So at some point an army of robots would be a "weapon of mass destruction"...
once it's classified like that "guerilla tactics" are OK to take it out..it's the only option when you have to win all-the-way and first. By george's own definition our american revolution was "terrorist"... and at the time they were treated as such by the British
But you're right, the US in particular is way to bloodthristy, and way to used to "war by proxy"... Bush is the poster-child for that line of thinking and he's sitting on the most powerful army in the world...
They're too far out for even china to reign in... China has a tenious balance at best with the west.. they carefully screen everthing that comes in to keep the "freedom" mojo down. North Korea is like East Germany... The DMZ has to fall.. Then ecomonic chaos will reign for 10 years...the "capitalists" will de facto win, then they just might make it.
The only politcal gaurantees are that the guys in charge on BOTH sides are going down when it happens... look at how harsly the south deals with students that want some changes and you see it will never happen.
It's war dude. They're not waiting for petty "terrorists", they're waiting for heavy artillery and missle batteries to make a power grab for the last few miles they need to put Seoul [the SK capital] squarely in their sites...
It's an X [10-20] mile strip...when one side crosses it they'll be already shooting... current intel is that the can hit Seoul from behind lines... They've gotta have armed personnel ready to pull the triger...that's the point of how bad things really are.
Unfortunately, there's not and easy solution. The north is hungry and basically has enough ammo to take everybody in the south out by hand... The south has US to back them up...but we rely on "smart bombs" and techonolgy to balance the field...so we can't ever fire first, espically after iraq, the UN would nail us for that kind of slaughter again. Hence the tension will build until it pops or somebody up north blinks.
I am pleased to see advances in killer-robot technology... unfortunately, will inevetibly be uses against us... oh well..
The beauty of MS was "freedom" from those big IBM bills... Unfortunately, MS has terrible creeping.. everybody brings stuff in and it's impossible to control all the machine-vendor, accounting, saftey, environment, etc apps that work their way in... The MS model is to be the "guy behind the guy"... in that MS makes PCs cheap because to write stuff or serve stuff you gotta pay the $$$$. MS gets OS $$ from Dell, driver $$ from ATI, CPU testing $$ from intel, Compiler $$ from every software "maker"... Exchange $$, WMA $$, CE $$.... The PC "buyer" isn't who pays the bills.. That's why it's hard to explain the squeeze to management. Until it's too late.
Apple has a free player of iTunes for their windows users...
M$ HAD one for Mac [along with IE and some othe4r stuff]....and killed it when it was convenient for them to do so. Remember, they're protecting a different monopoly!
Why is everybody picking on apple? every other online store is equally as proprietary!!!!!
The only truely "independant" group in the bunch of music services is RealNetworks. Sony and Apple both tie their media to their electronics. Everybody else is a shill for MS [Napster, Walmart, and the like]. Sure MS has "play for sure" but that's really just an attempt to lock OUT companies like apple so they have to pay MS tax too. Look at the new Sony PSP...that thing's more locked down than anything ever sold! Only Sony manufactures the actual media, and you can only play your files thru Sony-approved file types on sony-approved memory sticks.
Fundamentally, Apple's Fairplay DRM is the most reasonable DRM scheme out there right now. It would be nice if they'd support Linux, cause then I could ditch MS entirely... [it's not like they'll loose mac sale to used dells with ubuntu] but they choose not to so I've gotta deal. I CAN play my iTMS purchased songs on Linux...its actually allowed in the iTunes software...just burn the songs to standard-format audio CD and re-rip them. The way I see it, Apple's DRM is the absolute minimum contractual agreement they could get away with and talk the record companies into allowing them to sell their songs... remember that... the RIAA is the cartel calling the shots here.. and they've cozied up to M$! MS is happily in bed with the RIAA, MPAA, and cell providers that want to make sure you "pay to play" every time.
Fact of the matter is that Apple has pulled the computer coup-de-etes we've all been waiting for...they've got the best selling product in music players right now and they did it WITHOUT caving to Microsoft's monopolistic OS position... Fact of the matter is that Apple can't sublicense iTMS... most likely they have "backroom" agreements with the music labels not too. Also, it's a matter of keeping taps with the latest hackers so that their DRM remains secure. Remember, apple is also who will get the pointy finger when Fairplay is cracked and the pirateing songs starts all over... They can't risk anybody else having "loose lips" and spoiling it for everybody. Apple is the good guy here.. don't forget it. The only other viable alternative is to go the MS path...which every OTHER manufacture wants to go to... M$ has assured them they can have FULL control over the files you download... and you will never "own" anything again if the M$ way takes over!!!
