I'm not a big LD user, about 350 mins per month. And yes, those are the prices I pay. Here's an itemized list of my last BellSouth phone bill:
0.65 Federal Universal Service Charge
0.35 FCC Local Number Portability Line Charge - Line 13.93 Community Caller Plus Service - individual line, residence
6.50 FCC Charge for Network Access
3.50 Call Waiting
0.91 Local Usage
0.75 CALL RETRN
0.80 Federal Tax
1.56 State Tax
0.73 Emergency 911 Charge
0.11 Telecommunications Relay Service 29.79 Total
Yes, some of these charges (Local Usage & CALL RETRN) are optional services and don't show up everytime on my bill. And yes I pay for call waiting, so that brings my basic service up from $13.93 to $17.43. But the rest ($10.70) is tax. Getting my service down to the cheapest possible rate that I could get it brings it down to approximately $24/mo, and I'd have to get rid of call waiting to do it. Oh, and that also includes zero minutes of long distance. Which based on my typical usage of 350 mins per month is going to add about $27 on top of that price, but that fee also gets taxed, bringing the LD cost up to about $40/mo.
Vonage offers me all of the above for $26/mo. And it includes features that are not included above. Bottom line: it's just plain cheaper. If you live somewhere that vonage is more expensive then be happy and stick to what you've got. For the rest of us, vonage (et al) is a blessing!
The problem with this is that you're not looking at the bottom line. My traditional phone service did only cost $13/mo. But after an unbelievable number of taxes my local bill alone ends up costing $30/mo. Vonage's basic plan (bottom line) costs $26/mo, and it includes, in addition to unlimited local, 500 minutes of long distance which my traditional phone service did not include.
I don't really understand how you get to the conclusion that vonage is more expensive. If vonage starts getting taxed like a traditional phone service, then you're right it's going to be more expensive than the traditional phone service. But this is, of course, the entire debate. Should packets be taxed? If "yes" then we've opened up the door on taxing all internet services including taxing your web browsing. If "no" then from the traditional telco's perspective, they've just met a competitor who has the potential to completely blow them out of the water on price. Leaving only one question: is it fair or unfair that the VoIP providers get to do this?
Personally, I think it's fair, but I won't debate that here.
Hang on - in the present world, where broadband isn't a regulated, highly available service, net-phone companies are selling their services as a replacement for landlines when they are no such thing. This practice is deceptive. Cel phones are clearly different - there's little expectation of reliability - and are marketed as such.
Personally, I don't think that net-phone companies are selling there service as a replacement for land lines any more or less than wireless providers are. Cricket has a series of ads where they advocate replacing your land lines with a Cricket unlimited local plan. And as a vonage customer, they make it very clear that the service will NOT work in the event of a service outage with your broadband connection.
But if I grant that VoIP companies need to do a better job of announcing the risks then what? Personally, I'm a vonage user even though I know full well what the risks are that are associated with it. I'm willing to accept those risks because it's cheaper. In much the same way that (according to you) wireless users accept those same reliability risks when they switch exclusively to that technology. In much the same way that I'm willing to accept the risks of a less reliable used car instead of a new car with a warranty. For less money, I'm willing to take my chances.
It just seems to me that enforcing vonage to be regulated like the phone company enforces them to provide the exact same services as the phone company. Which forces customers to pay for features that they don't necessarily want, or are willing to risk living without.
But unfortunately, Vonage makes little fuss about the fact that if your broadband provider goes down you're screwed. How about those 911 calls?
What? Have you seen this? Maybe that falls into your definition of "little fuss" but it seems to me that they clearly spell it out.
For very close to the same prices, I can get MCI's The Neighborhood plan with DSL here.
I can subscribe to MCI's Neighborhood, too. But it's actually *more* expensive than getting local from BellSouth (my local telco) and LD from MCI. Bundling doesn't save anything. And if I use BellSouth's bundle, it's even MORE expensive.
Yeah, I'm paying extra taxes, which sucks, but they are required by law to give me service. There's a maximum amount of downtime they're allowed, and I can call 911. I use The Neighborhood without DSL now, and even if the power goes out, I can still make calls.
That's great for you, but let's not confuse the issue here. Vonage (et al) should be an option for those willing to accept the risks. I currently understand that if my cable modem (and the cable infrastructure) loses power, I'm not going to be able to make phone calls in an emergency. That's a risk that I'm willing to take in order to save $35/mo, every month. I'm willing, for the time that I have an emergency, to walk over to my neighbor's house and say, "Don, do you mind if I use your phone? Mine's out." If you're not willing to take that risk, ok. I'm not trying to regulate your risk aversion. But I am willing to take such a risk and I don't think that anyone should be enforcing my use of an expensive service that provides features that I don't personally feel I need.
