Why is that Mr. Gates? I would have thought that you would offer a secure environment as part of your product out of the box?
There are plenty of third party companies like Norton or McAffee that provide anti-virus/anti-spyware protection.
After all, does not my automobile come with airbags and antilock brakes and skid control and all wheel drive? Under your logic, those features would only work if I paid a monthly premium
That's a pretty dumb comparison. You don't complain to your car dealer that the car doesn't come with lifetime gasoline refills, do you? When he said "you have to offer a service" he meant you have to provide regular updates to virus/spyware definitions, so it's not as simple as just bundling an app into windows, or building an airbag into the steering wheel.
Come on, you can't expect windows to ship with everything. Wasn't there a lawsuit against them for that very reason - they tried to use their OS power to dominate the Office, Web, and Media software businesses? Do you really want microsoft to intrude on the anti-virus/anti-spyware market too?
The insurance industry has regulated itself in this regard, in that they have all agreed to make their policies readable. Perhaps the software industry needs to do the same?
Though I still ike what one guy suggested here recently, that anytime you encounter a EULA after making a purchase, write up a letter expressing your post-purchase terms, and send it to the company, mentioning that if they do not accept your agreement, they can retrieve the software themselves by bring a full refund to your home.
Here's Kentucky;s wording of it, similar to other states:
304.14-440 Policies to be readable -- Factors to be considered. (1) All insurance policies subject to the provisions of KRS 304.14-420 to 304.14-450 shall be written in language easily readable and understandable by a person of average intelligence and education. (2) In determining whether a policy or contract is readable within the meaning of this section the commissioner shall consider, at least, the following factors: (a) The simplicity of the sentence structure and the shortness of the sentences used; (b) The extent to which commonly used and understood words are employed; (c) The extent to which legal terms are avoided; (d) The extent to which references to other sections or provisions of the contract are minimized; (e) The extent to which definitional provisions are incorporated in the text of the policy or contract; and (f) Any additional factors relevant to the readability or understandability of an insurance policy or contract which the commissioner may prescribe by regulation.
Stop calling it THEFT! The "owner" still has the everything he had before the alleged "theft" took place. When you catch the "thief" you don't make him give anything back.
It's not "theft". It's wrong to do it, but we need a better term than theft.
In the hacker world, it's not about pretty/good solutions, it's about making a problem go away quickly so you can move on to the next problem.
For me, it's about solving things elegantly with algorithms you can be proud of. If you only write crappy "just do it" code, then that's all you'll be able to write. But if you work at it, you'll be able to pump out elegant solutions as fast or faster than you can pump out those quick 'n dirty fixes.
Plus, it'll save you all the time you're currently spending to maintain old crappy fixes, and your elegant code will have fewer growing pains as your project scales, and you'll get fewer phone calls and more beers from the guy who moves into your position when you get promoted.
I guess not so much piss-off, but he went against the grain and made a new kind of movie, so much that he had trouble getting funding for it.
It's a similar story as author JK Rowling's attempts to get her first Harry Potter book published. Publisher after publisher rejected her idea, thinking it wouldn't ever sell, because it was so different from currently popular children's books.
But imagine the outcry if Rowling tried to go back and change her books, after all her fans fell in love with the originals?
The job of Lucas is to now piss off as many people as he can.
The job of a true alternative artist is to piss off everyone, and thus attract a new market. Lucas did this with star wars, and revolutionized movies.
Problem is, this time when he needed to piss off people in order to feel more like an artist, he forgot that the only people paying attention to him any more were his fans. So now he's viewed as a snotty "it's my toy" brat, and rightfully so.
Write a letter saying that regardless of what the EULA says, you do not accept it, will not read it and are not entering into a contract with the publisher. If they don't like it, they can arrange to collect their software from you at a convienient time and give you a full refund.
Beautiful! I'm going to start doing this...
I'll try to get a lawyer friend to write up something short and official, then I'll provide it on a website in PDF for anyone to download and use.
If you happen to want to run software from a vendor that had hard-coded policies you don't like; that's your choice.
Good points. I do hope people will refuse to buy software with unreasonable DRM.
But imo, you should be able to run that software however you like, and break the license agreement if you like. If you break it, they can bring a suit against you, and have a judge determine if their license requirements were legal.
If companies are allowed to implement whatever control they want over your computer, then every company will do so, and you'll have no alternatives. If companies are limited to only demanding reasonable licensing terms, then there'll be more competition and innovation.
Remember, trusted computing has its place. Maybe not on the desktop, but I can see it useful to lockdown point-of-sale machines, kiosks and librarys. It would be a hell of a lot easier for some places than it is implementing Group Policies and permissions for a computer that should be used only for a specific task.
But it should be the owner of the computer determining all the policies, not the hardware or software vendors.
