If it is so unlikely that they would ever make use of the ability to re-write and re-use something you wrote, then why did they write the contract that way?
It is sometimes a bigger intellectual challenge disassembling or
decompiling than writing the program yourself. I find disassembly a bit easier
than decompilation, but of course it is very, very tedious. Decompilation of C
(I've never decompiled C++.) is difficult for me because every little thing is
a call to some other area of the program.
The byte code of pseudo-compiled languages like Java is just a coded
list of the instructions the programmer wrote. There are no comments, and the
variable names can be hidden, so byte code is not as easy to read as the
original code. But it is easy to produce a list of the original instructions,
with some areas of confusion. If a programmer has written code using an
especially excellent algorithm, it is possible to copy the code and change it
enough that it is not covered by copyright.
"... Sun doesn't use Java on a single one of their internal projects (it's
banned by policy)."
I've heard that too, but I don't have a link. Can anyone help?
From a
recent comment: My understanding is that Sun does not allow its
own programmers to use Java for important programs because Java is bytecode
interpreted, not compiled. That makes Java easy to de-compile. Sun apparently
designed the language for other people to use. Microsoft did the same with C#;
apparently none of the programs Microsoft sells are written in C#.
It is important to notice that the sharp criticism of the way women act in the U.S. is probably a bigger reason that some newspapers banned the cartoon than concern about Islamic practices.
In the U.S., women spend most of the money, because they do the shopping.
"Most American citizens are fully aware about government corruption."
Probably all your friends and family are educated. But most people in
the U.S. aren't like you. For most people in the U.S., TV is their only
education about how the world works.
"I have been in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I kissed the US
floor."
That is EXACTLY the reason for the problem. Even some Saudis from rich
families believe that there needs to be political change in Saudi Arabia.
Oil company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates use
taxpayer money to assure profits for their investments. In exchange for using
U.S. military money to assure the dictatorship of the family of al Saud, the
Saudi government cooperates with Cheney and Bush corruption goals. When George
W. Bush holds hands with people like "Prince" Bandar and other Saudis, people like Osama bin Laden believe that is evidence of a
loss of sovereignty and, effectively, a declaration war.
In no way do I accept any kind of violence. However, some people are
drawn into the way the U.S. government does things, and believe that, if the
U.S. government kills Arabs, then Arabs should kill people in the United
States. In my view, that is exactly as stupid as the interference of the U.S.
government with Arab countries, and the violence of the U.S. government
towards Arabs. I don't see one as better than the other; they are both
destructive.
People in the U.S. are, generally, very ignorant about the corruption in the
U.S. government.
The U.S. does not have a problem with Iran, except for the problems
the U.S. government makes. The U.S. government is manipulated by Cheney and
others to use taxpayer's money to get control of oil, so that oil prices will
rise. Saddam Hussein was not cooperating with that, and Iran isn't either.
The U.S. government makes very violent threats, and, when Iran reacts
and replies, tells U.S. citizens that Iran is a threat.
It is necessary to have a government with enough social sophistication
that it can live in the world without killing other people, and the U.S. does
not have that government. The U.S. government has invaded at
least 24 countries since the second world war, and is responsible for the
deaths of perhaps 11 million people. All of that violence was done for profit for people who were already rich. People who have been born in
wealthy families often feel that it is their right to kill other people.
Quote: "I don't think Java is a particularly big reason for people to like
Sun, and tying your company's future to it seems ill-advised."
Exactly. The name change is evidence that Sun has some very
technically ignorant marketing people, apparently, or maybe just a very
technically ignorant, but imperial, CEO.
My understanding is that Sun does not allow its own programmers to use
Java for important programs because Java is bytecode interpreted, not
compiled. That makes Java easy to de-compile. Sun apparently designed the language for
other people to use. Microsoft did the same with C#; apparently none of the
programs Microsoft sells are written in C#.
From Wikipedia's Criticism of
Java: "The look and feel of GUI applications written in Java using the
Swing platform is often different from native applications." It seems to
me that the average person's experience of Java is that programs written in it
are slow and funky, not a good advertisement for a large company.
Eventually, Java will be completely open source. It is not now. Once
it is open source, Sun loses control. Does Sun want to lose control of a
symbol it is using for its company?
