The article claims that Microsoft is "inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL" with these license tweaks, but it doesn't look that way to me.
An inch is how much of a stride? How many strides is Shared Source Initiative/License from GNU/GPL?
This is a pretty big step for Microsoft. They are, to a legal extent, relinquishing complete control of the source. Now you can maintain a private fork of the SSL source. (isn't that a nice abbreviation?) You won't have to report every little tweak you make to Microsoft.
On the other hand, MS could be bowing to simple reality: they don't have or want the resources to administer 900,000,000 variations on patches, developers keep private trees anyway, companies do not like dishing out their private modifications to potential competitors. Even so, they've bowed to reality. If they keep bowing to reality, they'll eventually hit something near the BSD license, and do a lot of good when they start getting close.
I agree with your sentiment. Windows 2000 is the best OS Microsoft has ever put out. Absolute cream of the crop. Wonderful system. And, I would/have paid for it.
I've also paid for nine other copies of Windows for my three working computers. I was taxed. I keep my manuals, and moved not too long ago. On a whim, I located all my former Windows licenses. Nine. I've never had more than three Windows computers at one time, and I have NINE Windows licenses. Seven of them are OEM, five of those are a variant of Windows 95, two Windows 98. The other two are from Windows 95 and 98 that I bought on release day.
I was a loyal customer. Yet, without my cognizance, Microsoft managed to weasel seven useless, duplicate, licenses out of me. Pardon me if I want a refund.
Recently I discovered Cygwin's ability to run XFree86 in rootless mode (startx -- -rootless)
My comment isn't really helpful, but I wanted to chip in with a clarification. Rootless mode is not a feature of Cygwin, but XFree86 itself. It is of primary use for MacOS X users who want to run X apps [locally or not]. It is also useful for running a second X server on top of another, though the applications of that are particular.
The ones who get told what to do, rather than ever having a say in any policy.
What have they done, to make you hope that the record producers go out of business?
Wow, you're right. Instead of going to Sony, they could go to EMI and get... the same contract, damn.
Well, I guess they could go to Warner Musi... damn, same contract.
I know! They could go to Epic an... FUCK!
Classically, it's called an oligopoly, and can thought of as an oligarchy. Under Free Market laws, it's called a Cartel. As an artist, if you want exposure, you have the same choice under a dozen different names.
They're not trying to "control" you. It's nothing sinister -- they are trying to control their distribution channels, something that is perfectly within their rights.
I like the possesive adjective. Yes, it's perfectly within their rights to control their distribution channel.
The University's internetworking uplink is not the RIAA's distribution channel, but the RIAA wants jurisdiction over it. Let's forget that part, for the moment. I have something much better to say.
I have absolutely no problem with the RIAA trying to control their distribution channel. They have absolutely no right to control my distribution channel. The RIAA's biggest fear is that people will realize how ever-so-fucking-little they need the publishers now. If the RIAA can control digital distribution channels [mine, yours, your school's, the government's...], then it's their distribution channel, and you still need them.
My sentiment is "Fuck off", I've got a Free Market to engage in.
Over the past several hundred years we have replaced the rule of the mob with free markets, which ensure an equitable price for both buyer and seller through the natural interactions of supply and demand.
This is a poor arguement. While I agree with the sentiment expressed, it is entirely inapplicable to our RIAA/MPAA controlled entertainment industry, and IP in general. I'll explain.
The idea of a free market applies only to unregulated goods and services. If I patent an idea for providing a good or service, I am temporarily granted power to veto "free market" ideals for the term of the patent. This is so that I have an advantage to capitalize on my exclusive right to a certain good or service. After the patent expires, free market is restored, and anyone may compete with me on price and product.
Copyright works similarly. Unlike a tangible good or service, dissemination of copyrightable material has always been simple. To encourage creation, competition with creators is "temporarily" suspended. Culture is asked to hold its breath while the economics play out. The free market is suspended, and that "product" may not be aquired anywhere else. Ordinarily this would not be a problem, as an artist could shop around for a better publisher deal for themselves and their fans. The music publishing instustry is oligarchious, however, and runs a racket. [I will not defend this here.] Free market is suspended to give creators an advantage, and their advantage is suspended by an economic force.
