I would like to point out something I thought was more relevant about the link and story, which I'd seen a this morning.
These documents were acquired by people submitting paperwork for the Freedom Of Information Act and acting on their beliefs. We can all sit around and argue about Echelon, or worry about some other terrible conspiracy, but I think that until people really start to hold their government responsible for it's actions, things will continue as before and worse.
Ask 'em for the documents. Make em worry about what to classify. Cause the office that checks for classification issues to overload; after all, classification decisions are pretty high level, and the model doesn't scale well. As the office becomes more clogged with requests for information, either they will mess up and release material they wouldn't have otherwise, or they will get so clogged they can't process all of the information coming in and going out.
Take responsiblity for the destiny afforded you by your government. Alone you are nothing, but in groups you are its greatest enemy.
The media hardly has the attention span of a mosquito hopped up on caffeine. While we may patiently and diligently await the day when computers are easy, fast, reliable, secure, etc., we are just a flash in the temporary attention span of the media world brought to light by the recent M-soft trials and self-reflection of pop-hackerdom as a flavor.
a millenialist sort of approach to tech: teams, like some more familiar sport, and playoffs, with winners and losers. Let's face it: computer operating systems are not primetime material. When you get past the idea that 'there can be only one', a lot of the sexy image dissapates and leaves us plain old folk, working as before.
Reminds me of some of the script-kiddie comments in the cDc interview. They come, they go, some small percentage stay behind. A natural life-cycle...
It's almost like the author of this article _actually_reads_ this forum.
I have to say that this is one of the reasons that I like slashdot. It's a meritocracy of ideas, because the people who often best understand a technology are on hand to help explain it to those in another area of expertise. The amount of (unintentional) misinformation floating around here is uncharacteristic of the forum.
Rob, you rock. And if nobody's said that lately, it's never because you've been taken for granted...
This is the MOST common misconception about IPV6, and I wish people somehow would stop getting this idea.
IPV6 IS NOT solely to remedy ip address shortages. There are those who contend that there is no such shortage, and we can all just use NAT boxen and masquerading till the cows come home. Which leads to the natural assumption that there's no need for IPV6.
Other important things that come with IPV6 are the QoS ratings, additional security features (!), better design from the network architecture standpoint, general improvements in the spec, etc. Keep in mind, IPV4 is OLD, and it was never meant to do the things we have it doing, becuase the designers at the time had no idea how the Internet would turn out.
(!) BTW, this does NOT refer to the so-called loss of anonymity caused by putting a MAC in the address. Read more at the IPV6 FAQ.
I think this line of reasoning entirely validates open-source/free software concepts, the whole idea that "With a million eyes, all bugs are shallow".
They mentioned the idea that once a sofware project gets to be a few million lines of code, no one person can hold all of those patterns together in their mind. But with hundreds of people interoperating _transparently_ and openly sharing the information of a million-line program, it can be held in the collective conscience quite adequately.
I know that alot of people will probably post here, "hey yah, open source rulz!" and similar sentiments. But it nonetheless refreshing to feel a little validated by other people not directly involved in Free software.
One of the main factors that has led to the current state of the software market, I would propose, is that is is, in fact, NOT a munufacturing-based industry, as it is modelled after. Think about it: when a company sells you a piece of software, IP laws and shrinkwrap liscences and the hefty price you pay all lead you to believe that you are purchasing one "item". You have one "item" and cannot make more, or use that "item" in any manner for which is was not intended. If you wish to make this "item" available for others, you will be charged as if you now had several "items" (per-seat liscensing fees).
But that is not what software (is,should be, must become). It is a service, and needs to become modelled more appropriately after a service-based industry. I retain the services of a software company to help me do a certain task. They give me a piece of media worth 15 cents, but I am not paying for a thing. I am paying for the services of a company.
Think about the difference in current markets set up like this: shouldn't software be more like a getting a doctor or a plumber, instead of like buying a car or a hammer? Information, that which makes up this "thing" that they want to sell me, it is not a "thing". It is just a service they provide, to help me serve web documents or print a document. If I do not like their service, I find some other, better provider.
Could be required to see through the market-ese and figure out what precisely this is...
Is this a lateral movement, intended to just shift resources to a new area, or is this a demotion of sorts? (I can't hardly imagine it as a promotion...) Or is this Marc just starting to let up a little and enjoy a few of his millions? (part time position was mentioned)
Sometimes it's so hard to see through the market-speek!
