iPods have hard drives, ergo iPods can hold photos too.
If the OS were open, like say if the iPod ran on GNU/Linux, someone would have created a picture-viewing application for their iPod over a year ago.
It's only because the software on the iPod is closed up that we have to wait patiently and salivate as Apple releases each tiny incremental feature-improvement. The same improvements that would have been made freely available a long time ago with open code.
Maybe in another year we'll get.ogg support on iPods. Ooops. No. That would interfere with Apple's attempt to control the standard music format and force-feed DRM to users.
The poster (and most replies) misunderstand what's happened, probably because they don't have access to the judge's opinion (I looked at it through Lexis) and because they didn't read the CNET article.
Amazon was sued for allegedly infringing IPXL's patent. IPXL's patent was VERY specific and the court found that Amazon's 1-Click system did not do all of the things that IPXL's patent claimed as their own invention, hence Amazon won.
It is true that PART of Amazon's defense was that the 1-Click system is not an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system. The poster suggests this is disingenuous because they are touting their EFT capabilities in the CNET article. However, the article explains that Amazon is seeking OTHER patents to cover those EFT systems, and so the 1-Click technology is not relevant to those applications unless it turns out to be prior art. It might seem obvious to the lay person that it is (and probably it should be) but the lawyers writing patents for Amazon get paid a LOT of money to write good patents, and you can be assured that they will find a way to write up these new patents in such a way that the 1-Click technology is not invalidating prior art.
If you want to be irked with something, it's not this judge, Amazon, or even the lawyers involved that should upset you. They are dealing with the system they've been handed. Only Congress can decide that software patents themselves are a bad idea, so tell them you want to see a change if you're upset by all of this. Complaining about the rest of it is misguided and won't solve anything. The only other thing you could do is donate to EFF who is actively involved in busting bad patents. See link in sig.
If you just want to be a jerk, JerkBob, then you've succeeded. But if you want to intelligently discuss a genuine problem with my favorite distro, Debian, then here's the point you're apparently ignoring:
Woody is too old to be attractive to many enterprise users, such as the poster, so they are naturally going to look at Sarge. But the upgrades submitted to Sarge on widely-used packages like Apache and PHP4 are so untested that they regularly break Sarge systems. This leaves these enterprises with few viable Debian-related choices.
Also, my point was in large part exactly yours! A parent post said Debian was the ultimate conservative distro in order to support the conclusion that enterprises could run it without fear. If you stop ranting and read my post you'll see that I was simply trying to warn these enterprise users not to be misled by these claims into thinking they could run anything other than Woody.
Also, it's not as if I'm running Sid which is where I'd expect everything to break daily. There's little point to having Sarge as a middle-ground if the packages aren't even cursorily checked for such big problems. If that's our approach, then there should just be stable and unstable. Debian's own description of the testing branch says its packages will have undergone "some degree of testing in unstable" but the point is that this standard is either ignored or fails to include a check of how installing the package into a Sarge system will turn out.
It may be fine with Debian and its users that enterprises face this lack of choices as regards Debian, as your ultimate conclusion suggests, but it seems to me that any honest Debian user would admit:
1. Enterprise use of Debian would help the project, with bug-fixes, with human, machine, and monetary resources, etc.
2. The current release cycle is way too long, creating the problem I describe above, among others.
3. Asking people to use backports and downgrades from broken packages is a way of ignoring the problems, rather than addressing their source.
This is only really true if you're only running stable and don't mind skipping all the new software out there.
I run testing on my web/mail server and recent upgrades have broken Apache twice. The last problem is still not resolved a week later. (See bug regarding PHP). No enterprise could have their website down for a week. It's a good thing I'm just running my personal website on this server, and even then it sucks.
If I ever get Apache working again I'm going to HOLD the package and not let dselect upgrade it ever again, security be damned. What good does it do me to worry about crackers bringing down the site when the regular upgrade process is so much more effective at trashing it?
Why didn't they spend $50 on a wireless router that includes a firewall? I guess it sounds like no one in her house owns a laptop, but if they did and could thereby benefit from the wireless access, this would have been a simple way to protect everything on the broadband connection.
My D-Link 614+ wireless router has a heck of a time communicating with my wife's iBook whenever we use the 2.4GHz wireless phone.
