OK. I am actually a free market libertarian software engineer. This does bother me, but I would suggest that the solution to these sorts of problems is exposure rather than laws.
This time they got caught out in a few emails, next time they will just keep it to verbal agreements on the country club golf course. The "exposure" is not going to come from a few or even many Engineers complaining in isolation that there might be some collusion going on as the alternative offers are drying up.
I don't need to work for any company that would underpay me.
and if you did you would not be able to get a decent higher paying job elsewhere due to collusion like this.
Where Socialists == anybody concerned with trying to better their community/common good. Especially where such doo-good for the community actions is affecting or even may possibly affect some companies profit now or sometime in the future, maybe. See Town and Community WiFi scandals as one small example.
Never let a good (Snowden induced) crisis go to waste. In this case, they are taking the opportunity to privatize the spy apparatus further than ever before, and Obama has been told to sell it to the population at large as a good thing. Lucky they have all the mass media to help sell that line...
What exactly is their reason for not supporting an open format?
One reason is battery life, as it'd have to be decoded on the CPU instead of on the dedicated MPEG ASIC.
That is not a reason, it is an excuse. They deliberately do not support or work towards decoding any open formats in hardware as they themselves benefit from shepherding (forcing) their captive markets into only used a closed software patent encumbered formats and protocols that they then receive royalties from. Now they are attempting to co-opt the open Web using the poor excuse: "but, but our users can't see or use open free formats and protocols, or decode them in hardware (by design, snicker), so YOU should compromise the openness of the Internet for our monetary benefit".
So 63% of your users are in a walled garden that refuses to support openness. Fine, *you* support their needs on *your* system - just do not expect open community run and funded organizations like Wikipedia to put up with the antics of these rent seekers.
The close proprietary platforms that refuse to support open protocols and formats have no right to strong arm free open Web into supporting their closed software patent encumbered versions for their monetary benefit only. These vested interests wish to extract rents from our open communication simply by refusing to support openness inside their captive market. The only weak argument they have for this behavior is the one your presenting: "but, but our users can't see/use open free to use format/protocol" (by design, snicker.)
If someone can take a principled stance against this, they should. Right now the only entities with a spine are the ones who aren't for-profit, and none of them can stand up to it, and end users should really be supporting them. Do we really want Google and the MPEG-LA to dominate like that, knowing what happens every time companies dominate something like that?
"We lost, and we're admitting defeat. Cisco is providing a path for orderly retreat that leaves supporters of an open Web in a strong enough position to face the next battle, so we're taking it,"
The battle was lost and does weaken the open Web supporters position, but the war rages on in the likes of formats such as VP9 and Daala ("Daala is a novel approach to codec design. It aims not to be competitive, but to win outright," Montgomery said).
This pressure of Wikimedia is just another salvo from the proponents of software patent encumbered video codecs trenches, attempting to extract rents and further erode an open free for all web. For those that support an open Internet it is our duty to reject closed software patent encumbered/DRM measures that want to turn our web into a glorified AOL, no matter how inconvenient it may be in the short term to do so.
Why Software Patents are Evil, Video Codec edition.. The problem is not a matter of the OS communities working harder, the problem is having broad software patents effectively stifling innovation in the video codec space, combined with special interest groups pushing patent encumbered formats into our open protocols and services.
Fallacy: Appeal to emotions. h.264 has hardware support because the few that seek rents from it (the eight MPEG-2 patent owners -- Fujitsu, Panasonic, Sony, Mitsubishi, Scientific Atlanta, Columbia University, Philips and General Instrument, CableLabs and certain individuals) have organized hardware support, as a good investment. When open codecs are dominant, they too will supported more widely by hardware and these eight companies will have to follow. References:
Only that is not true, assuming we are talking about Android/Firefox OS vs iPhones. Only people that can't play open formats is Apple. Sheesh, if they had their way they would replace http with a proprietary transport if they could. Why? It insulates their walled garden market.
Sure Wikipedia isn't going to strongarm Apple into supporting WebM and OGG, and conversely Wikipedia does not need to be strong-armed by Apple or its vocal users into supporting closed software patent encumbered protocols.
I have watched Wikipedia being pulled up on two different smartphones simultaneously to settle argument/doubts more times than I can count now over the years.
"Oh, your phone can't play that wikipedia video - ha! - what a crappy phone you should get one like mine next time."
