Rare of today isn't the Rare that created games for Nintendo. Most of the good people have left Rare to form a new company which continues to develop games for Nintendo.
All Microsoft got when they bought the company was a shell - they got the brand, but they did not get the brains, the talent. All the talent escaped to continue working for Nintendo.
"SCO has not been trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt to end users. We have been educating end users on the risks of running an operating system that is an unauthorized derivative of Unix."
Yeah. In other words, they have been spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt to end users. Isn't that what we've all been saying all along? Good thing SCO is finally admitting it, at least in the second sentence.
Let's see now... Red Hat does exactly what the FSF encourages people to do - profit from open-source software, proving that it is possible to be successful and make money by selling open-source solutions.
Red Hat defends its position by using its own money to sue a company which threatens Linux- threats without any hard evidence that their accusations are true. At the same time, Red Hat raises a fund to help other open-source projects in need of assistance should they be dragged to court.
Red Hat has made lots of money through other people's work, just like the FSF wants it to be, because it means that Red Hat also has to contribute back to the community, allowing others to make use of improvements by Red Hat to various open-source software packages!
Sounds like a win-win situation to me. Maybe not to ACs who are either Linux newbies who have completely misunderstood the "free" part (free as in freedom, not beer) and are trying to prove their "l33tness" by posting nonsense on Slashdot. Or ACs who are Microsoft shills or just plain trolls with nothing of value to contribute with.
Take your pick - you come across as a fool either way. No wonder you are posting as an AC. You dare not even stand behind your own opinion!
"Does that give us a reason to pirate their movies?"
As long as the MPAA finds it fit to work actively to limit our rights as consumers and customers, many will find it justifiable to try to force the MPAA members out of business by spreading their copyrighted material for free.
If the MPAA isn't prepared to take the heat for its actions, it shouldn't be trying to reduce people into brainless consumer droids in the first place.
Do two wrongs make one right? Some say no, some say yes. The thing is that you won't be able to stop "pirates" anyway, because they, or smaller groups of leaders, are determined in their cause. And as long as you start with the right vs. wrong line of arguments, others will be able to counter by simply saying that the MPAA's actions are immoral, borderline illegal, and that it is therefore every person's moral obligation to force them out of business or teach them a lesson.
Why have they registered an.org domain, when they are clearly only out to maximize profit? They aren't doing this to be nice or educate people. They are doing it to spread FUD and make more money.
"Nothing you say can change the fact that pirating movies is illegal and immoral"
Is it immoral to rip off an industry which is making its customers its enemies, rips them off, and basically spreads lies and accusations and are fighting to gain control over material we have already paid for? They are even saying that everyone is a criminal until proven innocent.
As long as the entertainment industry continues with its attempts to control the consumers (it is not "customer" anymore, it is consumer - we are nothing but a way for the entertainment industry to make more money, and constantly insult us), a lot of people will find it moral and justifiable to rip off the industry as much as possible, to cripple its attempts to gain more and more control of our lives.
Many will, in fact, say that the only moral thing to do is to fight for one's rights. If that means ripping off the entertainment industry and helping to distribute their products to get them out of business, then a lot of people will be perfectly happy about that.
The fall of the current entertainment industry can only lead to others taking over, and they will know that they shouldn't try to screw with the customer because it will backfire and they will crumble up and die, just like the monopolist entertainment industry of today.
You can hide behind laws and some perverted sense of moral obligation to support an industry which does everything in its power to corrupt our rights. But others will disagree, and they will laugh at your attempts to make them feel guilty for doing what they perceive to be the only right thing to do.
And no, to them, simply not viewing their movies or listening to their music is not enough. They will try to make sure everything is available for free so that people who would otherwise pay don't, because they can get it without paying instead.
Exactly. Life is hard. The same goes for anyone who creates something which is non-physical, such as ideas or music. You want to do something creative once, then live off it for the rest of your life? You want to cash in after ten years? No way, I wouldn't pay you a dime. If you want to make money, get a job you lazy bum.
