This was more of a problem in the past because nobody had anybody elses source code, so cross pollination of code didn't happen and competing implementations were more often incompatible.
While I still don't like like random new things appearing outside the standards without good reason, doing it in an open source application is much less of a problem.
The more important correlation, that's perhaps harder to measure, is between "DRM whiners" and those who didn't play the game at all. I'm talking about those who wanted to play the game, but neither want DRM nor illegal copies.
The reason that's more important is because it represents a lost sale, so the games companies should care. Any statistic about pirated copies is unimportant because those versions don't have DRM anyway.
I don't particularly care about physical copies either, but I do want the right to sell my purchase to others or give as a gift (just like I can with books, cds, dvds, etc.)
I also want to be able to do whatever the law allows, not what some technical system controlled by the industry allows, and that includes future changes to the law. In short: NO TECHNICAL RESTRICTIONS ARE ACCEPTABLE.
The fact that they are not charging certainly not "against capitalism". This is all a a very good example of capitalism at work. What they all want is control, and how they get it is by gaining market share, which depends on a number of factors. Zero cost is just one of the factors; being the fastest is another. There are many more. It's all about operating in a way that best enables your survival in a market, and that's a very capitalist concept.
What about employees who do legitimate selects from these databases and then load CSV files and other text files onto their laptops and PDAs?
What kind of employee? General users shouldn't be doing selects directly anyway, but should be using software that limits what they can query to the minimum information they need, preferably not in a general purpose form like csv. On the other hand the developers of that software need to do all and any kinds of selects for a whole range of reasons. They however, should not be let anywhere near the actual production databases.
The people who go "How do you know? Have you seen the source code?" almost invariably don't audit the code at all.
They don't have to. Only a small percentage actually have to audit the code, and that benefits everyone. The code still has to be open to allow this though.
being forced to release or keep one's slaves = bad
Of course in reality it's easy to see that slavery is bad for society as a whole even though it makes some people better off. The same is true with software freedom. In both cases, the overall freedom of society is more important than the individual right to restrict or remove the freedom of others.
The Tories opposed it because they need contentious issues to argue over, not because they wouldn't do it themselves.
If they would do the same themselves, why have they already stated that they would repeal this quickly if they got back into power (which going by current opinion polls is quite likely at the next election)
The Tories have traditionally been more right wing, but not the authoritarian right. They believe and have generally believed historically in minimal government interference in civil liberties.
It is really Labour who have become massively more authoritarian and in some ways moved more to the right of the Tories at the same time, not the Tories who have moved (as much)
YMMV. Different countries have different laws. I believe you are correct in the UK, while in the US "fair use" allows you to make copies for your own personal use. You can't distribute thos copies legally, but you can make them.
Which is exactly what I said in the second half of my sentence which you didn't quote:
".. or unless you don't need a license for other reasons. (There are quite a few reasons. Fair use is one example. See the laws for more)"
> Making copies of works that you didn't create is illegal unless you are doing it for personal use (fair use, there's a whole set up things that fall in this catagory).
No. Making copies of works that you are not the copyright holder of is illegal, unless you have a license to do so (for example, creative commons license, or the license a record company holds for a musicians work) or unless you don't need a license for other reasons. (There are quite a few reasons. Fair use is one example. See the laws for more)
The points you have listed are not "things you need to know about copyright." but more like "things you need to know about how the old fashioned greedy corporations choose to use copyright in many cases"
they actually went up in price after HD-DVD announced its retreat from the market.
I agree, but this was not caused by lack of competition. Prices at that time were discounted to try and drive sales. The reason for the low sales was that folks were holding off until there was a winner. Once the winner was clear, sales picked up and the reason for the discounts went away.
We will see falling prices over the coming months as economy of scale savings kick in and competition ramps up. (competition between different bluray vendors)
I'm sure someone will correct me if I have missed something, but it seems to me that the desire by some to hide irremovable watermarks within digital streams is a similar technical challenge to adding steganographic content. Similarly, those attempting to destroy watermarks will face the same problems as those wishing to remove or destroy steganographic content.
The interesting thing is who is on which side of the battle.
Generally it's corporations who like the idea of watermarks, and individuals who don't. Individuals do however like steganography, but the authorities don't. It will be interesting to see who develops what technologies and who, if anyone, wins this arms race.
Strange. I prefer speed over features, which is why I almost always choose PostgreSql over MySQL. The only time I find MySQL to be quicker is for simple applications that do far more reading than writing. (and I really mean _far_ more)
For general purpose, read/write applications containing tables with millions of records, I have found MySQL to be very slow, especially when doing joins across several tables.
When you have large numbers of developers all creating their own experimental branches, the repo becomes a mess. Of course all the distributed tools fix this by design.
Personally, when I have to interact with a project that uses svn (as I do daily in my job) I use bzr with its svn integration.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice. Can you point to any good documentation on how to script these kinds of conversion?
I write software for a living too, and so do many of my friends.
If you are "losing" money, it is because your business model is ill-concived.
(N.B., I am replying to your point alone, this does not imply that I condone anything that the pirate bay folks may have done)
I have much less of a problem being asked by a court to decrypt data than being censored abrtitrarily at the say-so of random large media companies.
This was more of a problem in the past because nobody had anybody elses source code, so cross pollination of code didn't happen and competing implementations were more often incompatible.
While I still don't like like random new things appearing outside the standards without good reason, doing it in an open source application is much less of a problem.
Because they don't know how to handly the firearm they are holding.
