At the bigger universities, they usually are (or damn cheap). I purchased OfficeXP Pro. for $10, Windows XP pro. for $10, and VS.Net for $30. Our school also has a license to loan out disks (free of charge) for VS6.
Jesus Tap-dancing Christ. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SET PERMISSIONS FOR DOCUMENTS YOU CREATE. Thats the entire point of DRM, to give content creators more control over their work. Write a paper in Word? You will have control over permissions associated with it. You are so freaking paranoid it's sickening. Maybe you should be the one posting anon. so people don't know what a paranoid, FUD spreading, dumbass you really are.
Haven't we learned by now that the vast majority of users are too lazy to change their system, and will use whatever it comes with?
How are lazy users Microsoft's fault? Why should they be forced to include Java? Quicktime wasn't forced into the windows install, yet it enjoys widespread success. Should Sun be given preferential treatment because they are a bunch of whining suing babies?
Why did the court rule that MS cannot dictate what icons are on the Windows desktop?
Why do you believe its OK for other companies to dictate what is included with windows (Java suit), but it is not OK for MS (who made windows) to decide what stuff they want with windows???
Having first access to the desktop is a foothold that makes a world of difference in what may be the most apathetic, inert consumer base on earth.
Why then, should the company that made that desktop not have first access. Why should MS be forced to prop up java, when it is a direct competitor. If Sun wants java everywhere, thats their problem not Microsofts.
Competition is good, but it really works better with free information exchange - otherwise there's too much wheel reinvention going on.
Hahaha... You want to see reinvention of the wheel, OpenSource is where you need to look. How many similar distros are there of linux? How many web browsers do we need??? Opensource may be a good example of people working together, but it is a poor example of effenciency and an even poorer example of what is wrong with IP laws.
Re:What about ad-hoc cash transfers?
on
Cashless Society
·
· Score: 1
All these are easy.
1.) Use your PC and transfer the funds to the babysitters account.
2.) You swipe your car in a reader at your table or stage edge.
3.) No solution, possibly a small flexible display that gives balance on the card
4.) addressed all ready, have them bring it back.. I can think of numerous times where my parents loaned me their ATM or credit card when I needed it.
5.) You get a replacement, not hard..
6.) Ideally there would be a back up system... If someone destroys my current credit card, I'm not wiped out. Visa has record of how much I've spent, etc.
Coins are not convenient, I can several thousand dollars comfortably, not going to happen with coins.
"California had the highest rates in the nation. Texas, at the time, had one of the lowest rates. Enron gives away cheap energy to texas to support bush, Bush grabs presidency, Enron tries to bail itself out by gouging Californians -- Bush's enemy, Enron goes bankrupt after California government steps in and negotiates contracts that remove carpet from under enron feet. "
Wow, thats a lot of bullshit and conspiracy theory for one post. First, CA had the highest rates because Californians are morons and made damn sure that any electricity they bought would come from out of state.
Enron didn't have anything to do with it, I haven't heard about Texas having an energy crisis or their rates shooting through the roof after Enron tanked (like they would have if Enron was "giving away cheap energy to support bush".
If CA wanted deregulation to work (which dems. didn't; it weakens government), they needed to do it, not hold energy prices at an artificial low while bankrupting power companies. CA will continue to lose billions or suffer high energy bills until it has more power plants instate, Plain and Simple.
Battlefield is a DirectX game, it'll be a cold day in hell before it gets ported.
"When D3 goes gold there's bound to a subsequent wave of games based on that engine. They will all be ripe for Linux binaries by nature."
You assume that game developers all have an insatiable desire to port games to Linux. The amount of additional sales due to a linux client is way less than the additional hassle porting the game requires. Linux has a purpose in the gaming market, as the platform for dedicated game servers.
"With the current Windows environment, I see the same thing all the time. Although recent versions of Windows Explorer will tell user's that they shouldn't be picking around in PROGRAM FILES, the SAVE feature doesn't. So Joe User decides to start saving his office documents in C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE because that makes sense to him when he/she becomes accustomed to the PC for the first time. If this person only had the choice of saving it to a document store (of all or some of the PC's user's), this confusion wouldn't be there."
