Yes, Microsoft did break the law, and yes, they did get away pretty lightly; however, as I understand it several states are still pushing for more punishment. And I am not saying these people are innocent or guilty - I was merely trying to point out that:
1. the FSF/GPL has to show it has teeth too, rather than just rolling over and saying "Thanks for stopping the theft"
2. the code has to be shown the same respect as proprietary code (as I said, MS was just an example)
3. commercial companies would almost be expected to sue for this sort of thing
If I change my comment to Sun, or IBM, or Apple, the point remains the same. Yours however becomes quickly irrelevant, so in future reading the meaning rather than just the words might be of benefit.
This is missing the point of the GPL. The code is not there as a free repository for anyone who wants a shortcut to developing their own application. It is the same as proprietary code in its legal protection (at least in theory) and using it is theft/plagiarism/copyright theft/whatever.
The license makes it clear. It is not an ambiguous document either.
Amd who said they slipped up? I find it hard to believe that someone, trying to write an application, could 'accidentally' cut and paste code from another application into the correct parts of his own, changing variables to suit his code, and then releasing it as his own work. It is not a simple slip-up.. more a deliberate act. How could this possibly be an honest mistake? If that wasn't enough proof, have you ever tried to cut and paste between two applications in Linux?;-) I suppose a junior programmer could have done it as well and a senior project manager could have released the app without knowing but that doesn't make it any less wrong
I think it is far more likely that someone saw this as an easy and cheap way to shorten their development cycle. They most likely didn't realise they would get caught - the opportunity to steal the work as well as the temptation are both a large part of this sort of theft.
Imagine how you would feel if you spent years developing something , in collaboration with others, freely allowing others to learn from it and contribute as long as they acknowledged your part and re-invested their knowledge once they had learned from yours. Then someone comes along on a payroll, sees much money for no work, grabs your work and changes the credits. This is more like what happened here.
If you still think that this could be a simple slip-up, try going into you favourite text editor with two different documents open at the same time, each a few pages long. Pick five words in one document, and change them each to an arbitrary word from the other document. Then remove any comments that might imply that this belongs to someone else. Cut out a few sentences you don't like, then re-read it and check it still makes sense.
This is fairly analogous to taking a page of code, changing a few of 'their' variable to the ones you need, stripping some evidence, changing a small amount of it then debugging to check you haven't upset any of the inner workings. Now this is just for one page of work to be taken - the likelihood is that it would be much more.
I'd be interested to see what would happen if you did.
The article itself is a bit of a non-event - Epson has admitted to using copyrighted code after having it pointed out to them by the FSF. They did the correct thing by pulling the product. They were in the wrong, and have regained some credibility (or even kudos) by behaving in a very humble manner.
On the other hand, they have illegally used someone else's copyrighted code and distributed it. Their admission of guilt does not absolve them from punishment.
Consider if someone (let's say RMS just for fun) used Microsoft's (OK, it doesn't have to be them...) proprietary code in an application he had developed, and then distributed it. If he put up his hands and admitted his mistake, would MS say "OK, good for you for complying with our requests to stop", or would they sue his ass off? I don't know if it would be the latter but I imagine it wouldn't be the former.
The point is that they remain in the wrong - it would be an interesting legal precedent (especially for the GPL) if this was brought up in court. You are within your rights to demand the source code. They are not within their rights to use it. I'd like to see a judge rule on this one...
I wonder if someone could develop an HTML parser then that could compress the code... Instead of: <HTML> <BODY> blah blah blah <TAG>blah</TAG> </BODY> </HTML>
It would just run this through a pre-processor (we could call it the hypertext preprocessor preprocessor, or, GNU style, PHPP) and give us: <HTML><BODY>blah blah blah <TAG>blah</TAG></BODY></HTML> Obvioulsy this would be a small saving, but on bigger sites it might provide some benefit (especially database driven sites with heavy HTML output). For debugging it would be no use whatsoever, but as it is a pre-processor you write your code as normal, then via your PHPP app it is put onto your server's doc-root where human eyes might never need to look at it.
I suppose though that it might have to be called a preprocessor postprocessor as the tags would be abbreviated as the last step before sending info to the client. Acronym remains though.
Would it have any actual usefulness? For most, no; but if you were running a large site it means your coders don't need to sacrifice readability as it is all processed behind the scenes; they can still disable it to see the HTML source with line breaks; you could even use much more commenting and longer variable names for readability as it could strip these all out too, just having the absolute minimum file size but producing exactly the same output.