So, VoIP people, get back to me when you're willing to submit to some regulations for the quality of service.
I really respect this particular stance. You're simply not willing to pay for a service that provides a certain set of risks that you think are unacceptable. This is, IMHO, the most sensible response to the VoIP debate I've heard. It doesn't require VoIP providers to be regulated for quality of service, it simply says that you won't be a customer if they don't. This is completely reasonable.
What bothers me about this debate are those who want to enforce features on me (and others) who are willing to live without some of those features for a lower price. That to me is no different than me forcing you to use VoIP even though you're willing to pay more for features that you demand.
Wow! That's a fantastic price. As a vonage user, if I got that price, I'd seriously consider switching back to BellSouth. Unfortunately, BellSouth offers DSL + local + long distance for $103/mo. With Vonage over my cable modem, I'm paying $68/mo ($42 for cable modem, $26 for vonage). That's $35/mo less than the BellSouth Bundle. Of course, my vonage plan doesn't give me unlimited LD. But I don't need unlimited LD. I did some research before I switched, and the largest number of LD minutes that I've used in the last 18 mos was 400. So the basic vonage plan providing 500 LD mins was plenty.
But your example just goes to show the point. If the Baby Bell's are willing to compete on price, then fine, I'll consider them. But shame on them for trying to regulate someone who built a better mouse trap that costs less!
No. I'm not saying that at all. TiVo's come with four different video quality settings. The lowest allows for about 1GB/hr. The highest quality setting is over 4GB/hr. IMHO, the highest quality is pretty bad, which is why I sold my SA TiVo and got a DirecTV TiVo. DirecTV does a *TON* better MPEG compression than the little HW MPEG encoder in the SA TiVo can handle. So I, personally really like much higher quality compression than the TiVo offers.
The question that I was raising is that I don't understand why this product is newsworthy. The news on this unit is that it can store two weeks worth of programming. But it didn't do anything interesting to solve that problem. Sony made a box and stuck big disks in it. What's newsworthy about that?
This doesn't seem all that innovative to me. They're not actually doing anything except throwing capacity at the problem. And, they're not even utilizing that capacity very efficiently. A TiVo typically stores 1 hour/GB of disk space (at the lowest quality setting). So 500GB of disk in a TiVo would enable 500 hours of recording, not 342. Instead of slightly over 2 wks of programming, a similarly equipped TiVo would record slightly under 3 wks.
No, but they are broadcast on a schedule. So the schedule may start the movie at 8:00pm and it's only 7:00pm. With on-demand, you get to watch the movie whatever time you happen to sit down. With PPV you have to wait until it's scheduled to show.
However, with TiVO, if you know in the morning that you're going to want to watch a movie that night, you just schedule a particular showing to record during the day, and it's exactly like on-demand for you when you get home. So it's not quite on-demand, but a TiVo with a bit of forsight is a more than adequate substitute.
Get a TiVo. Then PPV turns into delayed VOD. It gets rid of all of those delays that you're talking about and you get to keep the rental for as long as you're willing to leave it on the disk (or as long as you want when you archive it to VHS or DVD).
I never go to the video store anymore. No need. In addition to a few PPV movies that I rent, I record a bunch of stuff off of Showtime, and a bunch of stuff just off of TBS, TNT, and other non-premium movie channels.
(Sorry for the nearly duplicate post. Accidentally hit submit instead of preview.)
Get a TiVo. Then PPV turns into delayed VOD. It gets rid of all of those delays that you're talking about and you get to keep the rental for as long as you're willing to leave it on the disk (or as long as you want when you archive it to VHS or DVD).
This article suggests that the threat may be significant in the short term, but in the longer term, when the baby boomers retire that there's not enough high tech workers in India to cover the gap that's going to be created by that event.
I hope that you're able to actually get the article and read it. Sometimes I can get it, and other times, they ask you to subscribe. It's an excellent article, and worth the read if you can get to it. If you have trouble getting to it, try going to CNN Money and going to the link at the bottom of the page. This seems to work for me.
I read an article in LinuxJournal where some guy took his vendor to small claims court and won a judgement against them for the windows license refund.
To the original poster, this might be worth looking at or trying.
So.. rather than saying "Should vonage be regulated"... the question should be "What is different about Vonage that they should not be bound by the regulation the phone company is? Could the phone company start giving you a cisco VOIP box, a DSL line, and thereby avoid regulation?