This is a side question that I would like to see discussion on someday.
I notice that a lot of folks here seem to hate so-called 'squatters' who reserve domains for money, presumably because some folks here work on that kind of thing in their day2day job. I also see some people ranting against overbearing big businesses that use piles of paperwork to overwhelm smaller registered owners for domains that they want (ie ajax.com and many others).
What should be the 'rights' reguarding names and domains? First come first served leads to squatters, but trying to discern honest holders from large pushy companies seems difficult at times. And what about "name-grabbers" like George Bush Jr., who tried to grab all the parody-type addresses he could think of before announcing candidacy. Many of you folks work within the DNS system for a living, how do _YOU_ feel it should work?
Random Speculation, pay no mind if you don't care...
I really hate to say this, as I hate sounding negative, but I don't see why it's better to have the moderator controls always visible. I, for example, browse most of the time at +2 so I can just read the first 30 good comments or so. If I'm bored later or really interested in a topic i go to -1. If I get moderator access, I need to browse at -1 and see everything. While I enjoy moderating from time to time, I don't want to have to always browse at -1 _just in case I might be mod_... It seems to defeat the purpose: to allow those with limited time or attention span to see a story and read just a few good comments on it. You also begin to make it so that only a few people will participate in the moderating.
Other than the "bonus point" system for certain people, I really think the system here has been working out great. I hope "creeping featurism" doesn't take over it all.
RedHat on their recent tour though here was asked about how they felt about linux-mandrake. Their response was that they wished them all the luck in the world, to no surprise. RedHat has a stated goal of targeting a more business centered market, going after a higher sell corporate arena, as well as servers and enterprise iron.
Mandrake, by contrast, wants to be 'your mothers distro' and isn't really shooting for wide deployment by the PHB's. Not only that, but they use the RH way to do it. As everyone's favorite Redmond company has shown, there is value in people following your lead and allowing you to set the standard, your particular way of doing things, as the common standard. Redhat wants the home user doing Mandrake so that those users are comfortable with the version they may use at work.
Calmness. All is calmness and tranquility. We are not a business. We are a community. And we are each helped by the contributions of our members. That is our nature.
This goes to show what I had hoped some of my co-workers would see all along: There's a different tool for every job, and a different distribution of linux for (almost) every purpose under the sun. Glad to see a 'new' dist with a reputation for user-friendly is getting some of the monetary interest lately.
I do suppose that since RH is trying to include KDE into things now that we have an unusual situation: A value-added reseller being repackaged by a value-added reseller. I do hope their Lothar project gets some of that cash!
Notice one of the quotes down low on the article where some exec is quoted to say that the people who release utilities like unf*ck are doing it just to get a kick out of it.
I have to say, I can think of some pretty strong objections to that opinion myself. In classic political literature like Thoreau's (sp?) essay on civil disobedience, it is suggested basically, that if you morally object to some law or rule that it is incumbent upon you as a moral person to not abide by that rule. And I am not, AM NOT, saying that the person who cracked the MS format is doing this for that reason, but there are some principled and capable people who do things like this, testing security or routing around rules they feel are wrong.
I think that the committed allies of record labels and proprietary standards need to realise they aren't just fighting a bunch of bored 12-year olds in a basement, some people out there are actually trying to do what they think is right, or abolish practices they disagree with.
Perhaps this is one reason that "the man" is less effective at stopping such attacks, because in his heart he really believes that groups like cDc or the l0pht are just disenfranchised youths without any organizational abilities or communication skills. One of the CS profs here at the U is very active in his development on nmap because he believes in the open nature of security. I've known countless hackers and crackers that did what they did for more than "just some kicks..."
IRman works with linux, but ampapod and the X11 remote can do cool stuff like web surfing, and I guess I could always just pop VMware into linux and use ampapod after all.
But then again, I've heard that X11 makes poor quality stuff, and Rob uses IRMan, which looks high quality but doesn't have the same flexibility, tho it looks higher quality.
But the X11 remote costs less.
But its supported by a company and the IRman looks only loosly supported by a comany (not exactly a global corporation, looks like a buncha students).
Geez, someone got some thoughts on this? I gotta get one of these, like NOW!
