Ah, I still remember the big announcement on Chips n Dips about Rob's secret new project. And the time he posted the news about Slashdot being mentioned on another site (unheard of at the time) from class while taking a test. The first try at message boards and the poll about whether or not to keep them. And a thousand other little things that have become Slashdot. A quick look at whois shows that it's been less than two years. It's come so far it seems like it must have been much longer.
All the best, guys. It's been a fun time thus far, and I'm sure it will continue to be. Thanks!
I think the problem here is that many of the 'big draws' may not be aware that such accounts are widely available. My wife has a web site design business, and when I offered to put my mother's home page (which was on AOL) on a server we use for some random stuff, she basically said "can you do that?"
Hopefully, a lot of people will look at this and see that a better alternative is available.
I do this same thing. One thing I have noticed is that people will complain that it's a pain to have to choose a different file format rather than just hitting save. They never seem to notice that they were already in the save dialog in order to give the file a name, or that they waited the time it took for Word to start rather than sending a plain text email (which is sufficient 95% of the time), or in the case of formatted documents that they spent more time choosing fonts than it takes to pick a compatible file format...
Hmmm. Maybe I'm misreading you here (apologies if so), but I think you're comparing apples and oranges.
Hate to burst your bubble, but any TFT display is *analog* -- that's right... how do you think they get those bazillions of sparlky tantalizing colours? you're driving the electronics with analog RGB signals and in most cases, standard sync pulses.
You're right that in most cases the LCD monitors are using the same RGB signal as the CRT monitors (and convert them back to digital at the monitor), but as noted above the SGI monitors don't do that. Those bazillions of sparkly colors are generated with 24/32 bit numbers (as in all PC video these days) but unlike in the normal case, they're not converted to an analog RGB signal. They're sent directly to the monitor which uses them to control the transistor switches that make up the display.
Now, I suppose you could mean that there are no digital signals, only analog representations of digital signals, but that is mostly a semantic game played by first year engineering students, and has no real practical significance outside the design labs.
Analog does *not* mean lossy or lousy or unclear. Analog makes the world go 'round, my friend. Digital makes it easy to convey the info, but ultimately you're dealing with analog.
Again, right in theory, (somewhat) wrong in practice. As noted in your rant, digital these days uses speeds that make it necessary to treat the signal paths as transmission lines, but this only matters to the people making the hardware. As far as practical significance, consider this. I am sending an analog signal down a line. Any rounding of edges, any attenuation of signal levels, any noise picked up, degrades my signal. And you cannot avoid these things in the real world. Period. What I receive may be very close to what I sent, but it is not exactly the same. I have lost some information.
Now let's say I send a digital representation of that analog signal. Unless the noise, attenuation, etc. is bad enough for me to not be able to distinguish between a high and a low, I receive an exact copy of the signal sent. No loss of information has occured. Now, usually there's a tradeoff, because there is always loss involved in the a->d and/or d->a conversion, but in the case of PC video, it's generated digitally to begin with so that problem doesn't exist. So with the displays themselves being equal, a digital signal will beat an analog signal in quality every time.
Hmmm. When I first entered the job market, this is exactly how it worked. Problem with it was, you were on the hook for 10% - 15% of your first year's salary the day you accepted the job. So the recruiters had no problem lying through their teeth about what the job entailed, working conditions, etc. If you found out after starting that things were not what you were led to expect, oh well.
Re:It's not just a music player...
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Empeg Shipping
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· Score: 2
Remove foot from mouth...
Umm, the telnet remark was kind of flippant. I didn't really mean it literally. As I said I was primarily interested in the hardware; I don't actually know if it's possible to telnet in (although I could swear I recall this being mentioned). However, the system is supposed to be accessible. The capability is certainly there. What the actual implementation is I don't know.