That's what wars are for!!! They need some orcs to come scramble up everything.
Sure, it doesn't sound fair, but that's the point. Perhaps Blizzard could put some cap on how much stuff you can have in one store...or you have to get another. The game deals in gold pieces, not credit cards... a million gold pieces should take an army of helpers to carry. They need to make massive wealth require vunerability to keep it... Why can't the angry mobs mug a very rich guy? Then he'd have to learn to fight...or pay for protection...
The problem with a game like WOW is it's not realistic enough.. After all, if you've got a million gold, you should need an army of carriers, not just grab it from your digital bin. They just need to introduce more ways to make wealth harder to keep.. introduce raiders, spoilage, pirates, etc into the mix. You make the cost of having wealth defending to keep it!!!
Programatically, this is a job for Will Wright's idea of procedural-based games. They need to develop prodecureal NPCs that can simulate players positions if they're needed to balance the economy. i.e if not enough people are playing peasents, provide a means to "grow" them...and promote them to higher levels as needed [guards, tradeworkers, etc] Then you create the ability for a player to start as somebody's peasent and work their way up the food chain. Much like Wright's idea, you may have people that just want to play peasents and play "crop growing" games all day, or people that elevate to generals of masive conflicts and are assigning missions to the other players. Blizzard has a good start...just take it further..
You just need to add rarity to the MMORG equation... After all, you should need a bigger ship to haul all that brandy. If it's worth money, somebody should be able to attack you and take it, right! Monsters should start attacking the peasents directly... then they'll have someplace to take gold from!!! from Blizzard's point of view, players don't want their villages wiped out by the 10,000 point dragon, but in the real world that's how it works... If people get too rich, somebody battles them to take it. In the real world you can be as "rich" as you want... as long as you can keep it... Blizzard should start playing to that tune.
That was only because AOL's "play money" changed "value" versus TW's "play money". In the end, I'd stand by that decision too... the trouble with AOL/TW is that the TW suits didn't take the right steps for AOL to be independant in it's new niche. AOL was looking at the opportunity to span the spectrum of print/radio/TV/internet/movie offerings all properly paid for and offered... AOLs move is much the same as Apple's move to iTMS. AOL want's out of the "internet connection" business... it's thankless commodity work not worth doing.. honestly, the telcos can do it better. As long as there's an "equivelant evil" sized company to keep the information seperate from the hardware.
Even Microsoft is trying to do the same thing, just by ramming standards down and making everybody pay them for it. That's the whole point of M$ making such a big deal of MSN search... Google and Yahoo are ahead of the game because they are entirely independant, but don't have the media allies to back it up. AOL was just taking the "next step" about 5 years too soon.
I can't MAKE YOUR program GPL..even if I reference in RMS will. The GPL costs NOTHING to use... using GPL'd binary programs will never get you in trouble. Only RE-USING those programs gets you in trouble... Which I suppose under the "proprietary" model never happens because they just sue you and take your company [and your code as payment] when you include THEIR code in your releases. I suppose nobody's noticed as an example M$ very onerous VB requirements. They allow you to distribute their neccessary files for your program... and most of them come on windows computers anyway, but they retain the right to take them away whenever they want... Then you're left with only YOUR code to distribute, not the compiled.exe. In the VB case, your code is so inexplicably tied to MS own IP rights that they basically "ignore" you distributing their stuff--or they wouldn't sell anything. Heck, if you looked at all the cross-license contradictions in M$ licenses of versions, tools, and OS, probably nobody has "rights" to sell Boxed windows software [or included hardware] out there.
If you illegally "mix" code, you illegally mix code...nothing about "free" changes those IP rules!!! That it won't be benificial for everybody to make their code GPL due to network effects doesn't make it viral...any more than MS Word is "viral" because you can't send a resume without it.