I'm deeply in favor of federal laws that encourage a free market. Present copyright law suspends that market, and RIAA efforts to expand it further are deeply anti-competitive. With whom are they competing? They're competing with the public, and with the force of digital publishing. The RIAA must win legal control of digital publishing, or it will die. I hope and pray to God that it dies. Rent-seekers are a drain on the American culture and economy, and this rent-seeker controls 90% of our music.
Also, it's pretty fucking arrogant of these recording companys to think that University students would be more interested in Christina Augilera's singing (boobs) than historical music and speeches from periods and places they are studying. University students are classically (and vocally) disdainers of engineered culture [i.e., Monkeys, N~Sync, Linkin Park, Britney]. I'm disgusted that due process and presumption of guilt is suspended so that this dying organization can work its venom.
I think the RIAA knows that a more decentralized and artistic-centric industry is aching to be birthed from their ashes.
No shit. His last article was libelous, and several slashdot readers turned up the truth that his employer was working on a proprietary competitor to the Unicode standard.
How about this little snippet?
[...]being a 16-bit character definition allowing a theoretical total of over 65,000 characters. However, the complete character sets of the world add up to approximately 170,000 characters.
This person does not even do the most cursory research on his subjects. For the uninformed, Unicode assigns a unique address to every human character (i.e., letter, kanji, heiroglyph). The entire code range is 32-bit (4,294,967,296), with various text formats for addressing those codes (UTF-8 and UTF-16 being the most popular).
This person is, at best, an attention seeker. He's more likely a very public troll.
I'd also like to see a "Tag" key. It would let you detour in your text to add an XML tag. This would be more in line with a world where networked [office] documents are the norm, and XML is the standard.
Fingerworks makes a good start. This is a little non-traditional, and I like it.
But, if we're going to stick to a solid mechanical design:
First of all, I would set an emphasis away from lazy ASCII-ism. I want to be able to type En and Em Dashes, as well has hyphens and minuses--not this silly "hyphen-minus". I could have this right now by killing macron, tilde, acute, and fixing the hyphen-minus as a hyphen. I'd kill backslash too.
Meta keys are nice, but need to be redesigned. All "edit" functions should fall under an "edit" meta, instead of "control". "Shift" has always bothered me for some reason, but I can't suggest a change in behavior beyond what I describe below.
Capslock is obviously the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I like CTRL in that position, a lot. I'd put my magical "Edit" meta right there.
Let's rename "Alt" to "System". Function keys are poo-like. I suggest we have the whole keyboard available for "Function", with the number row providing "F1-F12". Now, we can hold "System" and "Edit" and have "System Edit" keys. Isn't that neat!
Of course, all this could get confusing. So, my Keyboard Of The Future(TM) will have little displays on all the keys, showing their current function in BIG letters. No silly upper-lower-inthegroove-inblue print on the keys. Hold "Edit", and the Edit functions will be displayed instead of the typographical functions.
I'd like to note that Apple has taken some of these steps. You can get Em and En dashes with some keyboard combos with the hyphen key. It helps ever so much that MacOS X is totally Unicode. Juxtaposed with x86, Apple is a little bit more consistent with their Option/Apple/Control mechanism, but they still get things confused.
Really, I think my Dream Keyboard(TM) would be based on the FingerWorks keyboard, only combined with a display. Remember that magnetic paper slashdot covered endlessly? Seems like a perfect application right here.
First off, the the present failure of the administration is not evidence of long term failure. The system is not efficient, but given a long enough time spawn seems to work out, after a lot of people go to prison for "crimes" against the status quo.
Secondly, how do you figure "Democracy doesn't work" based on the American system? This is a republic, with people appointed by a vote, and not even a popular vote at that. Democracy is the idea that anyone can function as a government official. Athens had this, though their court system was not.
Highschoolers haven't had the kind of education in the 12 years of school they've had that you get in the first semester of college.:P
That said, highschool books have certain requirements. College books tend to assume extensive knowledge of materials usually covered in lecture. The higher level text books build on this assumption.
Except for college computer/technical books, which start dumb and end dumb. You want O'Reilly.
I can give you some recommendations for those interested in Web Design, though.
Lie, HÃ¥kon Wium, and Bert Bos. "Cascading Style Sheets: Designing For The Web". 2nd ed. [die MLA!] http://www.awl.com/cseng ISBN 0-201-59625-3
Zeldman, Jeffrey. "Taking Your Talents to the Web". Indiana: New Riders, 2001.
Strunk, William JR., and E.B. White. "The Elements Of Style". 4th ed. Massachusetts: Longman Publishers, 2000.
