Mandrake is one of the best distros out there. They have not been around very long and most companies struggle for at least five years!
These guys have already made a BIG contribution to the Linux comunity but when they need help all I see are trolls and not well thought out opinions.
Jesus! Fuck!
If you guys are nothing more then blood sucking leaches then FINE. Always download free distros and NEVER fucking pay for them until the company goes belly up. Download your pirated MP3s until the legislators force copy protection up our asses. Do all the things that low-life fucking leaches do. But when it all turns to shit don't complain!
I have used Slackware, Redhat Suse, and Mandrake. Mandrake is without doubt the easiest to install and configure. The team at Mandrake have done an outstanding job in creating a distro that configures itself with little or no user intervention. (Windows users can even set it up!)
The one "flaw" that I have found is that they are sometimes so far ahead of other distros as to be incompatible with main stream Linux. For example Kylix 2 has a real problem working under Mandrake 8.1 partially because Mandrake uses some of the newest libraries and Kylix is lagging behind a bit.
Giving it's customer's the latest greatest is Mandrakes style. It would be a real blow to the Linux community if they don't make it.
This is a major uphill battle. Microsoft is in bed with the entertainment industry to push through copy protection legislation that could kill open source operating systems like Linux and they continue to use FUD to poison the open source well.
Let's make no mistake about the seriousness of our situation. Microsoft alone has enough funding to cause major problems but add to that the entertainment industry's intellectual property pirating concerns and the unfortunate fact that our politicians can be bought makes the situation very grim.
We need to fight back NOW. An article here and there is not going to be enough. We have got to organize and get the word out to the common people in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. One of the worst mistakes that we can make is to come off looking like a group of fanatics. We must make them see that this issue is their issue and not just the concerns of a group of geeks and nerds. Personally, I'm proud to bee a geek but that's beside the point.;-)
It would be a big boost to the effort if we could get our position aired on television. One story on CNN is worth hundreds on a tech related web page. But this may not be easy to do since CNN is owned by some of the very people who want to shove copy protection into every piece of hardware and software. They have a vested interest in seeing that we can't get our message out.
I am open to any reasonable suggestions about what course of action we should take. Any suggestions out there?
But paying off the plaintiff isn't good enough if Microsoft doesn't stop doing the very things that allowed the plaintiff to win an award.
At least it won't be good enough unless the payoff is large enough to force Microsoft alter its behavior. As long as Microsoft benefits from its illegal behavior there is little incentive for them to stop.
"It's not his fault people are using his service illegally..."
Well, when you knowingly do something that results in harm to other's you can be held accountable under United States laws.
If I loan my car to a friend and he takes out a fence, I can be made to pay for it. I may not have been driving the car but I am responsible for seeing that the car is not used to do damage to other people's property. Same idea here.
I lost my temper and posted something in anger. I was actually going to pull it but now I'm glad you read it before I toned it down.
You are an incredibly rude individual. I can only assume that you are "young and stupid."
You have no respect for people's rights to protect their intellectual property. That shows me that you put your own desires above other people's needs. When you purchase an album, you don't get to dictate to the copyright holder how you will compensate him. The copyright holder dictates to his customers the terms of any agreement. I believe the truth is that you want to download MP3s freely and if the copyright holder doesn't like it then fuck 'em.
I hope that someday you produce some intellectual property of value and have to defend it from people like yourself in order to feed your family.
By the way, I noticed that you mod your own messages up as soon as you post them. Yet another sign of immaturity.
Go away. Your words are as dog farts. They are not to be considered.
I don't know if YOU are that stupid or just incredibly rude.
Go ahead and form a band, cut a MP3 and post it. Dollars to donuts you will get ZERO downloads in six months. People are NOT going to say: "Oh, look. There's an MP3 that I've never listened to put out by a band that I've never heard. I think I'll give it a go." It just not going to happen. And if it does you will earn EXACTLY $0.00.
So, before you get rude and go calling people stupid grow up. In the mean time go pop a few pimples or something.