Seriously, (-1, troll) why optimise and improve then get bogged down by the compatibility-driven obsolescence?
There should be continued support for older software for a reasonable period (No idea what this would be though), so I disagree on that, but It seems a better idea to just run native apps than kludge everything else to the detriment of the system as a whole.
As long as incompatibilities are well-documented, this can only improve the performance of the computer. It's like the difference between running generic binary files compared to optimised ones for your architecture (e.g. why Gentoo linux is much faster if you can get past the install). Those who this would prevent from running software simply don't upgrade. Admittedly this is a gross oversimplification but essentially this just means that everyone involved ha to support all their applications twice.
Firstly, I don't see how it can be called 'rejected' - they are not adopting it, which is a very different thing - the title implies criticism.
I tried Apache 2 but MySQL/PHP (on windows though - issues with my DSL modem meant I had to switch) when I first learned PHP/HTML/MySQL (about a month ago now...) and it was thoroughly broken. Pages were well screwed. As a beginner it took me ages to realise that the fault was not with my code, but that's another story.
Now, that was a month ago - even with it being improved, it's still not fixed. It will be in time, but why would people change from a stable server to a buggy one? Do you get too many visitors to your site or something?
People will switch when they feel there will be a benefit - at the moment any users are early adopters.
I for one am back with Linux, and Apache 1.3.26, which serves up my pages nicely. It's just a shame that it still won't connect to the internet...
It's not important how these people chose to remember someone who was to them a member of a community. The fact is that, each for their own reasons, they did choose to remember him. Attending a funeral is no different - but then some people go because they are obliged to rather than because they care. Especially in family funerals, when a never-met relative dies.
The point is that all of these people felt enough of a sense of loss to organise and respect this gesture - to everyone 'there', it means something, and that is what is important. The guy's dead - it makes no difference to him. His close family and friends will have a regular funeral - it makes no difference to them either. But for his gaming contemporaries who fell they have lost a member of their community, this is a mark of respect that each must feel strongly enough about just to log in / turn up.
The point is that the how is not important - as long as each person who feels they want to show some respect/sorrow does it in a way that they are happy with. It just so happens that this particular one was online in a 'newsworthy' manner.
To take the electrons/waveforms/TCP/IP connection thing further, none of us should care about anything - we are simply by-products of a biological system which is designed to reproduce. But that's not what people see themselves as - we have created morality, religion, and a thousand other things to give meaning to our lives. Nature gives us no such meaning.
These gamers have a strong sense of community, just because they interact and form relationships. The communication is what marks them as friends, rivals, enemies... their friendship is no less valid than a 'traditional' one. Otherwise it could be argued that the wartime radio jockeys (who built up lasting friendships with other radio operators despite never having met) did not have a valid friendship. Or anyone who has met Stephen Hawking since he lost the power of speech. Or any disabled person who cannot communicate 'normally'.
There are more aspects to obesity than just exercise. However, the simple facts are that (calories in) minus (calories out) must be zero to stay the same weight, negative to lose weight, and positive to gain weight. It really is that simple.
In a few isolated cases, e.g.: high dose / long term steroid therapy (don't pretend that asthma inhaler is doing it!) will cause an increase, much of it water; thyroid disease (reduced (or, more uncommonly, increased) metabolism and therefore calorie use); some problems with absorption will reduce effective calorie intake (and cause weight loss). Other than these and a few very finely printed other things, it's about wha you eat, and how much exercise you do.
America's obesity (75% of the population by 2010 predicted! Woo Hoo!) is related almost directly to the increase in food portion sizes, increased fat and carb content of the diet, and unhealthy diets ('there is no such thing as a good or bad food, only good or bad diets' although I think the deep-fried Mars bar disproves that(although it is tasty..)).
Lack of exercise is also a big contributor - you don't need to do much exercise as long as it is regular - a few miles a week is more than most manage. What's the average, something like 4 hours a day in front of the TV in the US at the moment? I mean, come on - these are the same blobs that say it's their glands.
There are a few cases of illness related obesity (statistically, a tiny number, and also a constant number - this does not explain the increase in the population's weight).
The rest don't do enough exercise, and eat too much. This is proves by thermodynamics, and the modern day citizen's choice of the path of least resistance.
P.S. I like New Balance for running, as well as Asics - not much use for anything else though but they are sort of specialised shoes.
Only if you are consuming resources is it not the same - my example, however, used my new theories on thermodynamics and so no resources were needed to produce the porsche after downloading, and it was not taken from the factory, so the company made no loss from it.
