Here (in germany) it goes basically like this (as far as i understand, IANAL): When a customer buys a software, he already enters a contract, basically that the software is now his, but the software is still protected by copyrights (like a book would). The EULA is seen only after that deal is already done, it would mean a one-sided change of contract (basically the EULA limits the rights of the customer if he wants to run the software, but he earned that right already when he bought the software) so it is invalid.
A am not aware, that the validity of any EULA was ever tested in a (german) court, probably the software companies fear that testing it would break it for good (i.e. they would loose and only get written confirmation that the EULA is invalid), also i think, that with the recent efforts of content owner lobbies this will change for the worse in the near future. --
Blizzard is protecting their interests in the best way their lawyers see fit.
And apparently it's not a very good way, either Blizzards lawyers didn't do their homework at all, or they intended to bet from the start, that the bnetd authors never would take this to court. And while they could've tried to be quite nasty with the bnetd authors that would only have raised the stakes and given the bnetd authors given more reasons to fight it out (and maybe claim damages afterwards). Also it would've been bad PR (although most lawyer types don't seem to care). And i don't think it is "mild" to demand from someone to flush a big and well going project (and all the work that contributed to it) down the drain.
But the main point is, that there's some possibilities to take before bringing out the lawyers. Apparently it's the century of the lawyer, as everyone and his dog tries to solve all his problems with them. --
It would make things *easier* for them
on
Missing Kernel Patches
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· Score: 3, Insightful
... because once their patches are included they wouldn't have to maintain them themselves. So i don't see, how it could be a waste of time to send obvious patches in, or alert the kernel-maintainer of problems with recent patches that came up in their testing. --
The article is concerned with patches that big Linux-distros apply to their kernels. The kernels they put in their distributions, not special purpose kernels. Redhat (and other Linux-distributors too i suppose) do extensive testing on those kernels before they get included with their distributions. So if they find a bug and patch it, or if they find that a patch has issues in testing (and leave it out) it would benefit the whole Linux-Community (themselves too, since they would have fewer patches to manage) if that information somehow made it back to the kernel-maintainers. --
Sorry, but i can't see "all"/.ers jump at sun for this, most seem to have the opinion that it's legitimate for sun to slap some pricetag on StarOffice, even though the/. story omits a lot of details from the Heise-story, especially the reasons Sun gives for doing this:
- they claim many customers want professional support managing their licenses. - apparently many corporate customers don't want to use free software, out of fear it will be discontinued in the near future.
Also neither the slashdot editors nor the person who sent in the article lost a word about OpenOffice. This will still be free and is mostly identical with StarOffice. OpenOffice lacks the spellchecker and the database, which sun licensed from others.
Although all these omissions let it all look worse than it really is, apparently not everyone is pissed off or hates sun, at least not as far as i can see. --
I mean, it's not really an advantage to pay for licenses, throw away a lot of work you've done on the cluster you have, train for a new environment, etc. Other questions are: which applications are supposed to run on those servers, who is supposed to work with them in the production phase, will you develop for the thing and with which tools?
For the MS-person it'd be great if you switch, so he can tick off another customer converted to Windows, but what do you get out of the deal? --
The problem is, that when requesting the information from that web site your Media Player may actually give out your unique user id (does it? can that be turned off? I don't know). Farther down the article a MS spokesperson says, that they don't use the ID in the process (which might either mean they throw it away serverside for now, or that this version of Mediaplayer doesn't send it), but may do so "on behalf of the users" in the future. Then the MS droid spins of into praising Bill Gates standing up for user privacy. I must say that some actions of Microsoft don't fit that privacy philosophy (for example like outfitting mediaplayer with a unique id at all). --
I mean, there's a lot of music that is not under control of the big labels, some of it even entirely free like some of the "Open Music" project, but maybe also local Bands you can work out a special contract for (many will be happy for the promotion). Yeah, it's not Britney Spears, and it takes some research to get what you want (you can't play the Hitlists). Also it obviously wouldn't work for any station to compose their entire program out of it, but it would help nevertheless, even if it makes up only part of the program. Also it would create a way for Artists to get known without becoming a slave of the RIAA.
I can see some advantages of this system for the price of a little work (finding music of that kind, but once that is done you could exchange information with others who did similar work), the main one being, to take some power out of the hands of the big lables by creating alternative ways for artists and their audience to find each other. And as a nice side effect the station can reduce some costs.
No, simple linear dynamics won't help you (and if they work out with your perl-script, then probably because of nonlinearities creeping in due to rounding). That is, because you can only get linear behaviour out of a linear system. That means a linear system can be described by a matrix, and the eigenvalues of that matrix will give you the frequencies of oscillations that may happen (given the System oscillates about a stable state). If you couple linear systems in a linear fashion (like with a force k(x1-x2) as you suppose) you only get a bigger linear system, with more oscillation modes.
