We're gonna concentrate on making the best possible desktop for users. Let Gnome have their corporate backing. Look what happened to CDE. We don't need no corporatations giving ---
-- Oops! I take it back. Corporations are cool!
--------------------
satire from arenn who proudly works in a large company
I've heard rumors that the PS2 is not just a DVD player, but a progressive scan DVD player. If that is the case, then this definitely might be worth the pickup if you've got a TV that supports 480p signals. Progressive scan players are very expensive right now.
Speaking of progressive scan, I've got a sony KV-36XBR400 that supports 480p. However, it is internally line doubled and DVD's just look incredibly awesome already on the set. When the line doubler is set to progressive output, this looks exactly like watching a film. (The set pretty much sucks at displaying teevee though). Has anyone done a comparison of the Sony line doubler with an interlaced DVD feed versus a direct progressive feed and noticed any difference?
Nobody forces you to use AOL. There are tons of ISP's out there. You can download IE for free. In fact, it comes default on almost every computer shipped. Netscape/Mozilla are also easily downloadable. I've never used AOL as my ISP and I don't feel limited in any way because I don't have access to their proprietary services. I just don't see them as a "gatekeeper".
As for the cable networks, DSL is a competitor. Fixed wireless is a competitor. Heck, someday freespace lasers might be a competitor. I'm not horribly concerned about open access, particularly where a cable company is facing a multi-billion dollar price tag for upgrades that they are 100% taking the risk on. If cable modems don't take off or are obsoleted, the cable company could be left with billions in stranded capital. I'm sure that TW would be happy to give access to any ISP that is willing to share the cost and risk of building out the network. And AOL has said that they will follow an open access policy.
... Andover.Net received permission to acquire open source oriented slashdot.org for an undisclosed sum in stock and cash despite Andover.Net's already substantial web site holdings. No FTC concessions required.
... VA Linux received permission to acquire the combined Andover.Net/slashdot conglomerate, adding these web sites to its linux.com and sourceforge holdings to create the dominant open source web company. Note that all these companies are for-profit, investor owned entities. No FTC investigation or concessions required.
... Red Hat acquires Cygnus Solutions, creating the dominant open source software company and establishing ownership over the development team for the critical GCC development toolchain. No investigation or concessions required.
I think it's odd that we see all these open-sourcers jumping all over corporate mergers when their own small section of the software world is dominated by a handful of players, especially Red Hat and VA. Best to first take the log out of your own eyes, boys.
City leaders need to consider the implications of their actions. Indianapolis is trying to attract high tech jobs into its predominantly low tech economy. Increasing the number of high tech companies is probably the #1 economic development priority. Then the city goes and does something like this, which simply turns off the majority of people who would work in the tech field. It feeds the image of Indiana as a repressive Bible Belt state that free thinkers ought to leave ASAP. They'll suffer for this more than they know.
If you look at codefreedvd.com they already claim to have addressed this. You can actually set the player to emulate any specific region that that you want, so that these types of "protection" schemes will fail.
It is interesting to see that discs can apparently interrogate the player. I don't know the details, but it looks like discs do have at least some software like functions on them.
As others have commented, if these people are smart enough to be computer professionals, they are obviously smart enough to know that they are in the country on a temporary visa. Complaints about families or conditions back home are sad in one way, but in another make me mad. It is clear that a lot of these people are just trying to re-write the deal they signed up for. It kind of makes me wonder if they didn't have this planned all along.
Another angle on this is that these visas drain the best and brightest talent from other countries. Places like India desperately need to find a way to raise standards of living at home, and exporting their smart people to the US isn't the best way to accomplish that. Why should we promote a policy of actively brain draining developing nations?
Well, I've just started collecting anime on DVD, and my guess is that it will completely destroy the laser disc and VHS markets within a year. Animeigo has already announced that they're going 100% DVD and I'm guessing others will follow suit. Anime fans tend to be a bit geeky and so have the latest toys like DVD players. Also, there is a huge advantage in including dubbed and subtitled versions on the same DVD. No more mulitple versions. You can even watch the Japanese unsubtitled if you want! (on most discs). Adding other subtitle tracks like French is very easy as well, increasing the market. Plus there's the fact that anime DVD's look awesome on my new XBR400. I doubt I will ever buy another VHS tape of anything. I don't even have my VCR hooked up to the TV anymore.