It is a slightly silly argument, but software really has very little comparable 'real-world' product as they all take resources to produce. Although it is annoying to see people taking extreme examples to make a point, on some occasions they can be useful to show something that otherwise cannot really be demonstrated.
Of course, your take on what I have written is slighty tangiential to my point - apart from the resources thing, which was not really the point of balls of the comment but more a side effect of the example. I think the point is still there.
Slashdot debates often have good points pulled apart because of minor flaws that don't really have any bearing on the overall argument - they are often just there to make people think slightly differently. I forgot this when I posted or I might have tried to find a more watertight example. In retrospect, maybe I should just have used Photoshop or something...
Contrary to what most of the comments so far would suggest (only 30 though...) this is a good thing. It's size, colour and primitiveness are immaterial - it's only a prototype.
What it does show is that it is feasible to do more work in this area - despite its size, people lose interest (although I would imagine this is more to do with wedding-associated alcohol than anything else...) and let it click away without ogling at it - all it is is fairly simple technology appliying simple rules (e.g. face should be in centre or photo or wherever) and then takes a few pictures.
While a lot of these will be crap (same as for a human photographer) what this does allow is more natural photos, where people are not posing, or forcing smiles, or having to hold their smile just a bit too long as the cameraman waits for whatever moment all cameramen seem to thnk comes about 5 seconds after asking everyone to say cheese (don't you hate that?).
So we get lots of natural photos, discard the rest, and end up with some good ones which we might not have achieved with a human.
In the long term, though, this might have much more application - we can get it to recognise terrorists, criminals, finally get the intrusive Minority Report style advertising, and maybe we can train Lewis to recognise cleavage.
Read the article - it does not say that skin tone is independent of race. It says that the hue/saturation value is - and that these in combination are fairly unique, allowing easy identification of subjects.
Not only do you have to get the damn thing up there (It'll weigh a hell of a lot, regardless of material), you have to fill it. Which mean talking several kilometres cubed of earth's atmosphere, and taking it into space as well. Even if it was supercooled so a solid/liquid, that's still going to make things hard.
Although I suppose we could put all the greenhouse gases into it...
Lucky bastard - here in the UK I get paid less for overtime (e.g. weekend, overnight) than I do duting the day - no such thing as time and a half. I also heard there was some research that showed that the last two hours of a shift were when you were likely to make mistakes, whether it was an eight hour shift or a 24. No idea where it comes from - it was in a talk we got.
Laws are aboslutes, designed to avoid grey areas - people are big grey areas. There are things which are right and wrong, but in certain circumstances they are more or less right or wrong - I am not saying it should be made legal, just that 'minor' lawbreaking is the norm.
Indidentally, underage drinking may not hurt the alcohol sales, but it tends to affect society adversely (vandalism, teenage pregnancy, etc.).
Now, a few people building a PIX, that's one thing. But putting it onn the front page on slashdot, that's a very different thing. It effectively condones it.
I see you quite spectacularly managed to miss the entire point. Well done. Want to read it again?
I want to drive a porsche. I could never afford one, they cost thousands of pounds more than my budget allows. But I've heard they drive really well, and I'd really like to learm how to drive one - just for handbrake turns and things that I wouldn't do in my regular car.
Well, I can 'download' one effectively for free, and use that instead. I get to have a porsche, I can learn to use one; It's not going to have any effect on the company because I wouldn't have bought one anyway, and as it was a 'copy'. Now I can also learn how to take it apart and put it back together again; hell, I could be a porsche enginerr! So I am really benefitting the company! This way they'll sell more cars, because there's more support from them.
Everyone wins.
There's no difference is there? Both theft; that's what capitalism's all about. Just because you can have it doesn't mean you deserve to. These arguments piss me off.
I realise you can't download a Porsche. So don't make a stupid remark about it. The point remains the same.
Soone or later someone's going to do this instead of buying that porsche, or even worse sell these (identical) copies for less money. Even if porsche doesn't lose any sales, they are no longer an exclusive product - this hurts them in a different way.
Having this story on the front page (or indeed, at all) is an insult to most of the people who read it.
For all the column inches devoted to how the DMCA/RIAA/whoever is immoral, you go and put a link to someone advocating theft. This isn't far from advertising warez... even if the server can handle the traffic, the slashdot effect still allows a lot of eyeballs to see that site.