The examples I responded to were about extending copyright beyond just a couple of years so that the person who created something can sit on his ass and cash in.
That's not the way it works in the real world. If I work my butt off at a factory for a year, I can't expect to get money from them when I quit.
If you create something and it flops, only to be successful years later - sure, it sucks, but life sucks. Get off your butt and get a job. If you make a fatal mistake in launching a product, you don't deserve to make money from it.
Why should an individual be able to cash in on a creation for their entire life? I won't be supported for the rest of my life by the company I work for at present. Why should someone be able to think up something and live off it for the rest of their life, while others have to work hard their entire life to make ends meet?
Just because you had a good idea doesn't mean that you should be able to live off it forever.
"Should the original artists, many of whom didn't make much money the first time around, be entitled to anything? Should the be paid?"
No. Why should they? They created this ages ago. If they want to make money from it today, they should get off their asses and produce something of value today. If someone else can use their old stuff to make money, why can't they do the same?
"In a different way, what if some guy writes a book that is just 20 years ahead of its time. Nobody can digest it or understand it. Then in a couple decades people reread it and see the brilliance of it, lucky for him, the copyright was only for a couple years so he makes jack shit. Is that right?"
Sure.
What about a company creating something which is ahead of everyone else, but no one knows about it, and so no one buys it and the company goes out of business. Suddenly, there is a huge demand for these things and other companies pop up to create what there is a demand for.
Should the public pay to resurrect this dead company which had a product which was simply offered at a bad time? No!
This is very simple: Life isn't fair. So you created something but didn't make money from it. Tough luck. Do something else then, or try to follow up on your previous attempt. The book author above must have a brilliant mind, and so should be able to follow up on it in some way.
So you did something brilliant ages ago and want to cash in today. Well, I guess it sucks to be you. If you want to make money, try not to whine about the past, but do something today instead.
Don't expect everyone else to drag your lazy ass out of the gutter if you are foolish enough to waste your time whining about how everyone is ripping you off, rather than spending your time creating something today which you can make a living of.
If your timing sucks, too bad. Horse shoe manufacturer upstarts when cars started taking over must have felt bad too. It's like that for everyone else, so put up or shut up. If you want to make a living, get a damn job!
Hear, hear! I don't even know what to say about people who don't want to read about something, but still post comments about it!
This is Slashdot. The editors will post whatever they feel like. You can even filter it out if you want to. There is no reason to whine about stories like this.
And a new release of Mandrake will indeed be interesting to a lot of people. It shows that troubled Mandrake is still up and running, working on future versions of their distribution.
Spam apologists and story whiners are two of the worst things about Slashdot. Quit promoting spam, and quit crying like a baby because someone posted a story you didn't like.
So you don't approve of a story posted on Slashdot? Tough luck. Maybe you should go and read some other site instead.
Anyway, commenting on stories you aren't interested in in the first place just goes to show that you need to get out more. Get off Slashdot and get a life.
Care to give some substance to your claims? Spyware? What do you mean?
I'll give SBC the benefit of the doubt and encourage everyone else to do the same. They're doing the right thing in this case, so if you have any accusations against them, you had better present some solid evidence as well, or at least not just groundless claims based on... well, I don't even know what you are basing your claims on.
If the plugin crashes, does the computer work as it should?
So the floor must have been rotten or something to begin with, right? Or let's say it is made of sand, so cleaning it doesn't work. It has always been of sand so it works as before, but you can't clean it. Yes, silly analogy, but it kind of works.
"If I buy a mop and the handle breaks on the first use, back it goes"
But in this case, the mop didn't really break did it? This would perhaps be more like using a mop on a floor and managing to poke the mop through the floor because your floor is so bad.
"Which brings us back to BuyMusic, who seemingly does not care if what you bought is functional or not."
Isn't it technically functional? You seem to be ignoring PEBKAC situations here. Anyone who works in support knows how badly people can mess up things for themselves, only to blame the people they purchased something from.