A few minor deals of little consequence. In the US, WCOM and FON were two of the three major LD carriers, so there were major concerns for US regulators. Of bigger note is the mergers that the EU did NOT block or impede, such as Vodafone/Mannesman and the Elf Aquitaine deal that consolidated oil companies in France. Shit, every newspaper in Europe was talking about how the French wanted a domestic oil champion, so it's not like I'm the only one saying this.
The EU has a perfect case before them now that we can contrast with AOL/TWX. That is the proposed deal between Seagream, Vivendi and Canal Plus that is aimed at creating the AOL Time Warner of Europe. Let's see what happens between the two deals. Vivendi and Canal Plus are both far bigger in Europe than AOL or Time Warner.
Let's get one thing straight: the European "anti-trust" process has very little to do with preventing large concentrations of corporate power and very much to do with hobbling US companies while encouraging the creation of European "national champions". Virtually every proposed merger between US companies is given the third degree where ridiculous concessions are typically extracted. European mergers (or those where the acquiring company is European) sail right through. Contrast the treatment given to AOL/TWX and WCOM/FON with the treatment given to the Vodafone/Mannesman merger that created Europe's dominate wireless carrier. That merger didn't even have to go through the stage two expanded inquiry process. It was approved on the fast track. Obviously there is a double standard at work here. I can only think of one European merger blocked by the EU, and that was in the heavy truck industry where there are basically no US competitors.
European nations are essentially "corporatist" in that very large corporations are part of the quasi-offical power structure. Often these are formerly nationalized businesses that are run by former bureaucrats from the right schools such as ENA or whatever. These businesses, the gov't, and the unions are all mutual back scratchers that want to keep outsiders (particularly US and Japanese) at bay so they can continue their cronyistic traditions without worrying about efficient competition. The idea that people in this environment are interested in limiting the market power of corporations is laughable. It is only US corporations that aren't part of the traditional power structures that need to be stopped.
I think there are just as many posts that seem to glory in the idea that English would be displaced. Obviously there is a lot of anti-American sentiment out there.
First, English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language. Though the fact that so much of its vocabulary is of French origin helps it to straddle the boundary between the two (very helpful in its spread).
You've basically articulated something I've long thought about languages: they are basically GPL'd. English uses this to its advantage to absorb useful words and phrases from other languages. If someone else thinks up a good word, we're not too proud to use it. It is a dynamic, growing language. Contrast this with French, where the gov't of France attempts to stagnate the language.
India is probably the most culturally diverse country on earth, with thousands of languages spoken. True cultural imperialism would be ramming Hindi down everyone's throat in India. Because English is not associated with any particular cultural group, it makes an excellent neutral language choice.
There are something like 5000 languages spoken in India alone. The country has so many different cultures - many of which hate each other - that its doubtful that Hindi will even completely take over there, much less on the Internet. Again, English is a good culturually neutral choice of language.
Unlikely. First the obvious: Mandarin is extremely difficult to learn and has a problematic ideographic writing system. But also you have to understand that all these Asian cultures basically hate each other. I can't see, for example, Japan or Korea suddenly deciding to adopt Mandarin some day. English is an excellent choice as an international language in Asia simply because it is culturally neutral.
... it almost seems to me that article was more about how wonderful Gnome is than how to improve Unix. In my experience, Gnome creates at least one new problem for every one that it solves. It is bloated beyond belief. My new computer is a 2x600Mhz that runs X at the exact same slow speed as my old 1x300Mhz thanks to the fact that it came pre-installed with Gnome.
Additionally, all of these wonderful libraries create dependency problems that make it virtually impossible to upgrade your system or install any new apps. Every time I've tried to sample a new or upgraded Gnome app, it tells me I've got to download a new library. But since all the libraries depend on each other you end up having to download at least half a dozen huge files. It is ridiculous that even the simplest of apps depends on so much megabloat code.
And the only way any of this stuff will define "policy" or encourage reuse is if Gnome is the 100% development standard, something I think is unrealistic.
Remember HDTV? The US was supposedly so far behind in HDTV. The Japanese already adopted a standard, blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out that the Japanese adopted a crappy analog standard and the US digital HDTV standard is probably going to win out in the marketplace after all.
