of what you suggest is going to be nearly impossible.
See, Linux and most everything in a distro is Free software, meaning you can't force anyone to do anything. If you create a solution that proves to be wonderful for both a developer and end user, then great. But even then, there is no authority within the community to dictate the standards you suggest. To do so is counter to the point of Free software.
The Linux world will always be more "fractured" then the Windows world, and as a result it will hold back adoption with home users. To find a way to force a change to this is impossible, and even if it were it would damage the essense of what makes Linux what it is.
Still, at least we can be thankful that the guys at MS still haven't got a clue how to deal with the rise of Linux and friends. I'm frankly baffled at how they came up with this idea in the first place.
As others above have stated, this is, in fact, a way of dealing with Linux. They start leaning on governments and PC manufacturers selling in Asian countries about piracy issues. However, lean too hard and the same groups just might start seriously looking at using this Linux thing as an alternative. Preinstall Linux on a bunch of new PCs, users start seeing how good it is, Windows stranglehold starts to wither. A scenario that Microsoft cannot allow to happen. So they have to do what is necessary to make sure that Windows (any Windows) is priced attractively enough to continue to be preinstalled everywhere.
Instead of undercutting their price on "genuine XP", they release the crippled version that they damned well know will be deleted and replaced with a pirated copy XP on the vast majority of PCs. And they won't care. They make some money where none was earned before, and on top of that they slow the adoption of Linux.
Why won't the crippled OS be replaced with Linux instead of pirated XP? Simple, people generally don't like change: most folks will never take action to voluntarily make a major change (which switching to Linux from Windows most certainly is). These changes only happen for most people when it is foisted upon them by a trusted authority. The vast majority of users simply won't ever switch to Linux without being directly instructed to, or when given a substantial benefit to their bottom line. As long as some version of Windows is preinstalled on as many machines as possible, and it only costs a few bucks more than the few machines that might have Linux preinstalled, Microsoft will keep almost all of them within the hive.
So, contrary to your point, I would say that Microsoft has actually made a stride toward dealing with Linux in a very positive (for them) way.
I got the same scam: unfortunately for me, I clicked "Send" at the same moment I realized that it didn't "feel right". I immediately changed my eBay password, then a google search confirmed the scam.
Man, didn't think I'd get hoodwinked, either!
The bug of the main body of text occasionally running over into the left menu section seems to have been rectified. I know I've seen others who have noticed the same problem with Mozilla.
I've gone into dozens of articles and page refreshes, and everything looks correct now.
Thank you. My "F5" key is forever grateful!
The highlight was the 1980 US/USSR hockey match for the gold medal.
;-)
Not to nitpick too much, but this famous game was NOT for the gold medal, it was a semi-final match. The USA squad still had to beat Finland in the final to get the gold.
Not that we Canadians still don't believe that was just a huge cosmic fluke, and all, but....
If Microsoft's proven anything, it's that people will gladly pay to be inconvenienced by software if it enables them in the slightest bit.
No, Microsoft's proven that people will be forced to pay for inconvenient software (obtained via an illegal monopoly) whether they like it or not.
There is also a tidal-power plant in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Like these ones, it was built as a test of the technology. Only it's already been around for 20 years.
It puts out 20 MW, and is on the Bay of Fundy, where you will find the truly highest tides in the world.
Assuming that he doesn't just quit first....
The guy is so good, you know that he'll never do anything stupid enough to lose. There have likely been many like him on this show, but they never had this chance (the limit on 5 wins cut them off).
It will take another super-duper geek to beat him. Is this the future of Jeopardy? "Unbeatable" champions that just win for months at a time? Personally, that'll get boring quick. Having a heroic run once in a while is thrilling: having it happen all the time is just dull. Michael Schumacher's dominance has similarly turned me off of F1 racing.
Methinks another rule change may be in the making for next season: a cap on earnings. Maybe $1,000,000 is the right amount.
BTW, I'm REALLY looking forward to a "Tournament of Champions" where he can square off against some of the others that got cut off at 5 wins. I think he'd do well (likely very well), but he'd certainly not be a lock to beat some of the others we've seen on this show in the past.