"And I can use the internet to make my music available to millions of people."
My point is that just because you put your song onto your PC and fire up Limewire or which ever P2P server/client you use doesn't mean that lots of people will start passing your music around.
People do searches on titles and artists that they know. How do they know these titles and artists? They hear the song on the radio first.
"If people want to listen to Cool Indie Band, and they start passing around Cool Indie Band's track, this means that they're more likely to go out and buy Cool Indie Band's album rather than an album made by an MPAA artist.
That is why the MPAA is attacking mp3's and p2p file sharing systems, not because of the arguable amount of revenue they loose because people get thier music for free -- but because it takes control of what people listen to, and what influences people's purchasing decisions, away from them, and puts it back in the hands of the consumers."
The flaw in your argument is that most people don't download music from unknown artists. They download music from artists that they have heard on the radio so the MPAA still has control.
Further, "passing around" copyrighted material is stealing and has nothing to due with fair use. I'm not for crippled CDs or special hardware that prevents me from fair use but the mass thievery that is going on is breathtaking. The question of whether it hurts the artists or whether the music industry is ripping off the artists is irrelevant. Our stand against these new proposed laws would be a lot stronger if we would just do the right thing and not download copyrighted material that we have not paid for.
I know that this isn't a popular view among a community that likes all things free so mod me down if you must but it is the truth.
"So, this Congressman Rick is going about things all wrong - he needs to start by repealing the DMCA."
Or if not repeal it at least it should read that a person may not circumvent copy protection unless they do so to exercise fair use. Oh, I guess that would put us right back where we started. Yeah, they should repeal it....
Forcing computer manufacturers to pay for Windows even if it wasn't loaded on a computer was definitely flexing their monopoly muscle to the detriment of the public.
However, putting an integrated browser into their OS was also a strategic move that not only hurt Netscape but more importantly was the beginning of much more sinister plan. Specifically it was their first maneuver to use their monopoly power to gain control over Internet services. Something that they knew would be VERY lucrative.
They continue to strategically bundle software into their OS. They call this innovation but in reality it is a thinly veiled attempt to use the dominance of their OS to extend power into additional markets. It makes competing products irrelevant and thereby destroys the competition.
I find it ironic that most companies that have been destroyed by Microsoft used Microsoft tools to develop their software. Then when Microsoft realizes that one of its customers is about to take a lucrative piece of some market they rush in and destroy. Kind of like being a crop that will be harvested at some point.
In his presentation before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, Justice Department lead attorney Philip Beck said that Microsoft was able to hold on to a monopoly in Intel-based operating systems only through anti-competitive acts. But the government was not in a position to make that argument stick, he said.
"We tried very hard the first time around, and we were not able to do it," he told the court. "The causation issues"--actually proving that point about anti-competitive acts--"would have been an uphill battle that would likely have been resolved against us."
What the hell am I missing here? Didn't the case go against Microsoft and a breakup order was issued? I mean the case WAS PROVED! It was only the punishment that an upper court decided should be reviewed.
This makes it sound like they couldn't prove their case. Would someone enlighten me please?
Never mind, I didn't read your post carefuly. I thought that your company was not going to release the code under GPL.
What they are doing is legal. Slimy but legal. As long as they release the entire project under the GPL.
If you modify code under GPL it remains under GPL even if that includes adding a large amount of code or simply changing all of the function and variable names.
The only reason for changing all of the function and variable names that I can think of is in an attempt to hide the codes origin. It seems despicable to me. If your company gets caught, this tactic will not protect them from a GPL violation. It will only prove that they knew what they were doing was wrong and tried to hide it.
"But this time the company seems to be threatening to withdraw Windows from the market entirely, and not develop or ship it ever again."
Is this a bad thing Mr. Gates? Do you think that the world would stop turning without your over priced bloated, insecure OS?
The world would still continue to use Windows 2000 while the majority of the world's developers would start to develop software for other operating systems. Mostly Linux and Mac I would suspect. We would survive and in a few years be more empowered than we ever would be under your monopolistic tyranny.
