The Sony Centres in Europe- or at least the UK- are independently-owned franchisees that focus on selling Sony products. Sony themselves don't operate the stores directly.
I wonder if we are in store for HD versions of the episodes? I've heard that atleast with TNG the scenes with cgi were rendered in standard def. 35mm for the character scenes which is do-able.
No, AFAIK the special effects on TNG were mastered on video. The majority of the show was shot on film, but transferred to video for editing and the addition of most special effects.
This means that even if the original high-resolution source film remains intact, any "HD" transfer of TNG would still have to redo the effects since even the "originals" only ever existed as SD video- AFAIK there aren't (and never were) any higher quality versions.
Given the craptastic quality of 80s NTSC video, there's no way you could "clean" or upscale them so that they looked like anything approaching HD- they even looked crap at SD (*)- and more importantly so that they didn't stand out like a sore thumb against the higher quality rescanned film footage.
I'd think that most of these scenes the effects could be redone by someone in their basement compared to 1987. It is star trek they should let the fans add the effects back in. They would do it for free to get their name in the credits.
That sounds nice, and I'm sure that there are many skilled fans who'd do it for free. However, I suspect it's not as simple or "free lunch" for the studios as that.
For one, there's coordinating such efforts, ensuring that (e.g.) the style of effects being done by different teams have a consistent (and not jarringly different) style.
And if people are working for free, how far will they accept being told what and how to do things by the studio? What if their personal fanboy view of how things should be done or what should be concentrated on disagrees with that of the studio? (No, what hardcore fanboys want and think should be done with a show isn't always the best from a general audience point of view- indeed, pandering to the self-indulgences of obsessives can sometimes damage the general appeal of a show and destroy what made it great in the first place).
And will such people be working in their spare time? What if the studio needs X done for release in 18 months time, but some guy working in a particular area can't spare the time from work? Of course, they could pay him... which starts to blur the line between employees and free contributions anyway.
So it's not as simple as you might think.
(*) I always used to wonder why the likes of TNG looked so "soft" and generally bad- the same problems that I could see with US-based video shows- when earlier US film-based shows looked okay. Turns out that the older shows were shot and edited on film, but that at some point during the 80s there was a trend towards shooting on film but transferring to video for editing. Apparently, the BBC etc. used their own film-based prints of older shows, which obviously wouldn't have suffered from NTSC video's defects, but they clearly couldn't do this with video-edited shows. And believe me, even watching TNG on a bog-standard moderately-sized colour television set in the UK, the difference in quality was obvious.
Thank god the actual Amiga company (http://amiga.com/) is keeping the brand alive *cough*.
Yeah, slapping the name on some random Android-based tablets (that are probably just rebadged generic models from some no-name Chinese manufacturer). That's one way to respect the Amiga... *coughing fit*
While that website isn't quite as amateurish as Commodore USA's, it's still very basic and cheap looking for a company that has any pretence of being a serious business. They still seem to be trying to flog that "Amiga Anywhere" platform that (also) apparently has sod all to do with the original Amiga... meh.
It's still mostly a 90's Geocities-style website with 3D renders of products and lacking any real information.
Yes, it's horrendously amateurish and dated, not in an 80s-nostalgia style, just in a badly-designed, incompetent way.
Anyway, if people here think that their C64 was somewhat cynical, at least with *that* they've put it in a case that looks broadly similar to an actual C64.
Elsewhere on the site (when it isn't saying "Service Unavailable") they're using the famous "Vic" name to sell something that looks similar- or identical- to one of those Eee PC "all-in-one" keyboard/computer things that has **** all to do with the original Vic under the moniker "Vic Pro", and something else called a "Vic Slim" that is equally unrelated.
But that's not all! Would you like an Amiga 1000? Well, don't get your hopes up, it's just a generic HTPC/Media Centre case that has precisely jack s**t to do with the original Amiga 1000 (or any other Amiga) and doesn't even look like it. Ditto the "Amiga 2000" and "Amiga 3000". All backed up by more incredibly ugly and badly-designed web pages.
