Maybe it isn't a great decision, but you can't deny that it's probably the most common use of sentinels in computer science - which, when you're countering someone's assertion that they've never used sentinels, is a useful property.
In any case, arbitrary limitations on generic cases (eg. a hard limit on string length) are generally regarded as poor design decisions themselves. With specific reference to counted strings, consider UTF-8; what are you counting? Or - what happens if you land in the middle of a string by accident? Whilst C-style strings do have limitations and weaknesses, they are by no means as unquestionably evil as you seek to paint them, and nor are their alternatives without problems. It's a matter of trade-offs.
Nice move on Tufts' part. If they ever do receive such a "notice to preserve", they can relay it straight back to their students and staff and say "look, the RIAA is watching us with a view to screwing you, so behave yourselves" for the duration of such a notice; and if they don't, they have effectively insulated their charges from all further RIAA action. And all whilst looking extermely co-operative for the benefit of the courts...
The downside is that after the Roman Empire passed its peak, it took five hundred years for Rome to fall, and a further millennium for the whole thing to be extinguished. We have only a lifetime of decline to look forward to, as do our children's children, even unto the next 20 generations; only in a few centuries will this rotten carcass actually start the creative process of decomposition.
Look on the bright side. Western society is in terminal decline anyway. When archaeologists of the next great civilisation look back at us, the RIAA's efforts to turn corporate policy into federal law are going to be seen as something of a barometer... if they are even remembered at all.
Not really. Possession with intent to supply is a crime in and of itself. "Making available" would be the equivalent charge for the downloaders, but we all know how well that legal argument has been received; that means that only the act of allowing a particular unauthorised download itself violates copyright, at which point the argument that the particular downloads presented as evidence are anything but unauthorised becomes a somewhat valid point to make... particularly if the courts were to decide that the amount of damages payable are directly contingent upon the number of unauthorised downloads that the plaintiff can prove actually occurred.
You grant that the users will understand that there are two separate properties under discussion, separate them out, and have them both independently verified. Seems to me that the error here is that historically, there's been no separation of these things, no way to say "we're not claiming to be anyone, but you can rest assured your data won't leak on its way here". It's always been a problem - FF3 has just made it a really visible one.
The "scratching their own itch" point is good, but the article's author misses an important corollary. The person who has scratched their own itch will develop a program as far as they need to for it to be usable to them - unless another piece of software comes along and short-circuits the process. And arguably, if a piece of software is usable to the person who wrote it for the task they wrote it for, its primary usability criteria are satisfied.
Anything after that - ie. everything this article is concerned with - is marketing... making something attractive to people who aren't already using it. There isn't actually any need to do it; it's something you do if you want your userbase to grow, but without a fairly direct incentive to do it - whether that's a financial incentive (consumer software) or the staunch belief that there needs to be a free alternative (the usual FOSS poster kids) - nobody's going to do it, unless something gets in their way directly. The situation is compounded if it becomes easier to write one's own X than to modify an X already available - you end up with lots and lots of Xs that are finished only to a point where their development teams find them sufficient.
They did. As far as I'm aware, it's illegal to make any copy at all, even a backup, of any medium in this country, and it might even also be illegal to make a tape of a radio broadcast (I'd have to check).
Don't come to Britain. Whilst in some ways we're not as bad, in others we are even worse. I'll be leaving this godforsaken country as soon as I can figure out how to do so without having to give the government a truckload of biometric data in exchange for the privilege of a passport.
All governments, democratically elected or otherwise, tend towards totalitarianism over time. The only "reset switch" that's ever been discovered is a complete overthrow of the existing political order, and even then it only restarts the cycle.
Capitalism does not work without the respect and adherence to the rule of law
So why do the most successful companies keep falling foul of those laws, and companies which are morally scrupulous tend to make somewhat lesser profits?
What's so great about an auction? People who want to buy stuff don't know how much they'll end up paying (or even whether they'll be successful), and people who want to sell stuff don't know how much they can expect to recoup for it (they can either run the risk of having to sell $200 worth of kit for 99c, or run the risk of nobody even looking at the auction because it's not "a bargain"). Give me a place I can pay a fair price for an item and that's the end of it, and I'll be happy. Let's leave eBay to the cheapskates, timewasters and rip-off merchants...
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry. Your thinking is just too screwed up on this to be worth arguing with.
Does telling a streetful of prostitutes that the police are on their way make one a pimp?
Maybe it isn't a great decision, but you can't deny that it's probably the most common use of sentinels in computer science - which, when you're countering someone's assertion that they've never used sentinels, is a useful property.