In a purely linear system all these modes of oscillation are independent of each other. But the clocks manage to get from one mode of oscillation into another. This can only happen, if energy is somehow transferred between the modes, and to get that you need a (nonlinear, or you get just another linear system with slightly different modes) coupling between the modes.
Linear Systems are, in a sense, boring, once you have worked out all the coupling constants, put them in a matrix and found it's eigenvalues you know all about it (for large enough systems, say a crystall with 10^23 Atoms that can be quite a feat and can get you some interesting results nevertheless) and can predict it into all eternity. The interesting stuff happens when nonlinearities creep in.
You could describe our solar system in a linear manner, and you will learn much about it by that, mainly that the planets orbit about the sun and are themselves orbited by moons. But if you want to know why some orbits more stable than others, for example why there are gaps in the saturn rings for orbits in sync (with w being a multiple of the W of the moon) with the moons, you have to look into the nonlinearities.
And people with a clue probably wouldn't have bought a PC without recovery CDs in the first place. But anyway, most people out there who can't or don't want to go through so much trouble to get to their recovery disks (which are then probably illegal too).
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i think only few people would miss the "learning adventure", either they searched frantically how to shut it off when it greeted them in much too cheery tones after they first switched on their computer, or they're through with it and really don't want to see it again. Those with a clue probably deleted it themselves, when they realized during a quest for free hd-space that there was a folder eating up 7GB of it for obviously nonessential stuff.
But how does it fill 7GB in the first place? Did someone film the screen and put it there as hi-res mpegs? Also doesn't XP come with it's own learning software anyway (and advertising for all the other nice Products by Microsoft)?
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This is the real question here. Let's remember, that the look into the Windows sources should supposedly clarify if IE is really impossible to separate from Windows without damaging the system. We already know the answer to this: it was even demonstrated, that one can rip out IE and still have a functioning Windows (at least no worse than it was before). Also we all know, that it's a design decision to integrate one piece of software (IE) unseparable with another (the OS), and that it's usually wiser to have a separate module (or even some of them) with clean interfaces for a project the size of a browser.
So even if the finding is, that IE is so much integrated into Windows, that you really can't have one without the other, that only means someone made it so by design, and that design decision could well have been 'politically' motivated. We know, that Microsoft is capable of separating a browser from the OS, they did IE for the Mac. We know it's possible to write a browser for Windows without making it an integrate part, netscape (and many others) did it. We know it's possible to create an OS (and a GUI) without integrating a browser, there's some examples about.
So there's really nothing new to learn here, looking into the source may clarify, if someone really made the design of IE such, that it's now impossible to rip out. But we don't know why that decision was made (maybe to get it done as fast as possible). And even if it is found, that it's really not that hard to separate IE from the OS that won't turn back history for netscape and will only serve to uncover yet another 'halftruth' from Microsoft. Maybe that will strengthen the position of the states, but at what price? Microsoft will obviously fight every inch along the way, and over every line of sourcecode. Then the states have to get in experts to review the code, and MS will fight again over each pair of eyes that gets to see the code. And after that Microsoft is likely to have loads of their own experts (hell, they wrote the code) countering each end every statement of a states' expert they don't like, which will result in a highly technical discussion after which nothing will have changed: states' experts claim you can separate IE from Windows, and MS' experts claim you can't, only now it's not based on a simple demonstration, but on some drawn out technical debate (and most people here probably know how to hide the truth behind technogibberish).
As i said, all this will take a while, maybe even long enough that noone is intersted in the result anymore, or that those who are still interested are no longer in a position to follow up (such things happen in politics). Meanwhile Microsoft is happily screwing others out of business, and working at making the internet a place which won't run without them (.NET). What we need is forcing MS to open their 'standards' (not a split up Microsoft), so developpers all over the world have a chance to write software that properly interfaces with the omnipresent Microsoft Windows desktops, preferably without paying license fees to MS. We need to take away the power from Microsoft to dictate PC-sellers how to do their business. It doesn't help to dig in the past, something must be done to keep Microsoft from doing it all over again, in the present and in the future.
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Especially since *they* could be screwed
on
Read the Fine Print
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· Score: 2
The article mentions, that some firms have legal contracts with their customers (which might even be the government), which conflict with this EULA/PUR. So if i where a customer, i could drag them to court over the fact, that due to their contracts with microsoft they can't grant me the rights i have due to my contract with them (like confident handling of my information).
While there's nothing to win in this, someone might just do it to see the shit hit the fan, and i think the FSF should just use that approach, if only to draw more attention to how restrictive software licenses have already become. Also any big corporation using software with such license agreements shold consider how they're open to legal attacks through this: anyone could drag them to court, and even if that only results in bad publicity, that's already a lot of damage.