So you take your fucking marbles and go home. We really don't need you.
"I hope that China does something about spam mail but this really is not the way to encourage it."
This is _exactly_ the right way to encourage it. This was not the first thing tried. Contacting the ISP was found to be useless. If direct and to the point communication fails what else remains?
I realize that most people in China do not spam and that most of the spam coming out of China is being bounced from the US. However, it is the open mail servers that are allowing this relaying. The admins of these servers have a responsibility to the world community to see to it that their equipment isn't being abused in this way.
The bottom line is that if they are unwilling or unable to take control of their mail servers then the world must find other methods to stop the flow of spam.
" Consumer advocates are appalled that the copy-protected discs deny users their legal rights to copy music for personal use on digital devices like computers and MP3 players."
Sometimes people say "right" when they mean privilege. A right is something guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be taken away without due process. You have a right to freedom but it can be taken away if you break the law (Say by stealing someone's intellectual property) after you receive due process (A trial). A privilege on the other hand can pretty much disappear with little or no due process. Lawmakers can simple create a law (Usually a bad one.) and POOF! Privilege gone.
Like it or not, unauthorized trading of copyrighted music is stealing from whoever controls the copyright. Period.
So, rather than bitch, piss and moan about the reaction of the victims of unauthorized trading of copyrighted music, why not have a discussion about how we can stop the thievery without losing our privileges?
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Is it true that you and Bill had "666" tattooed on your butts?
Slashdot Mirror
God, I don't believe you people!
Mandrake is one of the best distros out there. They have not been around very long and most companies struggle for at least five years!
These guys have already made a BIG contribution to the Linux comunity but when they need help all I see are trolls and not well thought out opinions.
Jesus! Fuck!
If you guys are nothing more then blood sucking leaches then FINE. Always download free distros and NEVER fucking pay for them until the company goes belly up. Download your pirated MP3s until the legislators force copy protection up our asses. Do all the things that low-life fucking leaches do. But when it all turns to shit don't complain!
Jesus I don't believe you guys!
I have used Slackware, Redhat Suse, and Mandrake. Mandrake is without doubt the easiest to install and configure. The team at Mandrake have done an outstanding job in creating a distro that configures itself with little or no user intervention. (Windows users can even set it up!)
The one "flaw" that I have found is that they are sometimes so far ahead of other distros as to be incompatible with main stream Linux. For example Kylix 2 has a real problem working under Mandrake 8.1 partially because Mandrake uses some of the newest libraries and Kylix is lagging behind a bit.
Giving it's customer's the latest greatest is Mandrakes style. It would be a real blow to the Linux community if they don't make it.
I plan on supporting them and I hope you do too.
to see "This web page best viewed using Mozilla!"
;)
Revenge is sweet!
This is a major uphill battle. Microsoft is in bed with the entertainment industry to push through copy protection legislation that could kill open source operating systems like Linux and they continue to use FUD to poison the open source well.
;-)
Let's make no mistake about the seriousness of our situation. Microsoft alone has enough funding to cause major problems but add to that the entertainment industry's intellectual property pirating concerns and the unfortunate fact that our politicians can be bought makes the situation very grim.
We need to fight back NOW. An article here and there is not going to be enough. We have got to organize and get the word out to the common people in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. One of the worst mistakes that we can make is to come off looking like a group of fanatics. We must make them see that this issue is their issue and not just the concerns of a group of geeks and nerds. Personally, I'm proud to bee a geek but that's beside the point.
It would be a big boost to the effort if we could get our position aired on television. One story on CNN is worth hundreds on a tech related web page. But this may not be easy to do since CNN is owned by some of the very people who want to shove copy protection into every piece of hardware and software. They have a vested interest in seeing that we can't get our message out.
I am open to any reasonable suggestions about what course of action we should take. Any suggestions out there?
But paying off the plaintiff isn't good enough if Microsoft doesn't stop doing the very things that allowed the plaintiff to win an award.