As for cellular, in Finland everybody has a cellphone, and this is somehow bad for this US? Who wants to access the Internet through a stupid cell phone with a numeric keypad? WAP sucks and everybody in the know, knows it. Americans will adopt wireless Internet technology in droves when it actually has something to offer them. Don't be surprised to see it turn out just like HDTV. We'll see what the third generation wireless stuff has to offer and go from there. I for one don't think we should push wireless just because some jealous Europundit told us to.
Competing wireless standards? Sure, we got 'em. That's called the marketplace. And BTW every cell phone in the US falls back on a common analog standard to allow universal roaming if need be.
Right now it is less expensive to use gasoline than fuel cells. However, the automakers are all working on bringing the cost of fuel cells down and I'd guess in 10-15 years that we'll be using them. Maybe sooner but let's not go crazy. At that point we'll have pollution free cars and the enviros will have to find another reason to try to stop us from using them.:-) I have no doubt that they will.
Despite the recent price shock due to the action of the OPEC producer cartel, oil prices have been on a steady decline in real terms for some time. There is no danger of running out of oil. Proven reserves will last decades, there's tons more to be discovered, and by the time we run low, oil will basically be superseded by other technologies.
I see as major uses of oil:
-- Gasoline -- Diesel fuel -- Jet fuel -- Home heating oil -- Solvents and lubricants -- Plastics
With limited exceptions there are substitutes for all of these that will be commercially viable and cost effective within the next 25 years.
-- Gasoline replaced by fuel cells -- Home heating oil replaced by electricity from coal or nuclear -- Solvents, lubricants, and plastics from synthetics or alternative renewable sources such as soyabean oil.
Even diesel (for trucks and heavy equipment) might be replaced by fuel cells in some applications. Ballard Power Systems and the Chicago Transit Authority ran some experiments with fuel cell buses. The cost is $9 million per, so obviously we're a ways off from mass acceptance.
This has already been covered in the Blade Runner FAQ, which basically already quoted Ridley Scott as saying Deckard was a replicant.
I personally think most of the so-called "evidence" that Deckard was a replicant consists of holes in the plot, of which there are very many in the film.
I bought the first not knowing it was for a role playing game tie in. I thought it was decent, light, escapist SF. Nobody will mistake this for literature, but when you're in the mood for some candy....
It is no surprise to me to see Calera and Apache in there. Both of them are very friendly to proprietary software (Caldera even sells it directly) and have no commercial conflicts with Sun. I notice you don't see Transvirtual, Red Hat, or the Free Software Foundation in there anywhere. It looks to me like Sun has surrounded itself with people it knows will be friendly to its positions.
Whether or not assignment is required depends on the project. For most officially FSF sponsored projects such as Emacs, gcc, etc, the copyright is held by the FSF and each contributor is required to assign their copyright to the FSF. Additionally, contributors may be required to receive a copyright disclaimer from their employer if they work in the software field and have an employment agreement that specifies everything they do is owned by the employer.
The rationale seems to be two fold:
1. Following these rigid procedures ensures that there is "clear title" to the code, and that it is properly licensed under the GPL. Who knows what hidden licensing bombs might lurk in the Linux kernel code.
2. If the FSF owns the code, they will have standing in court to pursue violators of the GPL. If the code infringed were owned by someone else, the FSF might not be able to go after the bad guys.
I've always been very down on copyright assignment because I think it is antithetical to the GNU believe that "software should not have owners". It seems highly ironic to me that the FSF is very demanding that they do in fact own the code.
OTOH, recently I've come across two practical cases where assignment has helped:
1. The case of someone trying to rescind the GPL as we have all read about here. The retroactive element is an interesting one, but not really that important. With FSF copyright we know that all future releases will be free software.
2. It simplifies relicensing. One of my projects recently merged with another one and the FSF agreed to switch licensing terms from the LGPL to the libstdc++ license (GPL + exceptions). This would have been very difficult to do with individual copyrights held by contributors.
Slashdot Mirror
We're gonna concentrate on making the best possible desktop for users. Let Gnome have their corporate backing. Look what happened to CDE. We don't need no corporatations giving ---
-- Oops! I take it back. Corporations are cool!