I disagree with software piracy, and stealing music online; I occasionally do download MP3s, I won't deny it; just as I drank alcohol when I was under 18 (UK), but I would consider myself only a 'minor' user - these files are never on my HDD for too long (I think the record is about a week)
But this is qualitatively and quantatively very different from/. virtually advocating pirating software worth several thousand pounds. In the same way that my underage drinking (which almost everyone does) is very different from advertising and promoting underage drinking.
How can any movement to safeguard our rights be taken seriously with this sort of lunacy? Valenti et al will be rubbing their hands in glee. This is another victory for them - if one of the most popular advocates of free software is advertising piracy, then that reflects very badly on the community as a whole.
And yes, I do consider my MP3 use to be wrong - I'll buy these songs if they release the single but I don't want an album of pricey crap because there's one song ion it I like - I can't wait for services where a comprehensive list of songs can be bought at a reasonable pprice, individually...
This is the meaning as a noun, fucknut. That was the parent's point - is that too hard for you to understand, so you have to prove your (anonymous) ignorance by questioning it? You could just look it up, you know, and save everyone the hassle of having to read your idiocy.
rant
When will the moderators realise that a reply to a post is not offtopic just because it's tangiential to the original topic? This poor guy makes a comment about a sig, and gets modded down for it. Why? Can't you use your mod points for something useful? I mean, really; it's a reply to something the previous poster said; it doesn't matter that is was in his sig; it was still part of his post; otherwise, there would be no sigs.
If it had been funny, it would have been moderated as such. Why should this be any different?
Slashdot Mirror
1. the FSF/GPL has to show it has teeth too, rather than just rolling over and saying "Thanks for stopping the theft"
2. the code has to be shown the same respect as proprietary code (as I said, MS was just an example)
3. commercial companies would almost be expected to sue for this sort of thing
If I change my comment to Sun, or IBM, or Apple, the point remains the same. Yours however becomes quickly irrelevant, so in future reading the meaning rather than just the words might be of benefit.
The license makes it clear. It is not an ambiguous document either.
Amd who said they slipped up? I find it hard to believe that someone, trying to write an application, could 'accidentally' cut and paste code from another application into the correct parts of his own, changing variables to suit his code, and then releasing it as his own work. It is not a simple slip-up.. more a deliberate act. How could this possibly be an honest mistake? If that wasn't enough proof, have you ever tried to cut and paste between two applications in Linux? ;-) I suppose a junior programmer could have done it as well and a senior project manager could have released the app without knowing but that doesn't make it any less wrong
I think it is far more likely that someone saw this as an easy and cheap way to shorten their development cycle. They most likely didn't realise they would get caught - the opportunity to steal the work as well as the temptation are both a large part of this sort of theft.
Imagine how you would feel if you spent years developing something , in collaboration with others, freely allowing others to learn from it and contribute as long as they acknowledged your part and re-invested their knowledge once they had learned from yours. Then someone comes along on a payroll, sees much money for no work, grabs your work and changes the credits. This is more like what happened here.
If you still think that this could be a simple slip-up, try going into you favourite text editor with two different documents open at the same time, each a few pages long. Pick five words in one document, and change them each to an arbitrary word from the other document. Then remove any comments that might imply that this belongs to someone else. Cut out a few sentences you don't like, then re-read it and check it still makes sense.
This is fairly analogous to taking a page of code, changing a few of 'their' variable to the ones you need, stripping some evidence, changing a small amount of it then debugging to check you haven't upset any of the inner workings. Now this is just for one page of work to be taken - the likelihood is that it would be much more.
The article itself is a bit of a non-event - Epson has admitted to using copyrighted code after having it pointed out to them by the FSF. They did the correct thing by pulling the product. They were in the wrong, and have regained some credibility (or even kudos) by behaving in a very humble manner.
On the other hand, they have illegally used someone else's copyrighted code and distributed it. Their admission of guilt does not absolve them from punishment.
Consider if someone (let's say RMS just for fun) used Microsoft's (OK, it doesn't have to be them...) proprietary code in an application he had developed, and then distributed it. If he put up his hands and admitted his mistake, would MS say "OK, good for you for complying with our requests to stop", or would they sue his ass off? I don't know if it would be the latter but I imagine it wouldn't be the former.
The point is that they remain in the wrong - it would be an interesting legal precedent (especially for the GPL) if this was brought up in court. You are within your rights to demand the source code. They are not within their rights to use it. I'd like to see a judge rule on this one...
I wonder if someone could develop an HTML parser then that could compress the code...