That sort of word of mouth marketing has a subtle hard to measure influence on peoples next phone contract signing agreement choices. I can't say how significant it is, but you would be hard pressed to discount it as not being significant.
And for these people the cost of paying for a H.264 encoder license is trivial compared to royalties they have to pay for images, video, and music.
And what about the developing world that is slowly coming online via shared community hubs? Won't they have the right to publish content too without paying exuberant rents compared to their income? The cost is trivial for everyone. I am sorry but open formats are the only way forward for a level playing field. All we are seeing with this WWF/H.264 debacle is a small amount of vested interests trying to justify extracting rents from the world population, when non are really required.
That these closed proprietary formats/DRM are clawing their way back into our "open" standards, services like Wikipedia and browsers is a testament to how committees, foundations (and once democratic institutions serving the public interest) can be infiltrated by vested interest and their purpose corrupted slowly from the inside out. It is a slippery slope, read todays news to see how absolutely low you can slide.
Start with impeaching these judges. Then work your way down.
Unfortunately we will have to work our way up the chain as well, not to mention horizontally... corruption of purpose appears endemic across institutions, failing in their democratic function.
If it is not Open Source then we can pretty much can forget about this. Limiting the product to a very small set of customers Vs the wider android market means that just by using this product you would be advertising yourself as a target for investigation. To be truly secure the majority need to be using encryption, not just a small subset of paying customers.
FTFA: Leaked documents show: "the program, code-named Quantum, has also been successful in inserting software into... trade institutions inside the European Union"
NSA propaganda reply: "Vanee Vines, an agency spokeswoman, said in a statement. 'We do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.' "
The NSA really go out of their way to deny Industrial espionage, yet they have been caught targeting trade institutions in the EU. Yeah, I also suspect the NSA is lying as usual. From past marketing releases they really try to downplay Industrial Espionage as their motivation, which probably means it is their #1 bread and butter function.
As someone who had godaddy hold my domain hostage, this is great news.
GoDaddy had received a single complaint from an anonymous source, which was apparently enough for them to threaten to revoke my domain if I didn't pay their $200 extortion fee.
Buried in the ruling the offending registar is named: PublicDomainRegistry.com (PDR Ltd) wouldn't let EasyDNS do the transfer. Add GoDaddy to the list, what other registrars should we be voting with our wallets and abandoning?
Solving this will require someone to make and sell the mining hardware at near the cost price instead of using it themselves.
Or moving to a Proof Of Stake system and ASIC/GPU resistant algorithm (eg memory-bound):
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1138.0
However current GPU/ASIC/miners are dead-set against this as it will make their hardware much more uncompetitive vs normal computers.
COINTELPRO aimed to divide and discredit the all activist movements: "COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day... [including] discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.[6][7][8]". You could even include trolling forums in that list.
As you can see, COINTELPRO contains examples of FBI sponsored campaigns of extreme violence. How do we know that the violent elements in the Weather Underground were not yet another FBI agent provocateurs to turn public opinion against all forms of peaceful but related activism. We don't know and you cannot reasonably argue that it is not the FBI given the evidence against them - the FBI even went as far as assassination to further COINTELPROs aims.
Reminds me of this conversation "I don't think you can really claim unqualified totalitarianism unless there is actual repression tied into it, especially political repression". From that exchange and to nobodies surprise, the Cold Fjord account does not appear to agree that there has or is any political repression going on in the US despite evidence such as the COINTELPRO files.
Way offtopic now but out of curiosity: No expert on Chomsky or Cambodian Genocide I looked it up on wikipedia and it appears you are right he did do that back in 1975-79, well done a verifiable fact and I am happy to agree with you on that one. As for your other claim all I did was go to the ultimate source and posted the actual short quote, the one which you claimed proved Chomsky was a Holocaust denier. The quote does not appear to support your claim in any way, and you did not follow up with counter evidence or admit your mistake. Worse your still persisting (Card stacking, you call it?). You should try admitting when you are wrong now and then would go a long way to gaining some respect.
Calling me a facist and a Chomsky diciple in the same post, I am amused.
Slashdot Mirror
OK. I am actually a free market libertarian software engineer. This does bother me, but I would suggest that the solution to these sorts of problems is exposure rather than laws.
This time they got caught out in a few emails, next time they will just keep it to verbal agreements on the country club golf course. The "exposure" is not going to come from a few or even many Engineers complaining in isolation that there might be some collusion going on as the alternative offers are drying up.
