At the raw electrical level, a T1's bandwidth is 1.544 Mbps period. There is no "up and down". Perhaps you meant "up plus down" which would be closer.
At the higher (e.g., protocol) levels, you can divide that 1.544 Mbps (minus overhead) any way you want between up and down, but the sum of up + down + overhead cannot exceed 1.544 Mbps for a single T1.
You can, of course, get fractional and multiple T1's, T2's (6.312 Mbps), T3's (44.736 Mbps) and T4's (274.760 Mbps). All of those are nominal speeds (there's a small +/-). In Europe, and some other places, it's E1: 2.048 Mbps, E2: 8.448 Mbps, E3: 34.368 Mbps, E4: 139.264 Mbps, E5: 565.148 Mbps, all nominally.
The foregoing is a tremendously simplified representation, but you get the picture.
I don't know whether you (thought that you) made the part about the postal code up, but it is factually correct. Canada Post's automated mail sortation equipment recognizes the postal code H0H 0H0, which fits the Canadian postal code A(lpha) N(umeric) "ANA-NAN" format, as a valid code (albeit special for letters to Santa), and sorts accordingly. I was involved in a large IT project for them at the time that this was put into place (no, there was more to the project than that). For the life of me, I can't remember what they do with that mail although I do remember that they don't just dispose of it.
In Opera, to disable flash: 1) Hit F12 2) type p 3) Done.
Flash is off (yeah!) and sites will not nag you to the crap.
I recommend that you check out Opera - it has many USEFUL features and was developed by thinking people rather than brain-dead drones. It may not be perfect, but it's miles ahead of the Borg's browser.
I develop real-time broadcast video software under Windows (NT/2K/XP). Real-time? Under Windows? Am I nuts? Probably. It's a lousy platform for real-time. But it was never meant to be that, so I can't blame MS on that point - even they say in one of their white papers to look elsewhere if you want a real-time platform. And there are many good ones, but I can't use them. Luckily, we're talking soft(ish) real-time here. I hate Windows, but am forced to develop for it because that's what all of our customers and competition use. Our customers are comfortable with Windows because they run all their other applications under Windows.
I have a relative who detests Windows because it demands too much of his time and attention, makes simple tasks difficult and distracts from his job objective, which is to develop digital hardware. He wants an O/S that is reliable and passive and that fixes problems in new releases rather than adding useless features. Yet he works with Windows every day. He would switch O/S's in a millisecond if there was another good one that ran the specific tools that he needs to do his work. He often asks me when Linux will be able to run applications developed for Windows (NT/2K/XP). Windows is the only platform for which the applications that he needs to do his job are available.
I'm sure that there are millions of people who would drop Windows tomorrow, if they could run their applications under Linux. They care about the underlying O/S in the same way that people care about their cars, i.e., they want them to run reliably, go where they want and to be able to perform minimal maintenance. But they don't want to spend endless hours buggering around with the O/S - they just want to run their applications.
Etc, etc.
There is often talk about Linux and how it should be more like Windows to succeed, only a lot of people think that it shouldn't be anything like Windows. Who's right? Well, both are, of course. What's success for Linux? It depends on whom you talk to. If nothing else, Linux is about choice an flexibility. Where Microsoft has a single focussed objective (profit), and pursue that relentlessly, the Linux community has many different (and laudable) objectives. Many in the Linux community couldn't give a monkey's bum about Windows compatibility etc. and that's fine. Those that do care need to band together and define a single focussed objective (and not try to do everything at once) which IMO should be what you suggest:
be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws), but would add but be more reliable and more dedicated to the sole purpose of running and supporting applications, rather than being an end unto itself like Windows.
OK, marshal the army. But who's going to lead the charge? Linus has stated that head-on competition with Windows is not his goal and that's fine. It would take absolute focus, the declaration of a single unified purpose and the obsessive dictatorial leadership abilities of the type that Bill Gates possesses. And egos will get bruised. Who's up to the challenge?