While I am not as paranoid about Red Hat as many here, neither am I willing to give as much credit to altruism as Miguel is. The hackers that work for Red Hat may be great and generous people, but RH is a business run by businessmen. If companies release software that runs on "Red Hat Linux", not on Linux in general, I don't think you'll find many complaints from them. It's called a competitive advantage, and most businesses like it.
However, should this get taken too far, Debian is right there. It will run the software in most cases, is IMHO higher quality, and while it has its own problems (nothing is perfect) it is basically immune to the kind of corporate wheeling and dealing people are so afraid of. Don't think Red Hat isn't aware that if they make a big stumble Debian is right there to pick up the pieces. This will go a long way toward 'keeping them honest'.
As an interesting aside (to me anyway), I talked to an engineer a while back from a company who shall remain nameless;) that ships a "Red Hat Linux" supported product. He said that all their development is done on Debian. Go figure.
If the GPL is overturned in court standard copyright applies and whomever has the most successful closed version of a Linux-derived OS will be violating copyright law and will have to pull it from the shelves.
Re:It's not just a music player...
on
Empeg Shipping
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· Score: 2
I talked to Hugo a bit about this at LinuxWorld. My main interest was actually the hardware, so details will be sketchy.
Internally, this runs a fairly standard (albeit small) Debian system. So the basic code is already open. He also said he will be GPL'ing the UI code. As far as extensibility, it has 8 megs of RAM, so I suppose that could be a limitation(?), but it's basically a Linux box. Telnet in and do your damndest.;)
Isn't it strange how Intel can have a run-away sales hit like the Celeron to do nothing but stamp it out for, "our protection."
Ahh, the Microsoft model. Don't give the customers what they want; give them what you want them to have.
I wonder what the margin is that they make on each type of processor? I would venture their net profit on two 370 Celerons is about 1/4 of the net profit they make on a Pentium III-- or maybe 1/6 of the profit on a Xeon III sale.
I came across an article a while back (can't remember where) that said it cost Intel approx $65 to make a Celeron processor (margin's a little thin), vs about $70 for a Pentium III 500 (nice fat margin there). I would imagine the Xeon is more expensive to manufacture than these, but not that much more.
Not necessarily a bad thing. After all, they must have my written consent.
Problem is, they'll pass it by saying that this protects you from having it happen if you don't want it to. Then you'll find that you have to give this permission in order to get a driver's license or file a tax return, etc.
Reminds me of an article I read somewhere that said Macs made the best web servers. The reasoning was that since they had practically no functionality as servers, it would be hard to exploit them. Not putting down Macs (never used one), just thought it was funny at the time and this reminded me of it.
I think people are missing a very important point here. What we're generally talking about is not the same as opening your mail. These communications are generally going out over the air or over public networks. That makes them public domain. Anyone who wants to can intercept and read them. There is a lot of legal precedent for this.
As a real world example, why do you think cable satellite signals are scrambled? Because the cable companies tried to take action when people received them without paying and found out that once it's on the air, it belongs to everyone.
As with everything regarding law, especially where it concerns the ability of a government to control its people, there are a lot of exceptions, caveats, etc. But in general once it's out in the open in some way (broadcast to a satellite, out on the net, etc) it's fair game.
and that being a parent is a full-time responsibility, more important than your hobbies, your friends, even your career. If you're not willing to give up all that, don't have kids
You people that want your precious freedoms better read the constitution again. It gives you the right to pursue happiness, so long as you don't start infringing on other people's rights to do the same.
Perhaps you should do a little reading yourself. The right to pursue happiness in not granted in the Constitution; it is stated in the Declaration of Independence that you have this right by virtue of being born.
As to the issue at hand, the Constitution gives Congress the power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." A law that extends this protection to more than double the lifetime of most authors and inventors is obviously not what was meant by this passage. A little more reading will also inform you that copyright came within a hair's breadth of being outlawed altogether in this country.
There is tons of proprietary technology you could learn lots from but is legally protected from being made public.