Java is an Indonesian island of 124 million, the most
populous island in the world and one of the most densely populated regions on
Earth. There have been political problems there in the past. If there are
problems there in the future, the word Java will be in the news. More than 90
percent of Javanese are Muslims. Does Sun intend to involve the company with
the uncertain future of a Muslim island?
I will now quote someone who considers himself an authority, the CEO
of Sun: "Granted, lots of folks on Wall Street know SUNW, given its status
as among the most highly traded stocks in the world (the SUNW symbol shows up
daily in the listings of most highly traded securities)." -- From the
August 23, 2007 badly formatted article linked by Slashdot, Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: The Rise of JAVA - The Retirement of SUNW,
written by Sun CEO Jonathan Swartz.
Mr. Swartz, are you an imperial CEO like Gerald Levin
of AOL Time Warner? (Time Warner's merging itself into AOL is considered the
worst business decision of all time. The company immediately lost $88
Billion.) Mr. Levin called himself an "imperial CEO", meaning that he made
decisions without consulting other people.
Mr. Swartz, if you don't have enough technical knowledge even to
format your own web page, are you technically knowledgeable enough to run Sun?
From the biography on Sun's web site: "Schwartz received degrees in
economics and mathematics from Wesleyan University."
I don't believe it will actually happen, but if it does, by changing
away from the strong brand of SUNW, known for serious servers, to a brand
largely outside its control, Sun will weaken its position in the marketplace,
in my opinion.
I don't think it is wise for technically knowledgeable people to
work for companies managed by people with little or no technical knowledge.
When technically ignorant managers try to run technically-oriented companies,
a lot of unpredictable, weird things happen. Why take the risk?
Thanks for your answer. I didn't realize how little technical issues mattered,
or how much money is involved in manipulating the outcome.
The "more money than brains" folks rule the world?
I don't think so. I think that one technically knowledgeable Slashdot
reader could write one article about the technical merits, and have it
published on Slashdot, and $150 million would seem like pocket change compared
to the power of Slashdot readers telling all their friends which is the best.
I like Blu-ray only because it has a faster data rate and can hold
more data. I plan to use whatever format becomes popular as a data backup
method.
I don't watch Hollywood's goofy movies, and I recommend that people
who want control their lives educate themselves about reality, not fantasy.
Last time, in the war over DVD-R and DVD+R (DVD+R is better
technically), the manipulations caused DVD to become useful much later than it
would otherwise have been. I suggest that we not let non-technical people have
control over technical things.
I wish Slashdot readers would stop thinking that they are weak
concerning matters such as this.
'Anyone that doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me.
'
I've seen that kind of argument a lot recently. It's something like, "If I can find one mistake, even in a hastily written comment, then I can ignore anything you say as being obviously wrong."
I suppose that is a way of responding to having more information than a person can handle.
Anyway, it should be: 'Anyone who doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me.'
Since I found an error, does that mean I can ignore what you said?
Help Needed: Does anyone have any idea why someone would pay
$150 million to try to make HD DVD more popular? There's obviously a lot of money in it for someone, but I can't imagine why.
Comparisons:
Blu-ray: "A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50
GB..." with a raw data transfer rate of 53.95 Mbit/s. HD DVD: "HD DVD has a single-layer capacity of 15 GB and a dual-layer
capacity of 30 GB;..." with a raw data transfer rate of 36.55 Mbit/s. [My emphasis]
More comparisons: Blu-ray scratch resistance "has
withstood direct abrasion by steel wool and marring with markers in tests""HD DVD uses traditional material and has the same scratch and
surface characteristics of a regular DVD."
"Blockbuster, the largest U.S. movie rental company, decided in
June 2007 in favor of expanding Blu-ray support exclusively to an additional
1450 stores. The decision came following a trial in 250 rental stores, in
which both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs were available. In the trial it has been
found that more than 70% of high definitions rentals were Blu-ray discs." [My emphasis]
"According to a market research company Nielsen VideoScan, as of
week ended August 12, 2007, weekly sales of Blu-ray discs were ahead of HD DVD
with 66% of the market. In 2007 sales, Blu-ray leads with 66% of the market.