Because the phone company, at least the local one here, is a monopoly. They OWN the right of way to my house. They have such a thing as right of way because, historically, when the phone companies first started up, there were LOTS of different companies trying to offer service, almost all of which was incompatible. You couldn't have just one phone in your house. You had to have multiple phones to ensure that you could contact everyone who might not have multiple phones. On top of that, every telco had to make a connection (i.e. run a wire) to every place that they wanted to connect to. It was a complete mess with all the wires running everywhere. So local governments stepped in and started granting right of way to specific companies, thereby creating a monopoly provider for telephone service. Competition for telephone companies was forfieted by an intentional decision to reduce clutter and ensure compatibilty.
But Vonage does NOT require any additional wires to be run, nor does it create incompatibilities with the existing phone system. Consequently, there is no point to regulating it under the same sort of rules that exist to prevent wire clutter and ensure compatibility. So no regulation should be necessary.
And to be completely frank with you, I disagree with your assessment. Vonage has a completely different business model than any of the telco's in that they don't have to deal with wires. The amount of money that telco's have to spend in order to deal with wires is a consequence of their business model. This leads to things like the Universal Service Fund (USF) in order to enable the telco's to provide wires to underprivileged neighborhoods and schools. Vonage has no such expense. Vonage can provide phone service to those same places over the wires that are ALREADY PAID FOR with tax money through the USF. And the fact that telcos are granted a monopoly on the placement of wires makes them ripe for regulation. NONE of this is true with Vonage. There's no need for a monopoly in the VoIP market in order to reduce clutter. In fact there are other VoIP providers who offer service cheaper than Vonage.
As soon as you can demonstrate that Vonage's business model causes the same sort of problems that unregulated telephone companies created back in their infancy, then I'll be willing to sacrifice competition for government regulated monopolies. Until then, Vonage, Packet8, VoicePulse, et al should be left alone. They've come up with a much better mouse trap and they should not be regulated into non-existance because the cat breeders thing they should have a perpetual and unbreechable monopoly on pest control.
The vast majority of what you wrote I agree with in principle. I probably wouldn't state it the way you do, though. In anycase, I do have to take some issue with the following:
Environment? The earth, according to all kinds of scientists, is over 10,000,000,000 years old. Do you REALLY think that us driving SUV's is going to kill the environment? The earth has survived earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, meteor showers, explosions, fires, radiation from the sun, UV rays, etc. Do you really think using 0.0005% more gasoline to get from point A to point B is REALLY going to make Mother Nature shiver in her boots?
Destroying the planet is not very likely. But that's not the most interesting question w.r.t. the environment. The interesting question is whether or not we'll destroy something MUCH smaller than the entire planet. The concern is that we'll make a planet that is uninhabitable by humans. And then where will we live?
Most geologists seem to think that the dinosaurs went extinct as a result of climate change. Whether that happened due to meteor impact or gradual climate changes is irrelevant. The climate changing caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now, of course, cock roaches seemed to survive this climate change, and this seems to validate your very reasonable assertion that the earth is likely to survive any of the piddly things we can do to it. But the fact that cockroaches survived is of little comfort to the dinosaurs who died.
And the fact that we're not able to completely irradicate life from the planet is not very comforting if we irradicate ourselves from it.
Well, you have to ask the question of whether or not it's an individual you're talking about or a corporation. The typical individual user does not get indemnification from commercial or free software providers because they don't really need it. But, Dell, on the other hand, almost certainly has indemnification from Microsoft. So if I have a patent portfolio that I'm looking at, and I see hotair, mjh, and Dell in my radar screen of infringers, who am I going to sue? Dell gets the nod. And Dell knows this, so they expect an indemnification from Microsoft who almost certainly provides it. Same thing goes for large corporate customers (e.g. Citibank, etc).
But with opensource/free software, there's no one who provides this indemnification. Not for individuals and not for large corporations. For individuals this isn't a problem because it isn't necessary. But for Citibank it is a problem. And really, it's incredibly risky for someone like IBM or RedHat to actually provide such indemnification. While being part of the development process for Linux, they aren't in complete control of what does and doesn't get into the code. Consequenlty, it's very difficult for them to provide such indemnification without potentially risking a huge portion of their business.