Since Microsoft would laugh anyone privately challenging them over their EULA out of court it's only wise to use some large corporation as a lever.
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Re:Having trouble with 2.4.17, should I get this?
on
2.5.4 Kernel Out
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· Score: 1
If you think your troubles might come from the AGP and happen to have a GeForce (like everyone and his mother has, at least when he or his mother is into 3D-shooters) you could try switching off AGP-support in the kernel and switching it on in the NVidia drivers (yeah, i know, closed source is bad and all, but i pragmatic enough to use it if it works).
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Or, to be more precise, the legalese applies anyway, if you have the autoupdate on or not. So if MS has another hidden backdoor (maybe not now, but a few years down the road) the legalese allows MS to fiddle with your system, and even turn it into a quake-server if they see fit (or maybe let it sniff your net for unlicensed software). The Article sums it up quite nicely, asking, why Microsoft didn't make these terms specifically apply to the autoupdate, if that really is what they intended (as they say), i can believe their lawyers are incapable of doing it right the first time.
I think it just the tactic to push the boundary as far as it can go, and maybe trace back a step when caught on it. And had noone pointed it out and raised a ruckus, Microsoft would happily have it left unaltered, and in a year or so with the next version of Windows or another update you wouldn't find an 'off' button for the autoupdate feature, and, when complaining about that, find out, that you allowed it long ago.
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Actually the weather, especially fog, has some impact on the IR-link, as also some other posts pointed out. So this isn't quite as funny as some moderators thought. A students quarter near my place was linked to the net via an IR-link, since there was a convenient light of sight to the university. But they where very happy when they got a copper link, since they could count on loosing net connection when there was fog.
Also there were often other problems, apparently with the antenna and the signal converter sitting behind it (i only know that sometimes people had to go to the roof to fiddle with the equipment to get the link working again). So you probably should only go for an IR-link if you can stand the occasional downtime, or in sunny countries, where the waether doesn affect the line of sight.
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Although most people use the term 'Linux' for the operating System as a whole it really only the name of the Kernel. Would we call it 'Hurd' if we ran it with a hurd-Kernel? No, we probably talk about 'Linux with a Hurd-kernel' or somesuch, which is funny enough (maybe it should be 'GNU/Hurd' or just 'GNU' then). In that light (Linux being really just the name of the kernel) news about new kernelversions are very appropriate under this topic, what more interesting could there be under the 'Linux' topic, than something about a new Version of 'Linux'?
So if we want to keep the terms right (and those who always complain about the use of the term hacker in a wrong context know we should) maybe there should be another topic 'GNU/Linux' or 'LinuxOS' (and also 'LinuxAPPS'?) to comfort those who want to read about Linux, but not about the kernel (so actually not about 'Linux'...). The term 'Linux-kernel' is redundant, and thus really not a good topic.
I also wonder, how one can be interested in Operating systems based on the Linux kernel, without being interested in the development of the kernel itself (especially the unstable versions, since there is much more happening), and for a lot of readers the 'new kernel' news is the place to discuss these developments. So if you want to vent your complaints, that hardware x isn't supported, why patch y didn't make it in, express your happiness that z works now (z preferably being the VM), or just have a question these stories are the place to go. The kernel is the thing that all those LinuxOSes, LinuxDevices and whatnot have in common, and if you're interested in Linux on your Palm, or maybe in your coffee-machine, then you should be interested in the kerneldevelopment, since without a kernel allowing to be shrinked down to that size it's just not possible. If you're interested in 'Linux' running on big iron, like n-Processor machines, well, it's really the kernel and its development that makes it possible.
And finally, if you're really not interested in kernel development, it's not that hard to spot, that a story is about the new kernel, just ignore it, and be happy, these storys are there, because if they weren't people would just post things about new kernel developments in other Linux-stories (even if slightly offtopic).
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That's what you advise here. Your argumentation goes: There are so many people using Word for 'office type' documents, so if i want to send a document, i better use Word, cause then it's in a common format and will look the same on everyones screen (which is wrong, by the way, different versions of Word might display your document in different ways or not at all). Then you go on to say everybody should follow this reasoning, by declaring.doc the evident standard. But that means nothing will change, since noone will switch from Word to alternatives, alternative standards won't be established (lacking a userbase), and we will have to put up with Microsofts antics whenever they decide they need to sell another version of Word.
What we need is an open standard. To see why just look at the internet. TCP/IP works so well, that you don't even have to think about it. That is because everyone who implements a TCP/IP stack better plays by the rules, or he won't play at all, and his customers will turn on him if it screws up. If you tried to sell a TCP/IP stack that mangled IP-Packets from older TCP/IP stacks, to make everyone go and buy your new software, it wouldn't work, because everyone could see it's you who violates the standards. But with Word Microsoft does exactly that, because they don't even stay true to their own standards.
