If you expect fanatics to stop being fanatical on EITHER side, you're nuts.
The major difference here is that the fanatics on the proprietary side of things tend to spend millions on flawed studies and buying news reporters to spread untruths, whereas the fanatics on OSS generally rant about it on forums.
Which is more dangerous? I guess that's a matter of opinion.
I've lived up north, and the broadband there was provided by the government years before Shaw saw fit to hook up our backwater little town. I'm sure my town isn't alone in this regard.
If you want to talk about a social contract, it must be a two-way contract.
Sites that try to install spyware? Sites that toss out MESSENGER service spam, Sites that send out traditional e-mail spam, sites that try to hide advertisements under everything, these are examples of a broken social contract.
One reaps what one sews. Ad blockers are simply the natural response to the continual ill will sent by advertisers. Web site operators who decide to associate with such advertisers will suffer the consequences. I dropped sphosting exactly because I didn't want people who visited my website getting tricked into installing gator, for example.
Ironically enough, having blocked popup ads and spyware, I often pay a bit more attention to reasonable banner ads on sites I visit. Sites whose ads are more than a half-assed revenue grab have earned a couple cents from me.:)
I'd rather say, sites that put ads on their page depend on the profit to support themselves. Whether a person decides to ignore them electronically or mentally, TOUGH SHIT. Not everything in the world exists to siphon money into your pocket.
Bullshit. Ad blockers are a recent phenomena, but the advertising arms race has been escalating the internet began.
It was before the ad blocker that spyware (and installing spyware clandestinely though browser bugs or lax security settings) became huge.
You want to talk social contracts? It's a sliding scale, to be sure, but it's a scale which was broken by advertisers first and hardest. They attack their customers, while we simply use ad blockers. Think about that.
I suppose the thought had never occurred to you that unlike some software markets, Open Source users have choices, and some people will defend and evangelize their particular choice?
Jesus man, there are people who will rant at length about how horrible and shitty ford/gm/chrystler/nissan/toyota/etc are, why is it when you're talking about software packages it suddenly becomes a mortal sin?
Contrary to what you've been told, there doesn't have to be one "best" way of doing anything, and you don't have to take the advice of every dipshit who wants to tell you theirs is that way.
Going back, I, among other things, can see a long discussion where I discuss the effectiveness(rather, the lack thereof) of the use of force as a pro-active national defense policy, how people who support something like an innane "culture of life" should be stapled to the floor for 15 years before sounding off about how it's wrong to kill(or let die, in this case) in any circumstances ever period, how hippies don't make good protestors, presented my theory on paradoxes causing interlaced timelines, made a silly joke at the expense of people who think that no regulations on anything is a good idea, figured out an equation to find the "middle" of the night, expressed my opinion that customers are trash, and that you shouldn't be able to sue for being accused of a crime you didn't commit, expressed my fondness of dells, and my belief that a good thing is a good thing, even if someone is trying to profit from it, and in this thread, other than pointing out the obvious flaws in two articles which try to make surgical stabs at certain elements of OSS while presenting them as sweeping generalizations, I made a crack about all the money I'm supposedly losing from p2p distribution of my public domain music.
So whose line am I toeing?
More importantly, how can you ask "Are you saying that the opinions you express in your comments differ from those that you truly hold?", when I haven't actually expressed any substantial opinion on this matter? No, just having your music downloaded isn't the same as someone stealing a quarter from you. Also, RIAA member companies are just as shady as any company out there, trying to nudge governments into doing they want, distorting facts, and sometimes telling blatant lies in their quest to lock down the world to their own satisfaction, and suing people by the hundreds for amounts which destroy lives while getting a relative slap on the wrist when they themselves break the law, and trying to burn the candle at both ends, screwing artists and customers alike.