--------------------
satire from arenn who proudly works in a large company
I've heard rumors that the PS2 is not just a DVD player, but a progressive scan DVD player. If that is the case, then this definitely might be worth the pickup if you've got a TV that supports 480p signals. Progressive scan players are very expensive right now.
Speaking of progressive scan, I've got a sony KV-36XBR400 that supports 480p. However, it is internally line doubled and DVD's just look incredibly awesome already on the set. When the line doubler is set to progressive output, this looks exactly like watching a film. (The set pretty much sucks at displaying teevee though). Has anyone done a comparison of the Sony line doubler with an interlaced DVD feed versus a direct progressive feed and noticed any difference?
Nobody forces you to use AOL. There are tons of ISP's out there. You can download IE for free. In fact, it comes default on almost every computer shipped. Netscape/Mozilla are also easily downloadable. I've never used AOL as my ISP and I don't feel limited in any way because I don't have access to their proprietary services. I just don't see them as a "gatekeeper".
As for the cable networks, DSL is a competitor. Fixed wireless is a competitor. Heck, someday freespace lasers might be a competitor. I'm not horribly concerned about open access, particularly where a cable company is facing a multi-billion dollar price tag for upgrades that they are 100% taking the risk on. If cable modems don't take off or are obsoleted, the cable company could be left with billions in stranded capital. I'm sure that TW would be happy to give access to any ISP that is willing to share the cost and risk of building out the network. And AOL has said that they will follow an open access policy.
... Andover.Net received permission to acquire open source oriented slashdot.org for an undisclosed sum in stock and cash despite Andover.Net's already substantial web site holdings. No FTC concessions required.
... VA Linux received permission to acquire the combined Andover.Net/slashdot conglomerate, adding these web sites to its linux.com and sourceforge holdings to create the dominant open source web company. Note that all these companies are for-profit, investor owned entities. No FTC investigation or concessions required.
... Red Hat acquires Cygnus Solutions, creating the dominant open source software company and establishing ownership over the development team for the critical GCC development toolchain. No investigation or concessions required.
I think it's odd that we see all these open-sourcers jumping all over corporate mergers when their own small section of the software world is dominated by a handful of players, especially Red Hat and VA. Best to first take the log out of your own eyes, boys.
City leaders need to consider the implications of their actions. Indianapolis is trying to attract high tech jobs into its predominantly low tech economy. Increasing the number of high tech companies is probably the #1 economic development priority. Then the city goes and does something like this, which simply turns off the majority of people who would work in the tech field. It feeds the image of Indiana as a repressive Bible Belt state that free thinkers ought to leave ASAP. They'll suffer for this more than they know.
If you look at codefreedvd.com they already claim to have addressed this. You can actually set the player to emulate any specific region that that you want, so that these types of "protection" schemes will fail. It is interesting to see that discs can apparently interrogate the player. I don't know the details, but it looks like discs do have at least some software like functions on them.
As others have commented, if these people are smart enough to be computer professionals, they are obviously smart enough to know that they are in the country on a temporary visa. Complaints about families or conditions back home are sad in one way, but in another make me mad. It is clear that a lot of these people are just trying to re-write the deal they signed up for. It kind of makes me wonder if they didn't have this planned all along.
Another angle on this is that these visas drain the best and brightest talent from other countries. Places like India desperately need to find a way to raise standards of living at home, and exporting their smart people to the US isn't the best way to accomplish that. Why should we promote a policy of actively brain draining developing nations?
Well, I've just started collecting anime on DVD, and my guess is that it will completely destroy the laser disc and VHS markets within a year. Animeigo has already announced that they're going 100% DVD and I'm guessing others will follow suit. Anime fans tend to be a bit geeky and so have the latest toys like DVD players. Also, there is a huge advantage in including dubbed and subtitled versions on the same DVD. No more mulitple versions. You can even watch the Japanese unsubtitled if you want! (on most discs). Adding other subtitle tracks like French is very easy as well, increasing the market. Plus there's the fact that anime DVD's look awesome on my new XBR400. I doubt I will ever buy another VHS tape of anything. I don't even have my VCR hooked up to the TV anymore.
The Brits are in the EU. I presume you are referring to the euro.