At least it won't be good enough unless the payoff is large enough to force Microsoft alter its behavior. As long as Microsoft benefits from its illegal behavior there is little incentive for them to stop.
And if the States get to look at Microsofts source code they could determine that.
Althought I doubt that it could be used in court because the reason for looking at the source code is to determine if IE can be removed.
I don't like getting 100 pieces of spam per day telling me that they can increase the size of my penis by six inches...
;-)
I mean, how much bigger can it get?
"It's not his fault people are using his service illegally..."
Well, when you knowingly do something that results in harm to other's you can be held accountable under United States laws.
If I loan my car to a friend and he takes out a fence, I can be made to pay for it. I may not have been driving the car but I am responsible for seeing that the car is not used to do damage to other people's property. Same idea here.
I lost my temper and posted something in anger. I was actually going to pull it but now I'm glad you read it before I toned it down.
You are an incredibly rude individual. I can only assume that you are "young and stupid."
You have no respect for people's rights to protect their intellectual property. That shows me that you put your own desires above other people's needs. When you purchase an album, you don't get to dictate to the copyright holder how you will compensate him. The copyright holder dictates to his customers the terms of any agreement. I believe the truth is that you want to download MP3s freely and if the copyright holder doesn't like it then fuck 'em.
I hope that someday you produce some intellectual property of value and have to defend it from people like yourself in order to feed your family.
By the way, I noticed that you mod your own messages up as soon as you post them. Yet another sign of immaturity.
Go away. Your words are as dog farts. They are not to be considered.
I don't know if YOU are that stupid or just incredibly rude.
Go ahead and form a band, cut a MP3 and post it. Dollars to donuts you will get ZERO downloads in six months. People are NOT going to say: "Oh, look. There's an MP3 that I've never listened to put out by a band that I've never heard. I think I'll give it a go." It just not going to happen. And if it does you will earn EXACTLY $0.00.
So, before you get rude and go calling people stupid grow up. In the mean time go pop a few pimples or something.
Jerk
"And I can use the internet to make my music available to millions of people."
My point is that just because you put your song onto your PC and fire up Limewire or which ever P2P server/client you use doesn't mean that lots of people will start passing your music around.
People do searches on titles and artists that they know. How do they know these titles and artists? They hear the song on the radio first.
"If people want to listen to Cool Indie Band, and they start passing around Cool Indie Band's track, this means that they're more likely to go out and buy Cool Indie Band's album rather than an album made by an MPAA artist.
That is why the MPAA is attacking mp3's and p2p file sharing systems, not because of the arguable amount of revenue they loose because people get thier music for free -- but because it takes control of what people listen to, and what influences people's purchasing decisions, away from them, and puts it back in the hands of the consumers."
The flaw in your argument is that most people don't download music from unknown artists. They download music from artists that they have heard on the radio so the MPAA still has control.
Further, "passing around" copyrighted material is stealing and has nothing to due with fair use. I'm not for crippled CDs or special hardware that prevents me from fair use but the mass thievery that is going on is breathtaking. The question of whether it hurts the artists or whether the music industry is ripping off the artists is irrelevant. Our stand against these new proposed laws would be a lot stronger if we would just do the right thing and not download copyrighted material that we have not paid for.
I know that this isn't a popular view among a community that likes all things free so mod me down if you must but it is the truth.
"So, this Congressman Rick is going about things all wrong - he needs to start by repealing the DMCA."
Or if not repeal it at least it should read that a person may not circumvent copy protection unless they do so to exercise fair use. Oh, I guess that would put us right back where we started. Yeah, they should repeal it....
Forcing computer manufacturers to pay for Windows even if it wasn't loaded on a computer was definitely flexing their monopoly muscle to the detriment of the public.
However, putting an integrated browser into their OS was also a strategic move that not only hurt Netscape but more importantly was the beginning of much more sinister plan. Specifically it was their first maneuver to use their monopoly power to gain control over Internet services. Something that they knew would be VERY lucrative.