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I'm often browsing via a slow modem, and in that case i don't want that reloads, if i want them i'll hit 'reload'. To avoid the reload i made it a habit to open new windows when following links from a page i still wanted to read (like/.'s frontpage), since opening a new browser window is faster than downloading the page again (tabbed browsing helped a lot). So the effect of 'no-cache' is that my desktop is even more cluttered with windows than necessary. I'm happy that mozilla now allows me to use the 'back' button again without having to wait for a reload (of a page that probably didn't change in the meantime) on some sites hungry for pagehits. If there are concerns about security, maybe make it optional, that's enough for me.
I think webdesigners should try and surf their site for a day via a modem-link, to see, how their design (like the decision to make pages uncacheable) affects a large part of their audience.
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Then how is advertising over two pages in a magazine (and filling it up with crappy brochures), posters or even neon light installations the size of buildings, TV-advertising, telemarketing, and, the latest fashion, pop up ads, not? If it's worth advertising on some poster on a wall, why isn't it worth advertising on a Wall in virtual reality? You know the audience that will come by, nobody will mess up the poster, or alter it in creative ways, and you even get to choose the place and surroundings of that advert.
If it were no good idea to advertise there, where you at least know the audience, then maybe the whole concept of advertising should be reconsidered. I think brand recognition is greatly underestimated, if those corporations are concerned about how, and in which context their products are displayed. Did anyone ever notice how many of those rich evil movie drug-dealer types cruise around in those big black Mercedes or BMW? And that gave those cars a bad rap? Not that i'd notice.
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Patenting genes seems to be common business practice in agriculture. Patented rice and grain seeds with special properties (like resistance to a specific herbicide) are sold all over the world already to Farmers more or less licensing the stuff. There are some problems with this aproach:
How can we be sure that the patented genes really came out of some laboratory, and were not found in some countries where people already knew about the specific properties of the stuff (maybe because they cultivated it over thousands of years). Some corporations are accused of doing just that with rice varieteys in 3rd world countries (where the farmers probably couldn't even pay the flight to USA, when dragged before a court there). We haven't even begun to catalog all species on earth, let alone their genetic diversifications, but maybe there should be a puplicly accessible database of genetic material from particularly successful or common crop sorts all over the world that are not yet patented, to be able to prove prior art.
Another problem is, that unlike music, films, books, software and whatnot life has it's own builtin copy-mechanism, in fact, once it's out it's sometimes hard to stop it from replicating or crossing borders. I remember a case, where a Farmer had to pay license fees, because grain from seeds his neighbour (who had planted patented stuff) blew on his fields and grew there. How could that man have prevented that, short of burning down his own corn? We already know to what ends the rights holders struggle for getting each and every use of IP paid led us in the case of copyrights. What will we see now? Genes with builtin DRM schemes (like if you don't spray your crop with a specific shortlived virus it won't survive the next month)?
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Apparently a lot of business types now get it into their heads, to implement some form of 'leasing' on their product, so they only have to work at it once, and then get paid untill hell freezes over (and with the amount of money you can make that way it'll be no problem to buy potential competition off before it can get big enough to stand a chance).
There's two reasons, why potential buyers of such schemes should abstain: The money comes out of their pockets, and throwing so much money in one direction will most probably create a monopolistic structure more concerned with keeping itself in control than making a better product (see Microsoft).
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Since i don't want my name, preferences and whatnot in databases about the planet (although it seems i can't do much about that anyway) that's not an option for me. Only in very rare cases i want to be informed automatically (at the moment that is only the case for a few bands giving a concert in my vicinity) and i prefer to get my information myself, when i wnat it, how much/detailed i want it, and so on.
Even if i'm interested, say in computers, i don't want every hardware-manufacturer around the globe happily mailbombing me, whenever they have a new product out. I want the information when i need it (like when i need some part) from a source i choose (like some half decent hardware site doing a fair review), specific to my needs (what would i do with adverts of new RDRAM when i have an athlon system anyway?) and tailored to my level of knowledge (so, say, for a desktop system i want to know more than the MHz rate of the CPU).
So even if someone knew i'm interested in computer hardware, he wouldn't know when to advert what, and in what detail, and most of those adverts i'd probably ignore anyway, because it's probably heavily biased or just plain lies.
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He even states that in his mail. But maybe making a point often is. His point is, that outlook only displays a limited subset of mails, and to demonstrate that he tweaked some mails. That was apparently necessary, since seeing is believing (and now Microsoft can't go on saying "But noone would ever do that"), and we know the users of Outlook to be mostly ignorant of theoretical possibilities until one of them happens to actually manifest and destroy their harddisk.
Microsoft gets its hands dirty in undermining and muddying standards, the result is, that a lot of people wonder what to do with that 'word' document, why they get sent web-Pages in their e-mail, or how to avoid being diverted by nazi webservers, that refuse to serve pages to non-microsoft browsers, even if their client could render them perfectly well.
