"If this is accurate, then I honestly feel this is a bad idea. One of the strengths of the GPL is its ability to bring people in, while still enforcing the idea of Free (as in Freedom)"
The GPL has always been about control, not freedom. The GPL actually sets limits on freedom. Specifically, the GPL is about free access to source code, at the expense of the freedom to sell modifed code without revealing changes to source.
Adding rules against software patents and anti-piracy technology will be the death of GPL. Linus has already said that he does not dictate what people do with linux, including using DRM technologies. Free software will not be useful for consumer technologies without DRM, since content producers will not budge on this. Therefore, GPL will be abandoned for these apps.
Software patents are here, and there is the occasional reasonable one (such as mp3 patent). So companies are going to patent software, for defensive purposes, if for no other reason. If you tell them they can't they will find other non-GPL software, rather than risk multi-million dollar lawsuits to save a few bucks.
I thought the idea of GPL was to promote freedom. I knew this was bs before, and now here's more proof. GPL is about control, controlling what you can do with software that was "given" to you. Now they want to increase that control with these new rules to further push their agenda. GPL is not free as in speech. That phrase doesn't even make sense as an analogy.
" Microsoft can't keep buying the U.S. government off forever; eventually, someone is going to assume the U.S. presidency who will actually allow the department of justice to enforce antitrust law and hold it for long enough for a case against Microsoft to be litigated."
So when is Apple going to be prosecuted for anti-trust violations? Rio just got put out of business. Apple is clearly leveraging two monopolies to strengthen each. Where's the justice? As you say: "remember that monopolies hurt markets"
"Is it possible that Bill Gates' recent lament over the decline of US CS graduates and research spending was merely crocodile tears?"
Maybe Microsoft is searching for talent in China because the talent doesn't exist in the US in large enough numbers, which is why Bill Gates laments that there's not enough CS graduates in the US. I don't see the hypocrisy here.
Maybe this technology will push out Hubbert;s peak by a couple of decades, giving us time to produce better technology to take advantage of renewable sources of energy
"Of course the counterpoint to that is that by hiding the information, the government can get away with not replacing the faulty body armour on the basis that nobody's going to find out about the flaws."
When troops come back in body bags, you can't really keep something like that a secret. People start investigating.
"In the pdf is a graph of year vs. number of declassified and classified pages. The Clinton years are the only years since 1980 where more pages were declassified than new pages classified."
I think there's a strong correlation to the end of the cold war and the lack of understanding of the magnitude of terrorist threats with the trend you've noticed.
"Depends on your definition of "works", I suppose. Raw capitalism "works" in the same way that Darwinian evolution "works" -- the strongest (and most brutal) players prey on the rest until they've squeezed every last drop of money out of them. Eventually, you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly with control over everything, and everyone else is a wage slave under their control."
Any economist will tell you you're full of crap. Monopolies only occur in markets with a barrier to entry, either natural or man-made. In all other cases, equivalent products are produced by competing firms whose profit margin approaches zero.
"Automatic numbering is one of the clumsiest parts of Word and should be left out of this comparison since it sucking in OO just makes it the same as Word. Tables of contents are pretty shambolic in Word too. Try embedding a Visio flowchart in Word then generating a TOC and it creates a copy of the Visio chart as a TOC entry. I mean who the hell thought that piece of genius up."
Don't blame Word because you don't know how to use it, which is clear to anyone who actually does from your comment.
"If Microsoft cannot fix the security holes then they should opensouce it so it gets fixed by the Linux community. Microsoft can still sell software and support. "
Linux software isn't secure. Why do you think Linux programmers can make Windows secure?
"CNN has a special page contrasting the statements of officials about how great things are going versus the reality. Read the article here."
If you actually read the article, there isn't much contradiction. It's more like The feds keep saying they're not going to comment since they don't know what's going on, or they've heard that too, so they're going to try and do something about it.
There was a lot of looting after the collapse of the Iraqi govt. after the US invasion. You'd think they'd have learned from that that without security services in areas with poor people, looting and violence will occur. It's the same thing in New Orleans all over again.
"The Patent Office can only issue based on what is available, so it will be up to Apple to prove, if it can, that its interface was documented and notarized before Creative."
Why the hell does everybody assume Apple had the idea first, especially when Creative was in the market long before Apple.
And yes I agree it's a stupid patent, so it should be struck down.
I have no proble with reverse engineering. I know how the pc clone market started. My only point is that people love to blame corporations for DRM and other piracy countermeasures, and then defend the pirates at every turn when they get caught. The reality is/. editors and the EFF do everything but outright endorse piracy, except for GPLed software. Every time the RIAA rightly sues someone for copyright infringement, there's sure to be an article of outrage on/.
