because you're not playing the "game" correctly...the Money game is WHAT MATTERS. Exploiting children overseas is fine because it's not illegal here. Business nowdays is about being just barely illegal. NOT about being honest.
After all, marketing and sales are the "cool" people at the top [just like Kindergarden]...ability and necessity has NOTHING to do with it. After all, those big deals don't get closed at a card table in the backroom with trash all over..do they. But you don't see the janitor get credit for a nice, clean work area?
Engineering and IT in all but extreme cases [R&D] are "working" people now. "Middle Class" is defined loosely as $30k-100k per year. Only problem is that the marketing/ executive people at $100k see anybody making
Management has fallen into a "cash mover" mentality. Small, steady profits arent' considered "viable" anymore...those costs must be cut. Until a big there's a big enough crash to shake these people off the tree, this will continue to be the attitude!
After reading the "How Much" article, Think how productive the US software industry would be if there was that planning over here! Isn't that the REAL PROBLEM with the US software industry. Typically, most projects don't fail because of the coders, it's because most projects DON'T HAVE seperate postiions over here. Often the "product Manager" is also the master coder, there are not "gui designers", "software architects", etc over here, just a room full of "programmers".
For companies that have internal programmer, how many proposals go thru that many steps? Really! My experience is that company programmers also do support for IT, "products" are mearly ideas some VP comes up with...then starts theatening to fire people to get it faster. Changes come when the Other VPs find out about the project, etc...
I work for a manufacturer in the US, and we deal with customers theatening offshore processing all the time. It's really nice to send stuff to china...after all, you can wait months for parts, then expect to place nice, jumbo sized orders on a regular basis...if we had those jobs we'd be nearly that cheap too! But, we make our money off the engineers. They call up and want a prototype right now. Most of our customers are within an hour drive, often the fax/email prints over after a brief discussion with our engineer. We can usually turn parts around for samples in several weeks...with changes...get that from overseas. The boats take longer than that to get here!
I'm surprised that more US companies that are lean and mean aren't starting up with all theses laid off workers. The real issue with offshore programming is that the "powers" don't like having ANY high-paid non-management jobs in-house anymore. The same "Wall Street" wanabees that are crying about the economy also are making a concerted effort to get rid of all the high-paying jobs in their companies! My boss [small business], and other's he's had in the office simply refuse to pay competitive wages at ANY COST to the company. Of course, this attitude will only hasten the decline and cause deflation [not enough people to pay silly] of their big bankrolls. This makes them claim the economy is worse, and we need more outsourcing!
Not that p2p isn't an interesting technology, but if I have my own stuff I created, why do I need p2p? I sign up for web hosting, and put it up on FTP, nice and simple! Everyone on the internet can get it.
The other use of p2p is for mirroring large OSS type files [isos, src, etc] This helps keeping any one server from bearing the brunt of bandwidth. Here though, I think p2p tech could help out if we could get ISPs on board to mirror legal stuff automatically for their users. If I have a 1000 users that all want something , why shouldn't ISP's be caching it to save their own external bandwidth? The problem with that is most content providers still don't "get" caching and mirroring on a local level yet so they scream DMCA everyone tries someting like that, but p2p tech could allow your first local connection to mirror something and still give the originating site credit for ads, hits, etc..
If Kazza or BitTorrent could clean up their act, they could have a really viable business instead of this shady stuff. Perhaps ISPs could have a "check-in" system to verify who's posting and that they can, and host the servers themselves for thier own local users. Once one legal mirror was in the system, everyone could mirror it honestly. It would be all server-side [business people] so that would eliminate much of the illegal activity right there. Sure things might take a day extra to get thru, but hosting for projects would be cheaper. There would be reduced bandwith costs because every iso after the first would be local for the ISP. A Kazza type system could still track all the hits though and scale back the mirrors after the initial "rush".
The movie industry really needs to implement internal DRM for stuff in the pipe first! When it works well then they can try it on the rest fo us! After all, how many P2Ps are from internal screeners filming a movie pre-release? Also, how many leaks come from the off-shore DVD stamping houses that they use because it's cheaper. [you don't think they keep those movies canned only in the US do you!]
of course, it doesn't look good to industry to say that the "theives" are in your own organization...so they must be outside it. Of course if the theives can get movies pre-release. then they are already bypassing any DRM in any consumer level products anyway.
