Many states had sales tax provisions on dotcoms before Congress inacted the moratorium. It's my understanding that those were not eliminated. Rather, new taxes were forbidden.
So, internet companies continue being able to not absorb their shipping costs into the price of their products like every "brick-and-mortar" business does. Great. Whoopee. Not only that, but states get to continue finding new ways to "extract" money from their local economies that would normally come from their sales tax bases. Let's all celebrate. Thank you Congress.
I hope that globalization, now basically inevitable due to technological advance, will be used for good, and not merely to line the pockets and coffers of the elite.
Unless the elite have a new way of printing money that I don't know about, the only way their pockets will be lined is if you and I do it for them.
Wow...I actually agree with a non-technical post on/....I can hardly believe it. It is silly to pretend that politicians stop being politicians because they're meeting with people from another country. Self-interest is always going to be number 1...and I've got no problem with that until there is a collision with my self-interest. Just as they don't cease their lives as politicians, neither do they gain omniscience. Far too much weight is placed on terms like "coalition" or "international community". The involvement of more than one country in something...anything...doesn't make it good. Inasmuch as governments fail to simply liberate their citizens, they enslave them.
I suspect that if today's software patent mass-acceptance had started in the 70's, there would be no Linux (Unix would have been patented by AT&T and Linus would have received a nasty letter to cease and desist), No Pkzip -> Winzip, no dBase clones, no SQL clones. Heck, I'm thinking half the algorithms in my computer science text books would be unavailable for general use.
I've got to agree on this one. It appears now that the only people able to improve on a technology will be the ones originally resposible for the technology. Patents have become a self-replicating phenomenon. I patent technology A. Person B attempts to reverse engineer technology A for purposes of understanding, improving, etc (admittedly he may also just compete with it). I sue Person B. The rest of the developing community is frightened into not speaking of technology A. I release technology A.2 next year, and so on. It's getting ugly.
I'm a little surprised that it took a.com so long to realize that this step makes sense. If a company claims to be on the cutting edge of technology, why would they sink their money into faulty, overpriced, GUI OSes?
You're going to work in your lab, eh? Get real. That's no more your lab than me climbing into a Northwest 757 makes it my plane. You agree to their conditions each time you accept their paycheck. If you're not comfortable with those arrangements, then there is probably someone who will be. They don't force you to come to work, do they? If so, that would definitely cross the line.
Bottom line: Nobody will come and search your home without a warrant. Once you step outside, you're subject to being photographed, watched, etc. Entering a building you don't own subjects you to searches, etc. Heck, you work for the NIH...I'd be worried if they didn't search you.
I agree with you on the behemoth projects like OS's and massive database systems. However, I'd argue that costs can be minimized with open-source applications and similarly small(er) programs. Unfortunately, those are the last things that anyone thinks about.
That would be of some comfort if there were a reliable standard by which to measure the validity of this law. Before you say "What about the plain language of the Constitution?", take a look around you. It's far better to defeat this in Congress than to take our chances on the court, which is now nothing more than another political arm of government.
So, record companies and movie studios don't want you to pirate their product. That's fine with me. They have some options. 1) Stop making them: fairly self-explanatory...no movies, no piracy. 2) Make them affordable: Let's face it...I'd rather pay a few dollars to see a quality movie in a theater than watch a grainy VCD that took me five hours to download. $8 per ticket plus $5 popcorn and a $4 coke doesn't cut it, though. 3) Buy the US Congress: this is our weak point...535 guys who have no clue regarding technology or anything digital can easily be swayed by legal tender.
I really can't blame the industry for taking advantage of a system that gives the federal government so much power. It's our own faults for electing these morons. It doesn't make them right, only understandable.
Has it ever been proposed that W3C adopt a policy 180 degrees out of phase with RAND? In essence, have you ever considered saying, as a matter of policy, that NO patented material will ever be incorporated into standards? If not, do you think this would ease the problem of companies filing patents for trivial innovations?
So, companies were voluntarily giving data to the government in contradiction to their own policies. How comforting...I'm sure all of the terrorists were frequent bidders on eBay.
Three columns:
website, login, password.
You maintain it. You control it. You decide who sees it.
Or you give someone else the ability to maintain, control, and see it.
Equating guns, a physical object, with encryption, a mathematical exercise, misses the point a bit. Encryption can't directly kill anyone no matter how it's used.
Encryption, as an algorithm for crunching numbers, costs nothing. You can't keep it out of the hands of the bad guys simply by keeping it out of the hands of the good guys.
Slashdot Mirror
Many states had sales tax provisions on dotcoms before Congress inacted the moratorium. It's my understanding that those were not eliminated. Rather, new taxes were forbidden.
