"Suppose I bought some Real music, and only intended to play it on my iPod. Now suppose Apple wants to update the iPod, and that update happens to break Real's hack. Now my music doesn't play as Real promised it would - how is that positive?
I've worked at Apple; we tried to keep things backwards compatible even with 3rd party stuff or OS versions not officially supported - I kept Java working on 8.5 for several releases after it was officially dropped - but when it becomes impossible, the new feature wins. But that was for products we liked; even if Steve wasn't pissed off, I can't see any engineers bending over backwards to help Real"
Substitute Microsoft for every instance of Apple, Windows PC for every instance of iPod, OSS for every instance of Real, and Bill for Steve, and everyone with think your post is flaimbait.
Tube amps are good for guitar amplifiers because in this case the amplifier is going to be driven into distortion, where tube amps sound better. For simply reproducing a recording, however, the amplifier itself is operating in a normal range, and either tubes or solid stae transistors should have similar amplification qualities.
"The film is classified as a documentary. Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do."
Name another documentary not reporting on technology that made the front page of/./. has lost objectivity by going out of its way to promote this film.
This place is and always has been about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters to CmdrTaco". He's always posted whatever's of interest to him. I see no reason this should be different."
Michael Moore himself says the film is not fair, and is basically an op/ed piece. So if CmdrTaco is interested in politics on this sight, he at least should make an attempt at some balance, instead of posting stories about one left wing movie. The books by Bob Woodward and Richard Clark are much better references on this issue, and didn't get any attention on/.
"In fact, why doesn't Bush and his friends just outlaw Michael Moore's movies if the Bill of Rights only applies to "corporate conglomorates and their friends"?
Because they can do it much more sneakily by having their coroporate conglomerate buddies buy the theater chains. Whether Loews will show the movie remains to be seen."
Yes. Even Ray Bradbury must have been bought out by the military-industrial complex, given his rhetoric:
Ray Bradbury: "Michael Moore is an asshole"
Michael Moore stole the title to his fictuous documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" from author Ray Bradbury (picture), who in 1953 wrote his dystopic scifi classic "Fahrenheit 451." So what does Ray Bradbury, now 84 years old, think about Moore using his book title for his Bush-bashing movie project?
The answer is, as journalists in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter found out when they called the author, that he is mighty pissed off. Here's my translation of the juicier bits of the interview.
"Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case. He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission.
Have you spoken to him?
- He is a horrible human being. Horrible human!
That Ray Bradbury thought Moore could take his Palme d'Or from Cannes and stuff it was extremely clear, even if he never expressed himself with those words, when DN reached the author in his home in Los Angeles. [...]
Do you disagree with his opinions...
-That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title, that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions.
Bradbury said that he had tried to discuss the issue with Moore, but that the director avoided him.
- I called his publisher. They promised he would call me the same afternoon, but he didn't.
When was that?
- A few months ago, when his plans about the movie was first made known.
The conversation touched politics when Bradbury mentioned that Moore had ruined general Wesley Clark's chances to become the democrat's presidential candidate. Like several American commentators Bradbury means that Moore's support to Clark was a kiss of death when Clark did not distance himself from Moore's claim that Bush deserted from his military service.
- He slandered the president to general Clark, and Clark allowed him to do it. Clark should have said: "Don't say that. It is not true." That day Clark lost his chance to become president.
I understand. And you supported general Clark?
- No. I support honesty.
According to Bradbury others have asked him about Moore's use of his title, but "I don't want to make a big story out of it."
- I detest all paparazzi journalism that is so common these days. If I just could make him change his title silently, that would be the best thing.
Do you think that is possible, I mean the movie is very famous under that title now?
- Who cares? Nobody will see his movie, it is almost dead already. Nevermind, nobody cares.
But it won the Palme d'Or in Cannes?
- So what? I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d'Or. It's a meaningless prize.
Ray Bradbury was very clear that he considered Moore a dishonest thief, but refused to answer if he would press charges in any way.
"So if I come in your living room and start shouting and then you try to kick me out, are my first amendment rights being violated? After all, you have no constitutional right to a quiet living room, just a desire."
Your analogy sucks. A better analogy: If you invite someone into your home, and he says something you don't like, that's not illegal. A virus, which is more akin to what you're describing, is illegal.
"Naw -- While it's true that I've sworn at emacs because I didn't know how to get it to do something, and I've sworn at vi for not having a feature I wanted, this is rather different than swearing at Word for not doing what you tell it to do."
In my experience, most people who swear at Word for not doing what they want it to, also are really swearing at it because they don't know how to get it to do what they want.
As for stability, Word97 has been nearly flawless. The only stability problems I've seen with Word are on older Macs.