Without the full story, who knows?
There's one thing that puzzles me about her complaint. The support rep gets back to her and tells her to use WMP to burn. But on her site, she says that she was already using the WMP plugin? Using Windows Media Player to burn something is not the same as using a WMP plugin in another program to burn. Now, I don't know how this works, and maybe the only way to burn "with WMP" is through a plugin. If this is the case, then fine. If not, this person might wish to follow support's instructions before making a big deal out of it.
When this is said, I have no doubt that their support may suck. The support rep might not have a clue what is going it. It often is like that. You can only hope that you get through to one of the few people who actually have a clue when contacting support...
"Their so-called "expert" simply said I needed to use Windows Media Player, not Roxio, to burn the CD."
But before that:
"This plugin CRASHES consistently EVERY time I try to burn a CD. It is simply impossible to create a cd from my machine using that plugin. (Trying to use another plugin like Nero doesn't work. The license for the songs only works with that Roxio plugin)."
It seems to me that she didn't follow the "expert"'s advice to use Windows Media Player, but used some kind of plugin instead? Although she mentions burning with WMP, she doesn't actually say that she tried that, does she?
I'm just curious, because it would be a bummer if this turned out to be another one of those "contacted support, didn't follow their instructions, messed up because I didn't listen, created web page to bash company when I am really to blame" cases.
When it all comes down to it, the US depends on the rest of the world. Why do you think the Marshall Plan was used after WW2? Because the US depended on Europe for trade. No trade, no profit. Know what I mean? Without working with the rest of the world, the US could risk cutting off its own flow of money.
It is bad business to not have any customers, you know.
Funny, the US seems to want to be a member of the UN but won't pay the fees... And the US brags about its liberation of various countries. For a country which seems to be very concerned with its own image outwards, I sure must say you make stupid stands. But then again, I doubt you represent the majority. You aren't even man enough to log in to post your flamebait.
Anyway, who is to say that there is nothing to gain from upgrading the US networks? Let me put it this way: Would you rather upgrade now and help pull things with the rest of the world, or will you wait until you are in financial trouble and risk going bankrupt because upgrading your network is hideously expensive compared to what it is now?
Also, everything is run by the companies and their money within "your" system, you say. Strange. I thought this country was very proud of its democractic values. A company run by megacorporations is hardly a democracy.
"So are we supposed to fix all the problems of the world or not ? The world bitches and moans when we get involved, and then bitches and moans when we don't."
This is almost going off-topic, but it is still within the scope of the story:
How about the US tries to cooperate with the rest of the world, rather than doing everything its own way and ignoring everyone else? Do you think the rest of the world would have complained if the UN had backed the US entry into Iraq?
The problem isn't that the US helps. The problem isn't that everyone else wants the US to fix all the problems of the world. The problem is when the US helps itself and runs over other countries, and then when the rest of the world really needs the US to cooperate, it might refuse. The US cannot fix all the problems in the world alone, and it is not in its interest to do so either. But it might be a good idea to cooperate with the rest of the world, to the benefit of everyone.
In this case, the rest of the world wants the US to contribute to getting IPv6 in proper use. The US is very important here, so naturally the rest of the world wants the US to contribute. But it doesn't directly benefit US companies, so who cares, right?
"This is why I get sick of hearing the hyprocrites on/. who keep slavering for IBM to bludgeon SCO with its patent portfolio."
You have missed two very important points:
Everyone on Slashdot is an individual. The guy who wants IBM to use their patents against SCO is probably not the guy who thinks differently in this case. And if he is, that doesn't mean that everyone else on Slashdot are hypocrites.
More importantly, IBM won't be using their patent portfolio to crush the competition or milk anyone for money. They will be using it specifically to defend themselves against a ridiculous opponent which seems to know no rules of good conduct.
In the case against Microsoft here, software patents may be bad, but if IBM can use them to defend themselves against a rabid opponent threatening to destroy an important part of open-source, that is a good thing. Go ahead IBM, use your patents, since you are just using them to defend yourself.
