"Clearly they haven't read their software agreements. It specifically states that MS is not responsible for damage"
Clearly they have read consumer law, which says that the terms of a sale may not be altered after the sale, nor may a vendor sell something which does not perform as advertised (even if the reason for not performing as advertised is refusal to accept a suggested additional contract)
"What's the US Government going to do? Start an embargo? That'll look really good... What's the US Government going to do? Start an embargo? That'll look really good..."
Who could imagine the US government doing such a thing. Lucky they'd never consider embargo'ing a country to stop them getting medical supplies? Lucky they'd never consider causing the deaths of thousands with such an embargo. Right?
"And yet, you think I would want to put all my trust the sanity of other world leaders to not fire nuclear weapons at the U.S.? There is nothing unsafe about a defensive nuclear missle. The key term here is "defence initiative"."
-1: clueless, reality-detached propoganda
Perhaps since these "defensive"* missiles are so safe we shouldn't have worried so much about the USSR developing them 40 years ago. But it seems that experts are unanimous in disagreeing with you, as any country with a missile-defence could attack any other country without fear of retaliation. Hence the ABM treaty, which specifically banned missile defenses.
* That's defence as in 'the ministry of defence', previously the ministry of war.
b.t.w. how did you get your current job in the US Military, Mr. Saeed al-Sahaf?
This is not exactly a public-domain patent in the sense that anyone here would recognise it. The patent is being applied for by a company, who state in the article that they intend to make money from it.
Will this be another repeat of the AIDS scandal? Patent-protected diseases against which no researcher is allowed to vaccinate?
IBM estimate that the value of being able to work without fear of patent claims is worth ten times as much to them as the value of the patents themselves.
The software industry in the U.S. was created without such burdens. Were software patentable 30 years ago, we would not have PCs built by competing suppliers, nor would we have a choice of PC operating systems other than that supplied by the hardware manufacturer.
Software patents are uniquely dangerous, as it is not the result of years of expensive research which is patented, rather it is a half-day's problem solving which grants a typical software patent, and thus prevents anyone else from solving the same problem by virtue of this "right of monopoly on an idea"
Patent offices cannot adequately review software patents, for the simple reason that much software literature is not published in journals. The source code to a 1970 operating system, for example, would not be considered suitable reading material for a patent examiner investigating a new patent in that area.
Currently, the patentability of software in the US has laid waste vast areas of research, in which companies dare not innovate for the fear of patent claims. It is not even theoretically possible to investigate all relevant patents before starting work, as patent applications are secret.
Free software is especially vulnerable to the destructive effects of patents, because free software cannot obtain a license from the patent-holder, even if the author wished to. Nearly every supporter of patents will assume that licensing patents is easy, cheap, and always on offer. These arguments do not apply whatever to free software, upon which much of European business depends.
Anyone who has the time to visit Luxembourg this thurday should do so, and I encourage anyone else to write to each of their MEPs by fax and by surface mail, informing these representatives of the economic damage they are being asked to perform by deceiptful organisations seeking to cripple European business.
Re:NEWSFLASH, NTFS is a journaling filesystem!
on
Looking at Longhorn
·
· Score: 1
Obligatory quote:
Isn't longhorn a large, dumb animal which consumes vast quantities of resources and turns most of them into shit?
"This is why I highly recommend NOT running the Java plugin -- it's crashy."
Now if only you could turn off Fireworks/Macromedia/Java/Flash support without a custom stylesheet, and more importantly, disable even attempting to look at the plugin, much less go searching for a player for it...
"I bought a Cannon inkjet recently precisely because they don't screw me for refills."
Um, hang on a sec. When the news broke of LexMark's criminally anticompetitive behaviour, people were on this very forum extolling the virtues of HP [laser printers] for being reliable and honest.
Yet now, it's HP in the news for vandalising their customers' property. And people are saying that buying Canon printers would have solved this problem; they're reliable and honest.
What next? In 3 months' time, Canon will have someone arrested as a terrorist for selling compatible refills, and people will be saying, why don't you choose $MANUFACTURER, who doesn't do that.
The solution here is not about naively trusting any company that hasn't screwed you yet. It's about holding people accountable for their products, and making sure that a company who uses DCMA as a weapon goes bankrupt right then and there, within the year. We simply can't afford a printer market where such actions are considered normal.
"Where can I get a CD that I put in my computer, click the appropriate "Yes/Ok" buttons a few times, and have Linux on my computer, with a web browser and a word processor, that all my hardware automatically works with, including my internet connection through my router to my cable modem, as well as my video and sound cards, that automagically downloads any updates I need, and works with anything I happen to plug into the USB port?"