No sir, you are either a troll (I salute your attempt) or are uninformed. Using Office and Windows XP, documents by default are saved to "My Documents" which is accessible from the desktops.
"Not to mention the fact that most menus and folders are full of gratuitous advertising. There's no reason that Easy CD Creator needs to add a ROXIO folder in the Program Files or in the Start Menu. As a matter of fact, the start menu should have a UTILTIES folder in it and the program should be required to install a shortcut there and only there."
Perhaps this suffices when only one program or task per application is available/necessary. Nearly everyone of my programs needs multiple Icons (visual studio has one for each programming app, Nero has one for burning, audio editor, and cover designer). Why would I wish to have to sort through hundreds of Utilities when they are conviently sorted for me currently.
So that's the buyer's fault that they have an inherently less efficient production process? And almost nobody was paying Rambus royalties, because almost nobody besides a couple of Rambus' best friends was/is making RDRAM anyway, since DDR SDRAM is cheaper and faster.
No, it isn't the buyers fault, but I wanted to make clear that RDRAM is not expensive because of Rambus royalties.
If your going to rant about a 5-10% price increase, why not track ram prices for 2-3 weeks. If you did, you'd see that they vary significantly regardless of what RAMBUS does.
I really can't believe people are getting so worked up over this. The computer market moves fast enough that SDRAM and it's decendents will be antiques in a couple years anyway (what ever happened to EDO RAM?) and standards bodies will be a little more careful in the future.
If a standards body has one negative expeirence, you better belive that same mistake won't happen twice.
Perhaps one company owning a significant part of a standard is crummy, but the effect of Rambus royalties is insignificant at best. I read a while ago about the cost of RDRAM. The cost premium has not so much to do with Rambus royalties as it does low yields during fabrication. The story mentioned that in the total cost of a 128 or 256 MB RIMM, some 3-5 dollars was the royalty. This was also when memory prices were significantly higher per meg.
Maybe $3-5 pisses you off a whole lot, but in exchange for great memory design (RDRAM is damn good for P4) I'd say its a small price to pay. I didn't here you complaining that Philips owns the CD standard.
Most people here don't like Microsoft for very good reasons
I would actually like to hear these reasons. I would like people to cite specific examples where Microsoft has used it's monopoly power. It's pricing schemes? Please, PC game developers face very stiff competition and they have an hour-cost MUCH higher than any Microsoft product. People pay $50 for 30 hours of gaming and noone hates game devs, but when Microsoft charges $200 for software that is used for hundreds of hours and is much more useful people want to burn them at the stake. What about Adobe's fees for Photoshop or Autodesks fees for AutoCAD??? Microsoft charges very resonable fees for a professional application with so much functionality (and if you say something about BSODs or constant crashing, etc. I suggest you get over Windows 95 and refer to either 2k or XP).
Perhaps people are angry about Internet Explorer... I fail to see how lowering the cost of web-browsers hurts me as a user. If I don't like the browser bundled with Windows, I've always had the option to get another (for free now, yeah I can remember when NS cost money)if I wanted to.
You prove to me why I should be super-pissed at MS and maybe I'll start complaining too. But when all I hear is "MS charges money for their product and expects people to pay" I'll continue to support MS and leave Lunix users to do the whining.
Boycotting will work if it is done correctly.. Suppose everyone boycotts buying CDs, and doesn't use Kazaa/etc.? There are some 3 million users right now on Kazaa.. Lets say there were only 10,000 users, if CD sales STILL declined then the RIAA couldn't say with any authority that p2p is causing the loss of sales. Boycotting involves sacrificing something to make a point, not obtaining illegally...
and the thing looks and feels basically like it did when they were paying $199
Most people don't pay $199 for Office, it comes bundled with their PC. If they get a new PC, they either get the new version of office or they just install the old bundled version.
The DMCA isn't the equivalent of saying "it's illegal to break into your neighbor's house with the intent of taking stuff"
I believe the DMCA to be saying essentially "It's illegal for you to kick down the door or pick the lock regardless of whether you actually steal the loot".. In the physical world, you must sign a release before you buy a lock-picking kit or slim-jim, why is there nothing in place for the digital world as well??