I'm curious as to how you've arrived at this conclusion. There are two primary protections for proprietary technology - patent and trade secret.
Trade secret means I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. The protection comes from a)keeping my stuff under wraps and b)forbidding anyone who learns it from me from distributing that knowledge. If somebody reverse engineers my tech, unless I can show they used knowledge they got from me to do it they're in the free and clear and they can make it as public as they want, as well as use it as they see fit.
Patent protection requires the technology to be made public in order to be granted the patent; the whole point of the patent system is (supposed) to be to get the technological advances into the public purview as quickly as possible.
Last time I checked, there were a lot of other countries, with a lot of music besides the good 'old (free?) USofA. Mp3 lets me get music that never makes it to the border in conventional format. And there's lots of coutries that have a skeptical view of american politking.
1) The 'agreement' isn't shown until you have the information. I seriously doubt this is legally enforcable.
2) The information itself is public domain. This means all they can control is access to their database. There is legal precedent that says if I have access to their database, I can suck all the information out of it and put it in my own, then do with my database as I please. The only way this can work for them is if they put the database totally off limits; nice catch-22 they've gotten themselves into, eh?;)
The RIAA has made it clear that it's willing to fight for its interests in the courts. It has the money and the muscle to try to convince technology companies and Internet music vendors to see things its way.
Considering that the only way this will work is if the 'technology companies' run out of money while fighting the suits, and considering where most of the money is these days (checked the market caps of the 'internet stocks' lately?), methinks the RIAA may be in for an unpleasant surprise. It's tough when you find out you're not the biggest kid on the block anymore.
Re:Intellectual Property
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DOJ vs NSI
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· Score: 2
NSI's position is that owns the database containing the registrants.
Then they at least have a case. As you've noted, there is plenty of precedent for the government paying for a database's creation then letting the company that did it have ownership of it.
Honestly, if the extent of their ownership claim is the database itself, I'm not sure their is much the government can do about it. As much as I may dislike NSI's approach, I think they're probably on fairly solid ground here.
Re:Intellectual Property
on
DOJ vs NSI
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· Score: 2
It's hard to say from the quotes in the article what NSI's actual position is (do they claim to own the database or the data itself?), but the way this usually works is the way you've described your situation. IOW, NSI can possibly own the database of domain information, but the data itself is public domain.
I think this is analogous to online phone directories. Courts have ruled that you can create an online database, then fill it with information from someone else's database without infringing on their intellectual property. However, you cannot simply put their database up.
If NSI claims that they own the database, they may or may not have a case. I suppose it depends on whether the gov't decides that since it helped NSI create it, it should be public (and whether the courts in the ensuing lawsuit agree). If NSI claims they own the data in the database, I think they're probably going to lose that argument.
...Disney was in a bit of trouble a year or so ago when the copyright or whatever on Mickey Mouse expired and he would suddenly be in the public domain, and anyone could make profits on him. I forget how they solved the issue...
They got Congress to extend the length of time a copyright is valid (retroactively, to boot). It's now life of the author plus 95 years in the case of copyright held by a corporation.
When I was working the Debian booth at LinuxWorld Expo, Larry Augustin came by and asked how we would feel about being paid to maintain Debian full time. Any software generated would be GPL'd.
Yep, paying people to do something they're already doing for free or to write software and then give it away, it's that ol' Microsoft business model rearing its ugly head again...
Slashdot Mirror
All the best, guys. It's been a fun time thus far, and I'm sure it will continue to be. Thanks!
Hopefully, a lot of people will look at this and see that a better alternative is available.
I do this same thing. One thing I have noticed is that people will complain that it's a pain to have to choose a different file format rather than just hitting save. They never seem to notice that they were already in the save dialog in order to give the file a name, or that they waited the time it took for Word to start rather than sending a plain text email (which is sufficient 95% of the time), or in the case of formatted documents that they spent more time choosing fonts than it takes to pick a compatible file format...
