Because life rarely gives us simple black-and-white issues
Life is outrageously black and white. It's just that that deliniation occurs at a level way deeper than most people want to go, so they take the easy way out and call it gray for sake of not having to make the difficult decisions.
With regard to your example of free speech, I am no more free to speak than you, and you are no less free to speak than me, and visa-versa. Consquently my freedom ends where your's begins, and the same with you. Keeping that in mind, limits to various freedoms, such as the limiting of free speech where it becomes slander, make perfect sense and actually complete the picture, making it possible to join the individual perspective with that of the society as a whole.
As for the abortion/death penalty thing, see my reply to TFA below for my take on that, if you care too.
For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons)
The reasoning is generally based on accountability and culpability. A feutus is neither, while presumably an adult facing the death penalty is both. The larger problems with the death penalty isn't the taking of a life, but that the process is so potentially flawed for a miriad of reasons that the life in question may in fact not be culpable at all.
Please note that I'm not advocating, just clarify what was a needlessly murky aside which could have very appropriately removed by a more astute editor.
The web article linked in TFA is so blatantly biased and the author full of his own agenda that it makes for a poor basis for discussion, and ironically underscores the point illustrated by juxtaposing the Fitzgerald quote with the remainder of the topic at hand.
IANAL, but the contract in question was between Lee and Microsoft. Microsoft should sue Lee for breach of contract; however, they've obviously decided to chase the money and pursue Google. Google's counter-suit should be dropped for lack of standing as well, IMO.
Neither. Running at 800x600 and getting 30fps or so. I have 512MB of RAM, don't play on-line, and do the obvious like disable the anti-virus software to free up those CPU cycles.
In B1942, even at the "hard" settings, all you have to do is get in a tank and sit outside an enemy spawn point at an ammo dump and blast away. It's even more effective if your an engineer and can fix your own vehicle. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, with 150+ kills possible on almost every map. The Berlin and Stalingrad maps are the most egregious offenders in this regard, I think.
If Dvorak had any real balls, he'd go after a larger target. Like IBM. Of course, if he used the number of strawman arguements, overly broad generalizations, and outright misprepresentations as he did in TFA, the dust cloud from the army of lawyers decending upon his ass on their way to sue him into oblivion would be sufficent to obscure the New York skyline for days. Perhaps even weeks.
Apparently their bigger brains weren't much help either, so I am still left to wonder why they are gone and we are still here. I keep coming back to our inherent violent nature and I can't help but think that is at least a big part of the reason.
It's the rules, man!
Without rules, we all might as well be up in a tree flinging our crap at each other.
You're right that the two systems have never been regulated exactly the same. The problem is that they are regulated. As with every merchantilist scheme, we the customers are the losers.
"Fair" is not outcome-based; "fair" is an equal application of a known set of rules. Cable infrastructure has never been regulated in the same manner as telephone infrastructure. This ruling continues that seperation of regulation, despite the growing overlap in functional use.
You shouldn't have. I didn't say it was possible, I was sarcastically suggesting that McBide would try it. Of course it's not possible. After all, the RIAA cannot keep a handle on the non-GPL'd intangible property, let alone anyone trying this with open-sourced stuff.
Yes, this is very disturbing, but it's way beyond the scope of slashdot.
Given Justice O'Conner's dissent, I would also suspect that this ruling encroaches on the "equal protection" clause in the 4th amendment, as this sort of thing is almost always going to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the not-so-wealthy.
As for how it will effect the Slashdot community, you can look for McBride to motion to have the GLP'd Linux code siezed on grounds of eminent domain and the greater public good that doing something for profit is "better" than doing it for the simple fact of having it done.
E-mail is definitely critical, but still more infrastructure than application when compared to an account package or what they are using to drive their shop floor. Smart move using Fedora for the OS; e-mail is still commodity enough that you don't have to be married to the OS to make it go and can replace it with anything else you want if the system tanks.