Since inception, market share was 61% for Blu-ray and 39% for HD DVD."
This comment on the CDFreaks.com differences page is interesting, I have no idea whether it is valid: "To make a (HD)-DVD disc you
need two moulding machines and an extra process to glue the two 0.6mm
substrates together, which means you loose valuable seconds. Also the HD-DVD
disc tolerances for flatness & thickness are extremely tight (twice more
critical than that of normal DVD). To make a Blu-ray disc you need only 1
moulding machine and you don't have to glue the two substrates, which means
less production time. In fact a Blu-ray disc can be compared with an
up-side-down CD disc... which is very simple to make. As for disc tolerances
of Blu-ray, these are comparable with normal DVD, resulting in an much more
controllable production process. This means better yields and that future
high-speed discs are easier to make. All in all, you might be able to upgrade
DVD lines to make HD-DVD's, but in time the mass-volume production process
itself will be less expensive for Blu-ray."
From CDFreaks pros and cons: "Blu-ray requires a much lower rotation
speed of the disc to reach the specified transfer rate of 36Mbps."
And "Hybrid Discs -- Here we can find an advantage for Blu-ray,
resulting from the new structure of the disc. Since the recording layer for
Blu-ray data is only 0.1 mm away from the surface of the disc there is enough
space below to integrate a complete 8.5 GB DVD DL disc."
(I have no connection whatsoever with either format, of course. My
only interest is that the format that becomes popular be the best format
technically.)
There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the
adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred
format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair
competition on the merits.
In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they
don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD
format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.
That shouts very loudly to me. Someone with $150 million to spend has
set the value of Blu-ray as being worth that much more than HD DVD. Thanks for
the information. You have voted with your dollars, and shouted to everyone who
thinks about it that Blu-ray should win.
From the New York Times article: "The battle over the competing
high-definition DVD technologies has sputtered in recent months as Blu-ray
discs have emerged as the front-runner. Blu-ray titles are sharply outselling
HD offerings..."
Not only the corrupters, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray
is better.
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks
Animation to adopt 8-track tapes?
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks
Animation executives never to take showers or baths? Obviously, to them,
everything is for sale, even their technical integrity.
If that kind of thing continues, the word "executive" will become
synonymous with the word "sleaze".
Another addition to my parent post: The Microsoft licenses are ALREADY causing confusion and dissension. See the anger and hostility in the discussions below.
The Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) says in the sub-heading: "This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software."
Some of the people commenting in the discussions below are reading only what they believe are the license terms, and not seeing the sub-heading quoted above, which is ANOTHER license term, even though it is not formatted that way.
Again, the license says, "If you USE [my emphasis] the software, you accept this license."
Microsoft's multiple licenses with confusing formatting are already causing harm to the open source community. And Microsoft is just getting started with this.
More about the issue in my parent post: There is more than one license.
The Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL) says, in part: "(F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product."
Be very, very careful. If some of the Ms-LPL code is mixed with real open source code, there can be a license violation.
"I do not believe this is a logic error, as you say. I believe it's intentional."
"MS-PL is a trojan horse: it's purpose is to make people accept the idea that controlling how the supposedly 'open source' software is used is ok."
MOD PARENT UP.
It could be another instance of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". Eventually, Microsoft's "open source" will be mixed in some programs with real open source, perhaps unintentionally, giving Microsoft control over real open source.
Someone will say, "I need a routine to do xx" and someone will say, "Use this", not realizing that it is controlled by Microsoft.
People seem to think that Microsoft is a software company, but it seems to me that it is an abuse company that uses software as a means to deliver abuse.
"I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!"
Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft is a software company. That's wrong. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a method of delivering abuse.
The people who make ads are a self-destructive bunch. Numerous times I've waited for a Slashdot page to load while some ad server took its time. Abusing me with abusive, dishonest ads wasn't enough, they wanted to abuse me by wasting my time, too. Mentioning the problem to Slashdot editors brought only temporary fixes, or no change.
So now I don't see the ads at all, thanks to Firefox's AdBlock Plus and NoScript add-ons. (I recommend NoScript only for people who don't mind fiddling with permissions for each new web site.)