Hate to burst your bubble, but any TFT display is *analog* -- that's right... how do you think they get those bazillions of sparlky tantalizing colours? you're driving the electronics with analog RGB signals and in most cases, standard sync pulses.
You're right that in most cases the LCD monitors are using the same RGB signal as the CRT monitors (and convert them back to digital at the monitor), but as noted above the SGI monitors don't do that. Those bazillions of sparkly colors are generated with 24/32 bit numbers (as in all PC video these days) but unlike in the normal case, they're not converted to an analog RGB signal. They're sent directly to the monitor which uses them to control the transistor switches that make up the display.
Now, I suppose you could mean that there are no digital signals, only analog representations of digital signals, but that is mostly a semantic game played by first year engineering students, and has no real practical significance outside the design labs.
Analog does *not* mean lossy or lousy or unclear. Analog makes the world go 'round, my friend. Digital makes it easy to convey the info, but ultimately you're dealing with analog.
Again, right in theory, (somewhat) wrong in practice. As noted in your rant, digital these days uses speeds that make it necessary to treat the signal paths as transmission lines, but this only matters to the people making the hardware. As far as practical significance, consider this. I am sending an analog signal down a line. Any rounding of edges, any attenuation of signal levels, any noise picked up, degrades my signal. And you cannot avoid these things in the real world. Period. What I receive may be very close to what I sent, but it is not exactly the same. I have lost some information.
Now let's say I send a digital representation of that analog signal. Unless the noise, attenuation, etc. is bad enough for me to not be able to distinguish between a high and a low, I receive an exact copy of the signal sent. No loss of information has occured. Now, usually there's a tradeoff, because there is always loss involved in the a->d and/or d->a conversion, but in the case of PC video, it's generated digitally to begin with so that problem doesn't exist. So with the displays themselves being equal, a digital signal will beat an analog signal in quality every time.
Hmmm. When I first entered the job market, this is exactly how it worked. Problem with it was, you were on the hook for 10% - 15% of your first year's salary the day you accepted the job. So the recruiters had no problem lying through their teeth about what the job entailed, working conditions, etc. If you found out after starting that things were not what you were led to expect, oh well.
Umm, the telnet remark was kind of flippant. I didn't really mean it literally. As I said I was primarily interested in the hardware; I don't actually know if it's possible to telnet in (although I could swear I recall this being mentioned). However, the system is supposed to be accessible. The capability is certainly there. What the actual implementation is I don't know.
However, should this get taken too far, Debian is right there. It will run the software in most cases, is IMHO higher quality, and while it has its own problems (nothing is perfect) it is basically immune to the kind of corporate wheeling and dealing people are so afraid of. Don't think Red Hat isn't aware that if they make a big stumble Debian is right there to pick up the pieces. This will go a long way toward 'keeping them honest'.
As an interesting aside (to me anyway), I talked to an engineer a while back from a company who shall remain nameless ;) that ships a "Red Hat Linux" supported product. He said that all their development is done on Debian. Go figure.
If the GPL is overturned in court standard copyright applies and whomever has the most successful closed version of a Linux-derived OS will be violating copyright law and will have to pull it from the shelves.
Internally, this runs a fairly standard (albeit small) Debian system. So the basic code is already open. He also said he will be GPL'ing the UI code. As far as extensibility, it has 8 megs of RAM, so I suppose that could be a limitation(?), but it's basically a Linux box. Telnet in and do your damndest. ;)
Ahh, the Microsoft model. Don't give the customers what they want; give them what you want them to have.
I wonder what the margin is that they make on each type of processor? I would venture their net profit on two 370 Celerons is about 1/4 of the net profit they make on a Pentium III-- or maybe 1/6 of the profit on a Xeon III sale.
I came across an article a while back (can't remember where) that said it cost Intel approx $65 to make a Celeron processor (margin's a little thin), vs about $70 for a Pentium III 500 (nice fat margin there). I would imagine the Xeon is more expensive to manufacture than these, but not that much more.