If you crack even the stupidest DRM technology, you have violated the DMCA. Therefore, there's no need to make a bulletproof DRM technology, just a stupid one with lawyers to back it up.
This is actually a good thing. Let's say you are trying to protect your house. Do you want the law to state that you must have an impenetrable fortress and if someone breaks in, tough luck?? Not having the strongest protection scheme should make a break-in (or cracking) any less illegal or wrong. If you think it should, next time someone breaks in to you house you should be saying "Well, I had it coming; I should have barred my windows and doors."
"2) Eolas wins, and as it says in the article, only gives their patent to one or two browsers. We will say Netscape for example. Now, isn't Netscape all of a sudden a monopoly in the browser market?"
I believe there are anti-collusion laws to protect against this sort of thing. Eolas can't team up with Netscape against MS. They would likely be sued on Anti-Trust grounds by MS. Eolas does have monoploy powers; using these to try to destroy MS is an anti-competitive practice (yeah, MS would actually go after Eolas for breaking the same laws they did). A good page dicussing collusion is here
Check out the link, the article is a good read all around
1. Intellectual property is an artifical construction to keep the wealthy classes rich at the expense of the working classes. There is nothing in nature which creates 'intellectual property.'
No, you are entirely wrong. IP laws are designed to protect the creators of intellectual property (musicians, engineers, artists, authors, etc). Is IP found in nature? No, because there is nothing in nature (other than humans) that is intelligent enough to create those things generally accepted as IP (don't see many apes banging out too many novels or writing music).
I don't understand why you can't grasp the concept of people working very hard to create that aren't concrete items, but were original creations deserving of protection. I am guessing that part of the reason for you sentiments is that you've never been involved in the creative process (and don't comprehend the amount of work that it involves)
It's really mind-boggling how you can suggest that creators should have no protection for their creations simply because they are so easily duplicated.
Slashdot Mirror
Development tools should be free to students.
At the bigger universities, they usually are (or damn cheap). I purchased OfficeXP Pro. for $10, Windows XP pro. for $10, and VS.Net for $30. Our school also has a license to loan out disks (free of charge) for VS6.
Why do I keep getting spam for Norton System Works???
You won't even own your own documents.
Jesus Tap-dancing Christ. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SET PERMISSIONS FOR DOCUMENTS YOU CREATE. Thats the entire point of DRM, to give content creators more control over their work. Write a paper in Word? You will have control over permissions associated with it. You are so freaking paranoid it's sickening. Maybe you should be the one posting anon. so people don't know what a paranoid, FUD spreading, dumbass you really are.
Nylon was also an accidental discovery.
Perhaps these bacteria were so tired from making wires, that they lacked the energy to post the link.
Haven't we learned by now that the vast majority of users are too lazy to change their system, and will use whatever it comes with?
How are lazy users Microsoft's fault? Why should they be forced to include Java? Quicktime wasn't forced into the windows install, yet it enjoys widespread success. Should Sun be given preferential treatment because they are a bunch of whining suing babies?
Why did the court rule that MS cannot dictate what icons are on the Windows desktop?
Why do you believe its OK for other companies to dictate what is included with windows (Java suit), but it is not OK for MS (who made windows) to decide what stuff they want with windows???
Having first access to the desktop is a foothold that makes a world of difference in what may be the most apathetic, inert consumer base on earth.
Why then, should the company that made that desktop not have first access. Why should MS be forced to prop up java, when it is a direct competitor. If Sun wants java everywhere, thats their problem not Microsofts.
Competition is good, but it really works better with free information exchange - otherwise there's too much wheel reinvention going on.
Hahaha... You want to see reinvention of the wheel, OpenSource is where you need to look. How many similar distros are there of linux? How many web browsers do we need??? Opensource may be a good example of people working together, but it is a poor example of effenciency and an even poorer example of what is wrong with IP laws.
All these are easy.
1.) Use your PC and transfer the funds to the babysitters account.
2.) You swipe your car in a reader at your table or stage edge.
3.) No solution, possibly a small flexible display that gives balance on the card
4.) addressed all ready, have them bring it back.. I can think of numerous times where my parents loaned me their ATM or credit card when I needed it.