"Trying to crack down on piracy in this manner ignores the legitimate use of bnetd. That's the problem. They're not going after piracy - they're going after legitimate applications that they don't like."
Why would they care about bnetd, since they provide the same service for free, except for piracy abuse? Companies don't spend money on legal action unless its hurting their bottom line.
If you read the actual transcript, the judges gives her some time to find a lawyer. The only other interesting thing is that outside negotiations are off the table, and instead must go through the court now. BTW, sounds like a sons friend used her computer so the RIAA probably identified the right computer.
"Surprise surprise. The DMCA was written by big corporations to protect them from competition (especially open source.) Now, if you write a program that works with another commercial program, good luck, especially if that program threatens a coveted corporate market with competition."
Surprise, surprise. A/.er blaming evil corporations because they've cracked down on piracy, instead of blaming the software pirates who caused the mess in the 1st place. This has nothing to do with competition. They offer online game play for free.
"A comparison between data copying and physical theft is always going to be wrong. There are good reasons that it's not good to download the stuff, but comparing it to swiping materials is just going to make you look dumb to the majority of Slashdot.'
If you lower the value of someone's product by giving away copies for free, aren't you stealing something from the author/artist?
It's no surprise that Linux TCO is lowest for servers, since Windows server software is expensive. Also no surprise that Sun is even higher, given what they charge for their hardware. So what about the desktop, and what ever happened with IBM's plan to dump Windows on desktops in-house?
So was this bad press for Creative dupe put here as revenge because the editors love Apple and hate any company that would dare challenge Apple, especially with a frivolous patent?
"I do have another question though - Why don't consumers buying/wearing fake branded products get arrested?"
They don't sue downloaders, only uploaders, so why would they arrest people wearing illegal knock-offs products? Uploaders are not consumers, they are competitors to the movie industry, just like the guy selling home-made DVDs of movies on the street corner.
"nobody "HAS" to use DRM. If publishers don't want to publish without DRM that's their problem, libraries can simply refuse to publish their stuff in that format, and can stick with good old cd's which will play anywhere."
So why does Apple use DRM? They don't have to either, right? The Libraries would gladly supply iPod compatible DRM'ed audio books if Apple let them. Why are you dodging the issue?
"I see, so there is an easy WMA solution for linux? apple? which doesn't involve infringing on microsoft's patents/copyrights through unauthorized DLL's/reverse engineering?
Don't give me that "there's wmp for mac" garbage. wmp for mac is a virus and also has a nasty tendency to cause kernel panics. "
I didn't say there is currently a solution. Apple could license WMA and make it compatible with their Macs, but they don't want to. Any company can license WMA and make a compatible player for a linux box, but no company has done so because it is unlikely to make any money, given Linux users are used to free as in beer software. Many companies make mp3 players that support WMA.
The point is that it isn't even possible for a company other than Apple to produced DRM'ed audio for the iPod. Anybody who wants to pay the licensing fee can make WMA compatible software for any device
"In other news, the MPAA, RIAA, and similar organizations are still stumbling around like friggin morons, trying to kill all file sharing because it is fundamentally evil. God fobrbid they change their business model to avoid becoming obsolete."
In other news, Congress repeals all laws regarding theft. Shopowners are told that shoplifting is now legal, and they should change their obsolete business model.
"So because Apple failed to patent its own interface, then that means the first one to the Patent Office doors gets to patent it?"
Apple was not the 1st company to develop an mp3 player. Creative beat them to the market with a player as well as a patent.
from the article ""The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our Nomad Jukebox MP3 player," said Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo.
"The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent." "
"I though I would never see a good use for DRM but I could actually get behind and support this. The one problem it brings through is your locked into Windows. It wouldn't be such a problem if the companies got togeter and created one standarized DRM scheme that everyone could use, but no, that would be too perfect a world."
WMA can be licensed by anyone wanting to provide software for any device, including a Linux box, a Mac, and an iPod. Apple, on the other hand is not so open with licensing Fairplay.
I agree an open DRM standard would be nice, but would be too easy to abuse, since knowing the standard, one could write software to unlock DRMed maerial and transform it into non-DRM material.
"Nearly 28 million portable audio players were sold last year, according to In-Stat, a technology research company. With more than 21 million sold, the iPod remains the signature portable player. But it uses the Advanced Audio Coding format with FairPlay, its own digital rights management system and one incompatible with Windows' technology."
Libraries need to use DRM to prevent being sued by publishers. Libraries cannot use software compatible with Apple Fairplay because Apple refuses to license this technology. Therefore, Apple screws it's customers once again with their lock-in practices. Thanks Steve for not letting me check out audio books for my iPod.
What's annoying is the article casts the technolofy as Windows technology, when WMA has nothing that specifically requires Windows use.