The cops PLANTED a GPS tracker on the guys car to keep tabs on him at all times. Fortunately this time, and properly, they got a court's permission first. All the judge did was verify that it did indeed require a warrant for that activity.
When you realize that most new cars have GPS as well as cellphones, the requirement of the State to get permission to aquire the data BEFORE THE FACT is extremely important. After all, without such oversite the abuse is enourmous. Mess with the local deputy's daughter and a dead body just might be found near where you made out last night! Get the idea. You were there for way to long, so you must have commited the crime, right? Unrestricted access opens up all new ways of setting honest people up. There's nothing special about granting GPS for someone who's already a suspect and you would search their house or grounds. It's only 15 minutes of paperwork to protect our freedom!
And that's really the issue here. With the laughablely low standards for warrants these days [in car faxes, phone-a-judge, patriot? act] , is there really any reason NOT to simply follow the few procedures we have left? We expect tripliate paperwork for the simplest screw on a FAA certified aircraft, how much dicipline should we expect from a man with a GUN comming after ME or YOU! We might be KILLED too!
Why not go after phone books too! After all, they have personal information: Name, PHONE NUMBER, and often address...How about those pesky 3.5 inch minimum size numbers we all have on our houses! People might know we live there. How about license plates, registration, titles, credit cards [yes, your address is in the little stripe] etc.
Any time you use these, you give away your contact information so people can verify you, send you stuff, get to your house, etc. When you sign up for a web site, it's assumed that you WANT TO BE CONTACTED! After all, isn't that what the web is about...There's no assumtion of annonimity for those who have web sites...that's an urban myth. There's no privacy in business dealings because it's assumed the parties want or need to be contacted if things go awry. Watch what you put in those if you don't like it!
The current Knoppix CD unpacks to 2.1GB when not chloop'd! Considering the CD has both KDE, Gnome, several minor WdM's as well as most of the common server software...perl, php, mysql, apache, samba... and desktop software...Koffice, "Gnu" office, openoffice.org...it's not a "tiny" distro. That said, it's heavily biased to KDE because of space issues that Gnome apps get cut first.
With persistant home and stored configs, you can store all your settings on a removable device and take your "desktop" anywhere there's a PC!
If they only settled and didn't actually loose the court case, then there isn't really a problem. Contracts can be Un-Settled just as fast. At the time apple was originally sued, they clearly were not in any violation of rights, but probably settled just to be sure not to loose, and too small to fight it off anyway.
Enter 2003, Apple is extrememly profitable, and 50 Million barraty money from before is chump change... They can easily weild 100X that much money this time around. I bet Steve Jobs has a personal bit of revenge planned this time 'round... I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of Apple computer right now! Remember, everyone is owned by someone else! Apple was after Universal too. They may just find the owner and buy them off this time once and for all! Then they can "restructure" the company and cancel all the employee pensions, stock options, employee loans, mortgages, cars, children, wives, etc..like a good American company would do!
Directly or indirectly [spouses or other family] better than half the original Manhattan project were Jews bud. Most of Germany's researchers had Jewish roots...Hitler started killing them and they all ran. Several used the Nobel Prize awards to get out of the country publicly. The "bomb" was originally developed to be droped on Hitlers Germany [revenge anyone], not Japan, but they surrendered first.
Read the Bible dude...It's not wise to mess with them! Every leader that has murdered them for 5000 years has met a very ugly death..quite often by his own hand or family. Also, many of the other Arab natives share the same blessing of Abraham [thru Ishmael or Easu] to be as many as the stars in the sky or sand on the beach...It's not an accident that they have oil, or terrorists-they will always have something that gives them power over world events. Realize that Israel/Palistine is a 4000 year old turf war! David and Goliath...same races, same turf. It's ordered not to end [David didn't finish it when told to]...there's no point in the US even trying...just get out of the way.