They're only calling it "viral" because spread of software [and it licensing] is how all these big players made their money!!!! All the big Computer players got their start "scrapping scraps" of other people's IP from where ever they could get it... once they got money, they hired massive legal teams to make sure nobody else did the same thing. Proprietary software is more of a "cancer" than "viral" though...that is true. After all, isn't the point of every software company to "infect" your business with their "licenses" then make the terms more "harmful" [or profitable for the company] until it causes you more damage to remove the "tumor" than to go somewhere else. The companies' growth is "cancerous" in much the same way.. they take the massive profits and use them to "starve" healty software companies from ever flurishing.. again, they don't want to "pay" anybody for software either...but THEY want [no EXPECT] to BE paid.
Yep! There are all sorts of sites [/. included] that point out GPL violations, but find a link to articles teaching people how to PROPERLY use Open source? Ubuntu is an excellent example of showing the streangths of OSS... we need more projects like them to "show how it's done" rather than just preach to the choir.
Basically we need the Editors [HINT, HINT] to post a better balance of Pro-GPL news rather than anti-GPL-violator news... The polical/media spin doctors have known this for years... people have to hear 9 good things for every one bad one...News articles on slashdot should be brimming with new [approved] ways to use the GPL rather than the constant bashing of violators.
That "misunderstanding" is why I've never liked the FSFs rabid persuit of all things GPL.
It's perfectly possible to mix GPL with other things, especically internal to a company, but the FSF gurus and stallman really make it hard by not spelling out exactly how to write "safe" mixed code rules that a PHB can understand. Anything a PHB can't understand it 5 sentences or less is a "liability" because they can't be bothered to do the research.
The real issue is marketing not reality. M$ and others market "shiny discs" in "prety boxes" that your PHB can go to a store and "buy". In SUNs case, your PHB forks 1 M dollars for a server room to fufill electronic communications requirements. Most PHBs could care less about the licenses... I'd bet if you could actually explain the typical EULA to any CEO they'd flat out refuse it.... until you tell them it's "software".
The real joke of the whole thing is that we have to have such stringent rules for "free" software because our thinking has become so corperate-centered that we can't understand even the idea of something not having "ownership". That's the irony built into the GPL... It HAS to be followed as the right of the little people to control their work... or all the mega-corps IP rights go too!!!
Who's seriously going to buy a non-HD digital TV? The problem is that everyone is trying to get "early adopter" prices WHEN the spec comes into place... The makers want to gouge the public and the broadcasters are dragging their feet "because they can".
We should have had digital signals 100% several years ago... the specs were designed to allow nearly 7 years of dual broadcasting overlap...but all that time has been squandered. You were supposed to be able to buy a DTV-to-analog converter for $50 years ago... the electronics is no more complicated that a $99 gamecube [without the moving parts]
A great example of why most companies shouldn't fear Open source, is the ERP market.
I work for a steel mill. Years ago they bought out the source code to their "proprietary" ERP system because they needed changes the company didn't want to support.. Of course they still pay maintenance fees for what amounts to 50%+ their own stuff, but we couldn't move to a "new" version from the company without lots of $$$$.
But how would their situation differ if they used Open source software? They pay third-party programmers to come in and modify their system because they need it to work...now. If it was a Sourceforge project, they could "just fix it" and benifit from lots of other people helping too!
In a corperate situation the GPL doesn't hurt you that much. After all, you only have to provide source to whom you distribute binaries to. Most corperate software is "locked" into the company...it never leaves company property... so the only people who have the binaries are the IT staff...[isn't that clever]
I understand that intarrweb programming is slightly different... Web sites are considered by some to "distribute" the web pages... and that gets sticky. But in general, most corperate sites use 75% their own stuff, to be used for their business. Even if they were forced to release it, It'd be useless to 90% of the public... as long as it was stripped of proprietary info.. [passwords, accounting settings, that kind of thing aren't covered..you could release a "stripped" version if you needed to]
The sticky thing right now is that GPL doesn't cover USE of programs.. they really are free. GPL only covers distribution of programs... It's a subtle difference, but 75%+ of corperate software doesn't even vaguely fall under "distributed" so it's really nothing to worry about. Example: even if you gave a contractor a GPL program to use, it would be covered under confidential agreements like blueprints or anything else... They can't just "release it on the internet" because they have a copy.
you don't understand the difference... in BeOS, the metadata was part of the file, not just something tacked on somewhere else. The whole file system was written around attaching metadata directly to the file...and updating it as you moved the file around.