This behaviour of microsoft, adopted by web-masters, businessmen and Windows-users all over the planet, who refuse to let you join their club until you've got Windows+IE+Word installed (and don't even think about it) is widely accepted and good standing business practice. Now someone dares to raise awareness of that fact and it's childish. Maybe Microsoft should do some more lobbying to get it into the DMCA that any e-mail has to be outlook-compliant. Or maybe the folks over in Redmond should have taken it upon them to read some RFCs.
Slashdot Mirror
Here (in germany) it goes basically like this (as far as i understand, IANAL): When a customer buys a software, he already enters a contract, basically that the software is now his, but the software is still protected by copyrights (like a book would). The EULA is seen only after that deal is already done, it would mean a one-sided change of contract (basically the EULA limits the rights of the customer if he wants to run the software, but he earned that right already when he bought the software) so it is invalid.
A am not aware, that the validity of any EULA was ever tested in a (german) court, probably the software companies fear that testing it would break it for good (i.e. they would loose and only get written confirmation that the EULA is invalid), also i think, that with the recent efforts of content owner lobbies this will change for the worse in the near future.
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Blizzard is protecting their interests in the best way their lawyers see fit.
And apparently it's not a very good way, either Blizzards lawyers didn't do their homework at all, or they intended to bet from the start, that the bnetd authors never would take this to court. And while they could've tried to be quite nasty with the bnetd authors that would only have raised the stakes and given the bnetd authors given more reasons to fight it out (and maybe claim damages afterwards). Also it would've been bad PR (although most lawyer types don't seem to care). And i don't think it is "mild" to demand from someone to flush a big and well going project (and all the work that contributed to it) down the drain.
But the main point is, that there's some possibilities to take before bringing out the lawyers. Apparently it's the century of the lawyer, as everyone and his dog tries to solve all his problems with them.
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... because once their patches are included they wouldn't have to maintain them themselves. So i don't see, how it could be a waste of time to send obvious patches in, or alert the kernel-maintainer of problems with recent patches that came up in their testing.
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The article is concerned with patches that big Linux-distros apply to their kernels. The kernels they put in their distributions, not special purpose kernels. Redhat (and other Linux-distributors too i suppose) do extensive testing on those kernels before they get included with their distributions. So if they find a bug and patch it, or if they find that a patch has issues in testing (and leave it out) it would benefit the whole Linux-Community (themselves too, since they would have fewer patches to manage) if that information somehow made it back to the kernel-maintainers.
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Sorry, but i can't see "all" /.ers jump at sun for this, most seem to have the opinion that it's legitimate for sun to slap some pricetag on StarOffice, even though the /. story omits a lot of details from the Heise-story, especially the reasons Sun gives for doing this:
- they claim many customers want professional support managing their licenses.
- apparently many corporate customers don't want to use free software, out of fear it will be discontinued in the near future.
Also neither the slashdot editors nor the person who sent in the article lost a word about OpenOffice. This will still be free and is mostly identical with StarOffice. OpenOffice lacks the spellchecker and the database, which sun licensed from others.
Although all these omissions let it all look worse than it really is, apparently not everyone is pissed off or hates sun, at least not as far as i can see.
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I mean, it's not really an advantage to pay for licenses, throw away a lot of work you've done on the cluster you have, train for a new environment, etc. Other questions are: which applications are supposed to run on those servers, who is supposed to work with them in the production phase, will you develop for the thing and with which tools?
For the MS-person it'd be great if you switch, so he can tick off another customer converted to Windows, but what do you get out of the deal?
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The problem is, that when requesting the information from that web site your Media Player may actually give out your unique user id (does it? can that be turned off? I don't know). Farther down the article a MS spokesperson says, that they don't use the ID in the process (which might either mean they throw it away serverside for now, or that this version of Mediaplayer doesn't send it), but may do so "on behalf of the users" in the future. Then the MS droid spins of into praising Bill Gates standing up for user privacy. I must say that some actions of Microsoft don't fit that privacy philosophy (for example like outfitting mediaplayer with a unique id at all).
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I mean, there's a lot of music that is not under control of the big labels, some of it even entirely free like some of the "Open Music" project, but maybe also local Bands you can work out a special contract for (many will be happy for the promotion). Yeah, it's not Britney Spears, and it takes some research to get what you want (you can't play the Hitlists). Also it obviously wouldn't work for any station to compose their entire program out of it, but it would help nevertheless, even if it makes up only part of the program. Also it would create a way for Artists to get known without becoming a slave of the RIAA.
I can see some advantages of this system for the price of a little work (finding music of that kind, but once that is done you could exchange information with others who did similar work), the main one being, to take some power out of the hands of the big lables by creating alternative ways for artists and their audience to find each other. And as a nice side effect the station can reduce some costs.