Of course, it's not a problem when bosses expect programmers to work on a problem for 12-16 hours straight a day until it's fixed....That's not normal either! Many tech positions are incapable of being performed by "normal" people. But in the past, I think there was more focus on personal control [hyper-strict schools & public perception of kids] and that is particularly noticable for kids with ADD. They still need to learn that their actions need to be in line evein if their attention isn't. "Modern" classrooms only make the problems worse by trying to cram too many different activities in to a day in 30 minute increments--that means when the ADD kids do pay attention the activity is over when their attenting is peaking causing attitude problems when they are forced to change tasks. And, at the same time starting earlier, leangthing the school day, AND reducing recess time as well.
ADD is an evolutionary glitch..many famous people like Edison suffered from symptoms that are clearly ADD. But of course, there are other similar things in society...compusive lying comes to mind...many of our leaders have that problem and the public accepts it because they are likable.
So you were just leeching right? Your Boss seems to have made quite a bit of money finding customers for someone else's work while taking all the credit for themselves and not puting any back. How have GPL lovers created problems for him? well they might now after you ratted him out on/.!
Your Boss represents the problems with public perception of the internet in general [RIAA, MPAA, KAZZA, etc]. Nobody wants to RESPECT other's rights in business. After all, there's no need to hide what he's doing, as long as he was to give back like the license says. Open source is about working together to build something that will last...corporations are not always the best instrument of that goal! When he's sued into oblivion by the FSF, where will his customers be...he appears to be defrauding them by NOT telling its GPL based. Then they will have an UNSUPPORTED system...why should anyone from the GPL project help them? If he was following the rules, there would always be someone there to pick up the slack should he leave the market! OSS makes the market MORE capitalistic [econ 101 definition] not LESS!
While "capsules" may not be sexy, they could allow for much increased saftey. After all, the REAL problem with space travel is that all the vehicals are basically really expensive hobbie projects. A ford focus is still several notches ahead of most space capsules in basic design reliabilty. Yes, I know about the recalls, and that's the point. Most "aerospace" hardware is one-offs. Having worked in electronics and manufacturing, you can only rework parts several times before you introduce severe side effects to its reliability...if you can mass produce less flashy stuff, it will be more durable, and apt to work better.
Really this doesn't have to be all bad. They should be designing a mass-producable vehical/space station module. They could use the vehical/capsule for missions and "drop" the lab off at the IIS before droping back home in a little capsule. This would reduce the Mission payloads by not sending up extra stuff that's not comming back, as well as allow NASA to place a decent size order for some space parts. order 100 instead of 1 or 2.
Also, they need to get the auto companies involved in space hardware. Automakers are of the measure twice cut once mentality. That means you may have bad pieces, but the money you save on making them allows you to throw away the bad ones rather than "salvage" them like in typical aerospace. The FAA is on crack with all their paperwork. They'd rather spend 40 hours on reworking a circut board with jumper wires and hand soldering then approve the design change to replace a single SMT IC layout on the circut board...that extends to most commerical aircraft as well. It's nuts and the only way they manage it all is with extreme buracracy over all the "patches" which pulls much needed money away from doing it right the first time!
I'm sure it was intentional..gamers are actually WORSE that/. for game brand particulars!
Actually, a Magic:TG movie would do really well after LOTR. They completed the Urza storyline a year-or-so ago, and it would be really cool to see on the big screen...but it would have to be done right.
This means that there are large corprate heads that roll when the lawyers come calling....they smell blood in the water... Wizard's is a weierd company. Founded by Phd's and aerospace engineers as a "hobbie" project early on they ran into their own issues with TSR over licensing for their early D&D books. It's interesting to see where they protect their stuff and what they let out of the bag.
Mostly this looks like a Hasbro lawyer CYA thing. Like other posters said, the aren't after the niche stuff anymore with D&D. Every mall bookstore sells something because it's Hasbro at the top of the food chain. That means anything with the logo could reflect on not just Wizards, but Barbie, Fisher-Price...get the idea. There's not much room for controversy in the toy market.
Gator's software wrote over their ads. That could lead to lost sale, or worse customer complaints about Uhaul sponsering bad stuff. Their grounds were along the lines of interfering with business and defacing their "art". After all, if you see an offensive at a site, do you remember you downloaded dancing gerbil and got gator, or do you curse at the site for offending you? Also, what happens on a PC that kids and adults use... if kid site uses "safe" adds, but gator overwrites them using Daddies "late nite" browsing habits!