I've read suggestions that the intereference will lessen if you set the wireless router to Channel 11, but we've tried that and only seen small to no improvement.
My plan is to buy a 5.8 GHz phone, which is widely reported to clear this up.
Novell's Correspondence with SCO shows that Novell takes the position that Amendment 2 to their agreement with SCO only transfers UNIX copyrights that SCO requires in order to execute their licensing deals, and Novell says, none are required, so none are transferred. At the very least, Novell argues that SCO has to make a showing that such transfers are required, which they haven't done. Also, as a separate issue, Novell retained the right to basically veto SCO, which they have consistently done when it comes to IBM licensing issues.
This may not matter if the Novell-SCO litigation goes in Novell's favor. But here's the points:
1. Contrary to some above misinformed posters, SCO didn't have to commit espionage to get internal IBM e-mails. The discovery process in a lawsuit like this involves both sides turning over mountains of documents and e-mails. I'm sure this is where SCO found this information.
2. Novell claims they still own UNIX. Novell says that SCO only has a (revokable) license to license UNIX to others. Novell has already exercised their right to revoke SCO's UNIX-licensing powers as regards IBM, back when SCO claimed to be revoking IBM's license. Novell effectively said, "We run the show here, SCO, and IBM is legitimately licensed in our book."
The point then is that if Novell wins their SCO case, then this "smoking gun" is actually a wilted flower. Novell can provide IBM with a license for AIX, if they actually need one, and any damages IBM might owe could be paid to their buddy Novell, not SCO. (This part I'm less certain about, and depends on the extent to which Novell wins their case.)
Anyway, as others have pointed out, this doesn't affect Linux at all, and as I'm pointing out, it may not even affect IBM's use of UNIX. Nothing to see here... Move along...
This shows the DMCA can be used by the MPAA/RIAA to put legitimate technology companies out of business. But they're hoping for another tool to do even more of this, and it's called the INDUCE act.
This LinuxWorld was better than last year's, or at least the three bags of free swag I got this year represents a larger bounty!
If the Novell, SuSE, Ximian area were any bigger, they'd have to call it NovellWorld, which it just may be called by next year. If anyone was asleep while Novell was making these acquisitions, wake up, 'cause Novell is deadly serious about being the biggest baddest Linux company there is (and from their presentations they believe they already are.)
Novell certainly gave out the best stuff. I got 2 tickets to a SF Giants game for Wed. night, 2 red Novell baseball jerseys, 1 Novell white t-shirt and a SuSE/Novell stuffed Gecko. Others got the Sharp Zaurus, Apple iPod, and $100 Amazon gift certificates.
Also Novell was showcasing what they called the Novell Linux Desktop. I asked a lot of employees about this. They've taken the best of SuSE, the best of Ximian, combined Gnome and KDE and made a really slick looking desktop (which I think they will target at business users). But, it's so new they don't even know what they want to do with it yet.
They had it running on tons of computers and had attendees go through forwarding an e-mail with Evolution and opening a Word document with OpenOffice.org Writer to show off how easy using Linux can be. I actually heard people next to me trying it out saying things like, "If a secretary sits down and it isn't Windows, there will be an initial fear, but this is not really that different, and is really easy to use. I think most people would pick this up in no time..." Duh. Welcome to 2001.
Anyway, I thought this was Novell's LinuxWorld. They have a phalanx of people in brown shirts with red N's on 'em there. It will be interesting if by this time next year their tent is even bigger and merged with IBM's or Sun's. Or even more interesting, if their court cases work out such that they definitively show that they still own UNIX, they'll be one company that owns Netware, UNIX, and SuSE Linux. Biggest Baddest indeed.
This is good news, but I was at LinuxWorld today and I was sooo impressed with the guys from Linux Certified that I'll be seriously surprised if my next Linux Laptop doesn't come from them. When you go with a smaller vendor like Linux Certified and you have a problem, the person who answers the phone (there's the first difference, a human will answer the phone) will actually know something about Linux and be able to help you.
I applaud HP, but it's too little too late in my book. Linux Certified closed a sale today with old-fashioned customer service.
I just listened to the hearings Hatch held and if you don't think he is serious about passing this bill or something very similar to it within one month's time, then you obviously aren't paying attention.