So, it would seem that we need a peer-to-peer service that is built with the following attributes:
-completely anonymous users, file transfers, hosts, etc. -reliable and stable structure -decentralized topology -efficient data management -and complete deniability (I didn't host that file, or I didn't download that file, as member's cant control content on the network)
Anyone care to add to this list? I've only put the ones that immediately spring to mind, but I know there are more distributed anonymous deniable chaffed encrypted file-share programs that I've not tried.
"One of the things I love most about the Mac is its drag+drop installations."
Rox is the desktop for people who need drag+drop installations. It also uses mac-style drag+drop file saving and opening, and a host of other features that you may find useful.
You can try it out by installing the rox file manager on your current desktop, and running it as an application.
"It's illegal to listen in on cell phone conversations."
Serious answer: Where? Security through litigation is alive and well in your state!
Less-serious answer: I listen to other people's cell-phone conversations all the time on the train, on buses, in public places, and at work. If that's criminal, then I can send you to jail just by following you around where you can hear me, and yapping on my phone.
"All the law does is make it LEGAL to enter the house if you leave it open."
Uhh, why so many housebreaking analogies? Connecting to a network is nothing like using someone's property. As previous posters have mentioned, (a) the network specifically allowed you to connect when you asked for permission, and (b) radio devices must accept interference.
"I don't see a problem with this. AMD will only guarantee its equipment with parts they provide. Use your own parts, and you're responsible for damage. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me."
Sorry, I can't replace those shoes that've fallen to pieces after a week -- you were wearing a nike T-shirt, so it voided the warranty.
Slashdot Mirror
"Clearly they haven't read their software agreements. It specifically states that MS is not responsible for damage"
Clearly they have read consumer law, which says that the terms of a sale may not be altered after the sale, nor may a vendor sell something which does not perform as advertised (even if the reason for not performing as advertised is refusal to accept a suggested additional contract)
"Shut up and patch your systems like the rest of the planet."
Let me guess, you run beta-quality code on production systems too?
Just pointing out the humor of two (sorta) contridictory stories here on /.
250,000 people, two conflicting opinions. Damn that's illogical!
"What's the US Government going to do? Start an embargo? That'll look really good... What's the US Government going to do? Start an embargo? That'll look really good..."
Who could imagine the US government doing such a thing. Lucky they'd never consider embargo'ing a country to stop them getting medical supplies? Lucky they'd never consider causing the deaths of thousands with such an embargo. Right?
"And yet, you think I would want to put all my trust the sanity of other world leaders to not fire nuclear weapons at the U.S.?
There is nothing unsafe about a defensive nuclear missle. The key term here is "defence initiative"."
-1: clueless, reality-detached propoganda
Perhaps since these "defensive"* missiles are so safe we shouldn't have worried so much about the USSR developing them 40 years ago. But it seems that experts are unanimous in disagreeing with you, as any country with a missile-defence could attack any other country without fear of retaliation. Hence the ABM treaty, which specifically banned missile defenses.
* That's defence as in 'the ministry of defence', previously the ministry of war.
b.t.w. how did you get your current job in the US Military, Mr. Saeed al-Sahaf?
This is not exactly a public-domain patent in the sense that anyone here would recognise it. The patent is being applied for by a company, who state in the article that they intend to make money from it.
Will this be another repeat of the AIDS scandal? Patent-protected diseases against which no researcher is allowed to vaccinate?
IBM estimate that the value of being able to work without fear of patent claims is worth ten times as much to them as the value of the patents themselves.
The software industry in the U.S. was created without such burdens. Were software patentable 30 years ago, we would not have PCs built by competing suppliers, nor would we have a choice of PC operating systems other than that supplied by the hardware manufacturer.
Software patents are uniquely dangerous, as it is not the result of years of expensive research which is patented, rather it is a half-day's problem solving which grants a typical software patent, and thus prevents anyone else from solving the same problem by virtue of this "right of monopoly on an idea"
Patent offices cannot adequately review software patents, for the simple reason that much software literature is not published in journals. The source code to a 1970 operating system, for example, would not be considered suitable reading material for a patent examiner investigating a new patent in that area.
Currently, the patentability of software in the US has laid waste vast areas of research, in which companies dare not innovate for the fear of patent claims. It is not even theoretically possible to investigate all relevant patents before starting work, as patent applications are secret.
Free software is especially vulnerable to the destructive effects of patents, because free software cannot obtain a license from the patent-holder, even if the author wished to. Nearly every supporter of patents will assume that licensing patents is easy, cheap, and always on offer. These arguments do not apply whatever to free software, upon which much of European business depends.
Anyone who has the time to visit Luxembourg this thurday should do so, and I encourage anyone else to write to each of their MEPs by fax and by surface mail, informing these representatives of the economic damage they are being asked to perform by deceiptful organisations seeking to cripple European business.
Obligatory quote:
Isn't longhorn a large, dumb animal which consumes vast quantities of resources and turns most of them into shit?
"The headline is simply the author's interpretation of the State Department's report, not the wording of the US government."