The best example of this in Be was the Address book application. The only element in the file was the contact name... everything else was metadata... fields for address, email, phone, etc were directly searchable from the query in the filesystem. It's totally different than how everybody else uses "bundle files" [ala thumbs or.dat] or "quick readers" [ala MS office] Be was the perfect OS for the internet world... all the W3C "buzzwords" like XML and such would have thrived on a BeOS system. Be was just so far ahead nobody knew what to do with it.
BeOS suffered because it was far to radical for time... It had a nearly AS400-like "flat" system to it so you didn't [actually it even hindered] need development of 50 different helper apps... as soon as one "replicator" was created it could be used by any other program in the system. That turned off a lot of commercial people because you didn't sell an "application" you sold a set of "tools" for the OS to use. [imagine buying corel and adobe and working with both sets of tools on the same document at once! BeOS could have done that] It's a great base for OSS because the inter-module communication is well documented [and encouraged!]...you can replace parts at will as long as you follow the interface rules. That's how the Zeta and Hiakau groups have kept it going... slowly reworking each module to update the system.
Let's see, first ripping disks to MP3 is a piece of cake...actually, i think iTunes even gets around some of Sony's more intrusive copy protection... All I know is there were several new CD's I bought my wife that wouldn't play on XP before i installed itunes.
iTunes burns CDs just fine. It does tend to be bit picky with disks and drives, but it works with all my stuff. I downloaded about a dozen of my Pepsi songs and the first time I even listened to them was on a CD in my clock radio. I've even been so evil to re-rip the burned CD back to MP3 to make it more portable.
As for screen size..get FoxyTunes for Firefox... Using it right now in the bottom corner of my slashdot window!!!
The Sims is the ideal non-violent game...and how many 9 year olds lock their sims in a room just to watch the stove catch on fire or everybody wet themselves or die from starvation?
A certian amount of violence is built into everybody, but we don't need to be fanning the flames! Young kids can be very hot/cold...one miniute crying over a dead ant.. the next zapping them with the magnifier...
One thing i've noticed with my kids [3 boys] is that automatically "liking" violent television and games is a "learned" behavior...not automatic. I don't exactly shelter my kids, but I've noticed that they are initially turned off by really extreme/scary stuff... They won't even hang around to long if I've got Doom 3 running. It bugs them too much.
I was probably a lot like them when I was a kid...I was pretty sheltered. I don't have the stomach for too much violence and debauchery. I wasn't taught by my peers at a young age to be "childish" about violence [or pr0n] and so as an adult it's fun to explore, but not too much. One thing is that kids DON'T know it isn't OK to be excited by blood-n-guts... that's why you have to limit their exposure to it.
Seriously, I don't need 40GB of space, I just want to play my songs from itms. The shuffle is finally an iPod at a price point "normal" people like me can afford. While the Photo iPod is way cool, I can't justify paying that much for a what amounts to a "toy".
iPod Shuffle works great for it's intended purpose. I keep my autofill on "top rated" and 1 mouse click "shuffles" the music and I'm on my way. It's not that it has more features than the other players, it's that the few features it does have work perfectly...out of the box. It took me longer to do the "paperwork" [i.e. register and install software] than it did to actually put the songs on the iPod. I keep mine in my coat pocket and it plays for almost a week between work and home...and I've only gotta push 1 button to start and stop it!
you see the engineers probably want to support OSS, but they gotta satisfy the PHBs and marketers that only see the product as done with the windows sticker.
What I'd read this as is them trying to pick the right low-level parts that are already supported/easily supported "under the table" so their product is a "hidden treasure" for OSS fans.
I'm so sick of MS security holes I'm looking to switch too. I built a brand new XP install with the full McAfee internet suite, adware, spybot, AOL Security Edition, before I plugged it IN to the internet, then updated to SP2...AND put it behind a NAT and still have problems with visitors that "borrow" my computer trashing my machine! I know it could be slightly more locked down, but then none of the kids games or websites [like cartoonnetwork] work when it's locked down that tight.
I work help desk all day, the last thing I want to do is "help desk" my own PC...but I still seem to spend over 50% of my home PC time just cleaning up the messes!!!