I strongly suspect they have the rights to use the Amiga name and logo, but nothing else. At any rate, it's possibly the most blatantly cynical and low-rent attempt to milk the Amiga name for all its nostalgic worth while doing f*** all.
Utter tat.
(Canned links to cached Google versions for when their shite website isn't working:- Vic and Amiga.
Well, the fourth only arrived at the end of 1982. I'm old enough- just- to remember when there were only 3 UK channels (damn, I'm old), and Channel 4 was a big deal to me.
You couldn't imagine anyone really giving a t**s about a new channel these days... partly because there are so many, but also because they're a bit of a muchness. There are God knows how many channels on Freeview, yet not one proper music channel, because the "music" channels discovered they get more viewers when they repeat years old non-music programmes that we've seen before anyway. I mean, we already have E4, did 4 Music really have to be part-sacrificed to become its ersatz second-rate sibling?
vorderman [..] vorderman [..] vorderman [etc.]
Not a big fan of the mercenary exploiter of her own "I'm brainy because I can do arithmetic" image then?
Well, to be fair, computers came with 500 page manuals back when computers were damned expensive and replacing it with electronically-readable documentation would have been far less practical than it is nowadays.
Would we actually want a thick manual with every computer nowadays anyway? It'd probably add to the cost, be redundant for people who already knew the OS moderately well, take up space on a shelf, and since most modern computers are variations on a standard theme, it'd probably make more sense to buy a separate, well-written book appropriate to your own level of knowledge. Or not bother at all if you weren't bothered.
Bottom line is that printed manuals supplied with the computer were probably more appropriate back when there were many different types of computer, the margins were such that this wasn't an undue expense (and PDFs weren't really an alternative) and computers in general weren't such a commodity. People are cheapskates anyway, and if having the manual made a £5 (or whatever) difference in the cost of the machine- ditto two or three times for other "nice to have" things- they'd go for the cheaper model.
I suspect the BBC would admit themselves that it's a shame they can't produce a DVD with the original Doctor Who on it
The very first Doctor Who story is complete in the archives (as is the original unaired pilot) and has been released on DVD, as have several other First Doctor stories. AFAIK if anything it's the Second Doctor's stories that suffered the most from this phenomenon- some exist complete, but a very high percentage are partially or completely wiped.
I already have the entire O'Reilly library, plus selected volumes from the "for dummies" and "...in 21 days" series. Why do we need another lousy computer book? This one doesn't even appear to cover anything useful like HTML coding or Adobe software.
People like you, who would remove all risk from the world, are the drones of humanity.
Get the fuck out of the way, drone, and let the warriors do what they will.
What I am trying to say is that you need to shut your punkass mouth and mind your own
miserable pussywhipped business. There now, is that clear enough for you, you pussy ?
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Still, got to give the guy props for a great performance in Star Trek 2. I always wondered how Nicholas Meyer got it out of him. On the DVD commentary track I finally learned how he did it. He would do so about 10 throwaway takes. After about 10 takes, Shanter would get tired and stop trying to be Shatner (i.e. the pompous hero) and he would start to play around with the lines and actually act.
It's strange that the somewhat fan-maligned Star Trek: The Motion Picture (i.e. the original film) doesn't get more credit for the scenes where Bones (or whoever it was) basically attacks pompous-hero-Kirk (and by proxy Shatner?) for somewhat similar behaviour and personality traits when he's taking over command from Decker. Personally, I thought that was quite an interesting choice on the part of the film-makers.
You make a good case for having a browser tailored to digital newspapers/magazines with a push model. However, I suspect that it's overkill to have a separately-designed one for every newspaper when a single, well-designed one with a standard interface would probably be more effective.
That said, as I acknowledged, there *are* legitimate business reasons for each media outlet having its own "app". One can accept these reasons, while still disliking app proliferation from a usability point of view, and the general fact that it's a retrograde step that has no real direct benefit to the end user.