I guess abusers aren't satisfied with only one kind of abuse. I can dimly remember some of the Slashdot ads. When they weren't misleading, they were generally stupidly written. People with no technical knowledge shouldn't work for technical companies.
Most articles about science investigations contain some statements that are not exactly true. But this one seems extreme to me, in that it is extremely misleading.
Soap prevents communicable disease. There is no need for Triclosan. The purpose of Triclosan is to slow the development of bacterial and fungal colonies on the skin after washing. As I've said, that helps prevent body odor and fungal infections. Triclosan has no relevance to what was supposedly studied.
I'm not saying Triclosan is okay. I'm only saying that the study was not relevant, and everyone around the author must have known that. Why didn't they tell her? My theory is that people often allow behavior from an attractive person that they wouldn't allow from an average person, because they are afraid of disapproval by someone who is widely admired.
Also, watermarking pretends that people have control over their files. Millions of people whose computers that are controlled remotely in botnets don't.
There are numerous other ways files are moved around. If you take your computer in for repair, it is possible the repair person will copy any files he or she wants.
You said, "Never understood the point of "antibacterial soap" given that
most soaps are some kind of hydrophillic group on a hydrophobic chain, and
will thus bust bacterial membranes like nobody's business anyway."
A film of Triclosan stays on the skin after washing. As I said above,
the point of Triclosan is to prevent body odor, fungus, and skin surface
bacterial infections. It's for people who work outside in the hot sun, for
example, which I suppose is all of us, sometimes, and some people all the
time.
Triclosan doesn't cause mutation. It only prevents some of the growth
of bacteria that are affected by it, so bacteria that aren't affected, mutated
bacteria, will grow preferentially.
Slashdot Mirror
If it is so unlikely that they would ever make use of the ability to re-write and re-use something you wrote, then why did they write the contract that way?
"... reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute..."
"Modify" means that, if you say you love your wife, Google can change that and say you hate your wife.
That's how it looks to me.
The final EULA:
1) We can do anything.
2) You have no rights.
It says BackupPC is *nix only. Can it be used with Cygwin on Windows?
Ever try disassembly or decompilation yourself?
It is sometimes a bigger intellectual challenge disassembling or decompiling than writing the program yourself. I find disassembly a bit easier than decompilation, but of course it is very, very tedious. Decompilation of C (I've never decompiled C++.) is difficult for me because every little thing is a call to some other area of the program.
The byte code of pseudo-compiled languages like Java is just a coded list of the instructions the programmer wrote. There are no comments, and the variable names can be hidden, so byte code is not as easy to read as the original code. But it is easy to produce a list of the original instructions, with some areas of confusion. If a programmer has written code using an especially excellent algorithm, it is possible to copy the code and change it enough that it is not covered by copyright.
"... Sun doesn't use Java on a single one of their internal projects (it's banned by policy)."
I've heard that too, but I don't have a link. Can anyone help?
From a recent comment: My understanding is that Sun does not allow its own programmers to use Java for important programs because Java is bytecode interpreted, not compiled. That makes Java easy to de-compile. Sun apparently designed the language for other people to use. Microsoft did the same with C#; apparently none of the programs Microsoft sells are written in C#.
Examples of Java de-compilers:
Jad - the fast JAva Decompiler
DJ Java Decompiler
Jode
JReversePro
SourceTec Java Decompiler
I think Sun and Microsoft are far more destructive to the computer world than anyone has analyzed thoroughly. This XML thing is just one example.
It is important to notice that the sharp criticism of the way women act in the U.S. is probably a bigger reason that some newspapers banned the cartoon than concern about Islamic practices.
In the U.S., women spend most of the money, because they do the shopping.
Direct link to the cartoon.
A cartoon that criticizes women's attempts to act superior and also discusses Islamic religious practices is too complicated for most newspapers.
Of course, banning it gives it publicity, too.
"Most American citizens are fully aware about government corruption."
Probably all your friends and family are educated. But most people in the U.S. aren't like you. For most people in the U.S., TV is their only education about how the world works.
"I have been in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I kissed the US floor."
That is EXACTLY the reason for the problem. Even some Saudis from rich families believe that there needs to be political change in Saudi Arabia.