I don't need to work for any company that would underpay me.
and if you did you would not be able to get a decent higher paying job elsewhere due to collusion like this.
Better start rewriting some chapters in those Texas physics textbooks then...
Where Socialists == anybody concerned with trying to better their community/common good. Especially where such doo-good for the community actions is affecting or even may possibly affect some companies profit now or sometime in the future, maybe. See Town and Community WiFi scandals as one small example.
Never let a good (Snowden induced) crisis go to waste. In this case, they are taking the opportunity to privatize the spy apparatus further than ever before, and Obama has been told to sell it to the population at large as a good thing. Lucky they have all the mass media to help sell that line...
What exactly is their reason for not supporting an open format?
One reason is battery life, as it'd have to be decoded on the CPU instead of on the dedicated MPEG ASIC.
That is not a reason, it is an excuse. They deliberately do not support or work towards decoding any open formats in hardware as they themselves benefit from shepherding (forcing) their captive markets into only used a closed software patent encumbered formats and protocols that they then receive royalties from. Now they are attempting to co-opt the open Web using the poor excuse: "but, but our users can't see or use open free formats and protocols, or decode them in hardware (by design, snicker), so YOU should compromise the openness of the Internet for our monetary benefit".
Note that I saId "Only people that can't play open formats...". Amazon prime hardly qualifies.
So 63% of your users are in a walled garden that refuses to support openness. Fine, *you* support their needs on *your* system - just do not expect open community run and funded organizations like Wikipedia to put up with the antics of these rent seekers.
The close proprietary platforms that refuse to support open protocols and formats have no right to strong arm free open Web into supporting their closed software patent encumbered versions for their monetary benefit only. These vested interests wish to extract rents from our open communication simply by refusing to support openness inside their captive market. The only weak argument they have for this behavior is the one your presenting: "but, but our users can't see/use open free to use format/protocol" (by design, snicker.)
If someone can take a principled stance against this, they should. Right now the only entities with a spine are the ones who aren't for-profit, and none of them can stand up to it, and end users should really be supporting them. Do we really want Google and the MPEG-LA to dominate like that, knowing what happens every time companies dominate something like that?
Well said. A reference on your betrayal of Google: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57612525-76/vlc-steps-into-next-gen-video-wars-with-vp9-hevc-support/
Even Firefox has surrendered on this one and said they'd use the binary blob Cisco provides
In their own words, Firefox developers were betrayed by Google for not honoring its promise to drop h.264 from chrome. Google really dropped the ball on that one.
"We lost, and we're admitting defeat. Cisco is providing a path for orderly retreat that leaves supporters of an open Web in a strong enough position to face the next battle, so we're taking it,"
The battle was lost and does weaken the open Web supporters position, but the war rages on in the likes of formats such as VP9 and Daala ("Daala is a novel approach to codec design. It aims not to be competitive, but to win outright," Montgomery said).
This pressure of Wikimedia is just another salvo from the proponents of software patent encumbered video codecs trenches, attempting to extract rents and further erode an open free for all web. For those that support an open Internet it is our duty to reject closed software patent encumbered/DRM measures that want to turn our web into a glorified AOL, no matter how inconvenient it may be in the short term to do so.
Why Software Patents are Evil, Video Codec edition.. The problem is not a matter of the OS communities working harder, the problem is having broad software patents effectively stifling innovation in the video codec space, combined with special interest groups pushing patent encumbered formats into our open protocols and services.
Fallacy: Appeal to emotions. h.264 has hardware support because the few that seek rents from it (the eight MPEG-2 patent owners -- Fujitsu, Panasonic, Sony, Mitsubishi, Scientific Atlanta, Columbia University, Philips and General Instrument, CableLabs and certain individuals) have organized hardware support, as a good investment. When open codecs are dominant, they too will supported more widely by hardware and these eight companies will have to follow. References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/googles-vp9-video-codec-gets-backing-from-arm-nvidia-sony-and-others-gives-4k-video-streaming-a-fighting-chance/
Only that is not true, assuming we are talking about Android/Firefox OS vs iPhones. Only people that can't play open formats is Apple. Sheesh, if they had their way they would replace http with a proprietary transport if they could. Why? It insulates their walled garden market.
Sure Wikipedia isn't going to strongarm Apple into supporting WebM and OGG, and conversely Wikipedia does not need to be strong-armed by Apple or its vocal users into supporting closed software patent encumbered protocols.
I have watched Wikipedia being pulled up on two different smartphones simultaneously to settle argument/doubts more times than I can count now over the years.