Now, if Citibank (et al) are doing their job, this risk is simply part of the risk analysis that should go into any decision. On the one hand, you have the risk of misappropriated IP being incorporated into opensource or free software which you use and could cause you extra liability. On the other hand, you've got the upfront and long term additional costs from using proprietary software. Many companies will still choose to engage the risk with opensource/free software. But the risk is there, and so far I haven't heard any good strategies for mitigating it. Consequently, our only answer at this point is, when we try to convince corporate customers who are considering switching, is that it's a risk that they have to accept. Some will. Some won't. It'd be better if we had something that we could answer which would mitigate the risk. But I can't think of anything.
This guy doesn't completely answer the indemnity problems that arise from the SCO lawsuit. Yes, it doesn't look like users are going to be in trouble from SCO, even if SCO wins this thing. But that doesn't totally answer the question.
If you're a big company, say Citibank, and you're considering whether or not to use Linux, or ANY open source or free software for that matter, (including sendmail, bind, etc), you have to consider what the risk is that someone has slipped code into the software that is under intellectual property restrictions. Take, for example, a patent. Suppose someone puts a challenge response antispam system into sendmail. Right or wrong, mailblocks claims to own the patent on that type of system. Mailblocks is not a party to the agreement between sendmail.org and Citibank, and they see that Citibank is infringing on their patent without a license. Mailblocks can sue Citibank for patent infringement, and Citibank doesn't have anyone to go to in order to complain because there is no indemnification provided by the license to use sendmail.
The indemnification problem is NOT specific to the SCO case. But looking at the case points out that there is a general problem. It means that anyone who uses free/open-source software has to consider the additional risk of potentially getting sued into oblivion by some unknown 3rd party with a patent portfolio.
And before you think I'm making this up, read this.
I don't have an answer for this, short getting rid of software patents. Some please tell me there's another way to see this.
Maybe, but I would argue that you haven't actually lost anything in that scenario. If you implement your idea and you are not able to sell it due to infringement of your patent - resulting in unfair competition to your federally granted monopoly - then Ok, I agree that you've lost something. But if you haven't produced the product, only the idea, then how can you claim you've lost anything? You aren't even competing, so how can you claim that the existance of competition is unfair?
Enter the "IP" holding company. The problem with such a company is that there is no defense against them.
IMHO, the problem is that the law allows companies like this to exist. The idea behind patent infringement *should* be recompensation. That is you've lost something as a consequence of an action taken by someone else. You should be re-compensated for that loss. However, the law currently allows for compensation: being paid despite no loss. Or using lawsuits as part of a business plan.
In the case of Eolas, is this recompensation or compensation? And the key question is have they produced anything that they would have lost as a result of Microsoft's actions. Or are they simply suing because they hold a patent that they've never implemented. IMO, if we're going to have software patents (and I don't think we should) then at the very least a working copy of the thing being patented needs to be part of the patent process.
SCO really can't dispute that claim without offering proof, and once they offer proof, the distro can issue a patch removing the code from the system, assuming that there really is problem code
Sure they can dispute it. They can file suit saying that you are in fact producing a product with their code. They can threaten, they can posture they can do anything to convince the market that they've got a plan worth investing in. This is the "PUMP" part. They don't have to produce code to do that! Then they can drag feet and NOT SHOW UP IN COURT for however long they really need before the execs sell off their stock and retire. This is the "DUMP" part. At which point the MARKET takes a hit because SCO, misrepresenting all technology companies engenders fear in investors who then get out of every other tech stock, causing real tech companies with real business plans to have to layoff workers, or accelerate the export of jobs to india, because companies can't afford to let their stock price drop. I could lose my job because of this crap!
In any case, I don't think your plan will provide any greater protection from a company intent on lieing than the GPL already does.
The $32 fee applies to any embedded system regardless of whether it is a Tivo set-top box which uses embedded Linux or some models of the Sharp Zaurus which also use that kernel.
Ok. Now I'm confused. I thought that SCO was claiming some sort of IP infringement, right? Ok, so what is it? It doesn't seem like it can be trade secrets because they willingly released source code for Linux 2.4. It doesn't seem like it can be copyright because then they'd have to show us the offending code. It's clearly not trademark. So far as I'm aware, TiVo and Sharp are saying that their boxes run Linux something not trademarked to SCO.
So is it patent infringement? Well if it is then how can they possibly sue TiVo *AND* Sharp. What patent are TiVo *AND* Sharp infringing considering how remarkably different those two devices are. How many people do you think will be doing NUMA on either of those devices? Something that SCO has indicated is related to their polymorphic claims.
I just don't get what SCO is claiming. I'm GLAD that Red Hat is sueing them, maybe SCO will be forced to put some things on the table to try and backup their claim.