On the other hand, I can, given a few months to dig through my garage, produce an original CD, tape, or record for every RIAA member company owned song on my hard drive, because I ripped them myself. From the collective works of Metallica(except their St Anger album, which was so horrible I didn't bother keeping the MP3s I ripped from the CD I bought) to some ancient Bob Dylan songs, most of which were recorded into MP3 format directly off the records, so they still have the pops and cracks, I own the orignial media, because I don't believe that it's right to download music for free they want to sell for money. That said, I don't buy any music from them anymore either, because I do have a choice to listen to music by people who want their music heard, rather than people who would really like to sue me for trying. Lately, I've been trying to stock up on music written under Creative Commons licenses, for this reason. There are few really talented bands releasing their music under this license, so it's win-win.
The one thing I don't have a problem with is downloading TV shows. I pay the cable company over a thousand dollars per year for the rights to watch TV, and if I decide that I'd rather download a show I want to watch than get a TiVO or set my VCR for every night, they've got their money, and legal semantics aside, I have paid my way.
I'm usually pretty consistent in these beliefs, which appear to me to be a hodgepodge of a variety of opposing opinions, if you'd like to believe the partesan riaa/slashdot left/right democrat/republican folks, so you'll have to tell me -- which line am I toeing?
Re:Hassle-free, easy to deal with????
on
Dell Might do AMD
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'll vouch for Dell hardware any day. I've worked with a lot of newer dell hardware, from Dimensions to Optiplexes to some of their server line, and they're definitely solidly put together and well designed, much better than most other computer manufacturers.
The dimension 2400 sitting next to my desk right now has been running non stop since it arrived with the exception of the installation of a S3 ViRGE video card as a second monitor. My only complaint is that they didn't include an AGP port, but for the money, I can't complain.
Re:Intel manufacturing cost us much better than AM
on
Dell Might do AMD
·
· Score: 1
don't assume this represents some kind of consumer-friendly behaviour for AMD
You're mistaking the cause for the effect. Who cares WHY they've got a customer-freindly behaviour, they do.:)
1. Nobody said that every OSS project would be successful, and if they were, OSS wouldn't work.
2. Just because some people are doing it for the money doesn't mean most are. My field is completely unrelated to computers, for example, and I don't expect (or want) a penny for the stuff I've released.
It's not the people you're attacking who I'm worried about provoking -- once force is initiated, you follow through, simple as that. The people who I see as rising up are people caught in the crossfire. Imagine coming home to find your family dead, your house bombed to rubble along with half your neighbourhood, and you know who dropped the bomb.
Will you honestly blame the dictator/terrorist/drug dealer who lived two doors down? Will you blame the tank which was sitting in the park? It doesn't take an irrational train of thought to blame the bomb, and the people who dropped the bomb.
Even liberated countries, after WWII, often resented liberating countries(the US included) because of looting and pillaging done by allied soldiers(which, much like abu ghraib, was unavoidable because of the nature of war). In some countries, the resentment remains to this day.
This is the cycle I speak of, where you can kill every person who would do us harm and all you'd accomplish is get more people who want to hate us or simply want to kill us. Hell -- you could nuke the middle east, turn it into a glass parking lot, and there'd be more people gunning for us than ever before.
Slashdot Mirror
Patent law in Software is only a tool for abuse, but both Free Software and non-Free Software relies on copyright for it's protection.
There's a line in the sand, and no copyright is far past that line.
Only if you choose a company which isn't Microsoft.
For the one Microsoft, there's literally one-hundered thousand broken companies whose product now lies abandoned.
For the one Microsoft, there are one-hundred companies which are doing worse than RH.
For the one Microsoft, there are one-hundred companies doing marginally better than RH.
For the one Microsoft, there are even half a dozen companies or so which can be compared to Microsoft.
So it may be a compelling comparison, but it too will be misleading.
If you expect fanatics to stop being fanatical on EITHER side, you're nuts.
The major difference here is that the fanatics on the proprietary side of things tend to spend millions on flawed studies and buying news reporters to spread untruths, whereas the fanatics on OSS generally rant about it on forums.
Which is more dangerous? I guess that's a matter of opinion.