Trusted computing is fine if you're in control of your own machine; much like how you can usually configure your software firewall how you like it, from bare minimum security to total lockdown.
I'm worried that "trusted computing" means that the software vendors trust that the hardware vendors will keep the software vendors in control of their customer's machines.
Left: Government should butt in to make sure individual rights aren't compromised by capitalism.
Right: Government should let anyone (and any business) do anything, even if it compromises individual rights, and should defend corporate rights since corporations are essentially just very rich individuals.
Recently the USA Right-wing has gotten the evangelical christian vote for some reason, although the people they voted for have certainly not behaved as good christians or good evangelicals.
opendebates.org is blue-sky idealism and completely irrelevant to every point I brought up.
No... it provides quite an interesting history of how what you call "blue sky idealism" was actually the way things worked for years while the League of Women Voters ran the debates, and how the two major parties f'd the debates up into such a state that people consider real debates to be "blue sky idealism".
then by all means spend that extra four bones that is burning a hole in your pocket and pick up a Mobile Athlon chip (and as you can see above, we found it for the exact same price as the standard Barton)
Don't forget the extra $20-$40 to get a good OC'ing Heatsink/Fan, since (unlike the retail barton) the mobile barton doesn't come with one.
They are real debates, with real moderation and real issues.
Unfortunately, they're missing those valuable "real responses" that fill up actual debates, and instead have cleverly worded sidestepping policy declarations designed to avoid the most backlash.
Dude, read opendebates.org. Lots of reasonable responses to almost every point you brought up.
If the 15% threshold was applied to every debate in the 20th century, only one or two 3rd party candidates would have been invited ever. Ever if it were a whoppingly small 2%, only three or four would have.
Slashdot Mirror
an unwanted endorsement is not an intellectual property violation.
Why is that Mr. Gates? I would have thought that you would offer a secure environment as part of your product out of the box?
There are plenty of third party companies like Norton or McAffee that provide anti-virus/anti-spyware protection.
After all, does not my automobile come with airbags and antilock brakes and skid control and all wheel drive? Under your logic, those features would only work if I paid a monthly premium
That's a pretty dumb comparison. You don't complain to your car dealer that the car doesn't come with lifetime gasoline refills, do you? When he said "you have to offer a service" he meant you have to provide regular updates to virus/spyware definitions, so it's not as simple as just bundling an app into windows, or building an airbag into the steering wheel.
Come on, you can't expect windows to ship with everything. Wasn't there a lawsuit against them for that very reason - they tried to use their OS power to dominate the Office, Web, and Media software businesses? Do you really want microsoft to intrude on the anti-virus/anti-spyware market too?
The insurance industry has regulated itself in this regard, in that they have all agreed to make their policies readable. Perhaps the software industry needs to do the same?
Though I still ike what one guy suggested here recently, that anytime you encounter a EULA after making a purchase, write up a letter expressing your post-purchase terms, and send it to the company, mentioning that if they do not accept your agreement, they can retrieve the software themselves by bring a full refund to your home.
Here's Kentucky;s wording of it, similar to other states:
304.14-440 Policies to be readable -- Factors to be considered.
(1) All insurance policies subject to the provisions of KRS 304.14-420 to 304.14-450
shall be written in language easily readable and understandable by a person of
average intelligence and education.
(2) In determining whether a policy or contract is readable within the meaning of this
section the commissioner shall consider, at least, the following factors:
(a) The simplicity of the sentence structure and the shortness of the sentences
used;
(b) The extent to which commonly used and understood words are employed;
(c) The extent to which legal terms are avoided;
(d) The extent to which references to other sections or provisions of the contract
are minimized;
(e) The extent to which definitional provisions are incorporated in the text of the
policy or contract; and
(f) Any additional factors relevant to the readability or understandability of an
insurance policy or contract which the commissioner may prescribe by
regulation.
Stop calling it THEFT! The "owner" still has the everything he had before the alleged "theft" took place. When you catch the "thief" you don't make him give anything back.
It's not "theft". It's wrong to do it, but we need a better term than theft.
Same old FUD from SCO.
Move along, nothing to see here.
In the hacker world, it's not about pretty/good solutions, it's about making a problem go away quickly so you can move on to the next problem.
For me, it's about solving things elegantly with algorithms you can be proud of. If you only write crappy "just do it" code, then that's all you'll be able to write. But if you work at it, you'll be able to pump out elegant solutions as fast or faster than you can pump out those quick 'n dirty fixes.
Plus, it'll save you all the time you're currently spending to maintain old crappy fixes, and your elegant code will have fewer growing pains as your project scales, and you'll get fewer phone calls and more beers from the guy who moves into your position when you get promoted.
I guess not so much piss-off, but he went against the grain and made a new kind of movie, so much that he had trouble getting funding for it.