Gee a country that threatens to develop new nukes[like us, we stated intention to develop and test new bunker buster nukes just last month too!], invades other countries[like us], and ignores the international community[like us...Iraq?]....I like them already! They've got some fight in them.
seriously, they may be "evil" but they are true to their nature...more so than the US. My point would be we [the USA] need to adults about this. North Korea has every right to feel theatened. After all, the "war" isn't really over. Look how we treated Iraq's "cease fire" agreement; while they didn't really comply with the terms, they had absolutly no capacity to attack anyone, that was clear after our attack. North Korea is right to expect the same treatment from GWB..He's given them no other option than to attack first. You can thank HIS mouth for that.
You display the same feelings for N Korea that the Arab states display for Israel..joint the club of the real world!
Realize that this really isn't our problem except for what we made it. We intervened in a civil war because the Capitalist didn't want the Commies to win, nothing more. The result is that the country is split, families are split. And WE keep results from happening. We do this so we can have Cheap cars, computers, and toys...not for any nobility of Capitalism over Communism. After all, they are mearly not playing their part in the racket anymore...that's why it's a big deal now. How do you think we control southeas Asia but by threatening to withdraw our army and let N Korea and China take over again...It's all a corperate game. N Korea just wants to add lives to the price tag because they are loosing. Americans have been fed the "Morality or Death" argument for way to long by the feds...Politics is all about keeping the peace at ANY cost and N Korea wants S Korea back...or they will start blowing US up.
The shoe is on the other foot now...not so fun anymore is it! They're just playing the same game as we've played for 50 years. It's not so fun to be on the other side of unreasonable leaders...but that wasn't a problem when the minority begged for reason from George was it! The USA is out of control...we're monsters, but they don't show that on CNN. While any war that kills Americans is bad, the Govt needs put back in it's place. The people have failed to rein in their own govt, now N Korea may give it a try....the sides should be interesting!
In most Sci-Fi, techology is in control and people are in control of it. It's all a big "human brainpower" wet dream. Fantasy on the other hand deals with out of control situations. Gods clash, evil rises for no reason it is unexplainable yet humans must act.
Over the past 10 years espically, we are seeing the fuition of many of the standard Sci-Fi ideals...yet we also seem to be continuously choosing the path the sci-fi writers have been warning about for years. That's depressing. At the same time, we still are having terrorist attacks, school/work shootings, massive blackouts, and natural disasters at a shockingly increasing rate. Fantasy is begining a comeback be cause people realize that we will never control everything...so how we deal with what we're delt is more important than what "might" come.
How bout a slick user interface for users to maintain their ports? Ideally, most incomming ports should be open only if a running app "request" them to be...otherwise clamp those babies shut! Problem is that NO OS is written that way. Windows is the worst because they are always trying to sneak in "secret" services rather than just making a reliable system.
I'd challange someone to mod BSD with that type of "just-enough" security handling WITHOUT end user intervention! It's all about making user readable documentation/cofiguration pages that mean something about what the user wants to do rather than some obscure protocol settings. i.e. the USER should pick the programs they want to run and be able to visually see all the necessary resources, connections, hardware used so they know what's going on. There's no way MS [or any other commerical vendor would ever make that system...for obvious reasons] The only other problem is dealing with the myrid users of junked systems already out there.
I think the Judge was right on. After all, this ruling is akin to the MS EULAs about benchmark results and the like. As far as "deep" linking and linking in general to offending material, Deep linking is merely exploiting a hole in the system. Most deep links could be stopped thru more careful administration...setup to require hacking which is a different matter. Linking to copyright material is not infringement itself...let's point the blame where it belongs...and use the links to rat out the offenders, till the offenders start prohibiting the links on their own! The only other issue was weather or not the item was a legal document or evidence. The court chose to dodge the bullet and call it an important part of the case which wasn't "gaged" and already out of the bag.
As far as other claims, just like in slashdotter world, you have to be careful how you post things...most normal people have zero understanding of the subtlies of copyright law...how to make sure you can get your point without violation. The lawyers know people [and often Judges] aren't versed in the particulars. Again a case where the Law refuses to simplify rules, or publish "safe" useages without weeding thru piles of paper.