A few minor deals of little consequence. In the US, WCOM and FON were two of the three major LD carriers, so there were major concerns for US regulators. Of bigger note is the mergers that the EU did NOT block or impede, such as Vodafone/Mannesman and the Elf Aquitaine deal that consolidated oil companies in France. Shit, every newspaper in Europe was talking about how the French wanted a domestic oil champion, so it's not like I'm the only one saying this.
The EU has a perfect case before them now that we can contrast with AOL/TWX. That is the proposed deal between Seagream, Vivendi and Canal Plus that is aimed at creating the AOL Time Warner of Europe. Let's see what happens between the two deals. Vivendi and Canal Plus are both far bigger in Europe than AOL or Time Warner.
Let's get one thing straight: the European "anti-trust" process has very little to do with preventing large concentrations of corporate power and very much to do with hobbling US companies while encouraging the creation of European "national champions". Virtually every proposed merger between US companies is given the third degree where ridiculous concessions are typically extracted. European mergers (or those where the acquiring company is European) sail right through. Contrast the treatment given to AOL/TWX and WCOM/FON with the treatment given to the Vodafone/Mannesman merger that created Europe's dominate wireless carrier. That merger didn't even have to go through the stage two expanded inquiry process. It was approved on the fast track. Obviously there is a double standard at work here. I can only think of one European merger blocked by the EU, and that was in the heavy truck industry where there are basically no US competitors.
European nations are essentially "corporatist" in that very large corporations are part of the quasi-offical power structure. Often these are formerly nationalized businesses that are run by former bureaucrats from the right schools such as ENA or whatever. These businesses, the gov't, and the unions are all mutual back scratchers that want to keep outsiders (particularly US and Japanese) at bay so they can continue their cronyistic traditions without worrying about efficient competition. The idea that people in this environment are interested in limiting the market power of corporations is laughable. It is only US corporations that aren't part of the traditional power structures that need to be stopped.
I think there are just as many posts that seem to glory in the idea that English would be displaced. Obviously there is a lot of anti-American sentiment out there.
We like our language to be dynamic and growing. French is stagnating that that's one reason its being gradually displaced by English around the world.
First, English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language. Though the fact that so much of its vocabulary is of French origin helps it to straddle the boundary between the two (very helpful in its spread).
You've basically articulated something I've long thought about languages: they are basically GPL'd. English uses this to its advantage to absorb useful words and phrases from other languages. If someone else thinks up a good word, we're not too proud to use it. It is a dynamic, growing language. Contrast this with French, where the gov't of France attempts to stagnate the language.
India is probably the most culturally diverse country on earth, with thousands of languages spoken. True cultural imperialism would be ramming Hindi down everyone's throat in India. Because English is not associated with any particular cultural group, it makes an excellent neutral language choice.
There are something like 5000 languages spoken in India alone. The country has so many different cultures - many of which hate each other - that its doubtful that Hindi will even completely take over there, much less on the Internet. Again, English is a good culturually neutral choice of language.
Unlikely. First the obvious: Mandarin is extremely difficult to learn and has a problematic ideographic writing system. But also you have to understand that all these Asian cultures basically hate each other. I can't see, for example, Japan or Korea suddenly deciding to adopt Mandarin some day. English is an excellent choice as an international language in Asia simply because it is culturally neutral.
An interesting appeal to authority claim. Many of those Nobel prize winners have nothing whatsoever to do with climate or weather studies.
But if it is petitions you want, check out the Oregon Petition which has over 15,000 signatories denouncing the Kyoto Treaty on global warming.
I'll probably get downgraded to flamebait, but...
... it almost seems to me that article was more about how wonderful Gnome is than how to improve Unix. In my experience, Gnome creates at least one new problem for every one that it solves. It is bloated beyond belief. My new computer is a 2x600Mhz that runs X at the exact same slow speed as my old 1x300Mhz thanks to the fact that it came pre-installed with Gnome.
Additionally, all of these wonderful libraries create dependency problems that make it virtually impossible to upgrade your system or install any new apps. Every time I've tried to sample a new or upgraded Gnome app, it tells me I've got to download a new library. But since all the libraries depend on each other you end up having to download at least half a dozen huge files. It is ridiculous that even the simplest of apps depends on so much megabloat code.
And the only way any of this stuff will define "policy" or encourage reuse is if Gnome is the 100% development standard, something I think is unrealistic.