"by eliminating the possibility of ENVY and GREED. "
Trying to eliminate greed is ike trying to eliminate anger. Anger can be a good thing, if it motivates you to fight against an injustice, for instance. Similarly, greed can be a good thing, if it motivates you to start a business and develop and sell a product that people want, for instance. Technology has improved the standard of living tremedously, and technological innovation is fueled to a great degree, by greed.
"There is nothing wrong in this, and anyone propogating hate materials is going to be on the receiving end of the punishment meted out by the law to keep our society a safe one (or 'safer', rather)."
I disagree. There is a big difference between shouting "fire!" in a theater or threatening to kill the president, and making a racist statement. When you allow the government to censor speech, you allow it to stop the spread of ideas, which sounds good at first when applied to racism. But if you give the govt. that power, how do you know they won't start using it to censor other forms of speech the govt. doesn't like, such as protesting an unpopular war. Censorship is a bad idea. The only sppech that should be a crime is a command that causes harm to another individual, not an expression of an opinion.
"I think that all publicly funded software (except that with a security concern) should be released under the GPL. The people paid to have it made, the people should be the ones to benefit from it."
Those people include businessmen who have a right to use it as they please GPL is too restrictive. Release it into public domain.
"It does not unfairly favor any users, just certain uses. These uses are fundamentally antisocial and ought to be discouraged whenever possible."
The US is based on individual rights, not socialism. If the govt. told you what you were doing was not in the best interest of society, you would scream bloody murder about how your rights were being violated. But when it's someone who you don't like, you seem to have no problem laying down the law about what their rights are, and telling them how they should run their lives.
"it just stops people profiting with certain types of business model that abuse people's freedom."
There is no possible way for a business that simply offers a product to abuse your freedom. If you don't like what they offer, you can always go somewhere else. Your arguement is irrational. The only abuse of freedom is that of the govt. by restricting what taxpayers can do with software they paid for.
The govt. shouldn't be wasting my tax money hanging pullies. They should only be paying for software that they need internally. If they find it's useful to others, and they decide to release it, they should place no restrictions on the source code.
"Government paves a road. Private firm comes along and paints diamonds on one lane of that road....and tells you that you can no longer use the "SPECIAL LANE" without paying. GPL > BSD style for govt funded projects.....if the *base* of the code was government funded, derivative projects shouldn't be closed."
This is a completely irrational arguement. The carpool lane exists as govt. law, and has nothing to do with private companies. The govt. doesn't build roads, and then say they can only be used by private citizens, not companies for business purposes. The govt. should not be restricting software uses since we all paid for it, so we all own it and can do what we please with it. The US was not founded on principles of socialism, and I'm tired of people trying to change the US into that sort of country.
It's not the govt's business to be writing software for the public. If they happen to write some software that's useful for the govt. and the public, and want to release it, they shouldn't restrict it's use. The US govt. isn't a charity for free software. It's owned by all US citizens, who should have the freedom to use the software as they wish.
How is this a troll? The govt. shouldn't be spending taxpayer money on sw, and then putting arbitrary restrictions on how the sw is released, just because socialists like RMS think it's a good idea. I second the parent, only BSD style licensing please. Any ture libertarian will agree as well (assuming they even thing the govt. should be spending money developing sw in the 1st place).
If taxpayer dollars support software development, it should be released to the public domain, without the additional restrictions imposed by the GPL. People should be able to modify and sell the code without having to release their modified source.
so people can watch good quality streaming video. Not sure why someone would want video on a portable device that size, otherwise. Streaming audio would be cool on an mp3 player too, and 3G would probably be good enough. Cell phones probaby already have this feature,
"Secondly, enough distribution and advertising to become a hot item without the major labels in our current culture is near impossible due to several things:"
This is not true. A large number of artists start out on small independent labels, and then sign on to one of the big 5 as their popoularity increases and they want more exposure. REM is one example I can think of off-hand. They used to be on IRS, then they moved to Warner Bros.
"2) An absolute stranglehold on the lawmaking institution due to heavy political lobbying."
When it's considered a crime for a label to pay for a radio station to play their song, that's hardly a stranglehold on politiicans. It seems more like a first amendment violation, and certainly an attack on free trade.
Yes, they can sign the contract or not sign it. Free trade requires an agreement between both parties. Either side can accept or walk away. Neither side should have the right to force the other side to agree to something they don't want./. doesn't get it though. Most people here think the artists are getting a raw deal but never bother to mentioned the took the deals by choice, and thought it was better than working in fast food.
What is wrong is US law. It's a serious infringement on free trade to not allow a record label to pay a radio station to play their songs. What happened to freedom in this country?
Slashdot Mirror
What's your opinion on Lexmark locking out competition for compatible ink cartridges?
"Suppose I bought some Real music, and only intended to play it on my iPod. Now suppose Apple wants to update the iPod, and that update happens to break Real's hack. Now my music doesn't play as Real promised it would - how is that positive?