I've lived up north, and the broadband there was provided by the government years before Shaw saw fit to hook up our backwater little town. I'm sure my town isn't alone in this regard.
If your analysis is correct, then this whole witch hunt is a red herring.
They're not without pope, it's just that the current official pope is busy enjoying his pension. ;p
The Canadian government decided quite a few years ago that it was going to try to make broadband available to 80% of Canadians or something like that.
This isn't a suprise. The free market is good, but not as good as pre-existing infastructure and a government mandate.
If you want to talk about a social contract, it must be a two-way contract.
:)
Sites that try to install spyware? Sites that toss out MESSENGER service spam, Sites that send out traditional e-mail spam, sites that try to hide advertisements under everything, these are examples of a broken social contract.
One reaps what one sews. Ad blockers are simply the natural response to the continual ill will sent by advertisers. Web site operators who decide to associate with such advertisers will suffer the consequences. I dropped sphosting exactly because I didn't want people who visited my website getting tricked into installing gator, for example.
Ironically enough, having blocked popup ads and spyware, I often pay a bit more attention to reasonable banner ads on sites I visit. Sites whose ads are more than a half-assed revenue grab have earned a couple cents from me.
I'd rather say, sites that put ads on their page depend on the profit to support themselves. Whether a person decides to ignore them electronically or mentally, TOUGH SHIT. Not everything in the world exists to siphon money into your pocket.
Bullshit. Ad blockers are a recent phenomena, but the advertising arms race has been escalating the internet began.
It was before the ad blocker that spyware (and installing spyware clandestinely though browser bugs or lax security settings) became huge.
You want to talk social contracts? It's a sliding scale, to be sure, but it's a scale which was broken by advertisers first and hardest. They attack their customers, while we simply use ad blockers. Think about that.
Advertising is the only thing keeping [...] (most) internet free.
It is? Oh shit! I'd better throw some up on my page!
Sure, maybe if you're building a SHACK. :P
I suppose the thought had never occurred to you that unlike some software markets, Open Source users have choices, and some people will defend and evangelize their particular choice?
Jesus man, there are people who will rant at length about how horrible and shitty ford/gm/chrystler/nissan/toyota/etc are, why is it when you're talking about software packages it suddenly becomes a mortal sin?
Contrary to what you've been told, there doesn't have to be one "best" way of doing anything, and you don't have to take the advice of every dipshit who wants to tell you theirs is that way.
Not a rant, it just took a lot of text to express everything that needed to be said.
Slashdot? Family freindly?
If I saw my kid accessing slashdot, I'd send him to his room!
It's for his own good! The world doens't need another fame-a-holic!
What the fuck are you talking about?
Going back, I, among other things, can see a long discussion where I discuss the effectiveness(rather, the lack thereof) of the use of force as a pro-active national defense policy, how people who support something like an innane "culture of life" should be stapled to the floor for 15 years before sounding off about how it's wrong to kill(or let die, in this case) in any circumstances ever period, how hippies don't make good protestors, presented my theory on paradoxes causing interlaced timelines, made a silly joke at the expense of people who think that no regulations on anything is a good idea, figured out an equation to find the "middle" of the night, expressed my opinion that customers are trash, and that you shouldn't be able to sue for being accused of a crime you didn't commit, expressed my fondness of dells, and my belief that a good thing is a good thing, even if someone is trying to profit from it, and in this thread, other than pointing out the obvious flaws in two articles which try to make surgical stabs at certain elements of OSS while presenting them as sweeping generalizations, I made a crack about all the money I'm supposedly losing from p2p distribution of my public domain music.
So whose line am I toeing?
More importantly, how can you ask "Are you saying that the opinions you express in your comments differ from those that you truly hold?", when I haven't actually expressed any substantial opinion on this matter? No, just having your music downloaded isn't the same as someone stealing a quarter from you. Also, RIAA member companies are just as shady as any company out there, trying to nudge governments into doing they want, distorting facts, and sometimes telling blatant lies in their quest to lock down the world to their own satisfaction, and suing people by the hundreds for amounts which destroy lives while getting a relative slap on the wrist when they themselves break the law, and trying to burn the candle at both ends, screwing artists and customers alike.