Oil company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates use taxpayer money to assure profits for their investments. In exchange for using U.S. military money to assure the dictatorship of the family of al Saud, the Saudi government cooperates with Cheney and Bush corruption goals. When George W. Bush holds hands with people like "Prince" Bandar and other Saudis, people like Osama bin Laden believe that is evidence of a loss of sovereignty and, effectively, a declaration war.
In no way do I accept any kind of violence. However, some people are drawn into the way the U.S. government does things, and believe that, if the U.S. government kills Arabs, then Arabs should kill people in the United States. In my view, that is exactly as stupid as the interference of the U.S. government with Arab countries, and the violence of the U.S. government towards Arabs. I don't see one as better than the other; they are both destructive.
People in the U.S. are, generally, very ignorant about the corruption in the U.S. government.
The U.S. does not have a problem with Iran, except for the problems the U.S. government makes. The U.S. government is manipulated by Cheney and others to use taxpayer's money to get control of oil, so that oil prices will rise. Saddam Hussein was not cooperating with that, and Iran isn't either.
The U.S. government makes very violent threats, and, when Iran reacts and replies, tells U.S. citizens that Iran is a threat.
It is necessary to have a government with enough social sophistication that it can live in the world without killing other people, and the U.S. does not have that government. The U.S. government has invaded at least 24 countries since the second world war, and is responsible for the deaths of perhaps 11 million people. All of that violence was done for profit for people who were already rich. People who have been born in wealthy families often feel that it is their right to kill other people.
For a few details about U.S. government corruption, see George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.
See also Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
I'm very much in love with the U.S., and want to see better government.
Quote: "I don't think Java is a particularly big reason for people to like Sun, and tying your company's future to it seems ill-advised."
Exactly. The name change is evidence that Sun has some very technically ignorant marketing people, apparently, or maybe just a very technically ignorant, but imperial, CEO.
My understanding is that Sun does not allow its own programmers to use Java for important programs because Java is bytecode interpreted, not compiled. That makes Java easy to de-compile. Sun apparently designed the language for other people to use. Microsoft did the same with C#; apparently none of the programs Microsoft sells are written in C#.
Examples of Java de-compilers:
Jad - the fast JAva Decompiler
DJ Java Decompiler
Jode
JReversePro
SourceTec Java Decompiler
From Wikipedia's Criticism of Java: "The look and feel of GUI applications written in Java using the Swing platform is often different from native applications." It seems to me that the average person's experience of Java is that programs written in it are slow and funky, not a good advertisement for a large company.
Eventually, Java will be completely open source. It is not now. Once it is open source, Sun loses control. Does Sun want to lose control of a symbol it is using for its company?
Java is an Indonesian island of 124 million, the most populous island in the world and one of the most densely populated regions on Earth. There have been political problems there in the past. If there are problems there in the future, the word Java will be in the news. More than 90 percent of Javanese are Muslims. Does Sun intend to involve the company with the uncertain future of a Muslim island?
I will now quote someone who considers himself an authority, the CEO of Sun: "Granted, lots of folks on Wall Street know SUNW, given its status as among the most highly traded stocks in the world (the SUNW symbol shows up daily in the listings of most highly traded securities)." -- From the August 23, 2007 badly formatted article linked by Slashdot, Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: The Rise of JAVA - The Retirement of SUNW, written by Sun CEO Jonathan Swartz.
Mr. Swartz, are you an imperial CEO like Gerald Levin of AOL Time Warner? (Time Warner's merging itself into AOL is considered the worst business decision of all time. The company immediately lost $88 Billion.) Mr. Levin called himself an "imperial CEO", meaning that he made decisions without consulting other people.
Mr. Swartz, if you don't have enough technical knowledge even to format your own web page, are you technically knowledgeable enough to run Sun? From the biography on Sun's web site: "Schwartz received degrees in economics and mathematics from Wesleyan University."
I don't believe it will actually happen, but if it does, by changing away from the strong brand of SUNW, known for serious servers, to a brand largely outside its control, Sun will weaken its position in the marketplace, in my opinion.
I don't think it is wise for technically knowledgeable people to work for companies managed by people with little or no technical knowledge. When technically ignorant managers try to run technically-oriented companies, a lot of unpredictable, weird things happen. Why take the risk?