I just visited my "local" Apple store and those mini's are really cute....not to mention that 20" LCD...WOW! The only thing I need a mainstream OS for is gamming...but between CEDEGA and cross platforms almost all my favorites are covered.
but there's lots of southern white people with a little black in them...with DNA we could get down to.001% black! Of course then they'd all realize we're all the same mixed up genes!!!! funny how that works.
The problem is that once it's in the "system" you'll never get it out. Like other posters have said the definition of "legal reason" can be an administrative decision based on something as simple as a speeding ticket. When you get into all the cross-referencing that goes on, your sample probably ends up on the FBI database 72 hours after they take it... did they promise to get the records back from ALL the places they sent it?
I suppose once everybody's DNA is on record they'll have to go back to good ol witnesses. Hell, what's to stop them from snagging your newborns DNA at the hospital... all it takes is an "administrative suggestion" usually regarding paying the bills and the FDA could force every hospital to submit samples of every patient...who's to say we'd ever know?
When it gets to these issues I'm reminded of the orginal Jewish law [OK it's from Deutoronemy] that set "limitations" on criminal investigations. The origial rules required an investigation by the town elders and two offical wittnesses [and stoned um for lying!!] Also, it required "govt" to make a "sacrifice" for the human loss, then closed the matter...it prevented years long witchhunts we have now...constantly trying to "pin" the crimes on somebody. It also prevented the "establishment" of a legal "profession" to contiually bend the rules... [OK we know how THAT turned out] of course even the best laid plans can be ruined by idiots!!!
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once it's classified like that "guerilla tactics" are OK to take it out..it's the only option when you have to win all-the-way and first. By george's own definition our american revolution was "terrorist"... and at the time they were treated as such by the British
But you're right, the US in particular is way to bloodthristy, and way to used to "war by proxy"... Bush is the poster-child for that line of thinking and he's sitting on the most powerful army in the world...
The only politcal gaurantees are that the guys in charge on BOTH sides are going down when it happens... look at how harsly the south deals with students that want some changes and you see it will never happen.
It's an X [10-20] mile strip...when one side crosses it they'll be already shooting... current intel is that the can hit Seoul from behind lines... They've gotta have armed personnel ready to pull the triger...that's the point of how bad things really are.
Unfortunately, there's not and easy solution. The north is hungry and basically has enough ammo to take everybody in the south out by hand... The south has US to back them up...but we rely on "smart bombs" and techonolgy to balance the field...so we can't ever fire first, espically after iraq, the UN would nail us for that kind of slaughter again. Hence the tension will build until it pops or somebody up north blinks.
I am pleased to see advances in killer-robot technology... unfortunately, will inevetibly be uses against us... oh well..
The beauty of MS was "freedom" from those big IBM bills... Unfortunately, MS has terrible creeping.. everybody brings stuff in and it's impossible to control all the machine-vendor, accounting, saftey, environment, etc apps that work their way in... The MS model is to be the "guy behind the guy"... in that MS makes PCs cheap because to write stuff or serve stuff you gotta pay the $$$$. MS gets OS $$ from Dell, driver $$ from ATI, CPU testing $$ from intel, Compiler $$ from every software "maker"... Exchange $$, WMA $$, CE $$.... The PC "buyer" isn't who pays the bills.. That's why it's hard to explain the squeeze to management. Until it's too late.
M$ HAD one for Mac [along with IE and some othe4r stuff]....and killed it when it was convenient for them to do so. Remember, they're protecting a different monopoly!
The only truely "independant" group in the bunch of music services is RealNetworks. Sony and Apple both tie their media to their electronics. Everybody else is a shill for MS [Napster, Walmart, and the like]. Sure MS has "play for sure" but that's really just an attempt to lock OUT companies like apple so they have to pay MS tax too. Look at the new Sony PSP...that thing's more locked down than anything ever sold! Only Sony manufactures the actual media, and you can only play your files thru Sony-approved file types on sony-approved memory sticks.