Of course to me [USA] this means jack squat. We still have to deal with this mess!
They're mearly making the best of what they can...After all, they are reletively young an all the teachings fall under those wonderful copyright extension we/. all love! You think that the Cathloics [nothing against them at the moment] haven't already tried this? Pre Gutenburg they were doing exactly the same thing!
It's one of those things..."Preists" need money to dedicate their lives to observing the faith, right. Houses, food, etc isn't free. If the worshipers don't support you with some kinds of offerings then you starve! Not good. The Scientologists happen to have a legal "lock" on the words they worship and are making due on business rather than "offerings". Most religions are guilty of falling into this spiral of corruption...look what happened to the Southern Baptists after Fallwell and Co fell.
This is the same thing going on since the beginning of humans. Religion comes from meaning, religion needs full-time help. Full-time help needs steady income and the steady income BECOMES the religion....nothing to see here, move a long.
That said, they are obviously using their "lock" to legally block out the detractors like a good business would....How often does MS do this [didn't we debate the.net EULA last week]...same thing here. Unfortunately, It's sad to see any religion take this route...American's just aren't used to it. Our culture was founded directly because of a profound hatred of actions like this...that's where most of the initial immigrants came from. That's why the response espically here for the fercily independant, is so sharp!
One other thing...I'm starting to dislike how quickly people confuse RIGHTS with RELIGION. While I don't belive Scientology at all, as an American I'm bound to at least give them consideration and respect their rights to have far-out views....after all, there's always someone out there who thinks I'm a quack too!
I feel the same way. War with out extreme human cost on BOTH sides means the side with fewer losses will take it much more lightly...This is EXACTLY what we saw with GB & Iraq. While we count every US casualty on CNN, they gloss over the THOUSANDS of Iraqis we killed in the process. He knew he could get his war because we would have extremely low casualties.
The other problem I have is justfying this technology. After all, what's really the difference between terrorists flying a plane into a building and battleships firing cruise missiles on non-combat ready batallions of troops whos govenments didn't get along as the first shots of a war? Legitamately, the odds we got in Iraq should have had human rights charges brought against us. Not that it's not nice to win, but it was just all wrong.
Fear leads to Hate. Hate leads to Anger. Anger leads to Suffering. When one side has all the power of Life and Death over all the others, the potential for Suffering is Greatest! Especially when that side never has to learn the hard lessons that come with the power they have, and can be afraid all the time.
True, they are downright snails, but where else can you get something PC compatible for $150 that will run for hours off of a standard 12V drycell. These things draw power compariable to car headlights or radios...not space heaters. That allows you to unplug the unit from the wall and do really useful cool things with it. Also, you can use stock external "brick" power supplies and that reduces complexity/increses reliability. Sure, you could get a laptop, but again, did I mention EPIAs are in the $150 range!
Slashdot Mirror
because you're not playing the "game" correctly...the Money game is WHAT MATTERS. Exploiting children overseas is fine because it's not illegal here. Business nowdays is about being just barely illegal. NOT about being honest.
After all, marketing and sales are the "cool" people at the top [just like Kindergarden]...ability and necessity has NOTHING to do with it. After all, those big deals don't get closed at a card table in the backroom with trash all over..do they. But you don't see the janitor get credit for a nice, clean work area?
Engineering and IT in all but extreme cases [R&D] are "working" people now. "Middle Class" is defined loosely as $30k-100k per year. Only problem is that the marketing/ executive people at $100k see anybody making Management has fallen into a "cash mover" mentality. Small, steady profits arent' considered "viable" anymore...those costs must be cut. Until a big there's a big enough crash to shake these people off the tree, this will continue to be the attitude!
For companies that have internal programmer, how many proposals go thru that many steps? Really! My experience is that company programmers also do support for IT, "products" are mearly ideas some VP comes up with...then starts theatening to fire people to get it faster. Changes come when the Other VPs find out about the project, etc...