Actually, there is a law concerning televisions viewable by the driver in vehicles that would probably make the kind of thing you are talking about moot and illegal. The panel will likely be restricted to legitimate display of instrumentation. They don't just have a web browser there for you to look at, the most advanced and unusual thing there to distract you is the map. I've seen the car, and talked with one of the people working outthere, and they don't want the visual displays to become too invasive for exactly this reason. Another reason for all the voice controls... Hands (and eye) free operation.
As respects the quote at the end, about how we should be sounding the death-knell for MP3 instead, i give a big "BZZZZZT! Wrong!"
It is true that consumers by and large may begin to prefer the legitimate distribution channels, but that doesn't mean a choice between whatever tripe 'standard' the music industry comes up with and the 'evil pirate' mp3. Musicians and customers will simply route around the distribution companies that fight mp3's, or whatever format comes along. Bands will begin to fight to release their own property ina way that benefits them, and consumers will continue to choose the method that most closely matches their desires.
The prez of Goodnoise made a valuable point along these lines: people might not want to surf an hour to get a song for free illegally, but would be very happy with just paying the.99 cents to get a single legitimate copy instantly. The anaolgy with DIVX is quite apt: industry decides what it wants and what is best for them, customers decide that there is no benefit for them, they refuse to buy in, the business looses, and out comes a new industry...
All economic models depend upon consumers doing what is in their best intrest, otherwise there is no way to predict behaviour accurately. Am I going to simply accept a system that limits and restricts freedoms I already have? No! Why would I? Instead, a new model must be found to deal with my new expectations as a consumer. Same goes for musicians and bands. They know the score, and are even less inclined to stick around with a sour deal since they're losing out on so much money already.
Would you care to comment on the viability of Microsoft stock, king tech stock of them all, yes the one that splits every cursed full moon?
I realize that it's almost balanced out though by Amazon, the worlds most well publicised "scam" in the world. All I ever hear about em is how "They lose money on every book" and "didn't make a dime last year" and yet the stock climbs higher and higher.
Perhaps it has occured to some people that a lasting and entrenched position in the market assured by long time standing in that market is slightly valuable, even if current profits are less than optimal.
Indeed, I agree, accusations and FUD is being tossed around by some people who see any sort of commercial success as the qualifying characteristic to "be the next microsoft". Some people are behaving irrationally because Redhat is doing well. And those people are incorrect.
However, just because you toss out the argument they make does not mean you should toss the platform. The point of this person's article is to show a specific instance of business behaviour that is _not_ good for linux as a whole. People should not hate microsoft because of its success, or its wide coverage of the market. That would be akin to saying that anything everyone likes should be considered evil.
Microsoft has earned the contempt of nerds everywhere for their anti-competitive business practices and outright immoral behaviour. Contracts that are not about promoting their solution, but negating the efforts of others, explicitly and with harmful intent.
This article, whether you agree with it or not, is speculating on the possiblity that Redhat has acted in that same way, making an exclusive contract to shut out the other distro's. And if a company, any company, begins to use those kind of tactics, we should object strongly. Even if some small no-name distribution with minimal circulation began to form contracts like that we would be obligated to set forth these objections. You can't hate Redhat bacause they are successful. That's fine. But if they begin the cycle of bad business and anticompetitive bahaviour, then we should object. Strongly.
Now, for the record, I don't think that Redhat can really do too much to the linux I love. It's open and out there, andI will always be able to use the version I want because I can make it into that image. But some vanity, some impulse inside makes me want to share that same ideal distribution with everyone, to give people a real alternative. And I would hate to see the Redhat dist become the version that people use because it has only replaced Microsoft as tyrant, without understanding the loving work that has gone into the philosophical changes that linux is made of.
"Without the law, there is no freedom. Without justice there is no law."
1. PHB wishes to know if there is some intrest in a particular branch of development.
2. Poll is established and 6000 people vote for linux.
3. PHB says, "Hmm, that's interesting. Tell me more, lets get some numbers and ask a consulting firm or two..."
No company or business is going to base developer decisions on an online poll, whether they get 6 votes total or 100,000 for linux. They are gauging (sp?) an intrest level. So what if slashdot sends a very large number of linux zealots over? They are still each and every one a potential customer, and a company likes to find a new market with lots of customers.
If some mac evangelista site links the poll, they would have every chance to flood the poll too, and that might be listened to as well.