I believe the parent poster just wanted to let everyone know there really are such things as wingsuits and that was real footage of two people flying in them.
Exactly! The BBC article mentioned that he was in "free fall"! I've got about 900 skydives, and if you've got wings attached to you, that ain't free fall... at least it wasn't when I was skydiving.
Interestingly enough, something similar to this was in the latest Lara Croft flik. I haven't seen it, but this part was interesting. During one part of the movie Angelina Jolie and someone else were trying to escape and they went to the top of some building in Hong Kong. They had a special jumpsuit on with webbing between the arms & body and between the legs. Being chased, they simply lept off the edge and flew themselves to a boat waiting in Hong Kong's harbor - about 3 miles away.
What's interesting about it is that the scene is *NOT* a special effect. It was really done by two people. Jolie is a skydiver herself, and wanted to do the actual stunt but the producers wouldn't let her for fear of the insurance costs.
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I'm not a big LD user, about 350 mins per month. And yes, those are the prices I pay. Here's an itemized list of my last BellSouth phone bill:
0.65 Federal Universal Service Charge
0.35 FCC Local Number Portability Line Charge - Line
13.93 Community Caller Plus Service - individual line, residence
6.50 FCC Charge for Network Access
3.50 Call Waiting
0.91 Local Usage
0.75 CALL RETRN
0.80 Federal Tax
1.56 State Tax
0.73 Emergency 911 Charge
0.11 Telecommunications Relay Service
29.79 Total
Yes, some of these charges (Local Usage & CALL RETRN) are optional services and don't show up everytime on my bill. And yes I pay for call waiting, so that brings my basic service up from $13.93 to $17.43. But the rest ($10.70) is tax. Getting my service down to the cheapest possible rate that I could get it brings it down to approximately $24/mo, and I'd have to get rid of call waiting to do it. Oh, and that also includes zero minutes of long distance. Which based on my typical usage of 350 mins per month is going to add about $27 on top of that price, but that fee also gets taxed, bringing the LD cost up to about $40/mo.
Vonage offers me all of the above for $26/mo. And it includes features that are not included above. Bottom line: it's just plain cheaper. If you live somewhere that vonage is more expensive then be happy and stick to what you've got. For the rest of us, vonage (et al) is a blessing!
The problem with this is that you're not looking at the bottom line. My traditional phone service did only cost $13/mo. But after an unbelievable number of taxes my local bill alone ends up costing $30/mo. Vonage's basic plan (bottom line) costs $26/mo, and it includes, in addition to unlimited local, 500 minutes of long distance which my traditional phone service did not include.
I don't really understand how you get to the conclusion that vonage is more expensive. If vonage starts getting taxed like a traditional phone service, then you're right it's going to be more expensive than the traditional phone service. But this is, of course, the entire debate. Should packets be taxed? If "yes" then we've opened up the door on taxing all internet services including taxing your web browsing. If "no" then from the traditional telco's perspective, they've just met a competitor who has the potential to completely blow them out of the water on price. Leaving only one question: is it fair or unfair that the VoIP providers get to do this?
Personally, I think it's fair, but I won't debate that here.
Personally, I don't think that net-phone companies are selling there service as a replacement for land lines any more or less than wireless providers are. Cricket has a series of ads where they advocate replacing your land lines with a Cricket unlimited local plan. And as a vonage customer, they make it very clear that the service will NOT work in the event of a service outage with your broadband connection.
But if I grant that VoIP companies need to do a better job of announcing the risks then what? Personally, I'm a vonage user even though I know full well what the risks are that are associated with it. I'm willing to accept those risks because it's cheaper. In much the same way that (according to you) wireless users accept those same reliability risks when they switch exclusively to that technology. In much the same way that I'm willing to accept the risks of a less reliable used car instead of a new car with a warranty. For less money, I'm willing to take my chances.
It just seems to me that enforcing vonage to be regulated like the phone company enforces them to provide the exact same services as the phone company. Which forces customers to pay for features that they don't necessarily want, or are willing to risk living without.
What? Have you seen this? Maybe that falls into your definition of "little fuss" but it seems to me that they clearly spell it out.
I can subscribe to MCI's Neighborhood, too. But it's actually *more* expensive than getting local from BellSouth (my local telco) and LD from MCI. Bundling doesn't save anything. And if I use BellSouth's bundle, it's even MORE expensive.