Instead of:
<HTML>
<BODY>
blah blah blah <TAG>blah</TAG>
</BODY>
</HTML>
It would just run this through a pre-processor (we could call it the hypertext preprocessor preprocessor, or, GNU style, PHPP) and give us:
<HTML><BODY>blah blah blah <TAG>blah</TAG></BODY></HTML>
Obvioulsy this would be a small saving, but on bigger sites it might provide some benefit (especially database driven sites with heavy HTML output). For debugging it would be no use whatsoever, but as it is a pre-processor you write your code as normal, then via your PHPP app it is put onto your server's doc-root where human eyes might never need to look at it.
I suppose though that it might have to be called a preprocessor postprocessor as the tags would be abbreviated as the last step before sending info to the client. Acronym remains though.
Would it have any actual usefulness? For most, no; but if you were running a large site it means your coders don't need to sacrifice readability as it is all processed behind the scenes; they can still disable it to see the HTML source with line breaks; you could even use much more commenting and longer variable names for readability as it could strip these all out too, just having the absolute minimum file size but producing exactly the same output.
There should be continued support for older software for a reasonable period (No idea what this would be though), so I disagree on that, but It seems a better idea to just run native apps than kludge everything else to the detriment of the system as a whole.
As long as incompatibilities are well-documented, this can only improve the performance of the computer. It's like the difference between running generic binary files compared to optimised ones for your architecture (e.g. why Gentoo linux is much faster if you can get past the install). Those who this would prevent from running software simply don't upgrade. Admittedly this is a gross oversimplification but essentially this just means that everyone involved ha to support all their applications twice.
All your internet are belong to us now
I tried Apache 2 but MySQL/PHP (on windows though - issues with my DSL modem meant I had to switch) when I first learned PHP/HTML/MySQL (about a month ago now...) and it was thoroughly broken. Pages were well screwed. As a beginner it took me ages to realise that the fault was not with my code, but that's another story.
Now, that was a month ago - even with it being improved, it's still not fixed. It will be in time, but why would people change from a stable server to a buggy one? Do you get too many visitors to your site or something?
People will switch when they feel there will be a benefit - at the moment any users are early adopters.
I for one am back with Linux, and Apache 1.3.26, which serves up my pages nicely. It's just a shame that it still won't connect to the internet...
The point is that all of these people felt enough of a sense of loss to organise and respect this gesture - to everyone 'there', it means something, and that is what is important. The guy's dead - it makes no difference to him. His close family and friends will have a regular funeral - it makes no difference to them either. But for his gaming contemporaries who fell they have lost a member of their community, this is a mark of respect that each must feel strongly enough about just to log in / turn up.
The point is that the how is not important - as long as each person who feels they want to show some respect/sorrow does it in a way that they are happy with. It just so happens that this particular one was online in a 'newsworthy' manner.
To take the electrons/waveforms/TCP/IP connection thing further, none of us should care about anything - we are simply by-products of a biological system which is designed to reproduce. But that's not what people see themselves as - we have created morality, religion, and a thousand other things to give meaning to our lives. Nature gives us no such meaning.
These gamers have a strong sense of community, just because they interact and form relationships. The communication is what marks them as friends, rivals, enemies... their friendship is no less valid than a 'traditional' one. Otherwise it could be argued that the wartime radio jockeys (who built up lasting friendships with other radio operators despite never having met) did not have a valid friendship. Or anyone who has met Stephen Hawking since he lost the power of speech. Or any disabled person who cannot communicate 'normally'.
In a few isolated cases, e.g.: high dose / long term steroid therapy (don't pretend that asthma inhaler is doing it!) will cause an increase, much of it water; thyroid disease (reduced (or, more uncommonly, increased) metabolism and therefore calorie use); some problems with absorption will reduce effective calorie intake (and cause weight loss). Other than these and a few very finely printed other things, it's about wha you eat, and how much exercise you do.
America's obesity (75% of the population by 2010 predicted! Woo Hoo!) is related almost directly to the increase in food portion sizes, increased fat and carb content of the diet, and unhealthy diets ('there is no such thing as a good or bad food, only good or bad diets' although I think the deep-fried Mars bar disproves that(although it is tasty..)).
Lack of exercise is also a big contributor - you don't need to do much exercise as long as it is regular - a few miles a week is more than most manage. What's the average, something like 4 hours a day in front of the TV in the US at the moment? I mean, come on - these are the same blobs that say it's their glands.
There are a few cases of illness related obesity (statistically, a tiny number, and also a constant number - this does not explain the increase in the population's weight).
The rest don't do enough exercise, and eat too much. This is proves by thermodynamics, and the modern day citizen's choice of the path of least resistance.