There is also a final possibility, one I know from personal experience: Maybe the PHB's Number One is a big time reader of slashdot and is trying to steer his boss into learning something about linux. In a seemingly innocuous poll they get a LARGE amount of linux intrest. Mission Accomplished.
"Bob, I've heard about this nasty computer thing people have started using that's been sucking some of our revenues off. I have a solution."
"Yes sir?"
"Yes. I'd like you to create a virus that destroys the computer if you try to do that, you know, the mp3 thing..."
"Uhhh, I don't think I can do that."
"You can't make something that perhaps just flashes a message or sends us a note or just locks up? What kind of techincal advisor are you??"
"Well sir, I'm not sure you understand all the technical details of implementing..."
"Nonsense. I saw it on that 'Hackers' movie, and they had some report on the news last week. You just don't know how. You're fired. I'll find someone who can do this job..."
And on down the line, until some clued-in exec looking for a vice-president seat says, "Yeah, we'll get right on that." And calls up some other poor schmuck to make _him_ do it.
And all the while, management is whipping themselves into a storm because of all the maintstream media stories they're starting to see about this method of Reducing Their Profit Margin.
I gotta tell ya, it's times like this I think the technologically elite of this world should form their own class and rule as the 'Priests of All-Knowledge'. Think about it, you and most of the geeky people you know would be way better at it than some glorified CEO who knows diddly and is essentially someone's glorified rich little boy...
Bandwidth can be used for personal reasons, and for as many different purposes as you want. Paying postage for a one-way shipment of some physical media can have no further personal use.
"Gee, I asked for money to recompense charges for my connection, but I got so much that I have my ISP payed off for a year. Cool!"
But here I think you may have missed a valuable point: we must defend to the death the rights of our citizens. Period. We have to stand up for every dirtbag, every sKript kiddie, and every wannabe who thinks he can 'hack the planet'. We cannot allow unpopular people to be persecuted or have their rights taken away, no matter what we feel about being associated with them. We will lose our freedoms bit by bit and piece by piece to a large faceless all-powerful government if we dare not.
When all computer experts are viewed with suspicion, when false evidence is arrayed against us, and ludicrous false trials are held to condemn us, who will stand up for our rights? I'm not saying that these things are necessarily happening to Kevin Mitnick, or that they aren't, but as Americans, we must, absolutely must defend his rights as vigorously as we would defend, o say, Linus Torvalds.
You cannot arbitrarily decide who deserves justice and who does not. We all have a right to fair judgement under the law, and must all be judged equally.
The stated goal of the PIII ID is for use in the consumer market as a unique identifyer for e-commerce. It has nothing to do with 'entering a high-end server market' or any inability to split the two. Clearly Intel is capable of setting up dual product lines for servers and consumers, witness the Celeron and PII.
The issue that everyone is uncomfortable with is the default settings for default users, people like your mom and dad who just want to run windows and forget about it, maybe buy a book off of amazon every so often.
If people can take advantage of these, the script kiddies and hAXors and the rest will take what they can. Yes, I can feel safe inside of my secure linux box, but I cannot bless or condone the threat that intel would like to pose to others who are not as fortunate as I...
It is not a fair compromise to disable the chips if you can't disable them in the first place. (I don't much think it's a good solution anyway, but if you do, they should still fulfill that obligation)
Maybe it's just because I'm missing something, but Why Would I Care about what Diamond does to it's player? Does that affect my own collection? Does that affect my computer's ability to play the mp3 files I have?
No.
Well then who cares what they do?
About the best idea I've heard yet for doing what they want to do, which I disagree with of course, is to come up with a technically superior format. Otherwise, who cares what they do to certain players like the Rio?
When I went on a trip to russia a few years ago, the movie Waterworld with Kevin Costner had just the weekend I had left the US been released in theatres. However, in almost every kiosk around the city (Magadan) there were VHS copies of the movie for sale for the equivalent of $3-4 USD. Almost every american movie ever made is converted to the local format (not compatable w/ VHS) and sold out in the open in their own black market. The copies are occasionally videotaped copies, but more often are leaked copies origionating from the distribution house post production. Some of the tapes are also converted back to VHS format.
Hmmm, I bet the new Star Wars movie is out there quicker-than-quick...
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to point out something I thought was more relevant about the link and story, which I'd seen a this morning.