O'Reilly has volumes of text books good for introduction. They're thurough, don't skimp, and don't suffer from being stuffy or making bad assumptions about the reader's knowledge, other than stated in the preface.
Honest to god, in Highschool, I'd be more concerned about bringing the standards of the core courses up a fucking decent level.
Let's try science. Quantum Physics. I've got two books on my desk here that are good enough for twelve year olds.
Wolf, Fred Alan. "Parallel Universes". New York: Touchstone, 1990. ---. "Taking The Quantum Leap". New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
For English, that "Elements Of Style" book cited above is tiny. It's 105 pages, index and contents included. It's also 5"Ã--8.25"Ã--0.5", or 13cmÃ--21cmÃ--1.5cm, to use metric. Allow students to use it on tests, carry with them everywhere. It's gold. That's your text book for English grades 9â"12.
And what the fuck is with George Orwell's 1984 and Fahrenheit 451? They weren't even allowed in the library when I left Highschool. Ridiculous.
For creative writing, I highly recommend: Burroway, Janet. "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft". New York: Longman Publishers, 2003. Best creative writing book I've ever seen. It'll even blend in with your stuffy brown and black books, cleverly camouflaging a book with good content.
Stop talking down to your students. They're not dumb, they're just told they are by the tone of their teachers and told by their peers that's cool enough. Their parents and their teachers demand obediance, and abhor rebelious or independant thought, so their children are extremely vulnerable to suggestion by anyone who pretends authority. A good student questions. A good teacher admits their limits, knows that some of their students will be better than them, and hopes the student can surpass them, or fill in the gaps in the teacher's knowledge.
(tangent) I had a memorable discussion with a counselor in highschool. A teacher had been wrong, and had pretty much told me to shut up when I tried to correct her. Then she sent me to the principal for "distruptive behavior". He couldn't make me understand that "she's the teacher, so she's in charge" etc, so he sent me to a counselor. She informed me about the "pecking order" and that I was at the bottom, so I should just be pecked, because she "worked hard to get where she was". Obviously, she was superior to me, and I should "grin and bear it".
I aquired my G.E.D., and I've been very happy since I started College. Opening the G.E.D. to non-vets was one of the best things the Government has done. Can you possibly imagine how much of a relief it was, to suddenly be met as a peer by the test instructor, and ever since?
Public education is not failing because it isn't offering the latest technology. Public education is failing because administrators are considered more important than teachers. Public education is failing because teachers become teachers just to be superior to 400 students for a year. Public education is failing because education is only a byproduct of the atmosphere among the staff. The pecking order comes first.
Public education would never have produced "The Elements of Style".
I meant to include the RIAA idea of governments collecting taxes on CDR, hard drives, and anything that can be used for recorded digital audio, and sending that tax back to RIAA.
Doesn't that sound a lot like the idea of governments collecting taxes on solar panels? WE'RE STEALING MONEY/ELECTRICITY FROM LA DWP! WE'RE STEALING FROM THE RIAA.
There's four kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Valenti-brand Statistics.
Most states give tax incentives to alternative energy. Many require power companies to buy back excess power, not charge for it. Some of those will buy back into the red, so the power company has to pay you at the end of the month.
Started an incentive program that grants a one-time payment of $4.50-$6.50/watt generated by homes or businesses connected ot the LA DWP power grid, starting 2000/9/1 and ending five years later.
The State of California provides an income tax deduction of 15% towards the net cost of installed grid-connected solar electric systems. This new tax credit is retroactive to January 2001.
If you put solar panels on your roof, Fairfax Virginia county will allow you to deduct the value of the panels from the cost of your roof, for tax purposes. HOAs sometimes prevent this when they're obtrusive, but they don't have to be.
In short, way to backpedal California! I have an idea. Why don't you also give tax breaks for the rich, and support failing business models based on absolute control of copyright? Same mentality involved there, also. Kill your own economy early off for a few extra bucks before your die.
I think Bush's policies show that he DOESN'T want to move the US from oil dependancy. Similar to his "endorsement" of a mission to Mars, he places this projection in a timespan between ten and fifty years.
In other words, "the outcome is inevitable, but it won't be on my watch if I have anything to say about it (and I'm a President with Emergency Powers). Since most of the public doesn't even know about these things, and they're inevitable, I'll take credit for "predicting" it."