I've been reading Dvorak for at least 15 years, although in the last few years very little. He loves to challenge people by pissing them off and has pissed me off many times, yet I still read his columns.
Dvorak is much better informed than the average techno columnist and clearly actually uses technology. He is arrogant but speaks his mind and can be very insightful (sort of like Jerry Pournelle with sharp teeth and a mean attitude). The biggest problem with Dvorak is that while you love to hate him (I do) and he is often wrong, he is also often right.
the idea that the music industry would get with the program and market a huge selection of unrestricted quality digital music files online at a reasonable price. Oops sorry, that's snake oil.
Recording live is tough, since it introduces a large set of elements that either don't exist in or can be controlled in a studio (echoes in indoor venues, for example). But good live recording is an art that can be mastered and many extremely well recorded live performances do exist.
On top of that, many real musicians are at their best when playing live - it has a lot to do with being bona fide musicians who can introduce the element of surprise through variation, moments of inspiration and playing off audience reaction. Good live artists / recordings can convey a sense of 'electricity' in performance that is rarely captured in the studio. A few really great performances even shine through poor recordings to the extent that one can overlook a poor recording.
BTW, I thought that I was the only one here that would remember Renaissance - I had the fortune to see them live about 120 years ago along with Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.
Well done. I was trying various ways find Winamp 2.50e for my reply when you posted a much better one. I always figured that a place like this should exist. BTW, in answer to the question beside 2.50e on the site - "The most perfect of all versions?", I'd say that it is for me - it's a sweet spot in the history of a very good player.
and you'll find it (I did). BUT I MUST WARN YOU: YOU'LL BE DOWNLOADING AN EXE FROM AN UNKNOWN SITE AND THE USUAL ANTIVIRUS PRECAUTIONS NEED TO BE APPLIED!!
I'm not sure why you want 250e, since 2.62 is probably OK (but that is in no way a guarantee from me - I'm speculating a lot on this), unless you're looking for a removed feature. Once WinAmp 3 gets some of the kinks out, it should be great, and in the meantime, the fixed 2.81 should do the trick.
This one reminds me that one of the annoying (albeit sometimes necessary for legal and/or technical reasons) things that they did was switch decoders in various versions. My guess is that it is the actually decoder dll that has the vulnerability, and you can sometimes swap those between versions, but using the 2.81 version may lose some 'features' that certain powers found distressing:-(
Winamp 2.79... "Fix to id3v2+unicode support"
So, I'm not sure what to make of where the vulnerability really enters, although it may be in any version after (ironically) 2.666. Are there any folks from Llamaland around here to comment?
One buffer overflow exists in Winamp 2.81 (latest 2.x release) and two buffer overflows exist in Winamp 3.0 (latest 3.x release). The Winamp 2.81 overflow is with the handling of the Artist ID3v2 tag upon immediate loading of an MP3. The two Winamp 3.0 overflows are present in Media Library's handling of the Artist and Album ID3v2 tags.
There is often the flawed assumption in these reports that people always use the latest version of a particular app. Yes, I know that it would be hard to get and test all versions, but they could at least find out from Nullsoft and indicate what range of versions might be vulnerable.
Nullsoft (bless them - I love Winamp) has an annoying habit of removing or changing features that I like in the minor rev's, which is why I stick to certain versions. I use Winamp 2.50e and 2.78 on various machines. I also have 2.09, 2.70, 2.72 and 2.81 (and a 1.xx and probably others), but don't use them for this reason. Winamp 3 was too buggy as of the build I got a couple of months ago.
Anyway, I often wonder, when I see vulnerability warnings and a version of something that I use is not specifically excluded, is it:
a) Not vulnerable?
b) Not tested for vulnerability ?
Winamp2.5 doesn't handle ID3v2, so it's probably OK. The ID3v2 handling was added somewhere around 2.72, IIRC, so I'll have to do some checking. You might want to check yours as well.