5.) You get a replacement, not hard..
6.) Ideally there would be a back up system... If someone destroys my current credit card, I'm not wiped out. Visa has record of how much I've spent, etc.
Coins are not convenient, I can several thousand dollars comfortably, not going to happen with coins.
"California had the highest rates in the nation. Texas, at the time, had one of the lowest rates. Enron gives away cheap energy to texas to support bush, Bush grabs presidency, Enron tries to bail itself out by gouging Californians -- Bush's enemy, Enron goes bankrupt after California government steps in and negotiates contracts that remove carpet from under enron feet. "
Wow, thats a lot of bullshit and conspiracy theory for one post. First, CA had the highest rates because Californians are morons and made damn sure that any electricity they bought would come from out of state.
Enron didn't have anything to do with it, I haven't heard about Texas having an energy crisis or their rates shooting through the roof after Enron tanked (like they would have if Enron was "giving away cheap energy to support bush".
If CA wanted deregulation to work (which dems. didn't; it weakens government), they needed to do it, not hold energy prices at an artificial low while bankrupting power companies. CA will continue to lose billions or suffer high energy bills until it has more power plants instate, Plain and Simple.
Battlefield is a DirectX game, it'll be a cold day in hell before it gets ported.
"When D3 goes gold there's bound to a subsequent wave of games based on that engine. They will all be ripe for Linux binaries by nature."
You assume that game developers all have an insatiable desire to port games to Linux. The amount of additional sales due to a linux client is way less than the additional hassle porting the game requires. Linux has a purpose in the gaming market, as the platform for dedicated game servers.
"With the current Windows environment, I see the same thing all the time. Although recent versions of Windows Explorer will tell user's that they shouldn't be picking around in PROGRAM FILES, the SAVE feature doesn't. So Joe User decides to start saving his office documents in C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE because that makes sense to him when he/she becomes accustomed to the PC for the first time. If this person only had the choice of saving it to a document store (of all or some of the PC's user's), this confusion wouldn't be there." No sir, you are either a troll (I salute your attempt) or are uninformed. Using Office and Windows XP, documents by default are saved to "My Documents" which is accessible from the desktops. "Not to mention the fact that most menus and folders are full of gratuitous advertising. There's no reason that Easy CD Creator needs to add a ROXIO folder in the Program Files or in the Start Menu. As a matter of fact, the start menu should have a UTILTIES folder in it and the program should be required to install a shortcut there and only there." Perhaps this suffices when only one program or task per application is available/necessary. Nearly everyone of my programs needs multiple Icons (visual studio has one for each programming app, Nero has one for burning, audio editor, and cover designer). Why would I wish to have to sort through hundreds of Utilities when they are conviently sorted for me currently.
Another easy solve: Go to Tools->Internet Options then click the check box for "Disable Script Debugging" No more debug dialogs.
So that's the buyer's fault that they have an inherently less efficient production process? And almost nobody was paying Rambus royalties, because almost nobody besides a couple of Rambus' best friends was/is making RDRAM anyway, since DDR SDRAM is cheaper and faster. No, it isn't the buyers fault, but I wanted to make clear that RDRAM is not expensive because of Rambus royalties. If your going to rant about a 5-10% price increase, why not track ram prices for 2-3 weeks. If you did, you'd see that they vary significantly regardless of what RAMBUS does. I really can't believe people are getting so worked up over this. The computer market moves fast enough that SDRAM and it's decendents will be antiques in a couple years anyway (what ever happened to EDO RAM?) and standards bodies will be a little more careful in the future. If a standards body has one negative expeirence, you better belive that same mistake won't happen twice.
Perhaps one company owning a significant part of a standard is crummy, but the effect of Rambus royalties is insignificant at best. I read a while ago about the cost of RDRAM. The cost premium has not so much to do with Rambus royalties as it does low yields during fabrication. The story mentioned that in the total cost of a 128 or 256 MB RIMM, some 3-5 dollars was the royalty. This was also when memory prices were significantly higher per meg.
Maybe $3-5 pisses you off a whole lot, but in exchange for great memory design (RDRAM is damn good for P4) I'd say its a small price to pay. I didn't here you complaining that Philips owns the CD standard.