These documents were acquired by people submitting paperwork for the Freedom Of Information Act and acting on their beliefs. We can all sit around and argue about Echelon, or worry about some other terrible conspiracy, but I think that until people really start to hold their government responsible for it's actions, things will continue as before and worse.
Ask 'em for the documents. Make em worry about what to classify. Cause the office that checks for classification issues to overload; after all, classification decisions are pretty high level, and the model doesn't scale well. As the office becomes more clogged with requests for information, either they will mess up and release material they wouldn't have otherwise, or they will get so clogged they can't process all of the information coming in and going out.
Take responsiblity for the destiny afforded you by your government. Alone you are nothing, but in groups you are its greatest enemy.
The media hardly has the attention span of a mosquito hopped up on caffeine. While we may patiently and diligently await the day when computers are easy, fast, reliable, secure, etc., we are just a flash in the temporary attention span of the media world brought to light by the recent M-soft trials and self-reflection of pop-hackerdom as a flavor.
a millenialist sort of approach to tech: teams, like some more familiar sport, and playoffs, with winners and losers. Let's face it: computer operating systems are not primetime material. When you get past the idea that 'there can be only one', a lot of the sexy image dissapates and leaves us plain old folk, working as before.
Reminds me of some of the script-kiddie comments in the cDc interview. They come, they go, some small percentage stay behind. A natural life-cycle...
It's almost like the author of this article _actually_reads_ this forum.
I have to say that this is one of the reasons that I like slashdot. It's a meritocracy of ideas, because the people who often best understand a technology are on hand to help explain it to those in another area of expertise. The amount of (unintentional) misinformation floating around here is uncharacteristic of the forum.
Rob, you rock. And if nobody's said that lately, it's never because you've been taken for granted...
This is the MOST common misconception about IPV6, and I wish people somehow would stop getting this idea.
IPV6 IS NOT solely to remedy ip address shortages. There are those who contend that there is no such shortage, and we can all just use NAT boxen and masquerading till the cows come home. Which leads to the natural assumption that there's no need for IPV6.
Other important things that come with IPV6 are the QoS ratings, additional security features (!), better design from the network architecture standpoint, general improvements in the spec, etc.
Keep in mind, IPV4 is OLD, and it was never meant to do the things we have it doing, becuase the designers at the time had no idea how the Internet would turn out.
(!) BTW, this does NOT refer to the so-called loss of anonymity caused by putting a MAC in the address. Read more at the IPV6 FAQ.
I think this line of reasoning entirely validates open-source/free software concepts, the whole idea that "With a million eyes, all bugs are shallow".
They mentioned the idea that once a sofware project gets to be a few million lines of code, no one person can hold all of those patterns together in their mind. But with hundreds of people interoperating _transparently_ and openly sharing the information of a million-line program, it can be held in the collective conscience quite adequately.
I know that alot of people will probably post here, "hey yah, open source rulz!" and similar sentiments. But it nonetheless refreshing to feel a little validated by other people not directly involved in Free software.
One of the main factors that has led to the current state of the software market, I would propose, is that is is, in fact, NOT a munufacturing-based industry, as it is modelled after. Think about it: when a company sells you a piece of software, IP laws and shrinkwrap liscences and the hefty price you pay all lead you to believe that you are purchasing one "item". You have one "item" and cannot make more, or use that "item" in any manner for which is was not intended. If you wish to make this "item" available for others, you will be charged as if you now had several "items" (per-seat liscensing fees).
But that is not what software (is,should be, must become). It is a service, and needs to become modelled more appropriately after a service-based industry. I retain the services of a software company to help me do a certain task. They give me a piece of media worth 15 cents, but I am not paying for a thing. I am paying for the services of a company.
Think about the difference in current markets set up like this: shouldn't software be more like a getting a doctor or a plumber, instead of like buying a car or a hammer? Information, that which makes up this "thing" that they want to sell me, it is not a "thing". It is just a service they provide, to help me serve web documents or print a document. If I do not like their service, I find some other, better provider.
Could be required to see through the market-ese and figure out what precisely this is...
Is this a lateral movement, intended to just shift resources to a new area, or is this a demotion of sorts? (I can't hardly imagine it as a promotion...) Or is this Marc just starting to let up a little and enjoy a few of his millions? (part time position was mentioned)
Sometimes it's so hard to see through the market-speek!
This is a side question that I would like to see discussion on someday.