I'd hate be forced to abandon my beloved older Winamps because there's no fix, but that may happen.
This seems curious, given that Microsoft just bought 20 or so of Liquid's patents for "digital watermarking, content distribution, audio encoding, loss-less compression and transferring audio to digital playback devices". Maybe Liquid was just trying to raise cash, but where MS is involved one has to wonder if there's something else afoot. Maybe they told Liquid to sell or they'd stomp them. Maybe Liquid knows that their days are numbered once the beast gets into the business. Maybe Liquid feels that DRM is a lost cause and is getiin' while the getin's good. I've got a headache, so someone else can do the math, but this has to be more than a coincidence.
I understand what you mean but I guess I'm just too young to know how it was in the old days.
Ouch. I may be looking back at 35, but I'm not ready to move to Florida yet! The dates in pre-history come from the web, not my aging brain cells;-). But the changes have been, for the most part, in the last 2 years or so, so the old days aint too far back. The station was always a holdout against lowest common denominator programming, but it has shifted a little in that direction and lost some of its unique appeal. But it's still probably the best we've got.
I still listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" now and then.
So do I. You know that it is a production of Minnesota Public Radio, not a local show, right?
But hey, I like the station. I guess it works for me so I'll listen to it.
No slight intended. I really meant to damn the station with faint praise. They're still one of the few listenable stations on the dial here, but not as good as they used to be. I'll admit that I still tune them in from time to time.
I only started listening to this station recently so I did not experience the loss of "The Good Show" at all.
The Goon Show was classic radio comedy produced by the BBC in the 50's and early 60's (even before my time!). It was silly, irreverent, and damned funny. It played on the station up until last year or so, but it was only 30 minutes out of a week and easy to miss. It forged a lot of the comedy style that Monty Python's Flying Circus would later adopt (and by which they would openly admit to being influenced). I hope that you know what Monty Python is (if not explicitly, you will know Monty Python implicitly by spending time here at Slashdot).
And now the penguin on top of your telly will explode.
It might be worth checking out 'community' radio stations in your area. I listen to jazz fm [www.jazz.dv] broadcast from Toronto
I used to listen to them for years and that's where my dial was always pointed by default (btw, the correct url is Jazz-FM). But even they are not what they once were. They started off way back in 1949 as CJRT, part of the then-named Ryerson Institute of Technology (thus the RT) - a low-power student station for courses in broadcasting. They managed to carve a niche in non-commercial non-mainstream music (jazz and some blues, classical and folk). Eventually, they were spun off into a stand alone entity and Ryerson got a new station (CKLN).
Unfortunately, with the recent re-birth from "CJRT" to "Jazz-FM", they lost focus, (and Ted O'Reilly, their most recognizable voice, who apparently quit in disgust after 37 years) and moved to a more soulless MOR jazz format.
But the (IMO) most egregious wrong that they committed in their march toward banality was that they stopped airing the BBC comedy The Goon Show (a classic radio comedy and much of the inspiration for Monty Python), which had been playing on their station for as long as I can remember. For that I will never forgive them. The Goons are yet another victim of the march toward radio banality.
I have completely given up on radio and now only listen to it as a source of news and information. I don't buy commercial CD's and I don't download copyrighted mp3's. But I love music and get my fixes through independent artists - you can find a tremendous amount more variety and a surprising amount of quality there.
As I said in another thread where this was mentioned:
Finland's 9500 cab drivers should band together, generate some tapes or CD's of independent artists (or get the artists to submit them) and play those for their customers' listening pleasure. They could have a menu of artist names and song titles posted in their cabs. There would be no royalties to pay and free captive audience promotion for the independent artists. Sounds like a win-win to me. Oh and a middle-finger salute to the music business. Make that a win-win-win.
The harder the entertainment industry make it, the faster they will expire.