It's also ridiculous to say that something like this will never pass. It's nearly inconceivable that something like this would NOT pass if it made it to the floor! Most in Congress don't understand technology or Copyright at all, and if Hatch & Leahy tell them that this will help solve the "scourge of p2p on the music business", then you had better believe that this will pass. I would even bet we'd see it pass on a voice vote, with no recorded vote, just how the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed.
You have exactly one month to write your Senators and tell them to oppose this bill and/or to come up with an alternative that appeases Hatch. From the hearings it sounds like a bill that targeted p2p specifically and dealt with the fact that sharing is turned on automatically in most of these clients, might get Hatch off the warpath. It's important here to emphasize the legitmate uses of p2p technology though, and to craft a bill that narrowly does what Hatch wants, which is a way to sue Kazaa, Grokster, etc. into oblivion.
Many of those testifying said that the Sony v. Betamax rule (that technologies with substantial non-infringing uses are legit) should be codified into law. If INDUCE could be turned around to include this sort of language, then that would be a true victory for innovation. Suggest that in all your letters to Senators!
I'm not going to try the proprietary Skype from a company that has installed spyware in the past, but when I do try out a comparable Free program I'll have two problems:
1. I've never tried to use the microphone port on any of my soundcards under Linux, or when I have it hasn't worked.
2. I don't own a headset for my computers. (obviously related to #1).
I would guess that most headsets that plug into soundcards are going to work regardless of O/S, but I see that there are USB-based headsets as well. So my questions are:
1. Does anyone know of a list of USB-based headsets that work under Linux?
2. Does anyone know of a list of soundcards whose microphone-ports are known to work under Linux?
b2evo This is what I would recommend people check out first. BBlog (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater & MySQL version 3.23 or greater) Bit 5 Blog blosxom (only need ability to run CGI scripts) drupal.org (mySQL or similar required) LiveJournal.org MyPHPblog/Simplog (seems to require MySQL would have to download to be sure.) Nucleus (requires PHP version 4.0.6 or higher and access to a MySQL database version 3.23.38 or higher) Pivot (only php required) pLog (requires PHP 4.1.x or higher and MySQL 3.1.x or higher) Scoop (requires Apache with mod_perl and mySQL) TikiWiki (requires PHP 4.1+ and MySQL. Very powerful software.) WordPress (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater
and MySQL version 3.23.23 or greater.)
There were enough people there who understand the issues and who can explain them clearly that if this subcommittee came out of there unconvinced that this is a good law, then I can only conclude that they are completely beholden to moneyed special interests, and don't give a whit about the public interest.
This hearing is before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Committee which is a subcommitte of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is the 27 members of this specific subcommittee that need to hear from us as they will make the decision on what to do this Wednesday.
E-mail each of these 27 members, especially if one of the members happens to be your representative. They hold the power right now. Later we'll worry about other votes and other members. For now, write these 27 reps! Here's a sample letter:
Dear Subcommittee member,
I am writing to ask you to support H.R. 107 this Wednesday and favorably recommend that it move on from your subcommittee. This bill is identical to one which Representatives Boucher and Doolittle introduced during the last Congressional session, so the time that this bill move forward has come.
H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act (DMCRA), restores consumers' fair use rights by amending the DMCA to allow circumvention of copy protection for non-infringing uses of digital copyrighted material. The DMCRA also specifies that it is not a violation of Section 1201 of the DMCA to manufacture, distribute, or make non-infringing use of a hardware or software product that enables significant non-infringing use of a copyrighted work, as in making back-up copies of legally purchased DVDs or other digital media.
Several provisions of The Digital Millenium Copyright Act have harmed law-abiding citizens of this country for too long. The DMCRA is a sensible change to the law that is necessary for consumers to enjoy their rights of fair use.
The content industry that opposes this bill has cried wolf before. They opposed the VCR, likening it to the Boston Strangler. We know now that technological advances are good for both consumers and industry, and that an industry scared of change should not be allowed to impede progress or consumer's rights.
I believe that if you are truly thinking of the interests of your constituents, then you will support the DMCRA. I urge you to take a stand for the public this Wednesday.