Firstly, yes, of course it was my personal opinion. As you acknowledge, individuals can decide for themselves what does and doesn't have value, which means I'm entitled to have that opinion and you're entitled to disagree with me, and I certainly didn't suggest anywhere that people should be prohibited from buying them (*). So what's the issue?!
That said, in your eagerness to see this as a "free market / free choice" issue and respond in that manner, you didn't really pay attention to what I was saying and missed the point.
My criticism was with the proliferation of stupid little custom apps for each information source- and let's be clear here, it's the information source you're really paying for, *not* the application code itself (which, unlike apps being bought for their own use, is merely a conduit for the information, like a custom browser). I acknowledged that there were legitimate business reasons to do things this way- i.e. it's easier to get people to pay for information (that it costs money to produce) using a custom app- but still hate the stupid principle of having a custom app for each information source.
(*) Actually, by your own free-market/free-opinion definition, I'd have been quite entitled to say I didn't think people *should* buy them, so long as I didn't force that opinion on anyone. But I didn't, because I don't even hold that opinion in the first place(!)
You mean a year after the web was first invented, when most pages didn't even include graphics, and the crossover point from academia into the man on the street having even heard of it (let alone used it) was still around 18 months away?
Sarcasm aside, when the Internet *did* first start to gain mainstream popularity, circa 1994, I read at least one article which said that- yes, the future might be interconnected, but it wouldn't necessarily be the public Internet that triumphed, but private networks.
It's easier to laugh at that in hindsight, but over the next few years I wouldn't be surprised to see the current Internet morph into something more akin to a series of interconnected, de facto closed networks.
To be fair, the problem with the likes of Facebook's closed nature isn't in cases where *your* privacy is being protected. It contains much content of general interest that isn't private per se- quite the opposite, I'm sure that its creators made it "public" within Facebook- but that you have to be signed on and inside- and having your privacy invaded by- their proprietary platform to even know that most of it exists.
Is it really the case that some music venue putting its listings, etc. up on Facebook wants them to remain inaccessible to those outside Facebook? Unlikely- I'm sure that given the choice, and if they thought about it (or cared that much) they'd happily want it accessible to every man and his dog. No reason it shouldn't be.
Personally, I put part of the blame on mobile “apps”. You can’t charge someone for access to a website unless you’ve got some really compelling content.. but you sure can sell them an app for their phone that provides the same kind of information for a few dollars.
I've sarcastically remarked on more than one occasion that someone should design a killer "app" that replaces the functionality of all those custom apps used to access newspapers, magazines and so on. They could design it so that content was written in a standardised, straightforward format. In fact, there could be numerous independent implementations of this imaginary killer "app", all of which let you access the same content.
If such a wonderful thing existed, they could call it... a "web browser".
But seriously... yeah. Those custom apps are bull****, there's no benefit to them for the user, quite the opposite- their only purpose is to give an excuse to charge for content. Which isn't an entirely unjustified thing in itself- I do have serious concerns about what will happen to journalism if it's reliant on trying to make itself pay through free websites. It just pisses me off when I hear some so-called tech journalist gushing about how x-magazine/newspaper has released its own app. So f*****g what? Obsessing as if that retrograde step- the app- is itself a good thing is missing the true point, which is that "x-magazine/newspaper" is making its content available for a charge over the iPhone (or whatever).
I believe the threesome would be higher because most of them involve at least a little of banana eating.
That sounds like the bad kind of threesome to be honest:(
Never had a threesome, but I suspect that the banana-eating has more to do with cheesy, phallic porn imagery that no-one would bother with in real life.
What you say is true- however, the OP's original statement related to the uber-closed-source Photoshop CS which had nothing to do with open source. I suspect that the OP's original assertion was simply a lame, half-baked, no-thought-put-into-it, misguided attempt at reductio ad absurdum- which was wrong, because the discussion only related to header files, not to complete closed-source software programs.
clearly these are different cases, but can you draw a bright clear line between them?