They are relaxed about casual pirating. Adobe knows exactly the point you raised: that pirated copies of expensive software (in the hands of students) is the perfect way of ensuring that employers (and therefore schools) will not look at cheaper competing tools, since the "standard" package is known by all.
AutoCAD has been riding this bus for freaking ever. Were it not for its installed base and every student getting their free copy, a competing (and certainly cheaper) CAD package would have knocked them off long ago.
They publicly claim to have their panties in a knot over this (after all, they might actually scare or guilt a few people into buying their copy), but in reality they know that if they succeeded in eliminating pirated copies, they would only be killing themselves in the long term.
Awesome post. Logical and well thought out, and shows why these laws are flawed. Hope you don't mind, I've copied your bolded paragraph, and I want to use it when trying to explain these issues to others. Thanks.
Yes, but SOCAN originally asked for much more, they were only granted the levies you quote.
I think that I heard that a 20GB Creative Nomad would have been taxed for $420 under their initial proposal. Until they stop asking for ludicrous sums, I will hold them in scorn.
... the same folks who are responsible for us Canadians paying a levy on every CD-R, cassette, MP3 player, and (if they have their way) every friggen hard drive we buy! Glad to see they lost this battle.
It's a lobby for the Canadian recording artists. They are supposed to be compensated for illegal copying, in exchange for a much more lenient definition of "legal" copying in our laws than in the USA.
Of course, like all Canadian programs, it ends up creating a huge government-paid organization to police this whole subsidy. Can't really say if this is better or worse than clogging up the courts, as is the case in the States.
Last time I looked 'we' stronly believe in copyright enforcement when / as it applies to GPL or other FOSS licensed material. But when the shoe's on the other foot, suddenly people who go to a fair bit of trouble to steal a copyright work are *victims*? I think not.
/.ers). That means living up to the agreement of the licence that the material was given out with. That means that if you break the agreement, you remedy it (by a number of means, including replacing offending code with new code, GPL'ing the application, cross-licencing the code from the author, or stop distributing the product). None of these involve criminal prosecution in any way, nor is it appropriate.
... well you can expect more of the same kind of legislation.
Yes, "we" strongly believe in copyright enforcement ("we" in the reasonable-headed group of
I seriously doubt that many here really think that jail time is appropriate punishment for the lazy coder at some corporation who inserted a module from GPL'ed sources to save himself some work. Or even for the management at said corporation who encouraged the practice to reduce development costs. Yet that is what we have for the copiers of "IP" belonging to big media.
if the best way you can think of 'dealing' is to cry wolf about how people without respect for others property are 'victims'
The best way to deal with this offence is in line with deed done: financially. Charging the offender for actual damages (likely about $20) plus appropriate punitive damages (a couple thousand at most) is the sane way to deal with this "crime". Taking a violation of civil law and making the punishment a criminal offence, with such rediculously small impact (please show me a credible study that proves any financial losses from shitty camcorder movies), is just stupid.
He mentioned that Mandrake 10 (running KDE 3.2, I presume) responded substantially slower than W2K on the same machine. I believe him. W2K (and XP, for that matter) is snappier in general use on that vintage of hardware. I have a K6-2 450 with 512M RAM, and the extra memory still is not fast enough to let my distro (currently SuSE 9.0 upgraded to KDE 3.2) seem even remotely as quick as XP on the same machine.
;-)
It makes no difference whether or not a current distro feels faster today than one from 6 years ago on similar hardware (a claim I question, BTW). Here, today, MDK 10 "feels" slower than W2K. This is true. No arguments change this fact.
I've never had time to fool with Gentoo: some don't think that compiling yourself makes a bit of difference, others swear by it. I'm assuming that there is some truth to the gospel of Gentoo, and that many zealots can't all be wrong! True, the computer's waiting on the user most of the time, but the moment that *I* want the computer to respond to me is when I notice that it's being sluggish, and I would probably appreciate that extra half-second here and there. It would just feel better, somehow.