I've worked at Apple; we tried to keep things backwards compatible even with 3rd party stuff or OS versions not officially supported - I kept Java working on 8.5 for several releases after it was officially dropped - but when it becomes impossible, the new feature wins. But that was for products we liked; even if Steve wasn't pissed off, I can't see any engineers bending over backwards to help Real"
Substitute Microsoft for every instance of Apple, Windows PC for every instance of iPod, OSS for every instance of Real, and Bill for Steve, and everyone with think your post is flaimbait.
If you think Apple is right on this one, but cursed Lexmark for not allowing other people to sell compatible ink cartridges.
and the whole telecom sector went bankrupt because no one was willing to pay for it. Remember the internet bubble burst?
Tube amps are good for guitar amplifiers because in this case the amplifier is going to be driven into distortion, where tube amps sound better. For simply reproducing a recording, however, the amplifier itself is operating in a normal range, and either tubes or solid stae transistors should have similar amplification qualities.
"However, the illegal break-in happened before he was hired by Microsoft. The question is, did Microsoft know anything about it? "
Yeah, I'm sure that was a bullet item on his resume.
"The film is classified as a documentary. Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do."
/. /. has lost objectivity by going out of its way to promote this film.
Name another documentary not reporting on technology that made the front page of
" Not at all.
/.
This place is and always has been about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters to CmdrTaco". He's always posted whatever's of interest to him. I see no reason this should be different."
Michael Moore himself says the film is not fair, and is basically an op/ed piece. So if CmdrTaco is interested in politics on this sight, he at least should make an attempt at some balance, instead of posting stories about one left wing movie. The books by Bob Woodward and Richard Clark are much better references on this issue, and didn't get any attention on
"In fact, why doesn't Bush and his friends just outlaw Michael Moore's movies if the Bill of Rights only applies to "corporate conglomorates and their friends"?
Because they can do it much more sneakily by having their coroporate conglomerate buddies buy the theater chains. Whether Loews will show the movie remains to be seen."
Yes. Even Ray Bradbury must have been bought out by the military-industrial complex, given his rhetoric:
Ray Bradbury: "Michael Moore is an asshole"
Michael Moore stole the title to his fictuous documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" from author Ray Bradbury (picture), who in 1953 wrote his dystopic scifi classic "Fahrenheit 451." So what does Ray Bradbury, now 84 years old, think about Moore using his book title for his Bush-bashing movie project?
The answer is, as journalists in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter found out when they called the author, that he is mighty pissed off. Here's my translation of the juicier bits of the interview.
"Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case. He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission.
Have you spoken to him?
- He is a horrible human being. Horrible human!
That Ray Bradbury thought Moore could take his Palme d'Or from Cannes and stuff it was extremely clear, even if he never expressed himself with those words, when DN reached the author in his home in Los Angeles. [...]
Do you disagree with his opinions...
-That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title, that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions.
Bradbury said that he had tried to discuss the issue with Moore, but that the director avoided him.
- I called his publisher. They promised he would call me the same afternoon, but he didn't.
When was that?
- A few months ago, when his plans about the movie was first made known.
The conversation touched politics when Bradbury mentioned that Moore had ruined general Wesley Clark's chances to become the democrat's presidential candidate. Like several American commentators Bradbury means that Moore's support to Clark was a kiss of death when Clark did not distance himself from Moore's claim that Bush deserted from his military service.
- He slandered the president to general Clark, and Clark allowed him to do it. Clark should have said: "Don't say that. It is not true." That day Clark lost his chance to become president.
I understand. And you supported general Clark?
- No. I support honesty.
According to Bradbury others have asked him about Moore's use of his title, but "I don't want to make a big story out of it."
- I detest all paparazzi journalism that is so common these days. If I just could make him change his title silently, that would be the best thing.
Do you think that is possible, I mean the movie is very famous under that title now?
- Who cares? Nobody will see his movie, it is almost dead already. Nevermind, nobody cares.
But it won the Palme d'Or in Cannes?
- So what? I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d'Or. It's a meaningless prize.
Ray Bradbury was very clear that he considered Moore a dishonest thief, but refused to answer if he would press charges in any way.
"So if I come in your living room and start shouting and then you try to kick me out, are my first amendment rights being violated? After all, you have no constitutional right to a quiet living room, just a desire."
Your analogy sucks. A better analogy: If you invite someone into your home, and he says something you don't like, that's not illegal. A virus, which is more akin to what you're describing, is illegal.
"Naw -- While it's true that I've sworn at emacs because I didn't know how to get it to do something, and I've sworn at vi for not having a feature I wanted, this is rather different than swearing at Word for not doing what you tell it to do."
In my experience, most people who swear at Word for not doing what they want it to, also are really swearing at it because they don't know how to get it to do what they want.