So what am i missing?
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No, simple linear dynamics won't help you (and if they work out with your perl-script, then probably because of nonlinearities creeping in due to rounding). That is, because you can only get linear behaviour out of a linear system. That means a linear system can be described by a matrix, and the eigenvalues of that matrix will give you the frequencies of oscillations that may happen (given the System oscillates about a stable state). If you couple linear systems in a linear fashion (like with a force k(x1-x2) as you suppose) you only get a bigger linear system, with more oscillation modes.
In a purely linear system all these modes of oscillation are independent of each other. But the clocks manage to get from one mode of oscillation into another. This can only happen, if energy is somehow transferred between the modes, and to get that you need a (nonlinear, or you get just another linear system with slightly different modes) coupling between the modes.
Linear Systems are, in a sense, boring, once you have worked out all the coupling constants, put them in a matrix and found it's eigenvalues you know all about it (for large enough systems, say a crystall with 10^23 Atoms that can be quite a feat and can get you some interesting results nevertheless) and can predict it into all eternity. The interesting stuff happens when nonlinearities creep in.
You could describe our solar system in a linear manner, and you will learn much about it by that, mainly that the planets orbit about the sun and are themselves orbited by moons. But if you want to know why some orbits more stable than others, for example why there are gaps in the saturn rings for orbits in sync (with w being a multiple of the W of the moon) with the moons, you have to look into the nonlinearities.
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And people with a clue probably wouldn't have bought a PC without recovery CDs in the first place. But anyway, most people out there who can't or don't want to go through so much trouble to get to their recovery disks (which are then probably illegal too).
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i think only few people would miss the "learning adventure", either they searched frantically how to shut it off when it greeted them in much too cheery tones after they first switched on their computer, or they're through with it and really don't want to see it again. Those with a clue probably deleted it themselves, when they realized during a quest for free hd-space that there was a folder eating up 7GB of it for obviously nonessential stuff.
But how does it fill 7GB in the first place? Did someone film the screen and put it there as hi-res mpegs? Also doesn't XP come with it's own learning software anyway (and advertising for all the other nice Products by Microsoft)?
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This is the real question here. Let's remember, that the look into the Windows sources should supposedly clarify if IE is really impossible to separate from Windows without damaging the system. We already know the answer to this: it was even demonstrated, that one can rip out IE and still have a functioning Windows (at least no worse than it was before). Also we all know, that it's a design decision to integrate one piece of software (IE) unseparable with another (the OS), and that it's usually wiser to have a separate module (or even some of them) with clean interfaces for a project the size of a browser.
So even if the finding is, that IE is so much integrated into Windows, that you really can't have one without the other, that only means someone made it so by design, and that design decision could well have been 'politically' motivated. We know, that Microsoft is capable of separating a browser from the OS, they did IE for the Mac. We know it's possible to write a browser for Windows without making it an integrate part, netscape (and many others) did it. We know it's possible to create an OS (and a GUI) without integrating a browser, there's some examples about.
So there's really nothing new to learn here, looking into the source may clarify, if someone really made the design of IE such, that it's now impossible to rip out. But we don't know why that decision was made (maybe to get it done as fast as possible). And even if it is found, that it's really not that hard to separate IE from the OS that won't turn back history for netscape and will only serve to uncover yet another 'halftruth' from Microsoft. Maybe that will strengthen the position of the states, but at what price? Microsoft will obviously fight every inch along the way, and over every line of sourcecode. Then the states have to get in experts to review the code, and MS will fight again over each pair of eyes that gets to see the code. And after that Microsoft is likely to have loads of their own experts (hell, they wrote the code) countering each end every statement of a states' expert they don't like, which will result in a highly technical discussion after which nothing will have changed: states' experts claim you can separate IE from Windows, and MS' experts claim you can't, only now it's not based on a simple demonstration, but on some drawn out technical debate (and most people here probably know how to hide the truth behind technogibberish).
As i said, all this will take a while, maybe even long enough that noone is intersted in the result anymore, or that those who are still interested are no longer in a position to follow up (such things happen in politics). Meanwhile Microsoft is happily screwing others out of business, and working at making the internet a place which won't run without them (.NET). What we need is forcing MS to open their 'standards' (not a split up Microsoft), so developpers all over the world have a chance to write software that properly interfaces with the omnipresent Microsoft Windows desktops, preferably without paying license fees to MS. We need to take away the power from Microsoft to dictate PC-sellers how to do their business. It doesn't help to dig in the past, something must be done to keep Microsoft from doing it all over again, in the present and in the future.
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The article mentions, that some firms have legal contracts with their customers (which might even be the government), which conflict with this EULA/PUR. So if i where a customer, i could drag them to court over the fact, that due to their contracts with microsoft they can't grant me the rights i have due to my contract with them (like confident handling of my information).