I didn't say you could. However, the current discussion related to header files, which RMS's lawyers say are not affected. Anything beyond that is moving into the gray area, but regardless of which category it actually falls under, you can't use the information in this story or thread- which only relates to header files- to determine that.
(This of course assumes that we accept RMS's lawyers advice is correct).
I guess the Linux kernel could be an exception with some statement like "by submitting this patch you agree to transfer copyright to Linus Torvalds".
I believe that something similar is the case with some programs that offer themselves on a GPL or a non-GPL license, e.g. MySQL, if you want to get your code accepted into the "official" distribution. However, AFAIK this has never been the case with Linux, and at this stage it's incredibly unlikely that they'd get all the kernel contributors to agree to retrospectively turn over their copyright to Linus (or whoever)- so short of a massive rewrite that rewrote/replaced all contributions not reassigned to Linus, it ain't gonna happen.
This copy of Photoshop CS I've got installed is also a statement of fact, by the way.
Simply asserting that doesn't mean a court would agree with you. Given that the current discussion about "statement of fact" was specifically about *header files* only, what basis do you have for this statement?
Whereas you mistakenly think - as also happens a lot on Slashdot - that *zero* datapoints and stating your opinion *loudly* constitutes much better evidence?
Show me where I expressed my opinion "loudly"? Ah... hang on, I didn't.
And yes, what I said was opinion based on what I know of ordinary people in general (yes, I *have* met some of them!) and the complete absence of any indication anywhere that would suggest that this was an issue for most people.
Slashdot Mirror
"pop sensation Adele" -- who the fuck is 'Adele'?
Er, she's a singer that's famous in Britain where the Daily Mail is published. I guess you could describe her as a "pop sensation" or something. :-)
The Sony Centres in Europe- or at least the UK- are independently-owned franchisees that focus on selling Sony products. Sony themselves don't operate the stores directly.
I wonder if we are in store for HD versions of the episodes? I've heard that atleast with TNG the scenes with cgi were rendered in standard def. 35mm for the character scenes which is do-able.
No, AFAIK the special effects on TNG were mastered on video. The majority of the show was shot on film, but transferred to video for editing and the addition of most special effects.
This means that even if the original high-resolution source film remains intact, any "HD" transfer of TNG would still have to redo the effects since even the "originals" only ever existed as SD video- AFAIK there aren't (and never were) any higher quality versions.
Given the craptastic quality of 80s NTSC video, there's no way you could "clean" or upscale them so that they looked like anything approaching HD- they even looked crap at SD (*)- and more importantly so that they didn't stand out like a sore thumb against the higher quality rescanned film footage.
I'd think that most of these scenes the effects could be redone by someone in their basement compared to 1987. It is star trek they should let the fans add the effects back in. They would do it for free to get their name in the credits.
That sounds nice, and I'm sure that there are many skilled fans who'd do it for free. However, I suspect it's not as simple or "free lunch" for the studios as that.
For one, there's coordinating such efforts, ensuring that (e.g.) the style of effects being done by different teams have a consistent (and not jarringly different) style.
And if people are working for free, how far will they accept being told what and how to do things by the studio? What if their personal fanboy view of how things should be done or what should be concentrated on disagrees with that of the studio? (No, what hardcore fanboys want and think should be done with a show isn't always the best from a general audience point of view- indeed, pandering to the self-indulgences of obsessives can sometimes damage the general appeal of a show and destroy what made it great in the first place).
And will such people be working in their spare time? What if the studio needs X done for release in 18 months time, but some guy working in a particular area can't spare the time from work? Of course, they could pay him... which starts to blur the line between employees and free contributions anyway.
So it's not as simple as you might think.