Finland's 9500 cab drivers should band together, generate some tapes or CD's of independent artists (or get the artists to submit them) and play those for their customers' listening pleasure. They could have a menu of artist names and song titles posted in their cabs. There would be no royalties to pay and free captive audience promotion for the independent artists. Sounds like a win-win to me. Oh and a middle-finger salute to the music business. Make that a win-win-win.
The harder the entertainment industry make it, the faster they will expire.
Here's an example of the acrimony that I was talking about - note the use of the phrase 'outright lie' :
this because it is an outright lie
No, it is not. To be an outright lie I would have had to say "to them, only open source == good". I did not.
I said "to them, open source generally == good". Perhaps "generally" is too strong for you - YMMV, etc. I'll accept amending it to "sometimes". All situations are unique and neither of us should be so foolish as to suggest that we know and understand every possible scenario.
I don't disagree with your IP argument, but I think that you are fixated on the applications development end of things. Don't lose sight of the hosting end of things. Many IT applications are Linux hosted because Linux is open source. There's a lot to be said for having control of your own destiny. Also, don't forget that not all IT exists in a competitive business environment (think governments, academic institutions, etc.).
Well, YMMV. I've toured a lot of Germany, but spent most of my time in the south (Baden-Württemberg) and found many good places to eat. I'm not talking about the place with the golden arches, a kebab or Würstchen from a street-vendor, that chicken chain (I can't remember the name), or all the Turkish, Greek, etc. restaurants (nothing against them, I just couldn't eat that every day). I found that small, family-run restaurants, Gasthofs and Ratskellers with real German home-cooked food were the way to go. But eating out is expensive - on a long-term stay, there's always the option to find oneself a Fräulein that likes to cook - this may lead to other benefits, too (;-}
It's easy to forget that there are several different categories of software development, each with different things driving them. Here's a gross simplification of how I see it:
There are 3 distinct major groups of developers:
1 - people who earn money developing software for sale as a product: to them, open source generally != good
2 - people who earn money developing software (embedded, hardware device drivers, etc.) to support another product that is sold: to them open source: sometimes == good and sometimes != good (gives away, architectures, secrets)
3 - people who earn money developing software for IT purposes and/or in-house use: to them, open source generally == good
Of course, there are many other groups of developers (academic, recreational, etc.) and there is intermingling, so the above is not a hard and fast rule.
I also think that this is also one of the reasons that you often see acrimonious debate here at/. - each group has a different set of objectives and priorities.
Slashdot Mirror
Tough room. There must be a lot of astroturfers with time on their hands tonight.
I'll bet none of you saw that coming.
At the raw electrical level, a T1's bandwidth is 1.544 Mbps period. There is no "up and down". Perhaps you meant "up plus down" which would be closer.
At the higher (e.g., protocol) levels, you can divide that 1.544 Mbps (minus overhead) any way you want between up and down, but the sum of up + down + overhead cannot exceed 1.544 Mbps for a single T1.
You can, of course, get fractional and multiple T1's, T2's (6.312 Mbps), T3's (44.736 Mbps) and T4's (274.760 Mbps). All of those are nominal speeds (there's a small +/-). In Europe, and some other places, it's E1: 2.048 Mbps, E2: 8.448 Mbps, E3: 34.368 Mbps, E4: 139.264 Mbps, E5: 565.148 Mbps, all nominally.
The foregoing is a tremendously simplified representation, but you get the picture.
*Happy**Holidays*!
Awww Bullwinkle, that trick never works!
Presto!
(click) RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!
No doubt about it, Rock. MS audio stinks.
Effluent To Acquire Another Bad Smell?
In Opera, to disable flash:
1) Hit F12
2) type p
3) Done.
Flash is off (yeah!) and sites will not nag you to the crap.
I recommend that you check out Opera - it has many USEFUL features and was developed by thinking people rather than brain-dead drones. It may not be perfect, but it's miles ahead of the Borg's browser.