Unless your "internal Linux Dude" is working for free, you still have costs directly driven by the software.
And BTW, RedHat Enterprise Linux isn't free. How many businesses can you personally attest to running mission-critical applications on servers whose OS is Fedora?
The quote said "on the software side" for a fucking reason.
The reason being that the idiotic author of TFA completely discounted that you either have to pay a vendor to be able to have fixes and updates loaded automagically, or pay someone in your organization to load them. Given that these costs are a direct consequence of owning the software, the system in question do, in fact, cost more than nothing on the software side, and his "powerful" reasoning is simply shortsided and biased. Just like yours.
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one
Everytime some Linux zealot repeats the myth that Linux is without cost, it's another blow to the collective credibilty of the Open Source Software movement.
While Linux may have a zero or near-zero cost of admission, the continued ownership is not without cost. Either a company is going to pay maintenance fees to someone like RedHat to be able to keep their systems patched, or they are going to be paying for talent in-house or renting talent via consultants to keep their systems patched. Or they are going to run unpatched and venture the risks (knowningly, or not) present in the forms of the bugs and security exploits and eventual incompatibilities that present themselves down the line and have to deal with those costs.
We run not quite a dozen boxes with Linux on them at my employer, and we are paying for maintenance for all but 2 of them. And those two are test/development platforms that management would chose to live without if it came to that. Not because the OS weren't on maintenance, but because they were free and running on semi-obsolete hardware.
"It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
Slashdot Mirror
Because life rarely gives us simple black-and-white issues
Life is outrageously black and white. It's just that that deliniation occurs at a level way deeper than most people want to go, so they take the easy way out and call it gray for sake of not having to make the difficult decisions.
With regard to your example of free speech, I am no more free to speak than you, and you are no less free to speak than me, and visa-versa. Consquently my freedom ends where your's begins, and the same with you. Keeping that in mind, limits to various freedoms, such as the limiting of free speech where it becomes slander, make perfect sense and actually complete the picture, making it possible to join the individual perspective with that of the society as a whole.
As for the abortion/death penalty thing, see my reply to TFA below for my take on that, if you care too.
For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons)
The reasoning is generally based on accountability and culpability. A feutus is neither, while presumably an adult facing the death penalty is both. The larger problems with the death penalty isn't the taking of a life, but that the process is so potentially flawed for a miriad of reasons that the life in question may in fact not be culpable at all.
Please note that I'm not advocating, just clarify what was a needlessly murky aside which could have very appropriately removed by a more astute editor.
The web article linked in TFA is so blatantly biased and the author full of his own agenda that it makes for a poor basis for discussion, and ironically underscores the point illustrated by juxtaposing the Fitzgerald quote with the remainder of the topic at hand.
Plus the added entertainment value of wathing the cheapskates in the business suits digging through the trash for coffee cups with unused WiFi logins!
There still lots of job openings
IANAL, but the contract in question was between Lee and Microsoft. Microsoft should sue Lee for breach of contract; however, they've obviously decided to chase the money and pursue Google. Google's counter-suit should be dropped for lack of standing as well, IMO.
Neither. Running at 800x600 and getting 30fps or so. I have 512MB of RAM, don't play on-line, and do the obvious like disable the anti-virus software to free up those CPU cycles.
If the requirements are the same as B1942, you should be fine. I have a 1.2GHZ system with a 2+ year old Radeon card and I've not seen any problems.
In B1942, even at the "hard" settings, all you have to do is get in a tank and sit outside an enemy spawn point at an ammo dump and blast away. It's even more effective if your an engineer and can fix your own vehicle. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, with 150+ kills possible on almost every map. The Berlin and Stalingrad maps are the most egregious offenders in this regard, I think.
You're referencing the wrong bit o' anatomy with regard to what it takes to father a child.