It's a similar story as author JK Rowling's attempts to get her first Harry Potter book published. Publisher after publisher rejected her idea, thinking it wouldn't ever sell, because it was so different from currently popular children's books.
But imagine the outcry if Rowling tried to go back and change her books, after all her fans fell in love with the originals?
The job of Lucas is to now piss off as many people as he can.
The job of a true alternative artist is to piss off everyone, and thus attract a new market. Lucas did this with star wars, and revolutionized movies.
Problem is, this time when he needed to piss off people in order to feel more like an artist, he forgot that the only people paying attention to him any more were his fans. So now he's viewed as a snotty "it's my toy" brat, and rightfully so.
Write a letter saying that regardless of what the EULA says, you do not accept it, will not read it and are not entering into a contract with the publisher. If they don't like it, they can arrange to collect their software from you at a convienient time and give you a full refund.
Beautiful! I'm going to start doing this...
I'll try to get a lawyer friend to write up something short and official, then I'll provide it on a website in PDF for anyone to download and use.
The talking heads at the top want a shitload of features, and they want it by an unrealistic deadline
Welcome to every single software project ever.
Man, those kids in North Korea must really want Starcraft bad if they're willing to hack into South Korea to play it...
How about we also classify poverty and jobless statistics, so that terrorists won't know to what degree their actions are malaffecting our country?
I don't know about you, but I don't need a government report to tell me when my phone goes out, and neither do the terrorists.
YAIOSTO
Yet Another Implementation Of Security Through Obscurity
And and... Vulcan chicks dig nerds!
Once every seven years!
Actually that's not so exciting anymore...
If you happen to want to run software from a vendor that had hard-coded policies you don't like; that's your choice.
Good points. I do hope people will refuse to buy software with unreasonable DRM.
But imo, you should be able to run that software however you like, and break the license agreement if you like. If you break it, they can bring a suit against you, and have a judge determine if their license requirements were legal.
If companies are allowed to implement whatever control they want over your computer, then every company will do so, and you'll have no alternatives. If companies are limited to only demanding reasonable licensing terms, then there'll be more competition and innovation.
Remember, trusted computing has its place. Maybe not on the desktop, but I can see it useful to lockdown point-of-sale machines, kiosks and librarys. It would be a hell of a lot easier for some places than it is implementing Group Policies and permissions for a computer that should be used only for a specific task.
But it should be the owner of the computer determining all the policies, not the hardware or software vendors.
Trusted computing is fine if you're in control of your own machine; much like how you can usually configure your software firewall how you like it, from bare minimum security to total lockdown.
I'm worried that "trusted computing" means that the software vendors trust that the hardware vendors will keep the software vendors in control of their customer's machines.
Left: Government should butt in to make sure individual rights aren't compromised by capitalism.
Right: Government should let anyone (and any business) do anything, even if it compromises individual rights, and should defend corporate rights since corporations are essentially just very rich individuals.
Recently the USA Right-wing has gotten the evangelical christian vote for some reason, although the people they voted for have certainly not behaved as good christians or good evangelicals.
opendebates.org is blue-sky idealism and completely irrelevant to every point I brought up.
No... it provides quite an interesting history of how what you call "blue sky idealism" was actually the way things worked for years while the League of Women Voters ran the debates, and how the two major parties f'd the debates up into such a state that people consider real debates to be "blue sky idealism".
Hey (*dink* *dink*), it looks like you're trying to write a letter....... [Help me] [No thanks]
(click "No thanks")
Okay, you don't want my help! Should I close?
(click "yes")
Okay, I'll close. Bye! Shall I do a little dance as I go?
(click "Hell, no")
Come on, I love dancing! Pleeease?
(click "Do you want to find out how many times you can bend a paper clip out of shape before it snaps?")
Hmm, you make a persuasive argument. I think I'll just close now.
Timothy, what's with all these robo-pet stories today? Got something you want to tell us?
Looks ilke their webserver is running on a sempron. Or, was running.
then by all means spend that extra four bones that is burning a hole in your pocket and pick up a Mobile Athlon chip (and as you can see above, we found it for the exact same price as the standard Barton)
Don't forget the extra $20-$40 to get a good OC'ing Heatsink/Fan, since (unlike the retail barton) the mobile barton doesn't come with one.
They are real debates, with real moderation and real issues.
Unfortunately, they're missing those valuable "real responses" that fill up actual debates, and instead have cleverly worded sidestepping policy declarations designed to avoid the most backlash.
Dude, read opendebates.org. Lots of reasonable responses to almost every point you brought up.
If the 15% threshold was applied to every debate in the 20th century, only one or two 3rd party candidates would have been invited ever. Ever if it were a whoppingly small 2%, only three or four would have.
or other civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security.
Does voting against Bush count? It'd sure make me feel a lot more secure with him out of the white house.