P.S. I like New Balance for running, as well as Asics - not much use for anything else though but they are sort of specialised shoes.
It is a slightly silly argument, but software really has very little comparable 'real-world' product as they all take resources to produce. Although it is annoying to see people taking extreme examples to make a point, on some occasions they can be useful to show something that otherwise cannot really be demonstrated.
Of course, your take on what I have written is slighty tangiential to my point - apart from the resources thing, which was not really the point of balls of the comment but more a side effect of the example. I think the point is still there.
Slashdot debates often have good points pulled apart because of minor flaws that don't really have any bearing on the overall argument - they are often just there to make people think slightly differently. I forgot this when I posted or I might have tried to find a more watertight example. In retrospect, maybe I should just have used Photoshop or something...
What it does show is that it is feasible to do more work in this area - despite its size, people lose interest (although I would imagine this is more to do with wedding-associated alcohol than anything else...) and let it click away without ogling at it - all it is is fairly simple technology appliying simple rules (e.g. face should be in centre or photo or wherever) and then takes a few pictures.
While a lot of these will be crap (same as for a human photographer) what this does allow is more natural photos, where people are not posing, or forcing smiles, or having to hold their smile just a bit too long as the cameraman waits for whatever moment all cameramen seem to thnk comes about 5 seconds after asking everyone to say cheese (don't you hate that?).
So we get lots of natural photos, discard the rest, and end up with some good ones which we might not have achieved with a human.
In the long term, though, this might have much more application - we can get it to recognise terrorists, criminals, finally get the intrusive Minority Report style advertising, and maybe we can train Lewis to recognise cleavage.
Although I suppose we could put all the greenhouse gases into it...
Indidentally, underage drinking may not hurt the alcohol sales, but it tends to affect society adversely (vandalism, teenage pregnancy, etc.).
Now, a few people building a PIX, that's one thing. But putting it onn the front page on slashdot, that's a very different thing. It effectively condones it.
I see you quite spectacularly managed to miss the entire point. Well done. Want to read it again?
Taking those stupid pills again?
I want to drive a porsche. I could never afford one, they cost thousands of pounds more than my budget allows. But I've heard they drive really well, and I'd really like to learm how to drive one - just for handbrake turns and things that I wouldn't do in my regular car.
Well, I can 'download' one effectively for free, and use that instead. I get to have a porsche, I can learn to use one; It's not going to have any effect on the company because I wouldn't have bought one anyway, and as it was a 'copy'. Now I can also learn how to take it apart and put it back together again; hell, I could be a porsche enginerr! So I am really benefitting the company! This way they'll sell more cars, because there's more support from them.
Everyone wins.
There's no difference is there? Both theft; that's what capitalism's all about. Just because you can have it doesn't mean you deserve to. These arguments piss me off.
I realise you can't download a Porsche. So don't make a stupid remark about it. The point remains the same.
Soone or later someone's going to do this instead of buying that porsche, or even worse sell these (identical) copies for less money. Even if porsche doesn't lose any sales, they are no longer an exclusive product - this hurts them in a different way.
For all the column inches devoted to how the DMCA/RIAA/whoever is immoral, you go and put a link to someone advocating theft. This isn't far from advertising warez... even if the server can handle the traffic, the slashdot effect still allows a lot of eyeballs to see that site.
I disagree with software piracy, and stealing music online; I occasionally do download MP3s, I won't deny it; just as I drank alcohol when I was under 18 (UK), but I would consider myself only a 'minor' user - these files are never on my HDD for too long (I think the record is about a week)
But this is qualitatively and quantatively very different from
How can any movement to safeguard our rights be taken seriously with this sort of lunacy? Valenti et al will be rubbing their hands in glee. This is another victory for them - if one of the most popular advocates of free software is advertising piracy, then that reflects very badly on the community as a whole.
And yes, I do consider my MP3 use to be wrong - I'll buy these songs if they release the single but I don't want an album of pricey crap because there's one song ion it I like - I can't wait for services where a comprehensive list of songs can be bought at a reasonable pprice, individually...
If that's a word...
When will the moderators realise that a reply to a post is not offtopic just because it's tangiential to the original topic? This poor guy makes a comment about a sig, and gets modded down for it. Why? Can't you use your mod points for something useful? I mean, really; it's a reply to something the previous poster said; it doesn't matter that is was in his sig; it was still part of his post; otherwise, there would be no sigs.
If it had been funny, it would have been moderated as such. Why should this be any different?
Just about all I remember from studying psychiatry at med school....