As a great april fools joke, how about when the NEXT dumb joke-story gets posted, all the trolls who would normally whine "BORING" or "STOP ALREADY" or whatever simply DON'T post anything?
Have you noticed? Google has a very interesting sense of humour: first they launch Gmail on April 1st. This had the effect of confusing people; lots of us expected it to be an April Fools joke and immediately dismissed it, so it effectively went under the radar initially.
Now on the anniversary of their landmark e-mail service, they are at it again!
Joke or reality? You figure it out.
Personally, I believe this is Google's way of remaining low-key while at the same time being (possibly) the biggest thing ever.
Wrongdoers have to be punished, yes, but I fear the ultimate result could be businesses cooling to the idea of open-source if all they ever hear about is how we can't settle these disputes without litigation. Trust me, I am pulling for the PearPC developers on this, I just wish it hadn't come to this.
Nope, not trolling; I really do think it's a bit of a shame.
Of course the shame is pretty much all on the company that ripped off PearPC.
If they'd given due credit to PearPC this wouldn't have happened, but don't you think that if they DO bring their behaviour into line with the PearPC license (GPL), they should be given a chance?
I mean any commercial entity that actually pays people full-time to develop a project like this will have a tendency to evolve the technology, right? And now it seems they may never be permitted to do it. THAT'S what I regret. the punishment of enforcing the GPL in this case (interpreted as meaning they may NEVER attempt to distibute PearPC again) seems a bit excessive.
Sure, another company will come along, but when? A bird in the hand is usually worth twice what one in the bush is worth.
Maybe you're right and it's not a bad thing; despite this publicity (bad) it may bring more attention to PearPC, and maybe this WILL help the project.
It does make sense that you'd use both political and economic powers to fight it. The vote does count, and collectively society wields economic power, but a few have disproportionately big economic power. Society really does need to organize. It's ironic that we originally designed governments to do this...
> Our "representivite democracy" doesn't represent the common person anymore. The only way to get something done in the government is to have millions of dollars in bribe money.
I believe one contributing factor was this:
Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
The precedent-setting case where it was ruled that corporations posses constitutional rights.
Rights that were originally intended to protect individuals.
The effect of leveling the field in such a way has meant that since then, the side with the deepest pockets (and consequently the most lawyers) has won more precedents, building on that base.
Lobbying is just a natural progression; corporations have greater resources at their disposal to make their "rights" respected, and the law recognizes their concerns to be as valid as a citizen's.
We have to collectively STOP buying music CDs. It hasn't been shown that downloading music hurts the music companies, quite the opposite HAS been shown in fact.
So we have to send the industry a message by no longer buying their product.
If they don't have our money to use against us like they are now, they won't be able to pull these kind of totalitarian abuses.
OK, you argue it might force all the music companies out of business. So what? With the Internet, they are no longer necessary; artists can market their music to clients directly.
And in any case, the music companies no longer represent us, they are forcing horrible formulaic content down our throats.
Put an end to these abuses, boycott the music industry!
Intelligent analysis. You're correct, but even if most computers are for single users, at least with Linux, you'd only need to restore the user's home folder, and not reformat-reinstall everything (like Windows forces you to do).
I'm not making this up; MS has publicly stated that to remove some spywares/office-bugs/other-things-I-am-too-lazy-to -post things, they recommend a format and reinstall.
I was pointing out that since it was adopted as a standard, it sort of fostered technological stagnation in a way.
Maybe North America doesn't have GSM everywhere, but it may end up with Wifi everywhere, which is even more flexible as technologies go.
So in the end, I'd rather have a bunch of dissimilar technologies duking it out until one champions the others than have a body impose a standard that may be leading-edge initially, but is harder to update because it becomes entrenched.
Slashdot Mirror
VirtualPC: When you run a Windows XP SP2-based virtual machine, it will perform slowly compared to a Windows XP SP1-based virtual machine.
So, it'll be just like if you were running Windows XP on a PC then?
move along...
opening the source would be admitting that they are infringing a number of patents
OK OK, I've got it; next story - NOBODY POSTS!!!
That would REALLY be funny!
Spread the word!
Thank you for proving the point of the exercise. :-)
As a great april fools joke, how about when the NEXT dumb joke-story gets posted, all the trolls who would normally whine "BORING" or "STOP ALREADY" or whatever simply DON'T post anything?
THAT would be unexpected and hilarious!
Have you noticed?
Google has a very interesting sense of humour: first they launch Gmail on April 1st.
This had the effect of confusing people; lots of us expected it to be an April Fools joke and immediately dismissed it, so it effectively went under the radar initially.
Now on the anniversary of their landmark e-mail service, they are at it again!
Joke or reality? You figure it out.
Personally, I believe this is Google's way of remaining low-key while at the same time being (possibly) the biggest thing ever.
Genius, true genius.