That's great for you, but let's not confuse the issue here. Vonage (et al) should be an option for those willing to accept the risks. I currently understand that if my cable modem (and the cable infrastructure) loses power, I'm not going to be able to make phone calls in an emergency. That's a risk that I'm willing to take in order to save $35/mo, every month. I'm willing, for the time that I have an emergency, to walk over to my neighbor's house and say, "Don, do you mind if I use your phone? Mine's out." If you're not willing to take that risk, ok. I'm not trying to regulate your risk aversion. But I am willing to take such a risk and I don't think that anyone should be enforcing my use of an expensive service that provides features that I don't personally feel I need.
I really respect this particular stance. You're simply not willing to pay for a service that provides a certain set of risks that you think are unacceptable. This is, IMHO, the most sensible response to the VoIP debate I've heard. It doesn't require VoIP providers to be regulated for quality of service, it simply says that you won't be a customer if they don't. This is completely reasonable.What bothers me about this debate are those who want to enforce features on me (and others) who are willing to live without some of those features for a lower price. That to me is no different than me forcing you to use VoIP even though you're willing to pay more for features that you demand.
Wow! That's a fantastic price. As a vonage user, if I got that price, I'd seriously consider switching back to BellSouth. Unfortunately, BellSouth offers DSL + local + long distance for $103/mo. With Vonage over my cable modem, I'm paying $68/mo ($42 for cable modem, $26 for vonage). That's $35/mo less than the BellSouth Bundle. Of course, my vonage plan doesn't give me unlimited LD. But I don't need unlimited LD. I did some research before I switched, and the largest number of LD minutes that I've used in the last 18 mos was 400. So the basic vonage plan providing 500 LD mins was plenty.
But your example just goes to show the point. If the Baby Bell's are willing to compete on price, then fine, I'll consider them. But shame on them for trying to regulate someone who built a better mouse trap that costs less!
Fella, if I had mod points, you'd get one.
No. I'm not saying that at all. TiVo's come with four different video quality settings. The lowest allows for about 1GB/hr. The highest quality setting is over 4GB/hr. IMHO, the highest quality is pretty bad, which is why I sold my SA TiVo and got a DirecTV TiVo. DirecTV does a *TON* better MPEG compression than the little HW MPEG encoder in the SA TiVo can handle. So I, personally really like much higher quality compression than the TiVo offers.
The question that I was raising is that I don't understand why this product is newsworthy. The news on this unit is that it can store two weeks worth of programming. But it didn't do anything interesting to solve that problem. Sony made a box and stuck big disks in it. What's newsworthy about that?
This doesn't seem all that innovative to me. They're not actually doing anything except throwing capacity at the problem. And, they're not even utilizing that capacity very efficiently. A TiVo typically stores 1 hour/GB of disk space (at the lowest quality setting). So 500GB of disk in a TiVo would enable 500 hours of recording, not 342. Instead of slightly over 2 wks of programming, a similarly equipped TiVo would record slightly under 3 wks.
No, but they are broadcast on a schedule. So the schedule may start the movie at 8:00pm and it's only 7:00pm. With on-demand, you get to watch the movie whatever time you happen to sit down. With PPV you have to wait until it's scheduled to show.
However, with TiVO, if you know in the morning that you're going to want to watch a movie that night, you just schedule a particular showing to record during the day, and it's exactly like on-demand for you when you get home. So it's not quite on-demand, but a TiVo with a bit of forsight is a more than adequate substitute.
Get a TiVo. Then PPV turns into delayed VOD. It gets rid of all of those delays that you're talking about and you get to keep the rental for as long as you're willing to leave it on the disk (or as long as you want when you archive it to VHS or DVD).
I never go to the video store anymore. No need. In addition to a few PPV movies that I rent, I record a bunch of stuff off of Showtime, and a bunch of stuff just off of TBS, TNT, and other non-premium movie channels.
(Sorry for the nearly duplicate post. Accidentally hit submit instead of preview.)
Get a TiVo. Then PPV turns into delayed VOD. It gets rid of all of those delays that you're talking about and you get to keep the rental for as long as you're willing to leave it on the disk (or as long as you want when you archive it to VHS or DVD).
This article suggests that the threat may be significant in the short term, but in the longer term, when the baby boomers retire that there's not enough high tech workers in India to cover the gap that's going to be created by that event.
I hope that you're able to actually get the article and read it. Sometimes I can get it, and other times, they ask you to subscribe. It's an excellent article, and worth the read if you can get to it. If you have trouble getting to it, try going to CNN Money and going to the link at the bottom of the page. This seems to work for me.
I read an article in LinuxJournal where some guy took his vendor to small claims court and won a judgement against them for the windows license refund.
