Not a chance. Consider what was said earlier about 1/4 of Microsoft's money being made in the EU. That's quite a staggering amount. Even with a huge fine it'd still be preferable than leaving the region and loosing all that business.
The EU has issued a recommendation for official government websites, and they encourage W3C compliance and such things. Pretty good stuff. The link above is a good starting point for more information.
I really don't understand how the RIAA, MPAA and DMCA are related to this at all. Why and how would the DMCA restrict open source? I don't see it... not in this instance, anyway...
It's been present for a long time. The European Union is also located under this domain (http://www.europa.eu.int/), as are various other organizations.
No court can "make law" (that's for politicians on European, member state and local level), the job of a court is to determine whether or not the law has been followed. In the case of the EU, case law and treaties dictate that the European Court of Justice has the final juristiction in disputes between member states where the treaties are concerned, and failure to implement EU directives as national law is breaching the treaties. Since the power to enforce the law is still with the member states, it's not like the EU Court could use force to get its will through -- but the whole framework of the EU depends on member states abiding by the rulings. Failure to do so can result in very heavy fines, as determined by the court, and the eventual exclusion from the Union.
You are very right. I have yet to be able to make any Linux distribution show the maximum refresh rate that my monitor / card combination allows for, or even close to the rate I get in Windows (I get 85 in Linux at most, and 100 in Windows).
I should have been more clear. I meant that the environment could still be used to edit strings in multiple languages, and it would write to the appropriate resource file. Does VS6 support that as well? I don't think that it did but I could be wrong.
One thing that I seem to remember causing problems was that occasionally, there were individual words in the separate translation file that were sometimes reused in multiple places, with assumptions being made about where that could happen based on what works in the English language. That is as definite no-no. Don't assume that an English word which can mean several things also has an identical word in a foreign language.
Also, don't assume that foreign languages have an easy way to change between singular and plural or that as in English, there is only one article for all nouns.
In conclusion, always give the translator the option to choose the exact wording based on the context -- even if that means that the English (or whichever is the original language of your software) version of the resource file has many words duplicated. What works in one place may not work in another, even if that is the case with your language.
On a related note, Visual Studio.NET is the first RAD that I have seen that can automatically put the strings into a resource file making them easy to change.
While the past few years have undeniably been depressing for the industry, it is sometimes said that few bad things happen that don't bring something good with them. In this case, I think that may be an eventual stabilization of the industry to a point where it is mostly people who are truly interested in and enthusiastic about software development and computer science who seek related professions. Wage levels have been returning to lower and more realistic levels but for those who are passionate about technology, that isn't necessarily a major consideration. Sometimes I think that in the long-term, the "dot com crash" will have been for the best. I do believe that there will be a continued essential need for our skills as computers and technology become an ever-increasing part of most people's daily lives.
No, BeOS did not ran on Macs from the beginning -- that was years after the introduction of the BeBox. I remember this because I subscribed to the Be Newsletter and watched the development from early on.
If commisioner Monti and his staff decide on sanctions against Microsoft, Microsoft will surely appeal to the European Court of Justice. Such a case could drag on for years, and furthermore the court has a recent history of overturning decisions made by the European Commision.
I don't think that seems like such a great idea, for two reasons:
First, voting must be absolutely and completely anonymous. I wouldn't want to sign my name on a piece of paper displayed to anyone about which party I voted for.
Secondly, it seems to me like your proposed system doesn't really have an advantage compared to just counting anonymous paper votes by hand as usual, except reducing the time it takes for the result to be known. But accuracy is more important than time, IMHO.
Actually the European Council also isn't hugely large. It consists of a building, staff and translators / interpreters, and is only the name of the state governments meeting in organised form.
The EU isn't really a true federal government, even though it may seem that way sometimes.:) Thus, its central institutions doesn't have access to more than a very small portion of all the tax money paid by EU citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a chance. Consider what was said earlier about 1/4 of Microsoft's money being made in the EU. That's quite a staggering amount. Even with a huge fine it'd still be preferable than leaving the region and loosing all that business.
The EU has issued a recommendation for official government websites, and they encourage W3C compliance and such things. Pretty good stuff. The link above is a good starting point for more information.
According to the transparency index, many (but not all) of the EU member states are perceived less corrupt than the US.