"Oh, your phone can't play that wikipedia video - ha! - what a crappy phone you should get one like mine next time."
That sort of word of mouth marketing has a subtle hard to measure influence on peoples next phone contract signing agreement choices. I can't say how significant it is, but you would be hard pressed to discount it as not being significant.
And for these people the cost of paying for a H.264 encoder license is trivial compared to royalties they have to pay for images, video, and music.
And what about the developing world that is slowly coming online via shared community hubs? Won't they have the right to publish content too without paying exuberant rents compared to their income? The cost is trivial for everyone. I am sorry but open formats are the only way forward for a level playing field. All we are seeing with this WWF/H.264 debacle is a small amount of vested interests trying to justify extracting rents from the world population, when non are really required.
That these closed proprietary formats/DRM are clawing their way back into our "open" standards, services like Wikipedia and browsers is a testament to how committees, foundations (and once democratic institutions serving the public interest) can be infiltrated by vested interest and their purpose corrupted slowly from the inside out. It is a slippery slope, read todays news to see how absolutely low you can slide.
Start with impeaching these judges. Then work your way down.
Unfortunately we will have to work our way up the chain as well, not to mention horizontally... corruption of purpose appears endemic across institutions, failing in their democratic function.
If it is not Open Source then we can pretty much can forget about this. Limiting the product to a very small set of customers Vs the wider android market means that just by using this product you would be advertising yourself as a target for investigation. To be truly secure the majority need to be using encryption, not just a small subset of paying customers.
FTFA: Leaked documents show: "the program, code-named Quantum, has also been successful in inserting software into... trade institutions inside the European Union"
NSA propaganda reply: "Vanee Vines, an agency spokeswoman, said in a statement. 'We do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.' "
The NSA really go out of their way to deny Industrial espionage, yet they have been caught targeting trade institutions in the EU. Yeah, I also suspect the NSA is lying as usual. From past marketing releases they really try to downplay Industrial Espionage as their motivation, which probably means it is their #1 bread and butter function.
As someone who had godaddy hold my domain hostage, this is great news.
GoDaddy had received a single complaint from an anonymous source, which was apparently enough for them to threaten to revoke my domain if I didn't pay their $200 extortion fee.
Buried in the ruling the offending registar is named: PublicDomainRegistry.com (PDR Ltd) wouldn't let EasyDNS do the transfer. Add GoDaddy to the list, what other registrars should we be voting with our wallets and abandoning?
Solving this will require someone to make and sell the mining hardware at near the cost price instead of using it themselves.
Or moving to a Proof Of Stake system and ASIC/GPU resistant algorithm (eg memory-bound):
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1138.0
However current GPU/ASIC/miners are dead-set against this as it will make their hardware much more uncompetitive vs normal computers.
Generally speaking the Scandinavian countries has one of the most fair justice systems in the world.
That may have been the case several decades ago. That is defiantly no longer the case, especially in Swedens case - they have fallen far and fast.
COINTELPRO aimed to divide and discredit the all activist movements: "COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day... [including] discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.[6][7][8]". You could even include trolling forums in that list.
As you can see, COINTELPRO contains examples of FBI sponsored campaigns of extreme violence. How do we know that the violent elements in the Weather Underground were not yet another FBI agent provocateurs to turn public opinion against all forms of peaceful but related activism. We don't know and you cannot reasonably argue that it is not the FBI given the evidence against them - the FBI even went as far as assassination to further COINTELPROs aims.
Reminds me of this conversation "I don't think you can really claim unqualified totalitarianism unless there is actual repression tied into it, especially political repression". From that exchange and to nobodies surprise, the Cold Fjord account does not appear to agree that there has or is any political repression going on in the US despite evidence such as the COINTELPRO files.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
Way offtopic now but out of curiosity: No expert on Chomsky or Cambodian Genocide I looked it up on wikipedia and it appears you are right he did do that back in 1975-79, well done a verifiable fact and I am happy to agree with you on that one. As for your other claim all I did was go to the ultimate source and posted the actual short quote, the one which you claimed proved Chomsky was a Holocaust denier. The quote does not appear to support your claim in any way, and you did not follow up with counter evidence or admit your mistake. Worse your still persisting (Card stacking, you call it?). You should try admitting when you are wrong now and then would go a long way to gaining some respect.
Calling me a facist and a Chomsky diciple in the same post, I am amused.