If you want to capture all of me :-)
Wrongdoers have to be punished, yes, but I fear the ultimate result could be businesses cooling to the idea of open-source if all they ever hear about is how we can't settle these disputes without litigation.
Trust me, I am pulling for the PearPC developers on this, I just wish it hadn't come to this.
Nope, not trolling; I really do think it's a bit of a shame.
Of course the shame is pretty much all on the company that ripped off PearPC.
If they'd given due credit to PearPC this wouldn't have happened, but don't you think that if they DO bring their behaviour into line with the PearPC license (GPL), they should be given a chance?
I mean any commercial entity that actually pays people full-time to develop a project like this will have a tendency to evolve the technology, right? And now it seems they may never be permitted to do it. THAT'S what I regret. the punishment of enforcing the GPL in this case (interpreted as meaning they may NEVER attempt to distibute PearPC again) seems a bit excessive.
Sure, another company will come along, but when? A bird in the hand is usually worth twice what one in the bush is worth.
Maybe you're right and it's not a bad thing; despite this publicity (bad) it may bring more attention to PearPC, and maybe this WILL help the project.
>Even if they belatedly decided to comply with the terms of the GPL. It's too late.
Then it's the user that loses. This product could have made PearPC more popular, drawn attention to it, possibly interesting more developers.
Now the situation is ashes, the user is loser.
To (mis)quote your sig, too bad we can't all just get along.
Just shut up.
It does make sense that you'd use both political and economic powers to fight it.
The vote does count, and collectively society wields economic power, but a few have disproportionately big economic power. Society really does need to organize. It's ironic that we originally designed governments to do this...
> Our "representivite democracy" doesn't represent the common person anymore. The only way to get something done in the government is to have millions of dollars in bribe money.
I believe one contributing factor was this:
Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
The precedent-setting case where it was ruled that corporations posses constitutional rights.
Rights that were originally intended to protect individuals.
The effect of leveling the field in such a way has meant that since then, the side with the deepest pockets (and consequently the most lawyers) has won more precedents, building on that base.
Lobbying is just a natural progression; corporations have greater resources at their disposal to make their "rights" respected, and the law recognizes their concerns to be as valid as a citizen's.
> If a BEER COMMERCIAL is how you measure your patriotism and self worth then you've got problems my friend.
;-)
You're only saying that because you're an american and your beer only has 3% alcohol in it, most Canadian beers have at least 5%.
So Fnah!
We have to collectively STOP buying music CDs.
It hasn't been shown that downloading music hurts the music companies, quite the opposite HAS been shown in fact.
So we have to send the industry a message by no longer buying their product.
If they don't have our money to use against us like they are now, they won't be able to pull these kind of totalitarian abuses.
OK, you argue it might force all the music companies out of business. So what? With the Internet, they are no longer necessary; artists can market their music to clients directly.
And in any case, the music companies no longer represent us, they are forcing horrible formulaic content down our throats.
Put an end to these abuses, boycott the music industry!
The EDS are insincere, scaly reptiles.
Intelligent analysis.
o -post things, they recommend a format and reinstall.
You're correct, but even if most computers are for single users, at least with Linux, you'd only need to restore the user's home folder, and not reformat-reinstall everything (like Windows forces you to do).
I'm not making this up; MS has publicly stated that to remove some spywares/office-bugs/other-things-I-am-too-lazy-t
Thanks, Domino
Wish I had mod points for you.
It's not enough to remove I.E. and whatever else program you are using from Microsoft.
Whatever MS-stuff is left will be enough to get you infected.
The ONLY solution is to change operating system.
I suggest Linux.
Had to be said.
You don't want the monolith coming back to earth and taking away our collective inteeligence as punishment, do you?
Maybe the monolith would come back and make monkeys MORE intelligent than us, just to keep us busy...
Sure, I wasn't knocking Minitel.
I was pointing out that since it was adopted as a standard, it sort of fostered technological stagnation in a way.
Maybe North America doesn't have GSM everywhere, but it may end up with Wifi everywhere, which is even more flexible as technologies go.
So in the end, I'd rather have a bunch of dissimilar technologies duking it out until one champions the others than have a body impose a standard that may be leading-edge initially, but is harder to update because it becomes entrenched.
The article seems to hint at too many options available preventing standardization.
But when the dust WILL finally settle, who will be further along?
I mean look at how Minitel delayed Internet acceptance in parts of europe. An old, entrenched "standard"
Minitel is primitive.
>There's something to be said for good old-fashioned sluts...
And that something is - AMEN!
My only qualm with Dr. Phil is his annoying always-talking-too-loud-saying-the-most-obvious-st uff-over-and-over-again style.
Honestly, I think it should take someone of nominal intelligence 15-20 minutes to "get" Dr. Phil.
After that, it's really far too repetitive and obvious, but yet millions watch him day after day...
I suppose it keeps 'em out of trouble, so good job, Dr. Phil.