To the original poster, this might be worth looking at or trying.
It strikes me as more than a little bit ironic to call ANYTHING convoluted in comparison to sendmail.
Because the phone company, at least the local one here, is a monopoly. They OWN the right of way to my house. They have such a thing as right of way because, historically, when the phone companies first started up, there were LOTS of different companies trying to offer service, almost all of which was incompatible. You couldn't have just one phone in your house. You had to have multiple phones to ensure that you could contact everyone who might not have multiple phones. On top of that, every telco had to make a connection (i.e. run a wire) to every place that they wanted to connect to. It was a complete mess with all the wires running everywhere. So local governments stepped in and started granting right of way to specific companies, thereby creating a monopoly provider for telephone service. Competition for telephone companies was forfieted by an intentional decision to reduce clutter and ensure compatibilty.
But Vonage does NOT require any additional wires to be run, nor does it create incompatibilities with the existing phone system. Consequently, there is no point to regulating it under the same sort of rules that exist to prevent wire clutter and ensure compatibility. So no regulation should be necessary.
And to be completely frank with you, I disagree with your assessment. Vonage has a completely different business model than any of the telco's in that they don't have to deal with wires. The amount of money that telco's have to spend in order to deal with wires is a consequence of their business model. This leads to things like the Universal Service Fund (USF) in order to enable the telco's to provide wires to underprivileged neighborhoods and schools. Vonage has no such expense. Vonage can provide phone service to those same places over the wires that are ALREADY PAID FOR with tax money through the USF. And the fact that telcos are granted a monopoly on the placement of wires makes them ripe for regulation. NONE of this is true with Vonage. There's no need for a monopoly in the VoIP market in order to reduce clutter. In fact there are other VoIP providers who offer service cheaper than Vonage.
As soon as you can demonstrate that Vonage's business model causes the same sort of problems that unregulated telephone companies created back in their infancy, then I'll be willing to sacrifice competition for government regulated monopolies. Until then, Vonage, Packet8, VoicePulse, et al should be left alone. They've come up with a much better mouse trap and they should not be regulated into non-existance because the cat breeders thing they should have a perpetual and unbreechable monopoly on pest control.
Destroying the planet is not very likely. But that's not the most interesting question w.r.t. the environment. The interesting question is whether or not we'll destroy something MUCH smaller than the entire planet. The concern is that we'll make a planet that is uninhabitable by humans. And then where will we live?
Most geologists seem to think that the dinosaurs went extinct as a result of climate change. Whether that happened due to meteor impact or gradual climate changes is irrelevant. The climate changing caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now, of course, cock roaches seemed to survive this climate change, and this seems to validate your very reasonable assertion that the earth is likely to survive any of the piddly things we can do to it. But the fact that cockroaches survived is of little comfort to the dinosaurs who died.
And the fact that we're not able to completely irradicate life from the planet is not very comforting if we irradicate ourselves from it.
Well, you have to ask the question of whether or not it's an individual you're talking about or a corporation. The typical individual user does not get indemnification from commercial or free software providers because they don't really need it. But, Dell, on the other hand, almost certainly has indemnification from Microsoft. So if I have a patent portfolio that I'm looking at, and I see hotair, mjh, and Dell in my radar screen of infringers, who am I going to sue? Dell gets the nod. And Dell knows this, so they expect an indemnification from Microsoft who almost certainly provides it. Same thing goes for large corporate customers (e.g. Citibank, etc).
But with opensource/free software, there's no one who provides this indemnification. Not for individuals and not for large corporations. For individuals this isn't a problem because it isn't necessary. But for Citibank it is a problem. And really, it's incredibly risky for someone like IBM or RedHat to actually provide such indemnification. While being part of the development process for Linux, they aren't in complete control of what does and doesn't get into the code. Consequenlty, it's very difficult for them to provide such indemnification without potentially risking a huge portion of their business.
Now, if Citibank (et al) are doing their job, this risk is simply part of the risk analysis that should go into any decision. On the one hand, you have the risk of misappropriated IP being incorporated into opensource or free software which you use and could cause you extra liability. On the other hand, you've got the upfront and long term additional costs from using proprietary software. Many companies will still choose to engage the risk with opensource/free software. But the risk is there, and so far I haven't heard any good strategies for mitigating it. Consequently, our only answer at this point is, when we try to convince corporate customers who are considering switching, is that it's a risk that they have to accept. Some will. Some won't. It'd be better if we had something that we could answer which would mitigate the risk. But I can't think of anything.