I notice that a lot of folks here seem to hate so-called 'squatters' who reserve domains for money, presumably because some folks here work on that kind of thing in their day2day job. I also see some people ranting against overbearing big businesses that use piles of paperwork to overwhelm smaller registered owners for domains that they want (ie ajax.com and many others).
What should be the 'rights' reguarding names and domains? First come first served leads to squatters, but trying to discern honest holders from large pushy companies seems difficult at times. And what about "name-grabbers" like George Bush Jr., who tried to grab all the parody-type addresses he could think of before announcing candidacy. Many of you folks work within the DNS system for a living, how do _YOU_ feel it should work?
Random Speculation, pay no mind if you don't care...
I really hate to say this, as I hate sounding negative, but I don't see why it's better to have the moderator controls always visible. I, for example, browse most of the time at +2 so I can just read the first 30 good comments or so. If I'm bored later or really interested in a topic i go to -1. If I get moderator access, I need to browse at -1 and see everything. While I enjoy moderating from time to time, I don't want to have to always browse at -1 _just in case I might be mod_... It seems to defeat the purpose: to allow those with limited time or attention span to see a story and read just a few good comments on it. You also begin to make it so that only a few people will participate in the moderating.
Other than the "bonus point" system for certain people, I really think the system here has been working out great. I hope "creeping featurism" doesn't take over it all.
RedHat on their recent tour though here was asked about how they felt about linux-mandrake. Their response was that they wished them all the luck in the world, to no surprise. RedHat has a stated goal of targeting a more business centered market, going after a higher sell corporate arena, as well as servers and enterprise iron.
Mandrake, by contrast, wants to be 'your mothers distro' and isn't really shooting for wide deployment by the PHB's. Not only that, but they use the RH way to do it. As everyone's favorite Redmond company has shown, there is value in people following your lead and allowing you to set the standard, your particular way of doing things, as the common standard. Redhat wants the home user doing Mandrake so that those users are comfortable with the version they may use at work.
Calmness. All is calmness and tranquility. We are not a business. We are a community. And we are each helped by the contributions of our members. That is our nature.
This goes to show what I had hoped some of my co-workers would see all along: There's a different tool for every job, and a different distribution of linux for (almost) every purpose under the sun. Glad to see a 'new' dist with a reputation for user-friendly is getting some of the monetary interest lately.
I do suppose that since RH is trying to include KDE into things now that we have an unusual situation: A value-added reseller being repackaged by a value-added reseller. I do hope their Lothar project gets some of that cash!
Notice one of the quotes down low on the article where some exec is quoted to say that the people who release utilities like unf*ck are doing it just to get a kick out of it.
I have to say, I can think of some pretty strong objections to that opinion myself. In classic political literature like Thoreau's (sp?) essay on civil disobedience, it is suggested basically, that if you morally object to some law or rule that it is incumbent upon you as a moral person to not abide by that rule. And I am not, AM NOT, saying that the person who cracked the MS format is doing this for that reason, but there are some principled and capable people who do things like this, testing security or routing around rules they feel are wrong.
I think that the committed allies of record labels and proprietary standards need to realise they aren't just fighting a bunch of bored 12-year olds in a basement, some people out there are actually trying to do what they think is right, or abolish practices they disagree with.
Perhaps this is one reason that "the man" is less effective at stopping such attacks, because in his heart he really believes that groups like cDc or the l0pht are just disenfranchised youths without any organizational abilities or communication skills. One of the CS profs here at the U is very active in his development on nmap because he believes in the open nature of security. I've known countless hackers and crackers that did what they did for more than "just some kicks..."
(sigh)
This is hard, anyone got any thoughts?
IRman works with linux, but ampapod and the X11 remote can do cool stuff like web surfing, and I guess I could always just pop VMware into linux and use ampapod after all.
But then again, I've heard that X11 makes poor quality stuff, and Rob uses IRMan, which looks high quality but doesn't have the same flexibility, tho it looks higher quality.
But the X11 remote costs less.
But its supported by a company and the IRman looks only loosly supported by a comany (not exactly a global corporation, looks like a buncha students).
Geez, someone got some thoughts on this? I gotta get one of these, like NOW!
Actually, there is a law concerning televisions viewable by the driver in vehicles that would probably make the kind of thing you are talking about moot and illegal. The panel will likely be restricted to legitimate display of instrumentation. They don't just have a web browser there for you to look at, the most advanced and unusual thing there to distract you is the map. I've seen the car, and talked with one of the people working outthere, and they don't want the visual displays to become too invasive for exactly this reason. Another reason for all the voice controls... Hands (and eye) free operation.