The murderer who is executed most likely killed another person in a fit of rage, because he was drunk or whatever.
But when the state executes someone, it is done on purpose, calculated, letting the person know his time of death, living in hell for a long time before the state coldly murders him.
And if it turned out that he was innocent, the state has murdered an innocent person. And the state didn't do so because it was drunk or confused or angry. It did so completely sober, with a clear mind, and with an intent to kill another human being.
"In my area, a son stabbed his father to death over an argument. There were two witnesses, neighbor testimonials, and he had the knife in his hand over the body when the police arrived. I'm talking about cases like that."
He didn't know what he was doing when he killed his father. He was angry. His mind was clouded. I am not saying that he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions, but he was definitely not aware of what he was doing.
But when executed, the state is perfectly well aware of what it is doing. It is doing it on purpose, not because it is blinded by rage, but because it has considered it, pros, cons, evidence for, evidence against, and then made a conscious decision to murder another human being.
So the point, I guess, is: Who will be punished for an innocent man's death? After all, this person was innocently murdered by the state.
Excellent points. I don't know why you posted this as an AC, because it definitely needs to be read by people who read the parent post.
If someone is accused of downloading kiddie porn, then there should be solid evidence of this before any action is taken. How many people have had their lives ruined because of false charges? I can think of quite a few cases raised in the media, as well as others that didn't get the chance to clear themselves in public.
It is disturbing to see that people almost defend certain criminal acts "because they don't have any real victims", while at the same time almost calling for a witch hunt against certain other groups of criminals - or even suspected criminals.
I agree completely with your comments, AC, and only wish you were logged in and had a karma bonus so more people would read it:)
Kiddie porn might be bad, but people who are willing to throw away people's rights just because they are accused of a serious crime are dangerous to us all.
Re:Terminator is trying to
on
Saving the Net
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· Score: 1
Hmm, it was my understanding that you have to have been a citizen of the US for at least 14 years, but I don't think you have to be born there.
Slashdot Mirror
All Microsoft got when they bought the company was a shell - they got the brand, but they did not get the brains, the talent. All the talent escaped to continue working for Nintendo.
Red Hat defends its position by using its own money to sue a company which threatens Linux- threats without any hard evidence that their accusations are true. At the same time, Red Hat raises a fund to help other open-source projects in need of assistance should they be dragged to court.
Red Hat has made lots of money through other people's work, just like the FSF wants it to be, because it means that Red Hat also has to contribute back to the community, allowing others to make use of improvements by Red Hat to various open-source software packages!
Sounds like a win-win situation to me. Maybe not to ACs who are either Linux newbies who have completely misunderstood the "free" part (free as in freedom, not beer) and are trying to prove their "l33tness" by posting nonsense on Slashdot. Or ACs who are Microsoft shills or just plain trolls with nothing of value to contribute with.
Take your pick - you come across as a fool either way. No wonder you are posting as an AC. You dare not even stand behind your own opinion!
If the MPAA isn't prepared to take the heat for its actions, it shouldn't be trying to reduce people into brainless consumer droids in the first place.
Do two wrongs make one right? Some say no, some say yes. The thing is that you won't be able to stop "pirates" anyway, because they, or smaller groups of leaders, are determined in their cause. And as long as you start with the right vs. wrong line of arguments, others will be able to counter by simply saying that the MPAA's actions are immoral, borderline illegal, and that it is therefore every person's moral obligation to force them out of business or teach them a lesson.
Why have they registered an .org domain, when they are clearly only out to maximize profit? They aren't doing this to be nice or educate people. They are doing it to spread FUD and make more money.
As long as the entertainment industry continues with its attempts to control the consumers (it is not "customer" anymore, it is consumer - we are nothing but a way for the entertainment industry to make more money, and constantly insult us), a lot of people will find it moral and justifiable to rip off the industry as much as possible, to cripple its attempts to gain more and more control of our lives.