On the other hand, I can, given a few months to dig through my garage, produce an original CD, tape, or record for every RIAA member company owned song on my hard drive, because I ripped them myself. From the collective works of Metallica(except their St Anger album, which was so horrible I didn't bother keeping the MP3s I ripped from the CD I bought) to some ancient Bob Dylan songs, most of which were recorded into MP3 format directly off the records, so they still have the pops and cracks, I own the orignial media, because I don't believe that it's right to download music for free they want to sell for money. That said, I don't buy any music from them anymore either, because I do have a choice to listen to music by people who want their music heard, rather than people who would really like to sue me for trying. Lately, I've been trying to stock up on music written under Creative Commons licenses, for this reason. There are few really talented bands releasing their music under this license, so it's win-win.
The one thing I don't have a problem with is downloading TV shows. I pay the cable company over a thousand dollars per year for the rights to watch TV, and if I decide that I'd rather download a show I want to watch than get a TiVO or set my VCR for every night, they've got their money, and legal semantics aside, I have paid my way.
I'm usually pretty consistent in these beliefs, which appear to me to be a hodgepodge of a variety of opposing opinions, if you'd like to believe the partesan riaa/slashdot left/right democrat/republican folks, so you'll have to tell me -- which line am I toeing?
What makes you think I'm not?
I'll vouch for Dell hardware any day. I've worked with a lot of newer dell hardware, from Dimensions to Optiplexes to some of their server line, and they're definitely solidly put together and well designed, much better than most other computer manufacturers.
The dimension 2400 sitting next to my desk right now has been running non stop since it arrived with the exception of the installation of a S3 ViRGE video card as a second monitor. My only complaint is that they didn't include an AGP port, but for the money, I can't complain.
don't assume this represents some kind of consumer-friendly behaviour for AMD
:)
You're mistaking the cause for the effect. Who cares WHY they've got a customer-freindly behaviour, they do.
*SJ Zero quickly removes his New Trauma 3 MP3 from kazaa, hoping to get some cash for it
(yeah right)
1. Nobody said that every OSS project would be successful, and if they were, OSS wouldn't work.
2. Just because some people are doing it for the money doesn't mean most are. My field is completely unrelated to computers, for example, and I don't expect (or want) a penny for the stuff I've released.
So american...
Get brought in for using counterfeit currency in a case where it certainly seemed like something wasn't kosher, and it's a lawsuit.
Do you know who pays for accepting counterfeit currency? I wouldn't accept some bill nobody's seen before either.
At any rate, that's not Best Buys problem, nor is it the cashiers.
I only wish I had such quick police at my disposal when I worked in retail, years ago. It could have kept the trash to a minimum.
All patents deal with technology -- it's their purpose. Just because it doesn't deal with computers doesn't change that.
Now, in this case, the technology being patented is so absurdly outdated, the story HAD to be accepted.
It's not the people you're attacking who I'm worried about provoking -- once force is initiated, you follow through, simple as that. The people who I see as rising up are people caught in the crossfire. Imagine coming home to find your family dead, your house bombed to rubble along with half your neighbourhood, and you know who dropped the bomb.
Will you honestly blame the dictator/terrorist/drug dealer who lived two doors down? Will you blame the tank which was sitting in the park? It doesn't take an irrational train of thought to blame the bomb, and the people who dropped the bomb.
Even liberated countries, after WWII, often resented liberating countries(the US included) because of looting and pillaging done by allied soldiers(which, much like abu ghraib, was unavoidable because of the nature of war). In some countries, the resentment remains to this day.
This is the cycle I speak of, where you can kill every person who would do us harm and all you'd accomplish is get more people who want to hate us or simply want to kill us. Hell -- you could nuke the middle east, turn it into a glass parking lot, and there'd be more people gunning for us than ever before.
That's the way I look at things, at least.