Slashdot Mirror
"If this is accurate, then I honestly feel this is a bad idea. One of the strengths of the GPL is its ability to bring people in, while still enforcing the idea of Free (as in Freedom)"
The GPL has always been about control, not freedom. The GPL actually sets limits on freedom. Specifically, the GPL is about free access to source code, at the expense of the freedom to sell modifed code without revealing changes to source.
Adding rules against software patents and anti-piracy technology will be the death of GPL. Linus has already said that he does not dictate what people do with linux, including using DRM technologies. Free software will not be useful for consumer technologies without DRM, since content producers will not budge on this. Therefore, GPL will be abandoned for these apps.
Software patents are here, and there is the occasional reasonable one (such as mp3 patent). So companies are going to patent software, for defensive purposes, if for no other reason. If you tell them they can't they will find other non-GPL software, rather than risk multi-million dollar lawsuits to save a few bucks.
I thought the idea of GPL was to promote freedom. I knew this was bs before, and now here's more proof. GPL is about control, controlling what you can do with software that was "given" to you. Now they want to increase that control with these new rules to further push their agenda. GPL is not free as in speech. That phrase doesn't even make sense as an analogy.
" Microsoft can't keep buying the U.S. government off forever; eventually, someone is going to assume the U.S. presidency who will actually allow the department of justice to enforce antitrust law and hold it for long enough for a case against Microsoft to be litigated."
So when is Apple going to be prosecuted for anti-trust violations? Rio just got put out of business. Apple is clearly leveraging two monopolies to strengthen each. Where's the justice? As you say:
"remember that monopolies hurt markets"
get a clue.
"Is it possible that Bill Gates' recent lament over the decline of US CS graduates and research spending was merely crocodile tears?"
Maybe Microsoft is searching for talent in China because the talent doesn't exist in the US in large enough numbers, which is why Bill Gates laments that there's not enough CS graduates in the US. I don't see the hypocrisy here.
Maybe this technology will push out Hubbert;s peak by a couple of decades, giving us time to produce better technology to take advantage of renewable sources of energy
"Of course the counterpoint to that is that by hiding the information, the government can get away with not replacing the faulty body armour on the basis that nobody's going to find out about the flaws."
When troops come back in body bags, you can't really keep something like that a secret. People start investigating.
"In the pdf is a graph of year vs. number of declassified and classified pages. The Clinton years are the only years since 1980 where more pages were declassified than new pages classified."
I think there's a strong correlation to the end of the cold war and the lack of understanding of the magnitude of terrorist threats with the trend you've noticed.
"Depends on your definition of "works", I suppose. Raw capitalism "works" in the same way that Darwinian evolution "works" -- the strongest (and most brutal) players prey on the rest until they've squeezed every last drop of money out of them. Eventually, you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly with control over everything, and everyone else is a wage slave under their control."
Any economist will tell you you're full of crap. Monopolies only occur in markets with a barrier to entry, either natural or man-made. In all other cases, equivalent products are produced by competing firms whose profit margin approaches zero.
"Automatic numbering is one of the clumsiest parts of Word and should be left out of this comparison since it sucking in OO just makes it the same as Word.
Tables of contents are pretty shambolic in Word too. Try embedding a Visio flowchart in Word then generating a TOC and it creates a copy of the Visio chart as a TOC entry. I mean who the hell thought that piece of genius up."
Don't blame Word because you don't know how to use it, which is clear to anyone who actually does from your comment.
"If Microsoft cannot fix the security holes then they should opensouce it so it gets fixed by the Linux community. Microsoft can still sell software and support.
"
Linux software isn't secure. Why do you think Linux programmers can make Windows secure?
"CNN has a special page contrasting the statements of officials about how great things are going versus the reality. Read the article here."
If you actually read the article, there isn't much contradiction. It's more like The feds keep saying they're not going to comment since they don't know what's going on, or they've heard that too, so they're going to try and do something about it.
There was a lot of looting after the collapse of the Iraqi govt. after the US invasion. You'd think they'd have learned from that that without security services in areas with poor people, looting and violence will occur. It's the same thing in New Orleans all over again.
"The Patent Office can only issue based on what is available, so it will be up to Apple to prove, if it can, that its interface was documented and notarized before Creative."
Why the hell does everybody assume Apple had the idea first, especially when Creative was in the market long before Apple.
And yes I agree it's a stupid patent, so it should be struck down.
I have no proble with reverse engineering. I know how the pc clone market started. My only point is that people love to blame corporations for DRM and other piracy countermeasures, and then defend the pirates at every turn when they get caught. The reality is /. editors and the EFF do everything but outright endorse piracy, except for GPLed software. Every time the RIAA rightly sues someone for copyright infringement, there's sure to be an article of outrage on /.