If Dvorak had any real balls, he'd go after a larger target. Like IBM. Of course, if he used the number of strawman arguements, overly broad generalizations, and outright misprepresentations as he did in TFA, the dust cloud from the army of lawyers decending upon his ass on their way to sue him into oblivion would be sufficent to obscure the New York skyline for days. Perhaps even weeks.
Some writers are paid by the article, or even the column inch. Dvorak, apparently, is paid per the strawman.
Apparently their bigger brains weren't much help either, so I am still left to wonder why they are gone and we are still here. I keep coming back to our inherent violent nature and I can't help but think that is at least a big part of the reason.
It's the rules, man!
Without rules, we all might as well be up in a tree flinging our crap at each other.
We already have this: "Open Source".
It has no confusing conotations with price, no confusing conotations with ownership, and no confusing conotations with petty politics.
You're right that the two systems have never been regulated exactly the same. The problem is that they are regulated. As with every merchantilist scheme, we the customers are the losers.
Very well put.
"Fair" is not outcome-based; "fair" is an equal application of a known set of rules. Cable infrastructure has never been regulated in the same manner as telephone infrastructure. This ruling continues that seperation of regulation, despite the growing overlap in functional use.
Ok, I'll bite
You shouldn't have. I didn't say it was possible, I was sarcastically suggesting that McBide would try it. Of course it's not possible. After all, the RIAA cannot keep a handle on the non-GPL'd intangible property, let alone anyone trying this with open-sourced stuff.
Yes, this is very disturbing, but it's way beyond the scope of slashdot.
Given Justice O'Conner's dissent, I would also suspect that this ruling encroaches on the "equal protection" clause in the 4th amendment, as this sort of thing is almost always going to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the not-so-wealthy.
As for how it will effect the Slashdot community, you can look for McBride to motion to have the GLP'd Linux code siezed on grounds of eminent domain and the greater public good that doing something for profit is "better" than doing it for the simple fact of having it done.
I wonder how wikipedia handles it...
There is no artificial moderation system on Wikipedia, everyone can be an editor if they chose to be.
Lynx, archie, veronica, gopher, ping, traceroute, whois, nslookup... sound familiar to anyone else?
E-mail is definitely critical, but still more infrastructure than application when compared to an account package or what they are using to drive their shop floor. Smart move using Fedora for the OS; e-mail is still commodity enough that you don't have to be married to the OS to make it go and can replace it with anything else you want if the system tanks.
Unless your "internal Linux Dude" is working for free, you still have costs directly driven by the software.
And BTW, RedHat Enterprise Linux isn't free. How many businesses can you personally attest to running mission-critical applications on servers whose OS is Fedora?
Your bias is still showing.
I wonder how many of the Windows vs. Linux TCO studies factored in the cost of an Anti-Virus subscription on the Windows' side?
The quote said "on the software side" for a fucking reason.
The reason being that the idiotic author of TFA completely discounted that you either have to pay a vendor to be able to have fixes and updates loaded automagically, or pay someone in your organization to load them. Given that these costs are a direct consequence of owning the software, the system in question do, in fact, cost more than nothing on the software side, and his "powerful" reasoning is simply shortsided and biased. Just like yours.
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one
Everytime some Linux zealot repeats the myth that Linux is without cost, it's another blow to the collective credibilty of the Open Source Software movement.
While Linux may have a zero or near-zero cost of admission, the continued ownership is not without cost. Either a company is going to pay maintenance fees to someone like RedHat to be able to keep their systems patched, or they are going to be paying for talent in-house or renting talent via consultants to keep their systems patched. Or they are going to run unpatched and venture the risks (knowningly, or not) present in the forms of the bugs and security exploits and eventual incompatibilities that present themselves down the line and have to deal with those costs.
We run not quite a dozen boxes with Linux on them at my employer, and we are paying for maintenance for all but 2 of them. And those two are test/development platforms that management would chose to live without if it came to that. Not because the OS weren't on maintenance, but because they were free and running on semi-obsolete hardware.
"It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."