Okay then, let's support this quote with another:
"If you're not violating someone's human rights, you're not doing your job"
-- from a U.S. soldier whose job it is to torture prisoners.
"This is why I highly recommend NOT running the Java plugin -- it's crashy."
Now if only you could turn off Fireworks/Macromedia/Java/Flash support without a custom stylesheet, and more importantly, disable even attempting to look at the plugin, much less go searching for a player for it...
"Or are we supposed to say guh-noo Linux?"
Well you could just call it GNU. After all, how many people actually care which kernel they're using?
Would anyone here even notice if someone replaced linux with solaris, and left all their GNU apps, KDE, etc. as before?
Yep. GNU/Linux/Windowmaker, visiting pages containing java, on a machine at best unfamiliar with the language.
If you wanted to put more load on the hardware, you could always have used:Nothing like listening to a monitor's circuits clicking away trying to keep up.
"Where do you put the warhead? Some of my Korean friends were asking."
Well, it starts atop your missile, and ends up about 100' above washington. Good luck to them, and don't forget to launch eastwards.
"just putting "about:" in the url bar already worked..."
Yep. This has been floating around bugtraq for weeks, so if you missed it:
<input type crash>
That, in any web-page, will cure you of your IE-using website visitors.
"I thought "computer clubs" were in vogue until about ten or fifteen years ago."
How about trying a model railway club?
(ref: here)
"I bought a Cannon inkjet recently precisely because they don't screw me for refills."
Um, hang on a sec. When the news broke of LexMark's criminally anticompetitive behaviour, people were on this very forum extolling the virtues of HP [laser printers] for being reliable and honest.
Yet now, it's HP in the news for vandalising their customers' property. And people are saying that buying Canon printers would have solved this problem; they're reliable and honest.
What next? In 3 months' time, Canon will have someone arrested as a terrorist for selling compatible refills, and people will be saying, why don't you choose $MANUFACTURER, who doesn't do that.
The solution here is not about naively trusting any company that hasn't screwed you yet. It's about holding people accountable for their products, and making sure that a company who uses DCMA as a weapon goes bankrupt right then and there, within the year. We simply can't afford a printer market where such actions are considered normal.
"Where can I get a CD that I put in my computer, click the appropriate "Yes/Ok" buttons a few times, and have Linux on my computer, with a web browser and a word processor, that all my hardware automatically works with, including my internet connection through my router to my cable modem, as well as my video and sound cards, that automagically downloads any updates I need, and works with anything I happen to plug into the USB port?"
Knoppix.
So, it would seem that we need a peer-to-peer service that is built with the following attributes:
-completely anonymous users, file transfers, hosts, etc.
-reliable and stable structure
-decentralized topology
-efficient data management
-and complete deniability (I didn't host that file, or I didn't download that file, as member's cant control content on the network)
We do. We have several.
- FreeNet, and similar projects (Publius, FreeHaven) for distributing anonymous files
- The Invisible IRC Project for anonymous, deniable instant messaging
- InvisiBlog for blogging
- MixMaster and Hushmail for email
- Anonymizer and Peek-a-booty for browsing
Anyone care to add to this list? I've only put the ones that immediately spring to mind, but I know there are more distributed anonymous deniable chaffed encrypted file-share programs that I've not tried.
"One of the things I love most about the Mac is its drag+drop installations."
Rox is the desktop for people who need drag+drop installations. It also uses mac-style drag+drop file saving and opening, and a host of other features that you may find useful.
You can try it out by installing the rox file manager on your current desktop, and running it as an application.
"It's illegal to listen in on cell phone conversations."
Serious answer: Where? Security through litigation is alive and well in your state!
Less-serious answer: I listen to other people's cell-phone conversations all the time on the train, on buses, in public places, and at work. If that's criminal, then I can send you to jail just by following you around where you can hear me, and yapping on my phone.
"All the law does is make it LEGAL to enter the house if you leave it open."
Uhh, why so many housebreaking analogies? Connecting to a network is nothing like using someone's property. As previous posters have mentioned, (a) the network specifically allowed you to connect when you asked for permission, and (b) radio devices must accept interference.
Nobody is going into anyone's house here.
"Really, these codecs are supposed to change the waveform and spectral content. They are lossy!"
So by RIAA accounting methods, they're worth 3% the cost of the uncompressed file?
"I don't see a problem with this. AMD will only guarantee its equipment with parts they provide. Use your own parts, and you're responsible for damage. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me."
Sorry, I can't replace those shoes that've fallen to pieces after a week -- you were wearing a nike T-shirt, so it voided the warranty.
"Free and open-souce software are threatened by the idea of forcing liabillity on software"
To which the American government's answer is "Free software will be liable, but commercial software won't. (SCSSA)"
Great idea guys. Whose idea was it to outsource law-writing to microsoft?