While there's nothing to win in this, someone might just do it to see the shit hit the fan, and i think the FSF should just use that approach, if only to draw more attention to how restrictive software licenses have already become. Also any big corporation using software with such license agreements shold consider how they're open to legal attacks through this: anyone could drag them to court, and even if that only results in bad publicity, that's already a lot of damage.
Since Microsoft would laugh anyone privately challenging them over their EULA out of court it's only wise to use some large corporation as a lever.
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If you think your troubles might come from the AGP and happen to have a GeForce (like everyone and his mother has, at least when he or his mother is into 3D-shooters) you could try switching off AGP-support in the kernel and switching it on in the NVidia drivers (yeah, i know, closed source is bad and all, but i pragmatic enough to use it if it works).
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Or, to be more precise, the legalese applies anyway, if you have the autoupdate on or not. So if MS has another hidden backdoor (maybe not now, but a few years down the road) the legalese allows MS to fiddle with your system, and even turn it into a quake-server if they see fit (or maybe let it sniff your net for unlicensed software). The Article sums it up quite nicely, asking, why Microsoft didn't make these terms specifically apply to the autoupdate, if that really is what they intended (as they say), i can believe their lawyers are incapable of doing it right the first time.
I think it just the tactic to push the boundary as far as it can go, and maybe trace back a step when caught on it. And had noone pointed it out and raised a ruckus, Microsoft would happily have it left unaltered, and in a year or so with the next version of Windows or another update you wouldn't find an 'off' button for the autoupdate feature, and, when complaining about that, find out, that you allowed it long ago.
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Actually the weather, especially fog, has some impact on the IR-link, as also some other posts pointed out. So this isn't quite as funny as some moderators thought. A students quarter near my place was linked to the net via an IR-link, since there was a convenient light of sight to the university. But they where very happy when they got a copper link, since they could count on loosing net connection when there was fog.
Also there were often other problems, apparently with the antenna and the signal converter sitting behind it (i only know that sometimes people had to go to the roof to fiddle with the equipment to get the link working again). So you probably should only go for an IR-link if you can stand the occasional downtime, or in sunny countries, where the waether doesn affect the line of sight.
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Although most people use the term 'Linux' for the operating System as a whole it really only the name of the Kernel. Would we call it 'Hurd' if we ran it with a hurd-Kernel? No, we probably talk about 'Linux with a Hurd-kernel' or somesuch, which is funny enough (maybe it should be 'GNU/Hurd' or just 'GNU' then). In that light (Linux being really just the name of the kernel) news about new kernelversions are very appropriate under this topic, what more interesting could there be under the 'Linux' topic, than something about a new Version of 'Linux'?
...). The term 'Linux-kernel' is redundant, and thus really not a good topic.
So if we want to keep the terms right (and those who always complain about the use of the term hacker in a wrong context know we should) maybe there should be another topic 'GNU/Linux' or 'LinuxOS' (and also 'LinuxAPPS'?) to comfort those who want to read about Linux, but not about the kernel (so actually not about 'Linux'
I also wonder, how one can be interested in Operating systems based on the Linux kernel, without being interested in the development of the kernel itself (especially the unstable versions, since there is much more happening), and for a lot of readers the 'new kernel' news is the place to discuss these developments. So if you want to vent your complaints, that hardware x isn't supported, why patch y didn't make it in, express your happiness that z works now (z preferably being the VM), or just have a question these stories are the place to go. The kernel is the thing that all those LinuxOSes, LinuxDevices and whatnot have in common, and if you're interested in Linux on your Palm, or maybe in your coffee-machine, then you should be interested in the kerneldevelopment, since without a kernel allowing to be shrinked down to that size it's just not possible. If you're interested in 'Linux' running on big iron, like n-Processor machines, well, it's really the kernel and its development that makes it possible.
And finally, if you're really not interested in kernel development, it's not that hard to spot, that a story is about the new kernel, just ignore it, and be happy, these storys are there, because if they weren't people would just post things about new kernel developments in other Linux-stories (even if slightly offtopic).
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That's what you advise here. Your argumentation goes: There are so many people using Word for 'office type' documents, so if i want to send a document, i better use Word, cause then it's in a common format and will look the same on everyones screen (which is wrong, by the way, different versions of Word might display your document in different ways or not at all). Then you go on to say everybody should follow this reasoning, by declaring .doc the evident standard. But that means nothing will change, since noone will switch from Word to alternatives, alternative standards won't be established (lacking a userbase), and we will have to put up with Microsofts antics whenever they decide they need to sell another version of Word.