I work for a manufacturer in the US, and we deal with customers theatening offshore processing all the time. It's really nice to send stuff to china...after all, you can wait months for parts, then expect to place nice, jumbo sized orders on a regular basis...if we had those jobs we'd be nearly that cheap too! But, we make our money off the engineers. They call up and want a prototype right now. Most of our customers are within an hour drive, often the fax/email prints over after a brief discussion with our engineer. We can usually turn parts around for samples in several weeks...with changes...get that from overseas. The boats take longer than that to get here!
I'm surprised that more US companies that are lean and mean aren't starting up with all theses laid off workers. The real issue with offshore programming is that the "powers" don't like having ANY high-paid non-management jobs in-house anymore. The same "Wall Street" wanabees that are crying about the economy also are making a concerted effort to get rid of all the high-paying jobs in their companies! My boss [small business], and other's he's had in the office simply refuse to pay competitive wages at ANY COST to the company. Of course, this attitude will only hasten the decline and cause deflation [not enough people to pay silly] of their big bankrolls. This makes them claim the economy is worse, and we need more outsourcing!
The other use of p2p is for mirroring large OSS type files [isos, src, etc] This helps keeping any one server from bearing the brunt of bandwidth. Here though, I think p2p tech could help out if we could get ISPs on board to mirror legal stuff automatically for their users. If I have a 1000 users that all want something , why shouldn't ISP's be caching it to save their own external bandwidth? The problem with that is most content providers still don't "get" caching and mirroring on a local level yet so they scream DMCA everyone tries someting like that, but p2p tech could allow your first local connection to mirror something and still give the originating site credit for ads, hits, etc..
If Kazza or BitTorrent could clean up their act, they could have a really viable business instead of this shady stuff. Perhaps ISPs could have a "check-in" system to verify who's posting and that they can, and host the servers themselves for thier own local users. Once one legal mirror was in the system, everyone could mirror it honestly. It would be all server-side [business people] so that would eliminate much of the illegal activity right there. Sure things might take a day extra to get thru, but hosting for projects would be cheaper. There would be reduced bandwith costs because every iso after the first would be local for the ISP. A Kazza type system could still track all the hits though and scale back the mirrors after the initial "rush".
of course, it doesn't look good to industry to say that the "theives" are in your own organization...so they must be outside it. Of course if the theives can get movies pre-release. then they are already bypassing any DRM in any consumer level products anyway.
When you realize that most new cars have GPS as well as cellphones, the requirement of the State to get permission to aquire the data BEFORE THE FACT is extremely important. After all, without such oversite the abuse is enourmous. Mess with the local deputy's daughter and a dead body just might be found near where you made out last night! Get the idea. You were there for way to long, so you must have commited the crime, right? Unrestricted access opens up all new ways of setting honest people up. There's nothing special about granting GPS for someone who's already a suspect and you would search their house or grounds. It's only 15 minutes of paperwork to protect our freedom!
And that's really the issue here. With the laughablely low standards for warrants these days [in car faxes, phone-a-judge, patriot? act] , is there really any reason NOT to simply follow the few procedures we have left? We expect tripliate paperwork for the simplest screw on a FAA certified aircraft, how much dicipline should we expect from a man with a GUN comming after ME or YOU! We might be KILLED too!
Any time you use these, you give away your contact information so people can verify you, send you stuff, get to your house, etc. When you sign up for a web site, it's assumed that you WANT TO BE CONTACTED! After all, isn't that what the web is about...There's no assumtion of annonimity for those who have web sites...that's an urban myth. There's no privacy in business dealings because it's assumed the parties want or need to be contacted if things go awry. Watch what you put in those if you don't like it!
Knoppix could do this! It already has a feature called persistant home which works for HDD, and Flash memory. It could be updated to include FTP too!
With persistant home and stored configs, you can store all your settings on a removable device and take your "desktop" anywhere there's a PC!
Enter 2003, Apple is extrememly profitable, and 50 Million barraty money from before is chump change... They can easily weild 100X that much money this time around. I bet Steve Jobs has a personal bit of revenge planned this time 'round... I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of Apple computer right now! Remember, everyone is owned by someone else! Apple was after Universal too. They may just find the owner and buy them off this time once and for all! Then they can "restructure" the company and cancel all the employee pensions, stock options, employee loans, mortgages, cars, children, wives, etc..like a good American company would do!