Fundamentally, Apple's Fairplay DRM is the most reasonable DRM scheme out there right now. It would be nice if they'd support Linux, cause then I could ditch MS entirely... [it's not like they'll loose mac sale to used dells with ubuntu] but they choose not to so I've gotta deal. I CAN play my iTMS purchased songs on Linux...its actually allowed in the iTunes software...just burn the songs to standard-format audio CD and re-rip them. The way I see it, Apple's DRM is the absolute minimum contractual agreement they could get away with and talk the record companies into allowing them to sell their songs... remember that... the RIAA is the cartel calling the shots here.. and they've cozied up to M$! MS is happily in bed with the RIAA, MPAA, and cell providers that want to make sure you "pay to play" every time.
Fact of the matter is that Apple has pulled the computer coup-de-etes we've all been waiting for...they've got the best selling product in music players right now and they did it WITHOUT caving to Microsoft's monopolistic OS position... Fact of the matter is that Apple can't sublicense iTMS... most likely they have "backroom" agreements with the music labels not too. Also, it's a matter of keeping taps with the latest hackers so that their DRM remains secure. Remember, apple is also who will get the pointy finger when Fairplay is cracked and the pirateing songs starts all over... They can't risk anybody else having "loose lips" and spoiling it for everybody. Apple is the good guy here.. don't forget it. The only other viable alternative is to go the MS path...which every OTHER manufacture wants to go to ... M$ has assured them they can have FULL control over the files you download... and you will never "own" anything again if the M$ way takes over!!!
Sure, it doesn't sound fair, but that's the point. Perhaps Blizzard could put some cap on how much stuff you can have in one store...or you have to get another. The game deals in gold pieces, not credit cards... a million gold pieces should take an army of helpers to carry. They need to make massive wealth require vunerability to keep it... Why can't the angry mobs mug a very rich guy? Then he'd have to learn to fight...or pay for protection...
The problem with a game like WOW is it's not realistic enough.. After all, if you've got a million gold, you should need an army of carriers, not just grab it from your digital bin. They just need to introduce more ways to make wealth harder to keep.. introduce raiders, spoilage, pirates, etc into the mix. You make the cost of having wealth defending to keep it!!!
Programatically, this is a job for Will Wright's idea of procedural-based games. They need to develop prodecureal NPCs that can simulate players positions if they're needed to balance the economy. i.e if not enough people are playing peasents, provide a means to "grow" them...and promote them to higher levels as needed [guards, tradeworkers, etc] Then you create the ability for a player to start as somebody's peasent and work their way up the food chain. Much like Wright's idea, you may have people that just want to play peasents and play "crop growing" games all day, or people that elevate to generals of masive conflicts and are assigning missions to the other players. Blizzard has a good start...just take it further..
You just need to add rarity to the MMORG equation... After all, you should need a bigger ship to haul all that brandy. If it's worth money, somebody should be able to attack you and take it, right! Monsters should start attacking the peasents directly... then they'll have someplace to take gold from!!! from Blizzard's point of view, players don't want their villages wiped out by the 10,000 point dragon, but in the real world that's how it works... If people get too rich, somebody battles them to take it. In the real world you can be as "rich" as you want... as long as you can keep it... Blizzard should start playing to that tune.
Even Microsoft is trying to do the same thing, just by ramming standards down and making everybody pay them for it. That's the whole point of M$ making such a big deal of MSN search... Google and Yahoo are ahead of the game because they are entirely independant, but don't have the media allies to back it up. AOL was just taking the "next step" about 5 years too soon.
I can't MAKE YOUR program GPL..even if I reference in RMS will. The GPL costs NOTHING to use... using GPL'd binary programs will never get you in trouble. Only RE-USING those programs gets you in trouble... Which I suppose under the "proprietary" model never happens because they just sue you and take your company [and your code as payment] when you include THEIR code in your releases. I suppose nobody's noticed as an example M$ very onerous VB requirements. They allow you to distribute their neccessary files for your program... and most of them come on windows computers anyway, but they retain the right to take them away whenever they want... Then you're left with only YOUR code to distribute, not the compiled .exe. In the VB case, your code is so inexplicably tied to MS own IP rights that they basically "ignore" you distributing their stuff--or they wouldn't sell anything. Heck, if you looked at all the cross-license contradictions in M$ licenses of versions, tools, and OS, probably nobody has "rights" to sell Boxed windows software [or included hardware] out there.
If you illegally "mix" code, you illegally mix code...nothing about "free" changes those IP rules!!! That it won't be benificial for everybody to make their code GPL due to network effects doesn't make it viral...any more than MS Word is "viral" because you can't send a resume without it.