Many will, in fact, say that the only moral thing to do is to fight for one's rights. If that means ripping off the entertainment industry and helping to distribute their products to get them out of business, then a lot of people will be perfectly happy about that.
The fall of the current entertainment industry can only lead to others taking over, and they will know that they shouldn't try to screw with the customer because it will backfire and they will crumble up and die, just like the monopolist entertainment industry of today.
You can hide behind laws and some perverted sense of moral obligation to support an industry which does everything in its power to corrupt our rights. But others will disagree, and they will laugh at your attempts to make them feel guilty for doing what they perceive to be the only right thing to do.
And no, to them, simply not viewing their movies or listening to their music is not enough. They will try to make sure everything is available for free so that people who would otherwise pay don't, because they can get it without paying instead.
That's not the way it works in the real world. If I work my butt off at a factory for a year, I can't expect to get money from them when I quit.
If you create something and it flops, only to be successful years later - sure, it sucks, but life sucks. Get off your butt and get a job. If you make a fatal mistake in launching a product, you don't deserve to make money from it.
Why should an individual be able to cash in on a creation for their entire life? I won't be supported for the rest of my life by the company I work for at present. Why should someone be able to think up something and live off it for the rest of their life, while others have to work hard their entire life to make ends meet?
Just because you had a good idea doesn't mean that you should be able to live off it forever.
What about a company creating something which is ahead of everyone else, but no one knows about it, and so no one buys it and the company goes out of business. Suddenly, there is a huge demand for these things and other companies pop up to create what there is a demand for.
Should the public pay to resurrect this dead company which had a product which was simply offered at a bad time? No!
This is very simple: Life isn't fair. So you created something but didn't make money from it. Tough luck. Do something else then, or try to follow up on your previous attempt. The book author above must have a brilliant mind, and so should be able to follow up on it in some way.
So you did something brilliant ages ago and want to cash in today. Well, I guess it sucks to be you. If you want to make money, try not to whine about the past, but do something today instead.
Don't expect everyone else to drag your lazy ass out of the gutter if you are foolish enough to waste your time whining about how everyone is ripping you off, rather than spending your time creating something today which you can make a living of.
If your timing sucks, too bad. Horse shoe manufacturer upstarts when cars started taking over must have felt bad too. It's like that for everyone else, so put up or shut up. If you want to make a living, get a damn job!
This is Slashdot. The editors will post whatever they feel like. You can even filter it out if you want to. There is no reason to whine about stories like this.
And a new release of Mandrake will indeed be interesting to a lot of people. It shows that troubled Mandrake is still up and running, working on future versions of their distribution.
Spam apologists and story whiners are two of the worst things about Slashdot. Quit promoting spam, and quit crying like a baby because someone posted a story you didn't like.
So you don't approve of a story posted on Slashdot? Tough luck. Maybe you should go and read some other site instead.
Anyway, commenting on stories you aren't interested in in the first place just goes to show that you need to get out more. Get off Slashdot and get a life.
HTH. HAND.
I'll give SBC the benefit of the doubt and encourage everyone else to do the same. They're doing the right thing in this case, so if you have any accusations against them, you had better present some solid evidence as well, or at least not just groundless claims based on... well, I don't even know what you are basing your claims on.
Someone in the Slyck forum converted it to plain text. But it opens fine in OpenOffice.org.
So the floor must have been rotten or something to begin with, right? Or let's say it is made of sand, so cleaning it doesn't work. It has always been of sand so it works as before, but you can't clean it. Yes, silly analogy, but it kind of works.
Without the full story, who knows?
There's one thing that puzzles me about her complaint. The support rep gets back to her and tells her to use WMP to burn. But on her site, she says that she was already using the WMP plugin? Using Windows Media Player to burn something is not the same as using a WMP plugin in another program to burn. Now, I don't know how this works, and maybe the only way to burn "with WMP" is through a plugin. If this is the case, then fine. If not, this person might wish to follow support's instructions before making a big deal out of it.