Isn't this what proprietary companies are so often accused?
"Not Invented Here! Re-invent the wheel plz k thnx."
Microsoft may be the source of the.NET platform and C# language, but it is in the industry's interests to diversify upon a common standard. There's no point in introducing an incompatible standard just because it didn't originate as Open Source. That there is an Open Source implimentaiton (which will be be essential to the new platform's vitality) makes the whole question prude.
The potential problems just come right back to software patents...
I think the biggest serious danger is the existance of a homogenous software platform. A homogenous software environment is deadly vulnerable to exploits, malicious and accidental. Already some bad security assumptions in the standard are known to the Mono project. I'm a bit concerned, but I think Mono is a Good Thing. The question requires you to disagree, and I don't.
not too short, or companies will take authors works, sit on them for a while, publis a few copies and then publish like mad when the copyright exprires. won't happen with music/tech, but could happen with longer lasting stuff.
This is a good arguement for,
Early expiration of granted permission when the licensee is sitting on their hands
or Non-transferable rights
I'm of the opinion that rights should not be transferable from the author or inventor. After all, we're trying to give the creative ones incentive to create. The oligopolic publishing/music industries presently have a "standard contract" which robs the author of all rights, in return for a small royalty. Authors would in no way suffer if this practice was non-legal.
Permission should be granted for the works to be used. If the right is exclusive, and the holder of that permission is just sitting on it for some length of time, the exclusive nature should be remitted. The author suffers otherwise, having certain rights restrained from him and no exposure of his work via those rights. As only the exclusive aspect would be remitted, the present holder would still maintain the agreed-upon contract in all other aspects: control of the licensed work, distribution of profit, franchise rights, etc.
(which, in case you missed it, is exactly what a web page, even a personal one, is).
It would be a public place if:
It was not owned by a private citizen.
You could be exposed to events within by accident or intent
It were not owned by a private citizen, or ownable by a private citizen
You did not request to view the content, and the author/owner subsequently granted you permission.
The internet, let alone the small subset known as 'the web', is not a public place by any stretch of the imagination. It is more like millions of private book collectors spontaneously setting up a public-libarary-like lending system.
The PowerPC platform is very open. Apple, however, doesn't let people use their "Apple" trademark to sell "Apple-compatible" computers. It's a harsh marketing tactic, and well within the intent of Trademark law. It's difficult to sell PowerPC computers when you can't claim that they're Apple-compatible.
The platform, however, is beautifully open. IBM makes a PowerPC proccessor call the Power4, and (today) has revealed a reference model PDA based on the PowerPC architecture.
Apple is extremely strict with their trademark rights, but they rarely overstep the intent, let alone the letter, of the law.
Jobs has my vote just for his insight that DRM will fail, and his strong resolution to never integrate it into MacOS.
Slashdot Mirror
An inch is how much of a stride? How many strides is Shared Source Initiative/License from GNU/GPL?
This is a pretty big step for Microsoft. They are, to a legal extent, relinquishing complete control of the source. Now you can maintain a private fork of the SSL source. (isn't that a nice abbreviation?) You won't have to report every little tweak you make to Microsoft.
On the other hand, MS could be bowing to simple reality: they don't have or want the resources to administer 900,000,000 variations on patches, developers keep private trees anyway, companies do not like dishing out their private modifications to potential competitors. Even so, they've bowed to reality. If they keep bowing to reality, they'll eventually hit something near the BSD license, and do a lot of good when they start getting close.
I think you misunderstand the term.
I agree with your sentiment. Windows 2000 is the best OS Microsoft has ever put out. Absolute cream of the crop. Wonderful system. And, I would/have paid for it.
I've also paid for nine other copies of Windows for my three working computers. I was taxed. I keep my manuals, and moved not too long ago. On a whim, I located all my former Windows licenses. Nine. I've never had more than three Windows computers at one time, and I have NINE Windows licenses. Seven of them are OEM, five of those are a variant of Windows 95, two Windows 98. The other two are from Windows 95 and 98 that I bought on release day.
I was a loyal customer. Yet, without my cognizance, Microsoft managed to weasel seven useless, duplicate, licenses out of me. Pardon me if I want a refund.
Plus, if you live in VA, you'll be able to throw a cream pie at Hollings at least once a month!
Wow! I beat the first-posters! VICTORY! A story without FP!