The parents nick is skSlashdot... Can't be him though, we all heard on the radio that he was found dead in his home at age 54. Hmmm...
We already knew that, you're on Slashdot
Most people here don't like Microsoft for very good reasons
I would actually like to hear these reasons. I would like people to cite specific examples where Microsoft has used it's monopoly power. It's pricing schemes? Please, PC game developers face very stiff competition and they have an hour-cost MUCH higher than any Microsoft product. People pay $50 for 30 hours of gaming and noone hates game devs, but when Microsoft charges $200 for software that is used for hundreds of hours and is much more useful people want to burn them at the stake. What about Adobe's fees for Photoshop or Autodesks fees for AutoCAD??? Microsoft charges very resonable fees for a professional application with so much functionality (and if you say something about BSODs or constant crashing, etc. I suggest you get over Windows 95 and refer to either 2k or XP).
Perhaps people are angry about Internet Explorer... I fail to see how lowering the cost of web-browsers hurts me as a user. If I don't like the browser bundled with Windows, I've always had the option to get another (for free now, yeah I can remember when NS cost money)if I wanted to.
You prove to me why I should be super-pissed at MS and maybe I'll start complaining too. But when all I hear is "MS charges money for their product and expects people to pay" I'll continue to support MS and leave Lunix users to do the whining.
so writing anything other than english is dificult.
From the looks of it, I'd say you find writing in english difficult.
Boycotting will work if it is done correctly.. Suppose everyone boycotts buying CDs, and doesn't use Kazaa/etc.? There are some 3 million users right now on Kazaa.. Lets say there were only 10,000 users, if CD sales STILL declined then the RIAA couldn't say with any authority that p2p is causing the loss of sales. Boycotting involves sacrificing something to make a point, not obtaining illegally...
Damn, it appears everyone else missed the joke... I get it though... Nice
and the thing looks and feels basically like it did when they were paying $199 Most people don't pay $199 for Office, it comes bundled with their PC. If they get a new PC, they either get the new version of office or they just install the old bundled version.
The DMCA isn't the equivalent of saying "it's illegal to break into your neighbor's house with the intent of taking stuff"
I believe the DMCA to be saying essentially "It's illegal for you to kick down the door or pick the lock regardless of whether you actually steal the loot".. In the physical world, you must sign a release before you buy a lock-picking kit or slim-jim, why is there nothing in place for the digital world as well??
If you crack even the stupidest DRM technology, you have violated the DMCA. Therefore, there's no need to make a bulletproof DRM technology, just a stupid one with lawyers to back it up.
This is actually a good thing. Let's say you are trying to protect your house. Do you want the law to state that you must have an impenetrable fortress and if someone breaks in, tough luck?? Not having the strongest protection scheme should make a break-in (or cracking) any less illegal or wrong. If you think it should, next time someone breaks in to you house you should be saying "Well, I had it coming; I should have barred my windows and doors."
"2) Eolas wins, and as it says in the article, only gives their patent to one or two browsers. We will say Netscape for example. Now, isn't Netscape all of a sudden a monopoly in the browser market?"
I believe there are anti-collusion laws to protect against this sort of thing. Eolas can't team up with Netscape against MS. They would likely be sued on Anti-Trust grounds by MS. Eolas does have monoploy powers; using these to try to destroy MS is an anti-competitive practice (yeah, MS would actually go after Eolas for breaking the same laws they did). A good page dicussing collusion is here
Check out the link, the article is a good read all around
No, you are entirely wrong. IP laws are designed to protect the creators of intellectual property (musicians, engineers, artists, authors, etc). Is IP found in nature? No, because there is nothing in nature (other than humans) that is intelligent enough to create those things generally accepted as IP (don't see many apes banging out too many novels or writing music).
I don't understand why you can't grasp the concept of people working very hard to create that aren't concrete items, but were original creations deserving of protection. I am guessing that part of the reason for you sentiments is that you've never been involved in the creative process (and don't comprehend the amount of work that it involves)
It's really mind-boggling how you can suggest that creators should have no protection for their creations simply because they are so easily duplicated.