I don't know if the original poster meant "free" or "Free" but I also can't tell if Planmaker is Free software, and so on that front it can't beat OpenOffice either.
I'd never recommend that someone trade in one proprietary spreadsheet (Excel) for another proprietary spreadsheet (Planmaker). You're not making any real progress that way. The poster above who rants about lost business having a cost is both right and wrong. He's right that lost business has a financial cost, but he seems to miss that lost freedom has a financial cost as well. When someone who switches to Planmaker finds themselves subject to vendor-lock-in or is only able to get support from a single vendor, or has their software suddenly "expire" unless they pay up, they'll realize that the enemy was never Microsoft: it was software that takes away your freedoms.
If the program is only copyrighted, you can reverse engineer it, discover the algorithm, and reimplement it in a new software without infringing the original copyright.
Yes. I know the difference between patent protection and copyright protection. I simply believe that the process you describe is a GOOD thing. You seem to believe that individuals deserve an exclusive right to an algorithm. I disagree. Their unique expressions of that algorithm can be copyrighted, and I'll consent to that, but to grant them a monopoly right over all expressions of that algorithm goes too far, in my opinion.
Secondly, you missed the second part of my point. The original author was suggesting that his only choices are to patent his software or donate it to the public domain. That is absurd. All software is afforded copyright protection from the moment it is fixed in a tangible form. In my view, this provides more than adequate protection for the rights of the author and adding software patents to the mix does far more harm than good. The reasons I believe that are detailed in the blog entry I referred to earlier.
It's timely that this topic come up as the most recent entry on my blog, Share Alike, is entitled "Arguments Against Software Patents".
Let me respond to your points first.
1. Just because software patents already exist doesn't make them a good idea. There are lots of laws on the books that need changing. That's progress.
2. First, I think this is just inaccurate, but in any case, the same point as in #1 applies. Just because some judges have decided to allow such patents doesn't make them a good idea.
3. Part of what you say is true. Attempts to work around software patents have produced some good Free software unencumbered by patents. But, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of software patents filed recently and there is good reason to believe that the amazing success of those working around such patents is already being dragged down by this increase. Also, some of the patents being granted are the only or the most efficient way to accomplish some tasks and so workarounds become impossible or purposefully wasteful.
4. Raising the awareness of this issue in the minds of the public and the legislative branches of all governments is a good thing no matter what. Legislators that know there is a large public group opposed to software patents will think about the issue more carefully and may change bad laws that exist or draft better laws in the future.
5. Not true. Software is already given greater protection through copyright. Copyright protection in the U.S. lasts the life of the author plus 70 years, while a patent lasts 20 years. You pose a false dilemma when you suggest that the only options are patent protection or donating your creations to the public domain. On the contrary, your software will be overly protected long after your death by an absurdly long copyright term.
To see my arguments against software patents, read my most recent blog entry. I would be pleased for people to add comments either contributing additional arguments or criticizing the arguments already given.
Registered Users Rate this Book: 2.2
Anonymous Users Rate this Book: 4.8
To prevent multiple sign-ups as "registered users" you would restrict the class of "registered users" to those who have made at least one Amazon.com purchase with a unique name on their credit card.
Such a system could be gamed, but only at a much higher cost and level of effort.
Slashdot Mirror
This should not be revolutionary news.
.ogg support on iPods. Ooops. No. That would interfere with Apple's attempt to control the standard music format and force-feed DRM to users.
iPods have hard drives, ergo iPods can hold photos too.
If the OS were open, like say if the iPod ran on GNU/Linux, someone would have created a picture-viewing application for their iPod over a year ago.
It's only because the software on the iPod is closed up that we have to wait patiently and salivate as Apple releases each tiny incremental feature-improvement. The same improvements that would have been made freely available a long time ago with open code.
Maybe in another year we'll get
Since the site is slashdotted, you'll have to see the SL-C3000 at Dynamism who will make it available to US customers in November.
The poster (and most replies) misunderstand what's happened, probably because they don't have access to the judge's opinion (I looked at it through Lexis) and because they didn't read the CNET article.
Amazon was sued for allegedly infringing IPXL's patent. IPXL's patent was VERY specific and the court found that Amazon's 1-Click system did not do all of the things that IPXL's patent claimed as their own invention, hence Amazon won.