I really don't understand how the RIAA, MPAA and DMCA are related to this at all. Why and how would the DMCA restrict open source? I don't see it... not in this instance, anyway...
It's been present for a long time. The European Union is also located under this domain (http://www.europa.eu.int/), as are various other organizations.
Very well said.
No court can "make law" (that's for politicians on European, member state and local level), the job of a court is to determine whether or not the law has been followed. In the case of the EU, case law and treaties dictate that the European Court of Justice has the final juristiction in disputes between member states where the treaties are concerned, and failure to implement EU directives as national law is breaching the treaties. Since the power to enforce the law is still with the member states, it's not like the EU Court could use force to get its will through -- but the whole framework of the EU depends on member states abiding by the rulings. Failure to do so can result in very heavy fines, as determined by the court, and the eventual exclusion from the Union.
You are very right. I have yet to be able to make any Linux distribution show the maximum refresh rate that my monitor / card combination allows for, or even close to the rate I get in Windows (I get 85 in Linux at most, and 100 in Windows).
Much of the copyright legislation is common throughout the EU.
I should have been more clear. I meant that the environment could still be used to edit strings in multiple languages, and it would write to the appropriate resource file. Does VS6 support that as well? I don't think that it did but I could be wrong.
I translated Uropa 2 - The Ulterior Colony, an Amiga game, to Swedish on behalf of Vulcan Software.
One thing that I seem to remember causing problems was that occasionally, there were individual words in the separate translation file that were sometimes reused in multiple places, with assumptions being made about where that could happen based on what works in the English language. That is as definite no-no. Don't assume that an English word which can mean several things also has an identical word in a foreign language.
Also, don't assume that foreign languages have an easy way to change between singular and plural or that as in English, there is only one article for all nouns.
In conclusion, always give the translator the option to choose the exact wording based on the context -- even if that means that the English (or whichever is the original language of your software) version of the resource file has many words duplicated. What works in one place may not work in another, even if that is the case with your language.
On a related note, Visual Studio.NET is the first RAD that I have seen that can automatically put the strings into a resource file making them easy to change.
While the past few years have undeniably been depressing for the industry, it is sometimes said that few bad things happen that don't bring something good with them. In this case, I think that may be an eventual stabilization of the industry to a point where it is mostly people who are truly interested in and enthusiastic about software development and computer science who seek related professions. Wage levels have been returning to lower and more realistic levels but for those who are passionate about technology, that isn't necessarily a major consideration. Sometimes I think that in the long-term, the "dot com crash" will have been for the best. I do believe that there will be a continued essential need for our skills as computers and technology become an ever-increasing part of most people's daily lives.
No, BeOS did not ran on Macs from the beginning -- that was years after the introduction of the BeBox. I remember this because I subscribed to the Be Newsletter and watched the development from early on.
The big decisions are taken by the member states and the parliament, the commision has the power only to promise initiatives and a few other powers.
It routinely happens in cases where the US promises beforehand not to seek death penalty.
He's targeting computer illiterates (NYT readers), hence the simple tone. It's not exactly a science report, nor is it supposed to be.
Well, "d'oh" (especially the last part) sounds rather English / American, IMHO. Just importing the word straight off may not work very well.
If commisioner Monti and his staff decide on sanctions against Microsoft, Microsoft will surely appeal to the European Court of Justice. Such a case could drag on for years, and furthermore the court has a recent history of overturning decisions made by the European Commision.
I think X should include GUI stuff. It seems to me that might significantly reduce overhead, especially when using a remote terminal.
Do you have a source for that?
I don't think that seems like such a great idea, for two reasons:
First, voting must be absolutely and completely anonymous. I wouldn't want to sign my name on a piece of paper displayed to anyone about which party I voted for.
Secondly, it seems to me like your proposed system doesn't really have an advantage compared to just counting anonymous paper votes by hand as usual, except reducing the time it takes for the result to be known. But accuracy is more important than time, IMHO.
Correction: 15 first world countries. Otherwise I agree with what you said.
Actually the European Council also isn't hugely large. It consists of a building, staff and translators / interpreters, and is only the name of the state governments meeting in organised form. The EU isn't really a true federal government, even though it may seem that way sometimes. :) Thus, its central institutions doesn't have access to more than a very small portion of all the tax money paid by EU citizens.
The Bribery Index says otherwise.