(maybe)
My comment isn't really helpful, but I wanted to chip in with a clarification. Rootless mode is not a feature of Cygwin, but XFree86 itself. It is of primary use for MacOS X users who want to run X apps [locally or not]. It is also useful for running a second X server on top of another, though the applications of that are particular.
We should:
Need I reply?
Wow, you're right. Instead of going to Sony, they could go to EMI and get... the same contract, damn.
Well, I guess they could go to Warner Musi... damn, same contract.
I know! They could go to Epic an... FUCK!
Classically, it's called an oligopoly, and can thought of as an oligarchy. Under Free Market laws, it's called a Cartel. As an artist, if you want exposure, you have the same choice under a dozen different names.
I like the possesive adjective. Yes, it's perfectly within their rights to control their distribution channel.
The University's internetworking uplink is not the RIAA's distribution channel, but the RIAA wants jurisdiction over it. Let's forget that part, for the moment. I have something much better to say.
I have absolutely no problem with the RIAA trying to control their distribution channel. They have absolutely no right to control my distribution channel. The RIAA's biggest fear is that people will realize how ever-so-fucking-little they need the publishers now. If the RIAA can control digital distribution channels [mine, yours, your school's, the government's...], then it's their distribution channel, and you still need them.
My sentiment is "Fuck off", I've got a Free Market to engage in.
This is a poor arguement. While I agree with the sentiment expressed, it is entirely inapplicable to our RIAA/MPAA controlled entertainment industry, and IP in general. I'll explain.
The idea of a free market applies only to unregulated goods and services. If I patent an idea for providing a good or service, I am temporarily granted power to veto "free market" ideals for the term of the patent. This is so that I have an advantage to capitalize on my exclusive right to a certain good or service. After the patent expires, free market is restored, and anyone may compete with me on price and product.
Copyright works similarly. Unlike a tangible good or service, dissemination of copyrightable material has always been simple. To encourage creation, competition with creators is "temporarily" suspended. Culture is asked to hold its breath while the economics play out. The free market is suspended, and that "product" may not be aquired anywhere else. Ordinarily this would not be a problem, as an artist could shop around for a better publisher deal for themselves and their fans. The music publishing instustry is oligarchious, however, and runs a racket. [I will not defend this here.] Free market is suspended to give creators an advantage, and their advantage is suspended by an economic force.
I'm deeply in favor of federal laws that encourage a free market. Present copyright law suspends that market, and RIAA efforts to expand it further are deeply anti-competitive. With whom are they competing? They're competing with the public, and with the force of digital publishing. The RIAA must win legal control of digital publishing, or it will die. I hope and pray to God that it dies. Rent-seekers are a drain on the American culture and economy, and this rent-seeker controls 90% of our music.
Also, it's pretty fucking arrogant of these recording companys to think that University students would be more interested in Christina Augilera's singing (boobs) than historical music and speeches from periods and places they are studying. University students are classically (and vocally) disdainers of engineered culture [i.e., Monkeys, N~Sync, Linkin Park, Britney]. I'm disgusted that due process and presumption of guilt is suspended so that this dying organization can work its venom.
I think the RIAA knows that a more decentralized and artistic-centric industry is aching to be birthed from their ashes.
How about this little snippet?
This person does not even do the most cursory research on his subjects. For the uninformed, Unicode assigns a unique address to every human character (i.e., letter, kanji, heiroglyph). The entire code range is 32-bit (4,294,967,296), with various text formats for addressing those codes (UTF-8 and UTF-16 being the most popular).
This person is, at best, an attention seeker. He's more likely a very public troll.
I'd also like to see a "Tag" key. It would let you detour in your text to add an XML tag. This would be more in line with a world where networked [office] documents are the norm, and XML is the standard.
Fingerworks makes a good start. This is a little non-traditional, and I like it.
But, if we're going to stick to a solid mechanical design:
First of all, I would set an emphasis away from lazy ASCII-ism. I want to be able to type En and Em Dashes, as well has hyphens and minuses--not this silly "hyphen-minus". I could have this right now by killing macron, tilde, acute, and fixing the hyphen-minus as a hyphen. I'd kill backslash too.
Meta keys are nice, but need to be redesigned. All "edit" functions should fall under an "edit" meta, instead of "control". "Shift" has always bothered me for some reason, but I can't suggest a change in behavior beyond what I describe below.