IIRC, it was version 0.54 or somesuch; based on Motif, not GTK (which I think you are correct about not being around yet).
Problem is, they'll pass it by saying that this protects you from having it happen if you don't want it to. Then you'll find that you have to give this permission in order to get a driver's license or file a tax return, etc.
Reminds me of an article I read somewhere that said Macs made the best web servers. The reasoning was that since they had practically no functionality as servers, it would be hard to exploit them. Not putting down Macs (never used one), just thought it was funny at the time and this reminded me of it.
As a real world example, why do you think cable satellite signals are scrambled? Because the cable companies tried to take action when people received them without paying and found out that once it's on the air, it belongs to everyone.
As with everything regarding law, especially where it concerns the ability of a government to control its people, there are a lot of exceptions, caveats, etc. But in general once it's out in the open in some way (broadcast to a satellite, out on the net, etc) it's fair game.
Be interesting to find out. What I do know is that NSA has their own fab; no telling what kind of goodies come out of there. ;)
Amen.
Perhaps you should do a little reading yourself. The right to pursue happiness in not granted in the Constitution; it is stated in the Declaration of Independence that you have this right by virtue of being born.
As to the issue at hand, the Constitution gives Congress the power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." A law that extends this protection to more than double the lifetime of most authors and inventors is obviously not what was meant by this passage. A little more reading will also inform you that copyright came within a hair's breadth of being outlawed altogether in this country.
I'm curious as to how you've arrived at this conclusion. There are two primary protections for proprietary technology - patent and trade secret.
Trade secret means I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. The protection comes from a)keeping my stuff under wraps and b)forbidding anyone who learns it from me from distributing that knowledge. If somebody reverse engineers my tech, unless I can show they used knowledge they got from me to do it they're in the free and clear and they can make it as public as they want, as well as use it as they see fit.
Patent protection requires the technology to be made public in order to be granted the patent; the whole point of the patent system is (supposed) to be to get the technological advances into the public purview as quickly as possible.
Last time I checked, there were a lot of other countries, with a lot of music besides the good 'old (free?) USofA. Mp3 lets me get music that never makes it to the border in conventional format. And there's lots of coutries that have a skeptical view of american politking.
Outstanding point. Thank you.
2) The information itself is public domain. This means all they can control is access to their database. There is legal precedent that says if I have access to their database, I can suck all the information out of it and put it in my own, then do with my database as I please. The only way this can work for them is if they put the database totally off limits; nice catch-22 they've gotten themselves into, eh? ;)
Considering that the only way this will work is if the 'technology companies' run out of money while fighting the suits, and considering where most of the money is these days (checked the market caps of the 'internet stocks' lately?), methinks the RIAA may be in for an unpleasant surprise. It's tough when you find out you're not the biggest kid on the block anymore.
Then they at least have a case. As you've noted, there is plenty of precedent for the government paying for a database's creation then letting the company that did it have ownership of it.
Honestly, if the extent of their ownership claim is the database itself, I'm not sure their is much the government can do about it. As much as I may dislike NSI's approach, I think they're probably on fairly solid ground here.
I think this is analogous to online phone directories. Courts have ruled that you can create an online database, then fill it with information from someone else's database without infringing on their intellectual property. However, you cannot simply put their database up.
If NSI claims that they own the database, they may or may not have a case. I suppose it depends on whether the gov't decides that since it helped NSI create it, it should be public (and whether the courts in the ensuing lawsuit agree). If NSI claims they own the data in the database, I think they're probably going to lose that argument.
They got Congress to extend the length of time a copyright is valid (retroactively, to boot). It's now life of the author plus 95 years in the case of copyright held by a corporation.
Yep, paying people to do something they're already doing for free or to write software and then give it away, it's that ol' Microsoft business model rearing its ugly head again...