It is true that PART of Amazon's defense was that the 1-Click system is not an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system. The poster suggests this is disingenuous because they are touting their EFT capabilities in the CNET article. However, the article explains that Amazon is seeking OTHER patents to cover those EFT systems, and so the 1-Click technology is not relevant to those applications unless it turns out to be prior art. It might seem obvious to the lay person that it is (and probably it should be) but the lawyers writing patents for Amazon get paid a LOT of money to write good patents, and you can be assured that they will find a way to write up these new patents in such a way that the 1-Click technology is not invalidating prior art.
If you want to be irked with something, it's not this judge, Amazon, or even the lawyers involved that should upset you. They are dealing with the system they've been handed. Only Congress can decide that software patents themselves are a bad idea, so tell them you want to see a change if you're upset by all of this. Complaining about the rest of it is misguided and won't solve anything. The only other thing you could do is donate to EFF who is actively involved in busting bad patents. See link in sig.
If you just want to be a jerk, JerkBob, then you've succeeded. But if you want to intelligently discuss a genuine problem with my favorite distro, Debian, then here's the point you're apparently ignoring:
Woody is too old to be attractive to many enterprise users, such as the poster, so they are naturally going to look at Sarge. But the upgrades submitted to Sarge on widely-used packages like Apache and PHP4 are so untested that they regularly break Sarge systems. This leaves these enterprises with few viable Debian-related choices.
Also, my point was in large part exactly yours! A parent post said Debian was the ultimate conservative distro in order to support the conclusion that enterprises could run it without fear. If you stop ranting and read my post you'll see that I was simply trying to warn these enterprise users not to be misled by these claims into thinking they could run anything other than Woody.
Also, it's not as if I'm running Sid which is where I'd expect everything to break daily. There's little point to having Sarge as a middle-ground if the packages aren't even cursorily checked for such big problems. If that's our approach, then there should just be stable and unstable. Debian's own description of the testing branch says its packages will have undergone "some degree of testing in unstable" but the point is that this standard is either ignored or fails to include a check of how installing the package into a Sarge system will turn out.
It may be fine with Debian and its users that enterprises face this lack of choices as regards Debian, as your ultimate conclusion suggests, but it seems to me that any honest Debian user would admit:
1. Enterprise use of Debian would help the project, with bug-fixes, with human, machine, and monetary resources, etc.
2. The current release cycle is way too long, creating the problem I describe above, among others.
3. Asking people to use backports and downgrades from broken packages is a way of ignoring the problems, rather than addressing their source.
This is only really true if you're only running stable and don't mind skipping all the new software out there.
I run testing on my web/mail server and recent upgrades have broken Apache twice. The last problem is still not resolved a week later. (See bug regarding PHP). No enterprise could have their website down for a week. It's a good thing I'm just running my personal website on this server, and even then it sucks.
If I ever get Apache working again I'm going to HOLD the package and not let dselect upgrade it ever again, security be damned. What good does it do me to worry about crackers bringing down the site when the regular upgrade process is so much more effective at trashing it?
Why didn't they spend $50 on a wireless router that includes a firewall? I guess it sounds like no one in her house owns a laptop, but if they did and could thereby benefit from the wireless access, this would have been a simple way to protect everything on the broadband connection.
From the article:
"Linux at some point could be good enough to run home PCs."
I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed, biting my lip, hoping for that day!
Oh, this message written on Debian Sarge, current uptime: 31 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes.
HA!
Yes,
My D-Link 614+ wireless router has a heck of a time communicating with my wife's iBook whenever we use the 2.4GHz wireless phone.
I've read suggestions that the intereference will lessen if you set the wireless router to Channel 11, but we've tried that and only seen small to no improvement.
My plan is to buy a 5.8 GHz phone, which is widely reported to clear this up.
Sure,
Novell's Correspondence with SCO shows that Novell takes the position that Amendment 2 to their agreement with SCO only transfers UNIX copyrights that SCO requires in order to execute their licensing deals, and Novell says, none are required, so none are transferred. At the very least, Novell argues that SCO has to make a showing that such transfers are required, which they haven't done. Also, as a separate issue, Novell retained the right to basically veto SCO, which they have consistently done when it comes to IBM licensing issues.