"Trying to crack down on piracy in this manner ignores the legitimate use of bnetd. That's the problem. They're not going after piracy - they're going after legitimate applications that they don't like."
Why would they care about bnetd, since they provide the same service for free, except for piracy abuse? Companies don't spend money on legal action unless its hurting their bottom line.
If you read the actual transcript, the judges gives her some time to find a lawyer. The only other interesting thing is that outside negotiations are off the table, and instead must go through the court now. BTW, sounds like a sons friend used her computer so the RIAA probably identified the right computer.
"Surprise surprise. The DMCA was written by big corporations to protect them from competition (especially open source.) Now, if you write a program that works with another commercial program, good luck, especially if that program threatens a coveted corporate market with competition."
/.er blaming evil corporations because they've cracked down on piracy, instead of blaming the software pirates who caused the mess in the 1st place. This has nothing to do with competition. They offer online game play for free.
Surprise, surprise. A
"A comparison between data copying and physical theft is always going to be wrong. There are good reasons that it's not good to download the stuff, but comparing it to swiping materials is just going to make you look dumb to the majority of Slashdot.'
If you lower the value of someone's product by giving away copies for free, aren't you stealing something from the author/artist?
It's no surprise that Linux TCO is lowest for servers, since Windows server software is expensive. Also no surprise that Sun is even higher, given what they charge for their hardware. So what about the desktop, and what ever happened with IBM's plan to dump Windows on desktops in-house?
So was this bad press for Creative dupe put here as revenge because the editors love Apple and hate any company that would dare challenge Apple, especially with a frivolous patent?
"I do have another question though - Why don't consumers buying/wearing fake branded products get arrested?"
They don't sue downloaders, only uploaders, so why would they arrest people wearing illegal knock-offs products? Uploaders are not consumers, they are competitors to the movie industry, just like the guy selling home-made DVDs of movies on the street corner.
"nobody "HAS" to use DRM. If publishers don't want to publish without DRM that's their problem, libraries can simply refuse to publish their stuff in that format, and can stick with good old cd's which will play anywhere."
So why does Apple use DRM? They don't have to either, right? The Libraries would gladly supply iPod compatible DRM'ed audio books if Apple let them. Why are you dodging the issue?
"I see, so there is an easy WMA solution for linux? apple? which doesn't involve infringing on microsoft's patents/copyrights through unauthorized DLL's/reverse engineering?
Don't give me that "there's wmp for mac" garbage. wmp for mac is a virus and also has a nasty tendency to cause kernel panics.
"
I didn't say there is currently a solution. Apple could license WMA and make it compatible with their Macs, but they don't want to. Any company can license WMA and make a compatible player for a linux box, but no company has done so because it is unlikely to make any money, given Linux users are used to free as in beer software. Many companies make mp3 players that support WMA.
The point is that it isn't even possible for a company other than Apple to produced DRM'ed audio for the iPod. Anybody who wants to pay the licensing fee can make WMA compatible software for any device
"In other news, the MPAA, RIAA, and similar organizations are still stumbling around like friggin morons, trying to kill all file sharing because it is fundamentally evil. God fobrbid they change their business model to avoid becoming obsolete."
In other news, Congress repeals all laws regarding theft. Shopowners are told that shoplifting is now legal, and they should change their obsolete business model.
"So because Apple failed to patent its own interface, then that means the first one to the Patent Office doors gets to patent it?"
Apple was not the 1st company to develop an mp3 player. Creative beat them to the market with a player as well as a patent.
from the article
""The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our Nomad Jukebox MP3 player," said Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo.
"The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent." "
"I though I would never see a good use for DRM but I could actually get behind and support this. The one problem it brings through is your locked into Windows. It wouldn't be such a problem if the companies got togeter and created one standarized DRM scheme that everyone could use, but no, that would be too perfect a world."
WMA can be licensed by anyone wanting to provide software for any device, including a Linux box, a Mac, and an iPod. Apple, on the other hand is not so open with licensing Fairplay.
I agree an open DRM standard would be nice, but would be too easy to abuse, since knowing the standard, one could write software to unlock DRMed maerial and transform it into non-DRM material.
"Nearly 28 million portable audio players were sold last year, according to In-Stat, a technology research company. With more than 21 million sold, the iPod remains the signature portable player. But it uses the Advanced Audio Coding format with FairPlay, its own digital rights management system and one incompatible with Windows' technology."
Libraries need to use DRM to prevent being sued by publishers. Libraries cannot use software compatible with Apple Fairplay because Apple refuses to license this technology. Therefore, Apple screws it's customers once again with their lock-in practices. Thanks Steve for not letting me check out audio books for my iPod.
What's annoying is the article casts the technolofy as Windows technology, when WMA has nothing that specifically requires Windows use.