The more important correlation, that's perhaps harder to measure, is between "DRM whiners" and those who didn't play the game at all. I'm talking about those who wanted to play the game, but neither want DRM nor illegal copies.
The reason that's more important is because it represents a lost sale, so the games companies should care. Any statistic about pirated copies is unimportant because those versions don't have DRM anyway.
I don't particularly care about physical copies either, but I do want the right to sell my purchase to others or give as a gift (just like I can with books, cds, dvds, etc.)
I also want to be able to do whatever the law allows, not what some technical system controlled by the industry allows, and that includes future changes to the law. In short: NO TECHNICAL RESTRICTIONS ARE ACCEPTABLE.
Just use encryption (of your whole drive or partition) and forget about wiping it.
It's not that hard. For example, several modern Linux distros support encrypting your entire installation out of the box.
My intention may be harmless but those who hid a bomb in my bag may have other ideas. How does scanning my brain help then?
The fact that they are not charging certainly not "against capitalism". This is all a a very good example of capitalism at work. What they all want is control, and how they get it is by gaining market share, which depends on a number of factors. Zero cost is just one of the factors; being the fastest is another. There are many more. It's all about operating in a way that best enables your survival in a market, and that's a very capitalist concept.
1) The BBC has a duty to provide access to all, not just to those who chose to depend on a particular vendor.
2) Using patented technologies excludes a significant minority of users, and is therefore incompatible with (1)
Why would they be crazy exactly? They would simply include the codec as a part of the iPlayer download. The user wouldn't even know the difference.
What about employees who do legitimate selects from these databases and then load CSV files and other text files onto their laptops and PDAs?
What kind of employee? General users shouldn't be doing selects directly anyway, but should be using software that limits what they can query to the minimum information they need, preferably not in a general purpose form like csv. On the other hand the developers of that software need to do all and any kinds of selects for a whole range of reasons. They however, should not be let anywhere near the actual production databases.
This is how we do it anyway.
The people who go "How do you know? Have you seen the source code?" almost invariably don't audit the code at all.
They don't have to. Only a small percentage actually have to audit the code, and that benefits everyone. The code still has to be open to allow this though.
Having slaves = good
Not having slaves = good
freedom = good
being forced to release or keep one's slaves = bad
Of course in reality it's easy to see that slavery is bad for society as a whole even though it makes some people better off. The same is true with software freedom. In both cases, the overall freedom of society is more important than the individual right to restrict or remove the freedom of others.
But the majority of the public WANT this change. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jun/08/terrorism.uksecurity
The Tories opposed it because they need contentious issues to argue over, not because they wouldn't do it themselves.
If they would do the same themselves, why have they already stated that they would repeal this quickly if they got back into power (which going by current opinion polls is quite likely at the next election)
The Tories have traditionally been more right wing, but not the authoritarian right. They believe and have generally believed historically in minimal government interference in civil liberties.
It is really Labour who have become massively more authoritarian and in some ways moved more to the right of the Tories at the same time, not the Tories who have moved (as much)
YMMV. Different countries have different laws. I believe you are correct in the UK, while in the US "fair use" allows you to make copies for your own personal use. You can't distribute thos copies legally, but you can make them.
Which is exactly what I said in the second half of my sentence which you didn't quote:
".. or unless you don't need a license for other reasons. (There are quite a few reasons. Fair use is one example. See the laws for more)"
According to the law in some jurisdictions, if the copyright holder doesn't give you permission, yes.
> Making copies of works that you didn't create is illegal unless you are doing it for personal use (fair use, there's a whole set up things that fall in this catagory).
No. Making copies of works that you are not the copyright holder of is illegal, unless you have a license to do so (for example, creative commons license, or the license a record company holds for a musicians work) or unless you don't need a license for other reasons. (There are quite a few reasons. Fair use is one example. See the laws for more)
The points you have listed are not "things you need to know about copyright." but more like "things you need to know about how the old fashioned greedy corporations choose to use copyright in many cases"
they actually went up in price after HD-DVD announced its retreat from the market.
I agree, but this was not caused by lack of competition. Prices at that time were discounted to try and drive sales. The reason for the low sales was that folks were holding off until there was a winner. Once the winner was clear, sales picked up and the reason for the discounts went away.
We will see falling prices over the coming months as economy of scale savings kick in and competition ramps up. (competition between different bluray vendors)
I'm sure someone will correct me if I have missed something, but it seems to me that the desire by some to hide irremovable watermarks within digital streams is a similar technical challenge to adding steganographic content. Similarly, those attempting to destroy watermarks will face the same problems as those wishing to remove or destroy steganographic content.
The interesting thing is who is on which side of the battle.
Generally it's corporations who like the idea of watermarks, and individuals who don't. Individuals do however like steganography, but the authorities don't. It will be interesting to see who develops what technologies and who, if anyone, wins this arms race.
Strange. I prefer speed over features, which is why I almost always choose PostgreSql over MySQL. The only time I find MySQL to be quicker is for simple applications that do far more reading than writing. (and I really mean _far_ more)
For general purpose, read/write applications containing tables with millions of records, I have found MySQL to be very slow, especially when doing joins across several tables.
When you have large numbers of developers all creating their own experimental branches, the repo becomes a mess. Of course all the distributed tools fix this by design.
Personally, when I have to interact with a project that uses svn (as I do daily in my job) I use bzr with its svn integration.
There is nothing HD-DVD can do that Blu-Ray can't. And as you say, Blu-Ray is bigger.
In my book, that makes Blu-Ray "superior"