Read the Bible dude...It's not wise to mess with them! Every leader that has murdered them for 5000 years has met a very ugly death..quite often by his own hand or family. Also, many of the other Arab natives share the same blessing of Abraham [thru Ishmael or Easu] to be as many as the stars in the sky or sand on the beach ...It's not an accident that they have oil, or terrorists-they will always have something that gives them power over world events. Realize that Israel/Palistine is a 4000 year old turf war! David and Goliath...same races, same turf. It's ordered not to end [David didn't finish it when told to]...there's no point in the US even trying...just get out of the way.
ADD is an evolutionary glitch..many famous people like Edison suffered from symptoms that are clearly ADD. But of course, there are other similar things in society...compusive lying comes to mind...many of our leaders have that problem and the public accepts it because they are likable.
Your Boss represents the problems with public perception of the internet in general [RIAA, MPAA, KAZZA, etc]. Nobody wants to RESPECT other's rights in business. After all, there's no need to hide what he's doing, as long as he was to give back like the license says. Open source is about working together to build something that will last...corporations are not always the best instrument of that goal! When he's sued into oblivion by the FSF, where will his customers be...he appears to be defrauding them by NOT telling its GPL based. Then they will have an UNSUPPORTED system...why should anyone from the GPL project help them? If he was following the rules, there would always be someone there to pick up the slack should he leave the market! OSS makes the market MORE capitalistic [econ 101 definition] not LESS!
Really this doesn't have to be all bad. They should be designing a mass-producable vehical/space station module. They could use the vehical/capsule for missions and "drop" the lab off at the IIS before droping back home in a little capsule. This would reduce the Mission payloads by not sending up extra stuff that's not comming back, as well as allow NASA to place a decent size order for some space parts. order 100 instead of 1 or 2.
Also, they need to get the auto companies involved in space hardware. Automakers are of the measure twice cut once mentality. That means you may have bad pieces, but the money you save on making them allows you to throw away the bad ones rather than "salvage" them like in typical aerospace. The FAA is on crack with all their paperwork. They'd rather spend 40 hours on reworking a circut board with jumper wires and hand soldering then approve the design change to replace a single SMT IC layout on the circut board...that extends to most commerical aircraft as well. It's nuts and the only way they manage it all is with extreme buracracy over all the "patches" which pulls much needed money away from doing it right the first time!
Actually, a Magic:TG movie would do really well after LOTR. They completed the Urza storyline a year-or-so ago, and it would be really cool to see on the big screen...but it would have to be done right.
Mostly this looks like a Hasbro lawyer CYA thing. Like other posters said, the aren't after the niche stuff anymore with D&D. Every mall bookstore sells something because it's Hasbro at the top of the food chain. That means anything with the logo could reflect on not just Wizards, but Barbie, Fisher-Price...get the idea. There's not much room for controversy in the toy market.
Gator's software wrote over their ads. That could lead to lost sale, or worse customer complaints about Uhaul sponsering bad stuff. Their grounds were along the lines of interfering with business and defacing their "art". After all, if you see an offensive at a site, do you remember you downloaded dancing gerbil and got gator, or do you curse at the site for offending you? Also, what happens on a PC that kids and adults use... if kid site uses "safe" adds, but gator overwrites them using Daddies "late nite" browsing habits!
seriously, they may be "evil" but they are true to their nature...more so than the US. My point would be we [the USA] need to adults about this. North Korea has every right to feel theatened. After all, the "war" isn't really over. Look how we treated Iraq's "cease fire" agreement; while they didn't really comply with the terms, they had absolutly no capacity to attack anyone, that was clear after our attack. North Korea is right to expect the same treatment from GWB..He's given them no other option than to attack first. You can thank HIS mouth for that.
You display the same feelings for N Korea that the Arab states display for Israel..joint the club of the real world!
Realize that this really isn't our problem except for what we made it. We intervened in a civil war because the Capitalist didn't want the Commies to win, nothing more. The result is that the country is split, families are split. And WE keep results from happening. We do this so we can have Cheap cars, computers, and toys...not for any nobility of Capitalism over Communism. After all, they are mearly not playing their part in the racket anymore...that's why it's a big deal now. How do you think we control southeas Asia but by threatening to withdraw our army and let N Korea and China take over again...It's all a corperate game. N Korea just wants to add lives to the price tag because they are loosing. Americans have been fed the "Morality or Death" argument for way to long by the feds...Politics is all about keeping the peace at ANY cost and N Korea wants S Korea back...or they will start blowing US up.