In any case, arbitrary limitations on generic cases (eg. a hard limit on string length) are generally regarded as poor design decisions themselves. With specific reference to counted strings, consider UTF-8; what are you counting? Or - what happens if you land in the middle of a string by accident? Whilst C-style strings do have limitations and weaknesses, they are by no means as unquestionably evil as you seek to paint them, and nor are their alternatives without problems. It's a matter of trade-offs.
Nice move on Tufts' part. If they ever do receive such a "notice to preserve", they can relay it straight back to their students and staff and say "look, the RIAA is watching us with a view to screwing you, so behave yourselves" for the duration of such a notice; and if they don't, they have effectively insulated their charges from all further RIAA action. And all whilst looking extermely co-operative for the benefit of the courts...
So, never wrote string manipulation in C then? (And people like Kernighan and Plauger - pah, what do they know, eh?)
Ignorance alone is fixable. But pride in ignorance makes repair all but impossible.
His is the standard-issue lament of the sociopath.
The downside is that after the Roman Empire passed its peak, it took five hundred years for Rome to fall, and a further millennium for the whole thing to be extinguished. We have only a lifetime of decline to look forward to, as do our children's children, even unto the next 20 generations; only in a few centuries will this rotten carcass actually start the creative process of decomposition.
Sorry you asked? ;)
Look on the bright side. Western society is in terminal decline anyway. When archaeologists of the next great civilisation look back at us, the RIAA's efforts to turn corporate policy into federal law are going to be seen as something of a barometer... if they are even remembered at all.
Not really. Possession with intent to supply is a crime in and of itself. "Making available" would be the equivalent charge for the downloaders, but we all know how well that legal argument has been received; that means that only the act of allowing a particular unauthorised download itself violates copyright, at which point the argument that the particular downloads presented as evidence are anything but unauthorised becomes a somewhat valid point to make... particularly if the courts were to decide that the amount of damages payable are directly contingent upon the number of unauthorised downloads that the plaintiff can prove actually occurred.
Hey, why break with the national habit?
(I hate my country.)
You grant that the users will understand that there are two separate properties under discussion, separate them out, and have them both independently verified. Seems to me that the error here is that historically, there's been no separation of these things, no way to say "we're not claiming to be anyone, but you can rest assured your data won't leak on its way here". It's always been a problem - FF3 has just made it a really visible one.
The "scratching their own itch" point is good, but the article's author misses an important corollary. The person who has scratched their own itch will develop a program as far as they need to for it to be usable to them - unless another piece of software comes along and short-circuits the process. And arguably, if a piece of software is usable to the person who wrote it for the task they wrote it for, its primary usability criteria are satisfied.
Anything after that - ie. everything this article is concerned with - is marketing... making something attractive to people who aren't already using it. There isn't actually any need to do it; it's something you do if you want your userbase to grow, but without a fairly direct incentive to do it - whether that's a financial incentive (consumer software) or the staunch belief that there needs to be a free alternative (the usual FOSS poster kids) - nobody's going to do it, unless something gets in their way directly. The situation is compounded if it becomes easier to write one's own X than to modify an X already available - you end up with lots and lots of Xs that are finished only to a point where their development teams find them sufficient.
320 pictures, surely...?
[citation needed]
Strange. I could have sworn there was an earlier Amendment somewhere that prohibited the passing of retroactive legislation... was I imagining things?
It's just a shame they have no real power to speak of, a fact of which said government has taken ample advantage.
They did. As far as I'm aware, it's illegal to make any copy at all, even a backup, of any medium in this country, and it might even also be illegal to make a tape of a radio broadcast (I'd have to check).
What, you've never looked at a civil servant and seen a zombie...?
Don't come to Britain. Whilst in some ways we're not as bad, in others we are even worse. I'll be leaving this godforsaken country as soon as I can figure out how to do so without having to give the government a truckload of biometric data in exchange for the privilege of a passport.
All governments, democratically elected or otherwise, tend towards totalitarianism over time. The only "reset switch" that's ever been discovered is a complete overthrow of the existing political order, and even then it only restarts the cycle.
There's also that time that a few states became so angry with the government that they tried to leave the Union.
That didn't go down at all well.
Well, it was. Now, of course, it's fucked...
How could you tell?
So why do the most successful companies keep falling foul of those laws, and companies which are morally scrupulous tend to make somewhat lesser profits?
What's so great about an auction? People who want to buy stuff don't know how much they'll end up paying (or even whether they'll be successful), and people who want to sell stuff don't know how much they can expect to recoup for it (they can either run the risk of having to sell $200 worth of kit for 99c, or run the risk of nobody even looking at the auction because it's not "a bargain"). Give me a place I can pay a fair price for an item and that's the end of it, and I'll be happy. Let's leave eBay to the cheapskates, timewasters and rip-off merchants...