Remember HDTV? The US was supposedly so far behind in HDTV. The Japanese already adopted a standard, blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out that the Japanese adopted a crappy analog standard and the US digital HDTV standard is probably going to win out in the marketplace after all.
As for cellular, in Finland everybody has a cellphone, and this is somehow bad for this US? Who wants to access the Internet through a stupid cell phone with a numeric keypad? WAP sucks and everybody in the know, knows it. Americans will adopt wireless Internet technology in droves when it actually has something to offer them. Don't be surprised to see it turn out just like HDTV. We'll see what the third generation wireless stuff has to offer and go from there. I for one don't think we should push wireless just because some jealous Europundit told us to.
Competing wireless standards? Sure, we got 'em. That's called the marketplace. And BTW every cell phone in the US falls back on a common analog standard to allow universal roaming if need be.
Right now it is less expensive to use gasoline than fuel cells. However, the automakers are all working on bringing the cost of fuel cells down and I'd guess in 10-15 years that we'll be using them. Maybe sooner but let's not go crazy. At that point we'll have pollution free cars and the enviros will have to find another reason to try to stop us from using them. :-) I have no doubt that they will.
Despite the recent price shock due to the action of the OPEC producer cartel, oil prices have been on a steady decline in real terms for some time. There is no danger of running out of oil. Proven reserves will last decades, there's tons more to be discovered, and by the time we run low, oil will basically be superseded by other technologies.
I see as major uses of oil:
-- Gasoline
-- Diesel fuel
-- Jet fuel
-- Home heating oil
-- Solvents and lubricants
-- Plastics
With limited exceptions there are substitutes for all of these that will be commercially viable and cost effective within the next 25 years.
-- Gasoline replaced by fuel cells
-- Home heating oil replaced by electricity from coal or nuclear
-- Solvents, lubricants, and plastics from synthetics or alternative renewable sources such as soyabean oil.
Even diesel (for trucks and heavy equipment) might be replaced by fuel cells in some applications. Ballard Power Systems and the Chicago Transit Authority ran some experiments with fuel cell buses. The cost is $9 million per, so obviously we're a ways off from mass acceptance.
Anybody know a substitute for jet fuel?
This has already been covered in the Blade Runner FAQ, which basically already quoted Ridley Scott as saying Deckard was a replicant.
I personally think most of the so-called "evidence" that Deckard was a replicant consists of holes in the plot, of which there are very many in the film.
I bought the first not knowing it was for a role playing game tie in. I thought it was decent, light, escapist SF. Nobody will mistake this for literature, but when you're in the mood for some candy....
It is no surprise to me to see Calera and Apache in there. Both of them are very friendly to proprietary software (Caldera even sells it directly) and have no commercial conflicts with Sun. I notice you don't see Transvirtual, Red Hat, or the Free Software Foundation in there anywhere. It looks to me like Sun has surrounded itself with people it knows will be friendly to its positions.
Whether or not assignment is required depends on the project. For most officially FSF sponsored projects such as Emacs, gcc, etc, the copyright is held by the FSF and each contributor is required to assign their copyright to the FSF. Additionally, contributors may be required to receive a copyright disclaimer from their employer if they work in the software field and have an employment agreement that specifies everything they do is owned by the employer.
The rationale seems to be two fold:
1. Following these rigid procedures ensures that there is "clear title" to the code, and that it is properly licensed under the GPL. Who knows what hidden licensing bombs might lurk in the Linux kernel code.
2. If the FSF owns the code, they will have standing in court to pursue violators of the GPL. If the code infringed were owned by someone else, the FSF might not be able to go after the bad guys.
I've always been very down on copyright assignment because I think it is antithetical to the GNU believe that "software should not have owners". It seems highly ironic to me that the FSF is very demanding that they do in fact own the code.
OTOH, recently I've come across two practical cases where assignment has helped:
1. The case of someone trying to rescind the GPL as we have all read about here. The retroactive element is an interesting one, but not really that important. With FSF copyright we know that all future releases will be free software.
2. It simplifies relicensing. One of my projects recently merged with another one and the FSF agreed to switch licensing terms from the LGPL to the libstdc++ license (GPL + exceptions). This would have been very difficult to do with individual copyrights held by contributors.