When this is said, I have no doubt that their support may suck. The support rep might not have a clue what is going it. It often is like that. You can only hope that you get through to one of the few people who actually have a clue when contacting support...
I'm just curious, because it would be a bummer if this turned out to be another one of those "contacted support, didn't follow their instructions, messed up because I didn't listen, created web page to bash company when I am really to blame" cases.
It is bad business to not have any customers, you know.
Anyway, who is to say that there is nothing to gain from upgrading the US networks? Let me put it this way: Would you rather upgrade now and help pull things with the rest of the world, or will you wait until you are in financial trouble and risk going bankrupt because upgrading your network is hideously expensive compared to what it is now?
Also, everything is run by the companies and their money within "your" system, you say. Strange. I thought this country was very proud of its democractic values. A company run by megacorporations is hardly a democracy.
How about the US tries to cooperate with the rest of the world, rather than doing everything its own way and ignoring everyone else? Do you think the rest of the world would have complained if the UN had backed the US entry into Iraq?
The problem isn't that the US helps. The problem isn't that everyone else wants the US to fix all the problems of the world. The problem is when the US helps itself and runs over other countries, and then when the rest of the world really needs the US to cooperate, it might refuse. The US cannot fix all the problems in the world alone, and it is not in its interest to do so either. But it might be a good idea to cooperate with the rest of the world, to the benefit of everyone.
In this case, the rest of the world wants the US to contribute to getting IPv6 in proper use. The US is very important here, so naturally the rest of the world wants the US to contribute. But it doesn't directly benefit US companies, so who cares, right?
- Everyone on Slashdot is an individual. The guy who wants IBM to use their patents against SCO is probably not the guy who thinks differently in this case. And if he is, that doesn't mean that everyone else on Slashdot are hypocrites.
- More importantly, IBM won't be using their patent portfolio to crush the competition or milk anyone for money. They will be using it specifically to defend themselves against a ridiculous opponent which seems to know no rules of good conduct.
In the case against Microsoft here, software patents may be bad, but if IBM can use them to defend themselves against a rabid opponent threatening to destroy an important part of open-source, that is a good thing. Go ahead IBM, use your patents, since you are just using them to defend yourself.And it should be supported, because it isn't listed as an exception here:
http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/#html
The murderer who is executed most likely killed another person in a fit of rage, because he was drunk or whatever.
But when the state executes someone, it is done on purpose, calculated, letting the person know his time of death, living in hell for a long time before the state coldly murders him.
And if it turned out that he was innocent, the state has murdered an innocent person. And the state didn't do so because it was drunk or confused or angry. It did so completely sober, with a clear mind, and with an intent to kill another human being.
He didn't know what he was doing when he killed his father. He was angry. His mind was clouded. I am not saying that he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions, but he was definitely not aware of what he was doing.But when executed, the state is perfectly well aware of what it is doing. It is doing it on purpose, not because it is blinded by rage, but because it has considered it, pros, cons, evidence for, evidence against, and then made a conscious decision to murder another human being.
So the point, I guess, is: Who will be punished for an innocent man's death? After all, this person was innocently murdered by the state.
If someone is accused of downloading kiddie porn, then there should be solid evidence of this before any action is taken. How many people have had their lives ruined because of false charges? I can think of quite a few cases raised in the media, as well as others that didn't get the chance to clear themselves in public.
It is disturbing to see that people almost defend certain criminal acts "because they don't have any real victims", while at the same time almost calling for a witch hunt against certain other groups of criminals - or even suspected criminals.
I agree completely with your comments, AC, and only wish you were logged in and had a karma bonus so more people would read it :)
Kiddie porn might be bad, but people who are willing to throw away people's rights just because they are accused of a serious crime are dangerous to us all.
Hmm, it was my understanding that you have to have been a citizen of the US for at least 14 years, but I don't think you have to be born there.
How is Opera's JavaScript support "astoundingly bass-ackward"?