This guy doesn't completely answer the indemnity problems that arise from the SCO lawsuit. Yes, it doesn't look like users are going to be in trouble from SCO, even if SCO wins this thing. But that doesn't totally answer the question.
If you're a big company, say Citibank, and you're considering whether or not to use Linux, or ANY open source or free software for that matter, (including sendmail, bind, etc), you have to consider what the risk is that someone has slipped code into the software that is under intellectual property restrictions. Take, for example, a patent. Suppose someone puts a challenge response antispam system into sendmail. Right or wrong, mailblocks claims to own the patent on that type of system. Mailblocks is not a party to the agreement between sendmail.org and Citibank, and they see that Citibank is infringing on their patent without a license. Mailblocks can sue Citibank for patent infringement, and Citibank doesn't have anyone to go to in order to complain because there is no indemnification provided by the license to use sendmail.
The indemnification problem is NOT specific to the SCO case. But looking at the case points out that there is a general problem. It means that anyone who uses free/open-source software has to consider the additional risk of potentially getting sued into oblivion by some unknown 3rd party with a patent portfolio.
And before you think I'm making this up, read this.
I don't have an answer for this, short getting rid of software patents. Some please tell me there's another way to see this.
Maybe, but I would argue that you haven't actually lost anything in that scenario. If you implement your idea and you are not able to sell it due to infringement of your patent - resulting in unfair competition to your federally granted monopoly - then Ok, I agree that you've lost something. But if you haven't produced the product, only the idea, then how can you claim you've lost anything? You aren't even competing, so how can you claim that the existance of competition is unfair?
IMHO, the problem is that the law allows companies like this to exist. The idea behind patent infringement *should* be recompensation. That is you've lost something as a consequence of an action taken by someone else. You should be re-compensated for that loss. However, the law currently allows for compensation: being paid despite no loss. Or using lawsuits as part of a business plan.
In the case of Eolas, is this recompensation or compensation? And the key question is have they produced anything that they would have lost as a result of Microsoft's actions. Or are they simply suing because they hold a patent that they've never implemented. IMO, if we're going to have software patents (and I don't think we should) then at the very least a working copy of the thing being patented needs to be part of the patent process.
But I'd much rather we not patent software.
$.02
Sure they can dispute it. They can file suit saying that you are in fact producing a product with their code. They can threaten, they can posture they can do anything to convince the market that they've got a plan worth investing in. This is the "PUMP" part. They don't have to produce code to do that! Then they can drag feet and NOT SHOW UP IN COURT for however long they really need before the execs sell off their stock and retire. This is the "DUMP" part. At which point the MARKET takes a hit because SCO, misrepresenting all technology companies engenders fear in investors who then get out of every other tech stock, causing real tech companies with real business plans to have to layoff workers, or accelerate the export of jobs to india, because companies can't afford to let their stock price drop. I could lose my job because of this crap!
In any case, I don't think your plan will provide any greater protection from a company intent on lieing than the GPL already does.
Ok. Now I'm confused. I thought that SCO was claiming some sort of IP infringement, right? Ok, so what is it? It doesn't seem like it can be trade secrets because they willingly released source code for Linux 2.4. It doesn't seem like it can be copyright because then they'd have to show us the offending code. It's clearly not trademark. So far as I'm aware, TiVo and Sharp are saying that their boxes run Linux something not trademarked to SCO.
So is it patent infringement? Well if it is then how can they possibly sue TiVo *AND* Sharp. What patent are TiVo *AND* Sharp infringing considering how remarkably different those two devices are. How many people do you think will be doing NUMA on either of those devices? Something that SCO has indicated is related to their polymorphic claims.
I just don't get what SCO is claiming. I'm GLAD that Red Hat is sueing them, maybe SCO will be forced to put some things on the table to try and backup their claim.
Exactly! The BBC article mentioned that he was in "free fall"! I've got about 900 skydives, and if you've got wings attached to you, that ain't free fall... at least it wasn't when I was skydiving.
Interestingly enough, something similar to this was in the latest Lara Croft flik. I haven't seen it, but this part was interesting. During one part of the movie Angelina Jolie and someone else were trying to escape and they went to the top of some building in Hong Kong. They had a special jumpsuit on with webbing between the arms & body and between the legs. Being chased, they simply lept off the edge and flew themselves to a boat waiting in Hong Kong's harbor - about 3 miles away.
What's interesting about it is that the scene is *NOT* a special effect. It was really done by two people. Jolie is a skydiver herself, and wanted to do the actual stunt but the producers wouldn't let her for fear of the insurance costs.