They're only calling it "viral" because spread of software [and it licensing] is how all these big players made their money!!!! All the big Computer players got their start "scrapping scraps" of other people's IP from where ever they could get it... once they got money, they hired massive legal teams to make sure nobody else did the same thing. Proprietary software is more of a "cancer" than "viral" though...that is true. After all, isn't the point of every software company to "infect" your business with their "licenses" then make the terms more "harmful" [or profitable for the company] until it causes you more damage to remove the "tumor" than to go somewhere else. The companies' growth is "cancerous" in much the same way.. they take the massive profits and use them to "starve" healty software companies from ever flurishing.. again, they don't want to "pay" anybody for software either...but THEY want [no EXPECT] to BE paid.
Basically we need the Editors [HINT, HINT] to post a better balance of Pro-GPL news rather than anti-GPL-violator news... The polical/media spin doctors have known this for years... people have to hear 9 good things for every one bad one...News articles on slashdot should be brimming with new [approved] ways to use the GPL rather than the constant bashing of violators.
It's perfectly possible to mix GPL with other things, especically internal to a company, but the FSF gurus and stallman really make it hard by not spelling out exactly how to write "safe" mixed code rules that a PHB can understand. Anything a PHB can't understand it 5 sentences or less is a "liability" because they can't be bothered to do the research.
The real issue is marketing not reality. M$ and others market "shiny discs" in "prety boxes" that your PHB can go to a store and "buy". In SUNs case, your PHB forks 1 M dollars for a server room to fufill electronic communications requirements. Most PHBs could care less about the licenses... I'd bet if you could actually explain the typical EULA to any CEO they'd flat out refuse it.... until you tell them it's "software".
The real joke of the whole thing is that we have to have such stringent rules for "free" software because our thinking has become so corperate-centered that we can't understand even the idea of something not having "ownership". That's the irony built into the GPL... It HAS to be followed as the right of the little people to control their work... or all the mega-corps IP rights go too!!!
But we all know that the moon has too low gravity for general living... Their out to build Space Colonies... with giant robots... sound familiar!
We should have had digital signals 100% several years ago... the specs were designed to allow nearly 7 years of dual broadcasting overlap...but all that time has been squandered. You were supposed to be able to buy a DTV-to-analog converter for $50 years ago... the electronics is no more complicated that a $99 gamecube [without the moving parts]
I work for a steel mill. Years ago they bought out the source code to their "proprietary" ERP system because they needed changes the company didn't want to support.. Of course they still pay maintenance fees for what amounts to 50%+ their own stuff, but we couldn't move to a "new" version from the company without lots of $$$$.
But how would their situation differ if they used Open source software? They pay third-party programmers to come in and modify their system because they need it to work...now. If it was a Sourceforge project, they could "just fix it" and benifit from lots of other people helping too!
In a corperate situation the GPL doesn't hurt you that much. After all, you only have to provide source to whom you distribute binaries to. Most corperate software is "locked" into the company...it never leaves company property... so the only people who have the binaries are the IT staff...[isn't that clever]
I understand that intarrweb programming is slightly different... Web sites are considered by some to "distribute" the web pages... and that gets sticky. But in general, most corperate sites use 75% their own stuff, to be used for their business. Even if they were forced to release it, It'd be useless to 90% of the public... as long as it was stripped of proprietary info.. [passwords, accounting settings, that kind of thing aren't covered..you could release a "stripped" version if you needed to]
The sticky thing right now is that GPL doesn't cover USE of programs.. they really are free. GPL only covers distribution of programs... It's a subtle difference, but 75%+ of corperate software doesn't even vaguely fall under "distributed" so it's really nothing to worry about. Example: even if you gave a contractor a GPL program to use, it would be covered under confidential agreements like blueprints or anything else... They can't just "release it on the internet" because they have a copy.
The best example of this in Be was the Address book application. The only element in the file was the contact name... everything else was metadata... fields for address, email, phone, etc were directly searchable from the query in the filesystem. It's totally different than how everybody else uses "bundle files" [ala thumbs or .dat] or "quick readers" [ala MS office] Be was the perfect OS for the internet world... all the W3C "buzzwords" like XML and such would have thrived on a BeOS system. Be was just so far ahead nobody knew what to do with it.