Capslock is obviously the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I like CTRL in that position, a lot. I'd put my magical "Edit" meta right there.
Let's rename "Alt" to "System". Function keys are poo-like. I suggest we have the whole keyboard available for "Function", with the number row providing "F1-F12". Now, we can hold "System" and "Edit" and have "System Edit" keys. Isn't that neat!
Of course, all this could get confusing. So, my Keyboard Of The Future(TM) will have little displays on all the keys, showing their current function in BIG letters. No silly upper-lower-inthegroove-inblue print on the keys. Hold "Edit", and the Edit functions will be displayed instead of the typographical functions.
I'd like to note that Apple has taken some of these steps. You can get Em and En dashes with some keyboard combos with the hyphen key. It helps ever so much that MacOS X is totally Unicode. Juxtaposed with x86, Apple is a little bit more consistent with their Option/Apple/Control mechanism, but they still get things confused.
Really, I think my Dream Keyboard(TM) would be based on the FingerWorks keyboard, only combined with a display. Remember that magnetic paper slashdot covered endlessly? Seems like a perfect application right here.
First off, the the present failure of the administration is not evidence of long term failure. The system is not efficient, but given a long enough time spawn seems to work out, after a lot of people go to prison for "crimes" against the status quo.
Secondly, how do you figure "Democracy doesn't work" based on the American system? This is a republic, with people appointed by a vote, and not even a popular vote at that. Democracy is the idea that anyone can function as a government official. Athens had this, though their court system was not.
In short, your arguement is not solid.
Highschoolers haven't had the kind of education in the 12 years of school they've had that you get in the first semester of college. :P
That said, highschool books have certain requirements. College books tend to assume extensive knowledge of materials usually covered in lecture. The higher level text books build on this assumption.
Except for college computer/technical books, which start dumb and end dumb. You want O'Reilly.
I can give you some recommendations for those interested in Web Design, though.
Lie, HÃ¥kon Wium, and Bert Bos. "Cascading Style Sheets: Designing For The Web". 2nd ed. [die MLA!] http://www.awl.com/cseng ISBN 0-201-59625-3
Zeldman, Jeffrey. "Taking Your Talents to the Web". Indiana: New Riders, 2001.
Strunk, William JR., and E.B. White. "The Elements Of Style". 4th ed. Massachusetts: Longman Publishers, 2000.
O'Reilly has volumes of text books good for introduction. They're thurough, don't skimp, and don't suffer from being stuffy or making bad assumptions about the reader's knowledge, other than stated in the preface.
Honest to god, in Highschool, I'd be more concerned about bringing the standards of the core courses up a fucking decent level.
Let's try science. Quantum Physics. I've got two books on my desk here that are good enough for twelve year olds.
Wolf, Fred Alan. "Parallel Universes". New York: Touchstone, 1990.
---. "Taking The Quantum Leap". New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
For English, that "Elements Of Style" book cited above is tiny. It's 105 pages, index and contents included. It's also 5"Ã--8.25"Ã--0.5", or 13cmÃ--21cmÃ--1.5cm, to use metric. Allow students to use it on tests, carry with them everywhere. It's gold. That's your text book for English grades 9â"12.
And what the fuck is with George Orwell's 1984 and Fahrenheit 451? They weren't even allowed in the library when I left Highschool. Ridiculous.
For creative writing, I highly recommend:
Burroway, Janet. "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft". New York: Longman Publishers, 2003.
Best creative writing book I've ever seen. It'll even blend in with your stuffy brown and black books, cleverly camouflaging a book with good content.
Stop talking down to your students. They're not dumb, they're just told they are by the tone of their teachers and told by their peers that's cool enough. Their parents and their teachers demand obediance, and abhor rebelious or independant thought, so their children are extremely vulnerable to suggestion by anyone who pretends authority. A good student questions. A good teacher admits their limits, knows that some of their students will be better than them, and hopes the student can surpass them, or fill in the gaps in the teacher's knowledge.
(tangent)
I had a memorable discussion with a counselor in highschool. A teacher had been wrong, and had pretty much told me to shut up when I tried to correct her. Then she sent me to the principal for "distruptive behavior". He couldn't make me understand that "she's the teacher, so she's in charge" etc, so he sent me to a counselor. She informed me about the "pecking order" and that I was at the bottom, so I should just be pecked, because she "worked hard to get where she was". Obviously, she was superior to me, and I should "grin and bear it".