As respects the quote at the end, about how we should be sounding the death-knell for MP3 instead, i give a big "BZZZZZT! Wrong!"
.99 cents to get a single legitimate copy instantly. The anaolgy with DIVX is quite apt: industry decides what it wants and what is best for them, customers decide that there is no benefit for them, they refuse to buy in, the business looses, and out comes a new industry...
It is true that consumers by and large may begin to prefer the legitimate distribution channels, but that doesn't mean a choice between whatever tripe 'standard' the music industry comes up with and the 'evil pirate' mp3. Musicians and customers will simply route around the distribution companies that fight mp3's, or whatever format comes along. Bands will begin to fight to release their own property ina way that benefits them, and consumers will continue to choose the method that most closely matches their desires.
The prez of Goodnoise made a valuable point along these lines: people might not want to surf an hour to get a song for free illegally, but would be very happy with just paying the
All economic models depend upon consumers doing what is in their best intrest, otherwise there is no way to predict behaviour accurately. Am I going to simply accept a system that limits and restricts freedoms I already have? No! Why would I? Instead, a new model must be found to deal with my new expectations as a consumer. Same goes for musicians and bands. They know the score, and are even less inclined to stick around with a sour deal since they're losing out on so much money already.
I had to.
Would you care to comment on the viability of Microsoft stock, king tech stock of them all, yes the one that splits every cursed full moon?
I realize that it's almost balanced out though by Amazon, the worlds most well publicised "scam" in the world. All I ever hear about em is how "They lose money on every book" and "didn't make a dime last year" and yet the stock climbs higher and higher.
Perhaps it has occured to some people that a lasting and entrenched position in the market assured by long time standing in that market is slightly valuable, even if current profits are less than optimal.
Sigh.
Indeed, I agree, accusations and FUD is being tossed around by some people who see any sort of commercial success as the qualifying characteristic to "be the next microsoft". Some people are behaving irrationally because Redhat is doing well. And those people are incorrect.
However, just because you toss out the argument they make does not mean you should toss the platform. The point of this person's article is to show a specific instance of business behaviour that is _not_ good for linux as a whole. People should not hate microsoft because of its success, or its wide coverage of the market. That would be akin to saying that anything everyone likes should be considered evil.
Microsoft has earned the contempt of nerds everywhere for their anti-competitive business practices and outright immoral behaviour. Contracts that are not about promoting their solution, but negating the efforts of others, explicitly and with harmful intent.
This article, whether you agree with it or not, is speculating on the possiblity that Redhat has acted in that same way, making an exclusive contract to shut out the other distro's. And if a company, any company, begins to use those kind of tactics, we should object strongly. Even if some small no-name distribution with minimal circulation began to form contracts like that we would be obligated to set forth these objections. You can't hate Redhat bacause they are successful. That's fine. But if they begin the cycle of bad business and anticompetitive bahaviour, then we should object. Strongly.
Now, for the record, I don't think that Redhat can really do too much to the linux I love. It's open and out there, andI will always be able to use the version I want because I can make it into that image. But some vanity, some impulse inside makes me want to share that same ideal distribution with everyone, to give people a real alternative. And I would hate to see the Redhat dist become the version that people use because it has only replaced Microsoft as tyrant, without understanding the loving work that has gone into the philosophical changes that linux is made of.
"Without the law, there is no freedom. Without justice there is no law."
What part of the logic chain am I missing?
1. PHB wishes to know if there is some intrest in a particular branch of development.
2. Poll is established and 6000 people vote for linux.
3. PHB says, "Hmm, that's interesting. Tell me more, lets get some numbers and ask a consulting firm or two..."
No company or business is going to base developer decisions on an online poll, whether they get 6 votes total or 100,000 for linux. They are gauging (sp?) an intrest level. So what if slashdot sends a very large number of linux zealots over? They are still each and every one a potential customer, and a company likes to find a new market with lots of customers.
If some mac evangelista site links the poll, they would have every chance to flood the poll too, and that might be listened to as well.
There is also a final possibility, one I know from personal experience: Maybe the PHB's Number One is a big time reader of slashdot and is trying to steer his boss into learning something about linux. In a seemingly innocuous poll they get a LARGE amount of linux intrest. Mission Accomplished.