The shoe is on the other foot now...not so fun anymore is it! They're just playing the same game as we've played for 50 years. It's not so fun to be on the other side of unreasonable leaders...but that wasn't a problem when the minority begged for reason from George was it! The USA is out of control...we're monsters, but they don't show that on CNN. While any war that kills Americans is bad, the Govt needs put back in it's place. The people have failed to rein in their own govt, now N Korea may give it a try....the sides should be interesting!
Over the past 10 years espically, we are seeing the fuition of many of the standard Sci-Fi ideals...yet we also seem to be continuously choosing the path the sci-fi writers have been warning about for years. That's depressing. At the same time, we still are having terrorist attacks, school/work shootings, massive blackouts, and natural disasters at a shockingly increasing rate. Fantasy is begining a comeback be cause people realize that we will never control everything...so how we deal with what we're delt is more important than what "might" come.
I'd challange someone to mod BSD with that type of "just-enough" security handling WITHOUT end user intervention! It's all about making user readable documentation/cofiguration pages that mean something about what the user wants to do rather than some obscure protocol settings. i.e. the USER should pick the programs they want to run and be able to visually see all the necessary resources, connections, hardware used so they know what's going on. There's no way MS [or any other commerical vendor would ever make that system...for obvious reasons] The only other problem is dealing with the myrid users of junked systems already out there.
As far as other claims, just like in slashdotter world, you have to be careful how you post things...most normal people have zero understanding of the subtlies of copyright law...how to make sure you can get your point without violation. The lawyers know people [and often Judges] aren't versed in the particulars. Again a case where the Law refuses to simplify rules, or publish "safe" useages without weeding thru piles of paper.
Of course to me [USA] this means jack squat. We still have to deal with this mess!
It's one of those things..."Preists" need money to dedicate their lives to observing the faith, right. Houses, food, etc isn't free. If the worshipers don't support you with some kinds of offerings then you starve! Not good. The Scientologists happen to have a legal "lock" on the words they worship and are making due on business rather than "offerings". Most religions are guilty of falling into this spiral of corruption...look what happened to the Southern Baptists after Fallwell and Co fell.
This is the same thing going on since the beginning of humans. Religion comes from meaning, religion needs full-time help. Full-time help needs steady income and the steady income BECOMES the religion....nothing to see here, move a long.
That said, they are obviously using their "lock" to legally block out the detractors like a good business would....How often does MS do this [didn't we debate the .net EULA last week]...same thing here. Unfortunately, It's sad to see any religion take this route...American's just aren't used to it. Our culture was founded directly because of a profound hatred of actions like this...that's where most of the initial immigrants came from. That's why the response espically here for the fercily independant, is so sharp!
One other thing...I'm starting to dislike how quickly people confuse RIGHTS with RELIGION. While I don't belive Scientology at all, as an American I'm bound to at least give them consideration and respect their rights to have far-out views....after all, there's always someone out there who thinks I'm a quack too!
The other problem I have is justfying this technology. After all, what's really the difference between terrorists flying a plane into a building and battleships firing cruise missiles on non-combat ready batallions of troops whos govenments didn't get along as the first shots of a war? Legitamately, the odds we got in Iraq should have had human rights charges brought against us. Not that it's not nice to win, but it was just all wrong.
Fear leads to Hate. Hate leads to Anger. Anger leads to Suffering. When one side has all the power of Life and Death over all the others, the potential for Suffering is Greatest! Especially when that side never has to learn the hard lessons that come with the power they have, and can be afraid all the time.
True, they are downright snails, but where else can you get something PC compatible for $150 that will run for hours off of a standard 12V drycell. These things draw power compariable to car headlights or radios...not space heaters. That allows you to unplug the unit from the wall and do really useful cool things with it. Also, you can use stock external "brick" power supplies and that reduces complexity/increses reliability. Sure, you could get a laptop, but again, did I mention EPIAs are in the $150 range!