I have a relative who detests Windows because it demands too much of his time and attention, makes simple tasks difficult and distracts from his job objective, which is to develop digital hardware. He wants an O/S that is reliable and passive and that fixes problems in new releases rather than adding useless features. Yet he works with Windows every day. He would switch O/S's in a millisecond if there was another good one that ran the specific tools that he needs to do his work. He often asks me when Linux will be able to run applications developed for Windows (NT/2K/XP). Windows is the only platform for which the applications that he needs to do his job are available.
I'm sure that there are millions of people who would drop Windows tomorrow, if they could run their applications under Linux. They care about the underlying O/S in the same way that people care about their cars, i.e., they want them to run reliably, go where they want and to be able to perform minimal maintenance. But they don't want to spend endless hours buggering around with the O/S - they just want to run their applications.
Etc, etc.
There is often talk about Linux and how it should be more like Windows to succeed, only a lot of people think that it shouldn't be anything like Windows. Who's right? Well, both are, of course. What's success for Linux? It depends on whom you talk to. If nothing else, Linux is about choice an flexibility. Where Microsoft has a single focussed objective (profit), and pursue that relentlessly, the Linux community has many different (and laudable) objectives. Many in the Linux community couldn't give a monkey's bum about Windows compatibility etc. and that's fine. Those that do care need to band together and define a single focussed objective (and not try to do everything at once) which IMO should be what you suggest:
be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws) , but would add but be more reliable and more dedicated to the sole purpose of running and supporting applications, rather than being an end unto itself like Windows .
OK, marshal the army. But who's going to lead the charge? Linus has stated that head-on competition with Windows is not his goal and that's fine. It would take absolute focus, the declaration of a single unified purpose and the obsessive dictatorial leadership abilities of the type that Bill Gates possesses. And egos will get bruised. Who's up to the challenge?
I've been reading Dvorak for at least 15 years, although in the last few years very little. He loves to challenge people by pissing them off and has pissed me off many times, yet I still read his columns.
Dvorak is much better informed than the average techno columnist and clearly actually uses technology. He is arrogant but speaks his mind and can be very insightful (sort of like Jerry Pournelle with sharp teeth and a mean attitude). The biggest problem with Dvorak is that while you love to hate him (I do) and he is often wrong, he is also often right.
You win.
the idea that the music industry would get with the program and market a huge selection of unrestricted quality digital music files online at a reasonable price. Oops sorry, that's snake oil.
On top of that, many real musicians are at their best when playing live - it has a lot to do with being bona fide musicians who can introduce the element of surprise through variation, moments of inspiration and playing off audience reaction. Good live artists / recordings can convey a sense of 'electricity' in performance that is rarely captured in the studio. A few really great performances even shine through poor recordings to the extent that one can overlook a poor recording.
BTW, I thought that I was the only one here that would remember Renaissance - I had the fortune to see them live about 120 years ago along with Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.
Well done. I was trying various ways find Winamp 2.50e for my reply when you posted a much better one. I always figured that a place like this should exist. BTW, in answer to the question beside 2.50e on the site - "The most perfect of all versions?", I'd say that it is for me - it's a sweet spot in the history of a very good player.
and you'll find it (I did). BUT I MUST WARN YOU: YOU'LL BE DOWNLOADING AN EXE FROM AN UNKNOWN SITE AND THE USUAL ANTIVIRUS PRECAUTIONS NEED TO BE APPLIED!!
I'm not sure why you want 250e, since 2.62 is probably OK (but that is in no way a guarantee from me - I'm speculating a lot on this), unless you're looking for a removed feature. Once WinAmp 3 gets some of the kinks out, it should be great, and in the meantime, the fixed 2.81 should do the trick.