BeOS suffered because it was far to radical for time... It had a nearly AS400-like "flat" system to it so you didn't [actually it even hindered] need development of 50 different helper apps... as soon as one "replicator" was created it could be used by any other program in the system. That turned off a lot of commercial people because you didn't sell an "application" you sold a set of "tools" for the OS to use. [imagine buying corel and adobe and working with both sets of tools on the same document at once! BeOS could have done that] It's a great base for OSS because the inter-module communication is well documented [and encouraged!]...you can replace parts at will as long as you follow the interface rules. That's how the Zeta and Hiakau groups have kept it going... slowly reworking each module to update the system.
iTunes burns CDs just fine. It does tend to be bit picky with disks and drives, but it works with all my stuff. I downloaded about a dozen of my Pepsi songs and the first time I even listened to them was on a CD in my clock radio. I've even been so evil to re-rip the burned CD back to MP3 to make it more portable.
As for screen size..get FoxyTunes for Firefox... Using it right now in the bottom corner of my slashdot window!!!
A certian amount of violence is built into everybody, but we don't need to be fanning the flames! Young kids can be very hot/cold...one miniute crying over a dead ant.. the next zapping them with the magnifier...
I was probably a lot like them when I was a kid...I was pretty sheltered. I don't have the stomach for too much violence and debauchery. I wasn't taught by my peers at a young age to be "childish" about violence [or pr0n] and so as an adult it's fun to explore, but not too much. One thing is that kids DON'T know it isn't OK to be excited by blood-n-guts... that's why you have to limit their exposure to it.
Seriously, I don't need 40GB of space, I just want to play my songs from itms. The shuffle is finally an iPod at a price point "normal" people like me can afford. While the Photo iPod is way cool, I can't justify paying that much for a what amounts to a "toy".
iPod Shuffle works great for it's intended purpose. I keep my autofill on "top rated" and 1 mouse click "shuffles" the music and I'm on my way. It's not that it has more features than the other players, it's that the few features it does have work perfectly...out of the box. It took me longer to do the "paperwork" [i.e. register and install software] than it did to actually put the songs on the iPod. I keep mine in my coat pocket and it plays for almost a week between work and home...and I've only gotta push 1 button to start and stop it!
you see the engineers probably want to support OSS, but they gotta satisfy the PHBs and marketers that only see the product as done with the windows sticker.
What I'd read this as is them trying to pick the right low-level parts that are already supported/easily supported "under the table" so their product is a "hidden treasure" for OSS fans.
I'm so sick of MS security holes I'm looking to switch too. I built a brand new XP install with the full McAfee internet suite, adware, spybot, AOL Security Edition, before I plugged it IN to the internet, then updated to SP2 ...AND put it behind a NAT and still have problems with visitors that "borrow" my computer trashing my machine! I know it could be slightly more locked down, but then none of the kids games or websites [like cartoonnetwork] work when it's locked down that tight.
I work help desk all day, the last thing I want to do is "help desk" my own PC...but I still seem to spend over 50% of my home PC time just cleaning up the messes!!!
I just visited my "local" Apple store and those mini's are really cute....not to mention that 20" LCD...WOW! The only thing I need a mainstream OS for is gamming...but between CEDEGA and cross platforms almost all my favorites are covered.
but there's lots of southern white people with a little black in them...with DNA we could get down to .001% black! Of course then they'd all realize we're all the same mixed up genes!!!! funny how that works.
I suppose once everybody's DNA is on record they'll have to go back to good ol witnesses. Hell, what's to stop them from snagging your newborns DNA at the hospital... all it takes is an "administrative suggestion" usually regarding paying the bills and the FDA could force every hospital to submit samples of every patient...who's to say we'd ever know?
When it gets to these issues I'm reminded of the orginal Jewish law [OK it's from Deutoronemy] that set "limitations" on criminal investigations. The origial rules required an investigation by the town elders and two offical wittnesses [and stoned um for lying!!] Also, it required "govt" to make a "sacrifice" for the human loss, then closed the matter...it prevented years long witchhunts we have now...constantly trying to "pin" the crimes on somebody. It also prevented the "establishment" of a legal "profession" to contiually bend the rules... [OK we know how THAT turned out] of course even the best laid plans can be ruined by idiots!!!