"Bob, I've heard about this nasty computer thing people have started using that's been sucking some of our revenues off. I have a solution."
"Yes sir?"
"Yes. I'd like you to create a virus that destroys the computer if you try to do that, you know, the mp3 thing..."
"Uhhh, I don't think I can do that."
"You can't make something that perhaps just flashes a message or sends us a note or just locks up? What kind of techincal advisor are you??"
"Well sir, I'm not sure you understand all the technical details of implementing..."
"Nonsense. I saw it on that 'Hackers' movie, and they had some report on the news last week. You just don't know how. You're fired. I'll find someone who can do this job..."
And on down the line, until some clued-in exec looking for a vice-president seat says, "Yeah, we'll get right on that." And calls up some other poor schmuck to make _him_ do it.
And all the while, management is whipping themselves into a storm because of all the maintstream media stories they're starting to see about this method of Reducing Their Profit Margin.
I gotta tell ya, it's times like this I think the technologically elite of this world should form their own class and rule as the 'Priests of All-Knowledge'. Think about it, you and most of the geeky people you know would be way better at it than some glorified CEO who knows diddly and is essentially someone's glorified rich little boy...
Bandwidth can be used for personal reasons, and for as many different purposes as you want. Paying postage for a one-way shipment of some physical media can have no further personal use.
"Gee, I asked for money to recompense charges for my connection, but I got so much that I have my ISP payed off for a year. Cool!"
But I have what perhaps is a flame-ready topic:
What if Microsoft offered a similar bounty for fixing security holes in their software?
What would you say then?
(Besides the completely obvious joke about how they would shortly find themselves bankrupt...)
$asbestos = 1;
wait;
But here I think you may have missed a valuable point: we must defend to the death the rights of our citizens. Period. We have to stand up for every dirtbag, every sKript kiddie, and every wannabe who thinks he can 'hack the planet'. We cannot allow unpopular people to be persecuted or have their rights taken away, no matter what we feel about being associated with them. We will lose our freedoms bit by bit and piece by piece to a large faceless all-powerful government if we dare not.
When all computer experts are viewed with suspicion, when false evidence is arrayed against us, and ludicrous false trials are held to condemn us, who will stand up for our rights? I'm not saying that these things are necessarily happening to Kevin Mitnick, or that they aren't, but as Americans, we must, absolutely must defend his rights as vigorously as we would defend, o say, Linus Torvalds.
You cannot arbitrarily decide who deserves justice and who does not. We all have a right to fair judgement under the law, and must all be judged equally.
The stated goal of the PIII ID is for use in the consumer market as a unique identifyer for e-commerce. It has nothing to do with 'entering a high-end server market' or any inability to split the two. Clearly Intel is capable of setting up dual product lines for servers and consumers, witness the Celeron and PII.
The issue that everyone is uncomfortable with is the default settings for default users, people like your mom and dad who just want to run windows and forget about it, maybe buy a book off of amazon every so often.
If people can take advantage of these, the script kiddies and hAXors and the rest will take what they can. Yes, I can feel safe inside of my secure linux box, but I cannot bless or condone the threat that intel would like to pose to others who are not as fortunate as I...
It is not a fair compromise to disable the chips if you can't disable them in the first place. (I don't much think it's a good solution anyway, but if you do, they should still fulfill that obligation)
Maybe it's just because I'm missing something, but Why Would I Care about what Diamond does to it's player? Does that affect my own collection? Does that affect my computer's ability to play the mp3 files I have?
No.
Well then who cares what they do?
About the best idea I've heard yet for doing what they want to do, which I disagree with of course, is to come up with a technically superior format. Otherwise, who cares what they do to certain players like the Rio?
When I went on a trip to russia a few years ago,
the movie Waterworld with Kevin Costner had just
the weekend I had left the US been released in
theatres. However, in almost every kiosk around
the city (Magadan) there were VHS copies of the
movie for sale for the equivalent of $3-4 USD.
Almost every american movie ever made is converted
to the local format (not compatable w/ VHS) and
sold out in the open in their own black market.
The copies are occasionally videotaped copies,
but more often are leaked copies origionating
from the distribution house post production.
Some of the tapes are also converted back to VHS
format.
Hmmm, I bet the new Star Wars movie is out there
quicker-than-quick...