Winamp 2.09 ... "Preliminary ID3v2 support (tag is skipped reliably)"
Winamp 2.24 ... "Better support for invalid ID3v2 tags (for people putting invalid tags on)"
Winamp 2.666 (ha, ha) ... "ID3v2 support"
Winamp 2.71 ... (in_mp3 decoder) ... "Fixed id3v2 rare writing bug"
This one reminds me that one of the annoying (albeit sometimes necessary for legal and/or technical reasons) things that they did was switch decoders in various versions. My guess is that it is the actually decoder dll that has the vulnerability, and you can sometimes swap those between versions, but using the 2.81 version may lose some 'features' that certain powers found distressing :-(
Winamp 2.79 ... "Fix to id3v2+unicode support"
So, I'm not sure what to make of where the vulnerability really enters, although it may be in any version after (ironically) 2.666. Are there any folks from Llamaland around here to comment?
One buffer overflow exists in Winamp 2.81 (latest 2.x release) and two buffer overflows exist in Winamp 3.0 (latest 3.x release). The Winamp 2.81 overflow is with the handling of the Artist ID3v2 tag upon immediate loading of an MP3. The two Winamp 3.0 overflows are present in Media Library's handling of the Artist and Album ID3v2 tags.
There is often the flawed assumption in these reports that people always use the latest version of a particular app. Yes, I know that it would be hard to get and test all versions, but they could at least find out from Nullsoft and indicate what range of versions might be vulnerable.
Nullsoft (bless them - I love Winamp) has an annoying habit of removing or changing features that I like in the minor rev's, which is why I stick to certain versions. I use Winamp 2.50e and 2.78 on various machines. I also have 2.09, 2.70, 2.72 and 2.81 (and a 1.xx and probably others), but don't use them for this reason. Winamp 3 was too buggy as of the build I got a couple of months ago.
Anyway, I often wonder, when I see vulnerability warnings and a version of something that I use is not specifically excluded, is it:
a) Not vulnerable?
b) Not tested for vulnerability ?
Winamp2.5 doesn't handle ID3v2, so it's probably OK. The ID3v2 handling was added somewhere around 2.72, IIRC, so I'll have to do some checking. You might want to check yours as well.
I'd hate be forced to abandon my beloved older Winamps because there's no fix, but that may happen.
If you're looking for Old News for bored Nerds. Stuff that's been said already.
Point your browsers to Slashdupe.com All dupes all the time.
First story up at Slashdupe: Amelia Earhart Missing
This seems curious, given that Microsoft just bought 20 or so of Liquid's patents for "digital watermarking, content distribution, audio encoding, loss-less compression and transferring audio to digital playback devices". Maybe Liquid was just trying to raise cash, but where MS is involved one has to wonder if there's something else afoot. Maybe they told Liquid to sell or they'd stomp them. Maybe Liquid knows that their days are numbered once the beast gets into the business. Maybe Liquid feels that DRM is a lost cause and is getiin' while the getin's good. I've got a headache, so someone else can do the math, but this has to be more than a coincidence.
Ouch. I may be looking back at 35, but I'm not ready to move to Florida yet! The dates in pre-history come from the web, not my aging brain cells ;-). But the changes have been, for the most part, in the last 2 years or so, so the old days aint too far back. The station was always a holdout against lowest common denominator programming, but it has shifted a little in that direction and lost some of its unique appeal. But it's still probably the best we've got.
I still listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" now and then.
So do I. You know that it is a production of Minnesota Public Radio, not a local show, right?
But hey, I like the station. I guess it works for me so I'll listen to it.
No slight intended. I really meant to damn the station with faint praise. They're still one of the few listenable stations on the dial here, but not as good as they used to be. I'll admit that I still tune them in from time to time.
I only started listening to this station recently so I did not experience the loss of "The Good Show" at all.
The Goon Show was classic radio comedy produced by the BBC in the 50's and early 60's (even before my time!). It was silly, irreverent, and damned funny. It played on the station up until last year or so, but it was only 30 minutes out of a week and easy to miss. It forged a lot of the comedy style that Monty Python's Flying Circus would later adopt (and by which they would openly admit to being influenced). I hope that you know what Monty Python is (if not explicitly, you will know Monty Python implicitly by spending time here at Slashdot).