Read the letters of June 9 and 12, 2003.
August 4, 2003
December 23, 2003
February 11, 2004
This may not matter if the Novell-SCO litigation goes in Novell's favor. But here's the points:
1. Contrary to some above misinformed posters, SCO didn't have to commit espionage to get internal IBM e-mails. The discovery process in a lawsuit like this involves both sides turning over mountains of documents and e-mails. I'm sure this is where SCO found this information.
2. Novell claims they still own UNIX. Novell says that SCO only has a (revokable) license to license UNIX to others. Novell has already exercised their right to revoke SCO's UNIX-licensing powers as regards IBM, back when SCO claimed to be revoking IBM's license. Novell effectively said, "We run the show here, SCO, and IBM is legitimately licensed in our book."
The point then is that if Novell wins their SCO case, then this "smoking gun" is actually a wilted flower. Novell can provide IBM with a license for AIX, if they actually need one, and any damages IBM might owe could be paid to their buddy Novell, not SCO. (This part I'm less certain about, and depends on the extent to which Novell wins their case.)
Anyway, as others have pointed out, this doesn't affect Linux at all, and as I'm pointing out, it may not even affect IBM's use of UNIX. Nothing to see here... Move along...
This shows the DMCA can be used by the MPAA/RIAA to put legitimate technology companies out of business. But they're hoping for another tool to do even more of this, and it's called the INDUCE act.
Go to EFF's Action Center and savetheipod.com to take action! Let your Senators know that they should be supporting Rep. Boucher's DMCRA rather than INDUCE.
We can turn the tide here if we take action!
Googlefight says:
'suse gecko' = 23,400 hits,
'suse chameleon' = 4,310 hits.
Winner: 'suse gecko'
But, Suse's own site explains it's a chameleon named Geeko.
Them facts are straight.
This LinuxWorld was better than last year's, or at least the three bags of free swag I got this year represents a larger bounty!
If the Novell, SuSE, Ximian area were any bigger, they'd have to call it NovellWorld, which it just may be called by next year. If anyone was asleep while Novell was making these acquisitions, wake up, 'cause Novell is deadly serious about being the biggest baddest Linux company there is (and from their presentations they believe they already are.)
Novell certainly gave out the best stuff. I got 2 tickets to a SF Giants game for Wed. night, 2 red Novell baseball jerseys, 1 Novell white t-shirt and a SuSE/Novell stuffed Gecko. Others got the Sharp Zaurus, Apple iPod, and $100 Amazon gift certificates.
Also Novell was showcasing what they called the Novell Linux Desktop. I asked a lot of employees about this. They've taken the best of SuSE, the best of Ximian, combined Gnome and KDE and made a really slick looking desktop (which I think they will target at business users). But, it's so new they don't even know what they want to do with it yet.
They had it running on tons of computers and had attendees go through forwarding an e-mail with Evolution and opening a Word document with OpenOffice.org Writer to show off how easy using Linux can be. I actually heard people next to me trying it out saying things like, "If a secretary sits down and it isn't Windows, there will be an initial fear, but this is not really that different, and is really easy to use. I think most people would pick this up in no time..." Duh. Welcome to 2001.
Anyway, I thought this was Novell's LinuxWorld. They have a phalanx of people in brown shirts with red N's on 'em there. It will be interesting if by this time next year their tent is even bigger and merged with IBM's or Sun's. Or even more interesting, if their court cases work out such that they definitively show that they still own UNIX, they'll be one company that owns Netware, UNIX, and SuSE Linux. Biggest Baddest indeed.
Hey,
This is good news, but I was at LinuxWorld today and I was sooo impressed with the guys from Linux Certified that I'll be seriously surprised if my next Linux Laptop doesn't come from them. When you go with a smaller vendor like Linux Certified and you have a problem, the person who answers the phone (there's the first difference, a human will answer the phone) will actually know something about Linux and be able to help you.
I applaud HP, but it's too little too late in my book. Linux Certified closed a sale today with old-fashioned customer service.
I just listened to the hearings Hatch held and if you don't think he is serious about passing this bill or something very similar to it within one month's time, then you obviously aren't paying attention.