(*) I always used to wonder why the likes of TNG looked so "soft" and generally bad- the same problems that I could see with US-based video shows- when earlier US film-based shows looked okay. Turns out that the older shows were shot and edited on film, but that at some point during the 80s there was a trend towards shooting on film but transferring to video for editing. Apparently, the BBC etc. used their own film-based prints of older shows, which obviously wouldn't have suffered from NTSC video's defects, but they clearly couldn't do this with video-edited shows. And believe me, even watching TNG on a bog-standard moderately-sized colour television set in the UK, the difference in quality was obvious.
Thank god the actual Amiga company (http://amiga.com/) is keeping the brand alive *cough*.
Yeah, slapping the name on some random Android-based tablets (that are probably just rebadged generic models from some no-name Chinese manufacturer). That's one way to respect the Amiga... *coughing fit*
While that website isn't quite as amateurish as Commodore USA's, it's still very basic and cheap looking for a company that has any pretence of being a serious business. They still seem to be trying to flog that "Amiga Anywhere" platform that (also) apparently has sod all to do with the original Amiga... meh.
It's still mostly a 90's Geocities-style website with 3D renders of products and lacking any real information.
Yes, it's horrendously amateurish and dated, not in an 80s-nostalgia style, just in a badly-designed, incompetent way.
Anyway, if people here think that their C64 was somewhat cynical, at least with *that* they've put it in a case that looks broadly similar to an actual C64.
Elsewhere on the site (when it isn't saying "Service Unavailable") they're using the famous "Vic" name to sell something that looks similar- or identical- to one of those Eee PC "all-in-one" keyboard/computer things that has **** all to do with the original Vic under the moniker "Vic Pro", and something else called a "Vic Slim" that is equally unrelated.
But that's not all! Would you like an Amiga 1000? Well, don't get your hopes up, it's just a generic HTPC/Media Centre case that has precisely jack s**t to do with the original Amiga 1000 (or any other Amiga) and doesn't even look like it. Ditto the "Amiga 2000" and "Amiga 3000". All backed up by more incredibly ugly and badly-designed web pages.
I strongly suspect they have the rights to use the Amiga name and logo, but nothing else. At any rate, it's possibly the most blatantly cynical and low-rent attempt to milk the Amiga name for all its nostalgic worth while doing f*** all.
Utter tat.
(Canned links to cached Google versions for when their shite website isn't working:- Vic and Amiga.
In 1982, most of the country had 4 TV channels.
Well, the fourth only arrived at the end of 1982. I'm old enough- just- to remember when there were only 3 UK channels (damn, I'm old), and Channel 4 was a big deal to me.
You couldn't imagine anyone really giving a t**s about a new channel these days... partly because there are so many, but also because they're a bit of a muchness. There are God knows how many channels on Freeview, yet not one proper music channel, because the "music" channels discovered they get more viewers when they repeat years old non-music programmes that we've seen before anyway. I mean, we already have E4, did 4 Music really have to be part-sacrificed to become its ersatz second-rate sibling?
vorderman [..] vorderman [..] vorderman [etc.]
Not a big fan of the mercenary exploiter of her own "I'm brainy because I can do arithmetic" image then?
Well, to be fair, computers came with 500 page manuals back when computers were damned expensive and replacing it with electronically-readable documentation would have been far less practical than it is nowadays.
Would we actually want a thick manual with every computer nowadays anyway? It'd probably add to the cost, be redundant for people who already knew the OS moderately well, take up space on a shelf, and since most modern computers are variations on a standard theme, it'd probably make more sense to buy a separate, well-written book appropriate to your own level of knowledge. Or not bother at all if you weren't bothered.
Bottom line is that printed manuals supplied with the computer were probably more appropriate back when there were many different types of computer, the margins were such that this wasn't an undue expense (and PDFs weren't really an alternative) and computers in general weren't such a commodity. People are cheapskates anyway, and if having the manual made a £5 (or whatever) difference in the cost of the machine- ditto two or three times for other "nice to have" things- they'd go for the cheaper model.