And now the penguin on top of your telly will explode.
I used to listen to them for years and that's where my dial was always pointed by default (btw, the correct url is Jazz-FM). But even they are not what they once were. They started off way back in 1949 as CJRT, part of the then-named Ryerson Institute of Technology (thus the RT) - a low-power student station for courses in broadcasting. They managed to carve a niche in non-commercial non-mainstream music (jazz and some blues, classical and folk). Eventually, they were spun off into a stand alone entity and Ryerson got a new station (CKLN).
Unfortunately, with the recent re-birth from "CJRT" to "Jazz-FM", they lost focus, (and Ted O'Reilly, their most recognizable voice, who apparently quit in disgust after 37 years) and moved to a more soulless MOR jazz format.
But the (IMO) most egregious wrong that they committed in their march toward banality was that they stopped airing the BBC comedy The Goon Show (a classic radio comedy and much of the inspiration for Monty Python), which had been playing on their station for as long as I can remember. For that I will never forgive them. The Goons are yet another victim of the march toward radio banality.
I have completely given up on radio and now only listen to it as a source of news and information. I don't buy commercial CD's and I don't download copyrighted mp3's. But I love music and get my fixes through independent artists - you can find a tremendous amount more variety and a surprising amount of quality there.
Finland's 9500 cab drivers should band together, generate some tapes or CD's of independent artists (or get the artists to submit them) and play those for their customers' listening pleasure. They could have a menu of artist names and song titles posted in their cabs. There would be no royalties to pay and free captive audience promotion for the independent artists. Sounds like a win-win to me. Oh and a middle-finger salute to the music business. Make that a win-win-win.
The harder the entertainment industry make it, the faster they will expire.
Yeah, that's the ticket. (© Jon Lovitz, SNL Entertainment and NBC Broadway Video).
The harder the entertainment industry make it, the faster they will expire.
Yeah, that's the ticket. (© Jon Lovitz, SNL Entertainment and NBC Broadway Video).
this because it is an outright lie
No, it is not. To be an outright lie I would have had to say "to them, only open source == good ". I did not.
I said "to them, open source generally == good". Perhaps "generally" is too strong for you - YMMV, etc. I'll accept amending it to "sometimes". All situations are unique and neither of us should be so foolish as to suggest that we know and understand every possible scenario.
I don't disagree with your IP argument, but I think that you are fixated on the applications development end of things. Don't lose sight of the hosting end of things. Many IT applications are Linux hosted because Linux is open source. There's a lot to be said for having control of your own destiny. Also, don't forget that not all IT exists in a competitive business environment (think governments, academic institutions, etc.).
Well, YMMV. I've toured a lot of Germany, but spent most of my time in the south (Baden-Württemberg) and found many good places to eat. I'm not talking about the place with the golden arches, a kebab or Würstchen from a street-vendor, that chicken chain (I can't remember the name), or all the Turkish, Greek, etc. restaurants (nothing against them, I just couldn't eat that every day). I found that small, family-run restaurants, Gasthofs and Ratskellers with real German home-cooked food were the way to go. But eating out is expensive - on a long-term stay, there's always the option to find oneself a Fräulein that likes to cook - this may lead to other benefits, too (;-}
There are 3 distinct major groups of developers:
1 - people who earn money developing software for sale as a product: to them, open source generally != good
2 - people who earn money developing software (embedded, hardware device drivers, etc.) to support another product that is sold: to them open source: sometimes == good and sometimes != good (gives away, architectures, secrets)
3 - people who earn money developing software for IT purposes and/or in-house use: to them, open source generally == good
Of course, there are many other groups of developers (academic, recreational, etc.) and there is intermingling, so the above is not a hard and fast rule.
I also think that this is also one of the reasons that you often see acrimonious debate here at /. - each group has a different set of objectives and priorities.