It's also ridiculous to say that something like this will never pass. It's nearly inconceivable that something like this would NOT pass if it made it to the floor! Most in Congress don't understand technology or Copyright at all, and if Hatch & Leahy tell them that this will help solve the "scourge of p2p on the music business", then you had better believe that this will pass. I would even bet we'd see it pass on a voice vote, with no recorded vote, just how the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed.
You have exactly one month to write your Senators and tell them to oppose this bill and/or to come up with an alternative that appeases Hatch. From the hearings it sounds like a bill that targeted p2p specifically and dealt with the fact that sharing is turned on automatically in most of these clients, might get Hatch off the warpath. It's important here to emphasize the legitmate uses of p2p technology though, and to craft a bill that narrowly does what Hatch wants, which is a way to sue Kazaa, Grokster, etc. into oblivion.
Many of those testifying said that the Sony v. Betamax rule (that technologies with substantial non-infringing uses are legit) should be codified into law. If INDUCE could be turned around to include this sort of language, then that would be a true victory for innovation. Suggest that in all your letters to Senators!
I'm not going to try the proprietary Skype from a company that has installed spyware in the past, but when I do try out a comparable Free program I'll have two problems:
1. I've never tried to use the microphone port on any of my soundcards under Linux, or when I have it hasn't worked.
2. I don't own a headset for my computers. (obviously related to #1).
I would guess that most headsets that plug into soundcards are going to work regardless of O/S, but I see that there are USB-based headsets as well. So my questions are:
1. Does anyone know of a list of USB-based headsets that work under Linux?
2. Does anyone know of a list of soundcards whose microphone-ports are known to work under Linux?
Thanks
For Mac OS X, I recommend the following free software:
Audacity . Audio Editor.
Colloquy. An IRC Client.
Cyberduck. FTP client.
Fugu. FTP client.
Shiira. Web browser written in Cocoa.
Camino. Web browser.
Firefox. Web Browser.
Mozilla . Browser/E-mail/Composer/Address/Chat.
Thunderbird. E-mail Client.
GnuPG for Mac. GNU Privacy Guard for Mac = Encryption for the people!
Give the kids choices. All of the above are free as in freedom as well as gratis.
b2evo This is what I would recommend people check out first.
BBlog (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater & MySQL version 3.23 or greater)
Bit 5 Blog
blosxom (only need ability to run CGI scripts)
drupal.org (mySQL or similar required)
LiveJournal.org
MyPHPblog/Simplog (seems to require MySQL would have to download to be sure.)
Nucleus (requires PHP version 4.0.6 or higher and access to a MySQL database version 3.23.38 or higher)
Pivot (only php required)
pLog (requires PHP 4.1.x or higher and MySQL 3.1.x or higher)
Scoop (requires Apache with mod_perl and mySQL)
TikiWiki (requires PHP 4.1+ and MySQL. Very powerful software.)
WordPress (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater and MySQL version 3.23.23 or greater.)
Don't depend on the linked news articles. You can read transcripts of Wednesday's hearing.
Speakers whose comments are already online include:
Lawrence Lessig, You know who he is.
Gary Shapiro, Consumer Electronics Association
Jack Valenti, MPAA
Cary Sherman, RIAA
Miriam Nisbet, American Library Association
Robert Holleyman, Business Software Alliance
Chris Murray,Consumer's Union
Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge
Robert Moore, CEO of 321 Studios
and more.
There were enough people there who understand the issues and who can explain them clearly that if this subcommittee came out of there unconvinced that this is a good law, then I can only conclude that they are completely beholden to moneyed special interests, and don't give a whit about the public interest.
This hearing is before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Committee which is a subcommitte of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is the 27 members of this specific subcommittee that need to hear from us as they will make the decision on what to do this Wednesday.
This is a list of the subcommittee members.
E-mail each of these 27 members, especially if one of the members happens to be your representative. They hold the power right now. Later we'll worry about other votes and other members. For now, write these 27 reps! Here's a sample letter:
Dear Subcommittee member,
I am writing to ask you to support H.R. 107 this Wednesday and favorably recommend that it move on from your subcommittee. This bill is identical to one which Representatives Boucher and Doolittle introduced during the last Congressional session, so the time that this bill move forward has come.