I suspect the BBC would admit themselves that it's a shame they can't produce a DVD with the original Doctor Who on it
The very first Doctor Who story is complete in the archives (as is the original unaired pilot) and has been released on DVD, as have several other First Doctor stories. AFAIK if anything it's the Second Doctor's stories that suffered the most from this phenomenon- some exist complete, but a very high percentage are partially or completely wiped.
I already have the entire O'Reilly library, plus selected volumes from the "for dummies" and "...in 21 days" series. Why do we need another lousy computer book? This one doesn't even appear to cover anything useful like HTML coding or Adobe software.
There's a Donald Knuth book for you too!
Apparently when they redid the look, they wiped out any customized backgrounds that were set.
And that's a bad thing???!!!!
As far as I'm concerned, MySpaces eye-gougingly fugly "customized backgrounds" should have been nuked from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
People like you, who would remove all risk from the world, are the drones of humanity. Get the fuck out of the way, drone, and let the warriors do what they will. What I am trying to say is that you need to shut your punkass mouth and mind your own miserable pussywhipped business. There now, is that clear enough for you, you pussy ?
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Maybe it's because Japan is in the middle of the world?
Let me guess, you have one of those weird-ass American maps that have the Pacific in the middle? :-)
Still, got to give the guy props for a great performance in Star Trek 2. I always wondered how Nicholas Meyer got it out of him. On the DVD commentary track I finally learned how he did it. He would do so about 10 throwaway takes. After about 10 takes, Shanter would get tired and stop trying to be Shatner (i.e. the pompous hero) and he would start to play around with the lines and actually act.
It's strange that the somewhat fan-maligned Star Trek: The Motion Picture (i.e. the original film) doesn't get more credit for the scenes where Bones (or whoever it was) basically attacks pompous-hero-Kirk (and by proxy Shatner?) for somewhat similar behaviour and personality traits when he's taking over command from Decker. Personally, I thought that was quite an interesting choice on the part of the film-makers.
You make a good case for having a browser tailored to digital newspapers/magazines with a push model. However, I suspect that it's overkill to have a separately-designed one for every newspaper when a single, well-designed one with a standard interface would probably be more effective.
That said, as I acknowledged, there *are* legitimate business reasons for each media outlet having its own "app". One can accept these reasons, while still disliking app proliferation from a usability point of view, and the general fact that it's a retrograde step that has no real direct benefit to the end user.
Good grief.
Firstly, yes, of course it was my personal opinion. As you acknowledge, individuals can decide for themselves what does and doesn't have value, which means I'm entitled to have that opinion and you're entitled to disagree with me, and I certainly didn't suggest anywhere that people should be prohibited from buying them (*). So what's the issue?!
That said, in your eagerness to see this as a "free market / free choice" issue and respond in that manner, you didn't really pay attention to what I was saying and missed the point.
My criticism was with the proliferation of stupid little custom apps for each information source- and let's be clear here, it's the information source you're really paying for, *not* the application code itself (which, unlike apps being bought for their own use, is merely a conduit for the information, like a custom browser). I acknowledged that there were legitimate business reasons to do things this way- i.e. it's easier to get people to pay for information (that it costs money to produce) using a custom app- but still hate the stupid principle of having a custom app for each information source.
(*) Actually, by your own free-market/free-opinion definition, I'd have been quite entitled to say I didn't think people *should* buy them, so long as I didn't force that opinion on anyone. But I didn't, because I don't even hold that opinion in the first place(!)
This is a repeat from 1992 or so.
You mean a year after the web was first invented, when most pages didn't even include graphics, and the crossover point from academia into the man on the street having even heard of it (let alone used it) was still around 18 months away?
Sarcasm aside, when the Internet *did* first start to gain mainstream popularity, circa 1994, I read at least one article which said that- yes, the future might be interconnected, but it wouldn't necessarily be the public Internet that triumphed, but private networks.
It's easier to laugh at that in hindsight, but over the next few years I wouldn't be surprised to see the current Internet morph into something more akin to a series of interconnected, de facto closed networks.