Thanks for your answer. I didn't realize how little technical issues mattered, or how much money is involved in manipulating the outcome.
The "more money than brains" folks rule the world?
I don't think so. I think that one technically knowledgeable Slashdot reader could write one article about the technical merits, and have it published on Slashdot, and $150 million would seem like pocket change compared to the power of Slashdot readers telling all their friends which is the best.
I like Blu-ray only because it has a faster data rate and can hold more data. I plan to use whatever format becomes popular as a data backup method.
I don't watch Hollywood's goofy movies, and I recommend that people who want control their lives educate themselves about reality, not fantasy.
Last time, in the war over DVD-R and DVD+R (DVD+R is better technically), the manipulations caused DVD to become useful much later than it would otherwise have been. I suggest that we not let non-technical people have control over technical things.
I wish Slashdot readers would stop thinking that they are weak concerning matters such as this.
'Anyone that doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me. '
I've seen that kind of argument a lot recently. It's something like, "If I can find one mistake, even in a hastily written comment, then I can ignore anything you say as being obviously wrong."
I suppose that is a way of responding to having more information than a person can handle.
Anyway, it should be: 'Anyone who doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me.'
Since I found an error, does that mean I can ignore what you said?
Help Needed: Does anyone have any idea why someone would pay $150 million to try to make HD DVD more popular? There's obviously a lot of money in it for someone, but I can't imagine why.
..." with a raw data transfer rate of 36.55 Mbit/s. [My emphasis]
Comparisons:
Blu-ray: "A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB..." with a raw data transfer rate of 53.95 Mbit/s. HD DVD: "HD DVD has a single-layer capacity of 15 GB and a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB;
More comparisons: Blu-ray scratch resistance "has withstood direct abrasion by steel wool and marring with markers in tests" "HD DVD uses traditional material and has the same scratch and surface characteristics of a regular DVD."
"Blockbuster, the largest U.S. movie rental company, decided in June 2007 in favor of expanding Blu-ray support exclusively to an additional 1450 stores. The decision came following a trial in 250 rental stores, in which both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs were available. In the trial it has been found that more than 70% of high definitions rentals were Blu-ray discs." [My emphasis]
"According to a market research company Nielsen VideoScan, as of week ended August 12, 2007, weekly sales of Blu-ray discs were ahead of HD DVD with 66% of the market. In 2007 sales, Blu-ray leads with 66% of the market. Since inception, market share was 61% for Blu-ray and 39% for HD DVD."
This comment on the CDFreaks.com differences page is interesting, I have no idea whether it is valid: "To make a (HD)-DVD disc you need two moulding machines and an extra process to glue the two 0.6mm substrates together, which means you loose valuable seconds. Also the HD-DVD disc tolerances for flatness & thickness are extremely tight (twice more critical than that of normal DVD). To make a Blu-ray disc you need only 1 moulding machine and you don't have to glue the two substrates, which means less production time. In fact a Blu-ray disc can be compared with an up-side-down CD disc... which is very simple to make. As for disc tolerances of Blu-ray, these are comparable with normal DVD, resulting in an much more controllable production process. This means better yields and that future high-speed discs are easier to make. All in all, you might be able to upgrade DVD lines to make HD-DVD's, but in time the mass-volume production process itself will be less expensive for Blu-ray."
From CDFreaks pros and cons: "Blu-ray requires a much lower rotation speed of the disc to reach the specified transfer rate of 36Mbps."
And "Hybrid Discs -- Here we can find an advantage for Blu-ray, resulting from the new structure of the disc. Since the recording layer for Blu-ray data is only 0.1 mm away from the surface of the disc there is enough space below to integrate a complete 8.5 GB DVD DL disc."
(I have no connection whatsoever with either format, of course. My only interest is that the format that becomes popular be the best format technically.)
There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits.
In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.
That shouts very loudly to me. Someone with $150 million to spend has set the value of Blu-ray as being worth that much more than HD DVD. Thanks for the information. You have voted with your dollars, and shouted to everyone who thinks about it that Blu-ray should win.