I aquired my G.E.D., and I've been very happy since I started College. Opening the G.E.D. to non-vets was one of the best things the Government has done. Can you possibly imagine how much of a relief it was, to suddenly be met as a peer by the test instructor, and ever since?
Public education is not failing because it isn't offering the latest technology. Public education is failing because administrators are considered more important than teachers. Public education is failing because teachers become teachers just to be superior to 400 students for a year. Public education is failing because education is only a byproduct of the atmosphere among the staff. The pecking order comes first.
Public education would never have produced "The Elements of Style".
I meant to include the RIAA idea of governments collecting taxes on CDR, hard drives, and anything that can be used for recorded digital audio, and sending that tax back to RIAA.
Doesn't that sound a lot like the idea of governments collecting taxes on solar panels? WE'RE STEALING MONEY/ELECTRICITY FROM LA DWP! WE'RE STEALING FROM THE RIAA.
There's four kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Valenti-brand Statistics.
In fact, since 2000, California has:
If you put solar panels on your roof, Fairfax Virginia county will allow you to deduct the value of the panels from the cost of your roof, for tax purposes. HOAs sometimes prevent this when they're obtrusive, but they don't have to be.
In short, way to backpedal California! I have an idea. Why don't you also give tax breaks for the rich, and support failing business models based on absolute control of copyright? Same mentality involved there, also. Kill your own economy early off for a few extra bucks before your die.
I think Bush's policies show that he DOESN'T want to move the US from oil dependancy. Similar to his "endorsement" of a mission to Mars, he places this projection in a timespan between ten and fifty years.
In other words, "the outcome is inevitable, but it won't be on my watch if I have anything to say about it (and I'm a President with Emergency Powers). Since most of the public doesn't even know about these things, and they're inevitable, I'll take credit for "predicting" it."
I liked Kennedy better.
We can fix that. http://www.votetoimpeach.org/
The Web will be a a lot better off if everyone pretends that Netscape 4 never happened.
Let it go. It has done more harm than even Microsoft to Web Standards.
Isn't this what proprietary companies are so often accused?
.NET platform and C# language, but it is in the industry's interests to diversify upon a common standard. There's no point in introducing an incompatible standard just because it didn't originate as Open Source. That there is an Open Source implimentaiton (which will be be essential to the new platform's vitality) makes the whole question prude.
"Not Invented Here! Re-invent the wheel plz k thnx."
Microsoft may be the source of the
The potential problems just come right back to software patents...
I think the biggest serious danger is the existance of a homogenous software platform. A homogenous software environment is deadly vulnerable to exploits, malicious and accidental. Already some bad security assumptions in the standard are known to the Mono project. I'm a bit concerned, but I think Mono is a Good Thing. The question requires you to disagree, and I don't.
Well, if this isn't late breaking news, I don't know what is!
Isn't online news supposed to be really fresh? This is a week old.
This is a good arguement for,
I'm of the opinion that rights should not be transferable from the author or inventor. After all, we're trying to give the creative ones incentive to create. The oligopolic publishing/music industries presently have a "standard contract" which robs the author of all rights, in return for a small royalty. Authors would in no way suffer if this practice was non-legal.
Permission should be granted for the works to be used. If the right is exclusive, and the holder of that permission is just sitting on it for some length of time, the exclusive nature should be remitted. The author suffers otherwise, having certain rights restrained from him and no exposure of his work via those rights. As only the exclusive aspect would be remitted, the present holder would still maintain the agreed-upon contract in all other aspects: control of the licensed work, distribution of profit, franchise rights, etc.
It would be a public place if:
The internet, let alone the small subset known as 'the web', is not a public place by any stretch of the imagination. It is more like millions of private book collectors spontaneously setting up a public-libarary-like lending system.
The PowerPC platform is very open. Apple, however, doesn't let people use their "Apple" trademark to sell "Apple-compatible" computers. It's a harsh marketing tactic, and well within the intent of Trademark law. It's difficult to sell PowerPC computers when you can't claim that they're Apple-compatible.
The platform, however, is beautifully open. IBM makes a PowerPC proccessor call the Power4, and (today) has revealed a reference model PDA based on the PowerPC architecture.
Apple is extremely strict with their trademark rights, but they rarely overstep the intent, let alone the letter, of the law.
Jobs has my vote just for his insight that DRM will fail, and his strong resolution to never integrate it into MacOS.