As for stability, Word97 has been nearly flawless. The only stability problems I've seen with Word are on older Macs.
"by eliminating the possibility of ENVY and GREED. "
Trying to eliminate greed is ike trying to eliminate anger. Anger can be a good thing, if it motivates you to fight against an injustice, for instance. Similarly, greed can be a good thing, if it motivates you to start a business and develop and sell a product that people want, for instance. Technology has improved the standard of living tremedously, and technological innovation is fueled to a great degree, by greed.
"There is nothing wrong in this, and anyone propogating hate materials is going to be on the receiving end of the punishment meted out by the law to keep our society a safe one (or 'safer', rather)."
I disagree. There is a big difference between shouting "fire!" in a theater or threatening to kill the president, and making a racist statement. When you allow the government to censor speech, you allow it to stop the spread of ideas, which sounds good at first when applied to racism. But if you give the govt. that power, how do you know they won't start using it to censor other forms of speech the govt. doesn't like, such as protesting an unpopular war. Censorship is a bad idea. The only sppech that should be a crime is a command that causes harm to another individual, not an expression of an opinion.
"I think that all publicly funded software (except that with a security concern) should be released under the GPL. The people paid to have it made, the people should be the ones to benefit from it."
Those people include businessmen who have a right to use it as they please GPL is too restrictive. Release it into public domain.
"It does not unfairly favor any users, just certain uses. These uses are fundamentally antisocial and ought to be discouraged whenever possible."
The US is based on individual rights, not socialism. If the govt. told you what you were doing was not in the best interest of society, you would scream bloody murder about how your rights were being violated. But when it's someone who you don't like, you seem to have no problem laying down the law about what their rights are, and telling them how they should run their lives.
"it just stops people profiting with certain types of business model that abuse people's freedom."
There is no possible way for a business that simply offers a product to abuse your freedom. If you don't like what they offer, you can always go somewhere else. Your arguement is irrational. The only abuse of freedom is that of the govt. by restricting what taxpayers can do with software they paid for.
The govt. shouldn't be wasting my tax money hanging pullies. They should only be paying for software that they need internally. If they find it's useful to others, and they decide to release it, they should place no restrictions on the source code.
"Government paves a road. Private firm comes along and paints diamonds on one lane of that road....and tells you that you can no longer use the "SPECIAL LANE" without paying. GPL > BSD style for govt funded projects.....if the *base* of the code was government funded, derivative projects shouldn't be closed."
This is a completely irrational arguement. The carpool lane exists as govt. law, and has nothing to do with private companies. The govt. doesn't build roads, and then say they can only be used by private citizens, not companies for business purposes. The govt. should not be restricting software uses since we all paid for it, so we all own it and can do what we please with it. The US was not founded on principles of socialism, and I'm tired of people trying to change the US into that sort of country.
It's not the govt's business to be writing software for the public. If they happen to write some software that's useful for the govt. and the public, and want to release it, they shouldn't restrict it's use. The US govt. isn't a charity for free software. It's owned by all US citizens, who should have the freedom to use the software as they wish.
How is this a troll? The govt. shouldn't be spending taxpayer money on sw, and then putting arbitrary restrictions on how the sw is released, just because socialists like RMS think it's a good idea. I second the parent, only BSD style licensing please. Any ture libertarian will agree as well (assuming they even thing the govt. should be spending money developing sw in the 1st place).
If taxpayer dollars support software development, it should be released to the public domain, without the additional restrictions imposed by the GPL. People should be able to modify and sell the code without having to release their modified source.
so people can watch good quality streaming video. Not sure why someone would want video on a portable device that size, otherwise. Streaming audio would be cool on an mp3 player too, and 3G would probably be good enough. Cell phones probaby already have this feature,
"Secondly, enough distribution and advertising to become a hot item without the major labels in our current culture is near impossible due to several things:"
This is not true. A large number of artists start out on small independent labels, and then sign on to one of the big 5 as their popoularity increases and they want more exposure. REM is one example I can think of off-hand. They used to be on IRS, then they moved to Warner Bros.
"2) An absolute stranglehold on the lawmaking institution due to heavy political lobbying."
When it's considered a crime for a label to pay for a radio station to play their song, that's hardly a stranglehold on politiicans. It seems more like a first amendment violation, and certainly an attack on free trade.
"Do artists have a viable choice?"
/. doesn't get it though. Most people here think the artists are getting a raw deal but never bother to mentioned the took the deals by choice, and thought it was better than working in fast food.
Yes, they can sign the contract or not sign it. Free trade requires an agreement between both parties. Either side can accept or walk away. Neither side should have the right to force the other side to agree to something they don't want.
What is wrong is US law. It's a serious infringement on free trade to not allow a record label to pay a radio station to play their songs. What happened to freedom in this country?