From the New York Times article: "The battle over the competing high-definition DVD technologies has sputtered in recent months as Blu-ray discs have emerged as the front-runner. Blu-ray titles are sharply outselling HD offerings..."
Not only the corrupters, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray is better.
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation to adopt 8-track tapes?
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation executives never to take showers or baths? Obviously, to them, everything is for sale, even their technical integrity.
If that kind of thing continues, the word "executive" will become synonymous with the word "sleaze".
Another addition to my parent post: The Microsoft licenses are ALREADY causing confusion and dissension. See the anger and hostility in the discussions below.
The Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) says in the sub-heading: "This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software."
Some of the people commenting in the discussions below are reading only what they believe are the license terms, and not seeing the sub-heading quoted above, which is ANOTHER license term, even though it is not formatted that way.
Again, the license says, "If you USE [my emphasis] the software, you accept this license."
Microsoft's multiple licenses with confusing formatting are already causing harm to the open source community. And Microsoft is just getting started with this.
More about the issue in my parent post: There is more than one license.
The Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL) says, in part: "(F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product."
Be very, very careful. If some of the Ms-LPL code is mixed with real open source code, there can be a license violation.
"I do not believe this is a logic error, as you say. I believe it's intentional."
"MS-PL is a trojan horse: it's purpose is to make people accept the idea that controlling how the supposedly 'open source' software is used is ok."
MOD PARENT UP.
It could be another instance of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". Eventually, Microsoft's "open source" will be mixed in some programs with real open source, perhaps unintentionally, giving Microsoft control over real open source.
Someone will say, "I need a routine to do xx" and someone will say, "Use this", not realizing that it is controlled by Microsoft.
People seem to think that Microsoft is a software company, but it seems to me that it is an abuse company that uses software as a means to deliver abuse.
"I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!"
Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft is a software company. That's wrong. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a method of delivering abuse.
My opinion. Maybe even partly a joke, maybe not.
As someone said on the linked site, selling a service without mentioning that it is severely restricted is fraud.
I'm supporting Slashdot by writing somewhat well-researched comments.
The people who make ads are a self-destructive bunch. Numerous times I've waited for a Slashdot page to load while some ad server took its time. Abusing me with abusive, dishonest ads wasn't enough, they wanted to abuse me by wasting my time, too. Mentioning the problem to Slashdot editors brought only temporary fixes, or no change.
So now I don't see the ads at all, thanks to Firefox's AdBlock Plus and NoScript add-ons. (I recommend NoScript only for people who don't mind fiddling with permissions for each new web site.)
I guess abusers aren't satisfied with only one kind of abuse. I can dimly remember some of the Slashdot ads. When they weren't misleading, they were generally stupidly written. People with no technical knowledge shouldn't work for technical companies.
Most articles about science investigations contain some statements that are not exactly true. But this one seems extreme to me, in that it is extremely misleading.
Soap prevents communicable disease. There is no need for Triclosan. The purpose of Triclosan is to slow the development of bacterial and fungal colonies on the skin after washing. As I've said, that helps prevent body odor and fungal infections. Triclosan has no relevance to what was supposedly studied.
I'm not saying Triclosan is okay. I'm only saying that the study was not relevant, and everyone around the author must have known that. Why didn't they tell her? My theory is that people often allow behavior from an attractive person that they wouldn't allow from an average person, because they are afraid of disapproval by someone who is widely admired.
Also, watermarking pretends that people have control over their files. Millions of people whose computers that are controlled remotely in botnets don't.
There are numerous other ways files are moved around. If you take your computer in for repair, it is possible the repair person will copy any files he or she wants.
You said, "Never understood the point of "antibacterial soap" given that most soaps are some kind of hydrophillic group on a hydrophobic chain, and will thus bust bacterial membranes like nobody's business anyway."
A film of Triclosan stays on the skin after washing. As I said above, the point of Triclosan is to prevent body odor, fungus, and skin surface bacterial infections. It's for people who work outside in the hot sun, for example, which I suppose is all of us, sometimes, and some people all the time.
Triclosan doesn't cause mutation. It only prevents some of the growth of bacteria that are affected by it, so bacteria that aren't affected, mutated bacteria, will grow preferentially.