H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act (DMCRA), restores consumers' fair use rights by amending the DMCA to allow circumvention of copy protection for non-infringing uses of digital copyrighted material. The DMCRA also specifies that it is not a violation of Section 1201 of the DMCA to manufacture, distribute, or make non-infringing use of a hardware or software product that enables significant non-infringing use of a copyrighted work, as in making back-up copies of legally purchased DVDs or other digital media.
Several provisions of The Digital Millenium Copyright Act have harmed law-abiding citizens of this country for too long. The DMCRA is a sensible change to the law that is necessary for consumers to enjoy their rights of fair use.
The content industry that opposes this bill has cried wolf before. They opposed the VCR, likening it to the Boston Strangler. We know now that technological advances are good for both consumers and industry, and that an industry scared of change should not be allowed to impede progress or consumer's rights.
I believe that if you are truly thinking of the interests of your constituents, then you will support the DMCRA. I urge you to take a stand for the public this Wednesday.
Thank You.
I don't know if the original poster meant "free" or "Free" but I also can't tell if Planmaker is Free software, and so on that front it can't beat OpenOffice either.
I'd never recommend that someone trade in one proprietary spreadsheet (Excel) for another proprietary spreadsheet (Planmaker). You're not making any real progress that way. The poster above who rants about lost business having a cost is both right and wrong. He's right that lost business has a financial cost, but he seems to miss that lost freedom has a financial cost as well. When someone who switches to Planmaker finds themselves subject to vendor-lock-in or is only able to get support from a single vendor, or has their software suddenly "expire" unless they pay up, they'll realize that the enemy was never Microsoft: it was software that takes away your freedoms.
...most of these are already installed for me in the standard installs of the various distros I try, but I consider these ten pretty crucial:
1. Mozilla
2. OpenOffice.org
3. Straw (RSS Aggregator)
4. Thunderbird (w/ Enigmail)
5. Evolution (which may soon be replaced by the amazing Mozilla Calendar)
6. Gaim
7. Gimp
8. XCDRoast
9. xmms
10. Xine/gXine
Secondly, you missed the second part of my point. The original author was suggesting that his only choices are to patent his software or donate it to the public domain. That is absurd. All software is afforded copyright protection from the moment it is fixed in a tangible form. In my view, this provides more than adequate protection for the rights of the author and adding software patents to the mix does far more harm than good. The reasons I believe that are detailed in the blog entry I referred to earlier.
It's timely that this topic come up as the most recent entry on my blog, Share Alike, is entitled "Arguments Against Software Patents".
Let me respond to your points first.
1. Just because software patents already exist doesn't make them a good idea. There are lots of laws on the books that need changing. That's progress.
2. First, I think this is just inaccurate, but in any case, the same point as in #1 applies. Just because some judges have decided to allow such patents doesn't make them a good idea.
3. Part of what you say is true. Attempts to work around software patents have produced some good Free software unencumbered by patents. But, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of software patents filed recently and there is good reason to believe that the amazing success of those working around such patents is already being dragged down by this increase. Also, some of the patents being granted are the only or the most efficient way to accomplish some tasks and so workarounds become impossible or purposefully wasteful.
4. Raising the awareness of this issue in the minds of the public and the legislative branches of all governments is a good thing no matter what. Legislators that know there is a large public group opposed to software patents will think about the issue more carefully and may change bad laws that exist or draft better laws in the future.
5. Not true. Software is already given greater protection through copyright. Copyright protection in the U.S. lasts the life of the author plus 70 years, while a patent lasts 20 years. You pose a false dilemma when you suggest that the only options are patent protection or donating your creations to the public domain. On the contrary, your software will be overly protected long after your death by an absurdly long copyright term.
To see my arguments against software patents, read my most recent blog entry. I would be pleased for people to add comments either contributing additional arguments or criticizing the arguments already given.
Why not give two ratings:
Registered Users Rate this Book: 2.2
Anonymous Users Rate this Book: 4.8
To prevent multiple sign-ups as "registered users" you would restrict the class of "registered users" to those who have made at least one Amazon.com purchase with a unique name on their credit card.
Such a system could be gamed, but only at a much higher cost and level of effort.
Brian