To be fair, the problem with the likes of Facebook's closed nature isn't in cases where *your* privacy is being protected. It contains much content of general interest that isn't private per se- quite the opposite, I'm sure that its creators made it "public" within Facebook- but that you have to be signed on and inside- and having your privacy invaded by- their proprietary platform to even know that most of it exists.
Is it really the case that some music venue putting its listings, etc. up on Facebook wants them to remain inaccessible to those outside Facebook? Unlikely- I'm sure that given the choice, and if they thought about it (or cared that much) they'd happily want it accessible to every man and his dog. No reason it shouldn't be.
Personally, I put part of the blame on mobile “apps”. You can’t charge someone for access to a website unless you’ve got some really compelling content.. but you sure can sell them an app for their phone that provides the same kind of information for a few dollars.
I've sarcastically remarked on more than one occasion that someone should design a killer "app" that replaces the functionality of all those custom apps used to access newspapers, magazines and so on. They could design it so that content was written in a standardised, straightforward format. In fact, there could be numerous independent implementations of this imaginary killer "app", all of which let you access the same content.
If such a wonderful thing existed, they could call it... a "web browser".
But seriously... yeah. Those custom apps are bull****, there's no benefit to them for the user, quite the opposite- their only purpose is to give an excuse to charge for content. Which isn't an entirely unjustified thing in itself- I do have serious concerns about what will happen to journalism if it's reliant on trying to make itself pay through free websites. It just pisses me off when I hear some so-called tech journalist gushing about how x-magazine/newspaper has released its own app. So f*****g what? Obsessing as if that retrograde step- the app- is itself a good thing is missing the true point, which is that "x-magazine/newspaper" is making its content available for a charge over the iPhone (or whatever).
The idiocy of AC's comment about the kind of ["car batteries"] used
That must have been a major limitation on its portability, huh?
I believe the threesome would be higher because most of them involve at least a little of banana eating.
That sounds like the bad kind of threesome to be honest :(
Never had a threesome, but I suspect that the banana-eating has more to do with cheesy, phallic porn imagery that no-one would bother with in real life.
What you say is true- however, the OP's original statement related to the uber-closed-source Photoshop CS which had nothing to do with open source. I suspect that the OP's original assertion was simply a lame, half-baked, no-thought-put-into-it, misguided attempt at reductio ad absurdum- which was wrong, because the discussion only related to header files, not to complete closed-source software programs.
clearly these are different cases, but can you draw a bright clear line between them?
I didn't say you could. However, the current discussion related to header files, which RMS's lawyers say are not affected. Anything beyond that is moving into the gray area, but regardless of which category it actually falls under, you can't use the information in this story or thread- which only relates to header files- to determine that.
(This of course assumes that we accept RMS's lawyers advice is correct).
I guess the Linux kernel could be an exception with some statement like "by submitting this patch you agree to transfer copyright to Linus Torvalds".
I believe that something similar is the case with some programs that offer themselves on a GPL or a non-GPL license, e.g. MySQL, if you want to get your code accepted into the "official" distribution. However, AFAIK this has never been the case with Linux, and at this stage it's incredibly unlikely that they'd get all the kernel contributors to agree to retrospectively turn over their copyright to Linus (or whoever)- so short of a massive rewrite that rewrote/replaced all contributions not reassigned to Linus, it ain't gonna happen.
This copy of Photoshop CS I've got installed is also a statement of fact, by the way.
Simply asserting that doesn't mean a court would agree with you. Given that the current discussion about "statement of fact" was specifically about *header files* only, what basis do you have for this statement?
Whereas you mistakenly think - as also happens a lot on Slashdot - that *zero* datapoints and stating your opinion *loudly* constitutes much better evidence?
Show me where I expressed my opinion "loudly"? Ah... hang on, I didn't.
And yes, what I said was opinion based on what I know of ordinary people in general (yes, I *have* met some of them!) and the complete absence of any indication anywhere that would suggest that this was an issue for most people.