So, internet companies continue being able to not absorb their shipping costs into the price of their products like every "brick-and-mortar" business does. Great. Whoopee. Not only that, but states get to continue finding new ways to "extract" money from their local economies that would normally come from their sales tax bases. Let's all celebrate. Thank you Congress.
...metered e-mail. Up to 100k will cost ya $.10.
I hope that globalization, now basically inevitable due to technological advance, will be used for good, and not merely to line the pockets and coffers of the elite. Unless the elite have a new way of printing money that I don't know about, the only way their pockets will be lined is if you and I do it for them.
Wow...I actually agree with a non-technical post on /. ...I can hardly believe it. It is silly to pretend that politicians stop being politicians because they're meeting with people from another country. Self-interest is always going to be number 1...and I've got no problem with that until there is a collision with my self-interest. Just as they don't cease their lives as politicians, neither do they gain omniscience. Far too much weight is placed on terms like "coalition" or "international community". The involvement of more than one country in something...anything...doesn't make it good. Inasmuch as governments fail to simply liberate their citizens, they enslave them.
I suspect that if today's software patent mass-acceptance had started in the 70's, there would be no Linux (Unix would have been patented by AT&T and Linus would have received a nasty letter to cease and desist), No Pkzip -> Winzip, no dBase clones, no SQL clones. Heck, I'm thinking half the algorithms in my computer science text books would be unavailable for general use.
I've got to agree on this one. It appears now that the only people able to improve on a technology will be the ones originally resposible for the technology. Patents have become a self-replicating phenomenon. I patent technology A. Person B attempts to reverse engineer technology A for purposes of understanding, improving, etc (admittedly he may also just compete with it). I sue Person B. The rest of the developing community is frightened into not speaking of technology A. I release technology A.2 next year, and so on. It's getting ugly.
It's like this with every new operating system, and the way it will probably always be.
...until everything is bundled.
You're exactly right...let's remove faulty and gui from my previous post. Would you care to address the point of the post?
I'm a little surprised that it took a .com so long to realize that this step makes sense. If a company claims to be on the cutting edge of technology, why would they sink their money into faulty, overpriced, GUI OSes?
You're going to work in your lab, eh? Get real. That's no more your lab than me climbing into a Northwest 757 makes it my plane. You agree to their conditions each time you accept their paycheck. If you're not comfortable with those arrangements, then there is probably someone who will be. They don't force you to come to work, do they? If so, that would definitely cross the line. Bottom line: Nobody will come and search your home without a warrant. Once you step outside, you're subject to being photographed, watched, etc. Entering a building you don't own subjects you to searches, etc. Heck, you work for the NIH...I'd be worried if they didn't search you.
I agree with you on the behemoth projects like OS's and massive database systems. However, I'd argue that costs can be minimized with open-source applications and similarly small(er) programs. Unfortunately, those are the last things that anyone thinks about.
That would be of some comfort if there were a reliable standard by which to measure the validity of this law. Before you say "What about the plain language of the Constitution?", take a look around you. It's far better to defeat this in Congress than to take our chances on the court, which is now nothing more than another political arm of government.
So, record companies and movie studios don't want you to pirate their product. That's fine with me. They have some options. 1) Stop making them: fairly self-explanatory...no movies, no piracy. 2) Make them affordable: Let's face it...I'd rather pay a few dollars to see a quality movie in a theater than watch a grainy VCD that took me five hours to download. $8 per ticket plus $5 popcorn and a $4 coke doesn't cut it, though. 3) Buy the US Congress: this is our weak point...535 guys who have no clue regarding technology or anything digital can easily be swayed by legal tender. I really can't blame the industry for taking advantage of a system that gives the federal government so much power. It's our own faults for electing these morons. It doesn't make them right, only understandable.
Has it ever been proposed that W3C adopt a policy 180 degrees out of phase with RAND? In essence, have you ever considered saying, as a matter of policy, that NO patented material will ever be incorporated into standards? If not, do you think this would ease the problem of companies filing patents for trivial innovations?
So, companies were voluntarily giving data to the government in contradiction to their own policies. How comforting...I'm sure all of the terrorists were frequent bidders on eBay.
Three columns: website, login, password. You maintain it. You control it. You decide who sees it. Or you give someone else the ability to maintain, control, and see it.
No kidding. He's just lucky the DMCA doesn't apply to reverse engineering hardware specs...umm...right?
Equating guns, a physical object, with encryption, a mathematical exercise, misses the point a bit. Encryption can't directly kill anyone no matter how it's used.
Encryption, as an algorithm for crunching numbers, costs nothing. You can't keep it out of the hands of the bad guys simply by keeping it out of the hands of the good guys.