They continue to strategically bundle software into their OS. They call this innovation but in reality it is a thinly veiled attempt to use the dominance of their OS to extend power into additional markets. It makes competing products irrelevant and thereby destroys the competition.
I find it ironic that most companies that have been destroyed by Microsoft used Microsoft tools to develop their software. Then when Microsoft realizes that one of its customers is about to take a lucrative piece of some market they rush in and destroy. Kind of like being a crop that will be harvested at some point.
In his presentation before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, Justice Department lead attorney Philip Beck said that Microsoft was able to hold on to a monopoly in Intel-based operating systems only through anti-competitive acts. But the government was not in a position to make that argument stick, he said.
"We tried very hard the first time around, and we were not able to do it," he told the court. "The causation issues"--actually proving that point about anti-competitive acts--"would have been an uphill battle that would likely have been resolved against us."
What the hell am I missing here? Didn't the case go against Microsoft and a breakup order was issued? I mean the case WAS PROVED! It was only the punishment that an upper court decided should be reviewed.
This makes it sound like they couldn't prove their case. Would someone enlighten me please?
Never mind, I didn't read your post carefuly. I thought that your company was not going to release the code under GPL. What they are doing is legal. Slimy but legal. As long as they release the entire project under the GPL.
If you modify code under GPL it remains under GPL even if that includes adding a large amount of code or simply changing all of the function and variable names.
The only reason for changing all of the function and variable names that I can think of is in an attempt to hide the codes origin. It seems despicable to me. If your company gets caught, this tactic will not protect them from a GPL violation. It will only prove that they knew what they were doing was wrong and tried to hide it.
Go to the web page. It says: "Not for use with Windows 2000sr2 or Windows XP"
It removes ie "right up to" but not including Windows 2000.
"But this time the company seems to be threatening to withdraw Windows from the market entirely, and not develop or ship it ever again."
Is this a bad thing Mr. Gates? Do you think that the world would stop turning without your over priced bloated, insecure OS?
The world would still continue to use Windows 2000 while the majority of the world's developers would start to develop software for other operating systems. Mostly Linux and Mac I would suspect. We would survive and in a few years be more empowered than we ever would be under your monopolistic tyranny.
So you take your fucking marbles and go home. We really don't need you.
"I hope that China does something about spam mail but this really is not the way to encourage it."
This is _exactly_ the right way to encourage it. This was not the first thing tried. Contacting the ISP was found to be useless. If direct and to the point communication fails what else remains?
I realize that most people in China do not spam and that most of the spam coming out of China is being bounced from the US. However, it is the open mail servers that are allowing this relaying. The admins of these servers have a responsibility to the world community to see to it that their equipment isn't being abused in this way.
The bottom line is that if they are unwilling or unable to take control of their mail servers then the world must find other methods to stop the flow of spam.
OK, I'll play devil's advocate.
" Consumer advocates are appalled that the copy-protected discs deny users their legal rights to copy music for personal use on digital devices like computers and MP3 players."
Sometimes people say "right" when they mean privilege. A right is something guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be taken away without due process. You have a right to freedom but it can be taken away if you break the law (Say by stealing someone's intellectual property) after you receive due process (A trial). A privilege on the other hand can pretty much disappear with little or no due process. Lawmakers can simple create a law (Usually a bad one.) and POOF! Privilege gone.
Like it or not, unauthorized trading of copyrighted music is stealing from whoever controls the copyright. Period.
So, rather than bitch, piss and moan about the reaction of the victims of unauthorized trading of copyrighted music, why not have a discussion about how we can stop the thievery without losing our privileges?
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Is it true that you and Bill had "666" tattooed on your butts?
if you would donate a small percentage of the income that subscriptions generate to the EFF.
It seems we all want to keep our rights but no one is willing to spend a dime to do so.
Law makers, make laws... That's what they do.
After 200+ years, I guess they just ran out of good ones to make.
Sorry, I stopped reading your post 'cause it seemed like you were preaching... ;-)