What we need is an open standard. To see why just look at the internet. TCP/IP works so well, that you don't even have to think about it. That is because everyone who implements a TCP/IP stack better plays by the rules, or he won't play at all, and his customers will turn on him if it screws up. If you tried to sell a TCP/IP stack that mangled IP-Packets from older TCP/IP stacks, to make everyone go and buy your new software, it wouldn't work, because everyone could see it's you who violates the standards. But with Word Microsoft does exactly that, because they don't even stay true to their own standards.
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I'm often browsing via a slow modem, and in that case i don't want that reloads, if i want them i'll hit 'reload'. To avoid the reload i made it a habit to open new windows when following links from a page i still wanted to read (like /.'s frontpage), since opening a new browser window is faster than downloading the page again (tabbed browsing helped a lot). So the effect of 'no-cache' is that my desktop is even more cluttered with windows than necessary. I'm happy that mozilla now allows me to use the 'back' button again without having to wait for a reload (of a page that probably didn't change in the meantime) on some sites hungry for pagehits. If there are concerns about security, maybe make it optional, that's enough for me.
I think webdesigners should try and surf their site for a day via a modem-link, to see, how their design (like the decision to make pages uncacheable) affects a large part of their audience.
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Then how is advertising over two pages in a magazine (and filling it up with crappy brochures), posters or even neon light installations the size of buildings, TV-advertising, telemarketing, and, the latest fashion, pop up ads, not? If it's worth advertising on some poster on a wall, why isn't it worth advertising on a Wall in virtual reality? You know the audience that will come by, nobody will mess up the poster, or alter it in creative ways, and you even get to choose the place and surroundings of that advert.
If it were no good idea to advertise there, where you at least know the audience, then maybe the whole concept of advertising should be reconsidered. I think brand recognition is greatly underestimated, if those corporations are concerned about how, and in which context their products are displayed. Did anyone ever notice how many of those rich evil movie drug-dealer types cruise around in those big black Mercedes or BMW? And that gave those cars a bad rap? Not that i'd notice.
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Patenting genes seems to be common business practice in agriculture. Patented rice and grain seeds with special properties (like resistance to a specific herbicide) are sold all over the world already to Farmers more or less licensing the stuff. There are some problems with this aproach:
How can we be sure that the patented genes really came out of some laboratory, and were not found in some countries where people already knew about the specific properties of the stuff (maybe because they cultivated it over thousands of years). Some corporations are accused of doing just that with rice varieteys in 3rd world countries (where the farmers probably couldn't even pay the flight to USA, when dragged before a court there). We haven't even begun to catalog all species on earth, let alone their genetic diversifications, but maybe there should be a puplicly accessible database of genetic material from particularly successful or common crop sorts all over the world that are not yet patented, to be able to prove prior art.
Another problem is, that unlike music, films, books, software and whatnot life has it's own builtin copy-mechanism, in fact, once it's out it's sometimes hard to stop it from replicating or crossing borders. I remember a case, where a Farmer had to pay license fees, because grain from seeds his neighbour (who had planted patented stuff) blew on his fields and grew there. How could that man have prevented that, short of burning down his own corn? We already know to what ends the rights holders struggle for getting each and every use of IP paid led us in the case of copyrights. What will we see now? Genes with builtin DRM schemes (like if you don't spray your crop with a specific shortlived virus it won't survive the next month)?
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Apparently a lot of business types now get it into their heads, to implement some form of 'leasing' on their product, so they only have to work at it once, and then get paid untill hell freezes over (and with the amount of money you can make that way it'll be no problem to buy potential competition off before it can get big enough to stand a chance).
There's two reasons, why potential buyers of such schemes should abstain: The money comes out of their pockets, and throwing so much money in one direction will most probably create a monopolistic structure more concerned with keeping itself in control than making a better product (see Microsoft).
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Since i don't want my name, preferences and whatnot in databases about the planet (although it seems i can't do much about that anyway) that's not an option for me. Only in very rare cases i want to be informed automatically (at the moment that is only the case for a few bands giving a concert in my vicinity) and i prefer to get my information myself, when i wnat it, how much/detailed i want it, and so on.
Even if i'm interested, say in computers, i don't want every hardware-manufacturer around the globe happily mailbombing me, whenever they have a new product out. I want the information when i need it (like when i need some part) from a source i choose (like some half decent hardware site doing a fair review), specific to my needs (what would i do with adverts of new RDRAM when i have an athlon system anyway?) and tailored to my level of knowledge (so, say, for a desktop system i want to know more than the MHz rate of the CPU).
So even if someone knew i'm interested in computer hardware, he wouldn't know when to advert what, and in what detail, and most of those adverts i'd probably ignore anyway, because it's probably heavily biased or just plain lies.
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... you can always run SETI@Home.
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This is immature and childish
He even states that in his mail. But maybe making a point often is. His point is, that outlook only displays a limited subset of mails, and to demonstrate that he tweaked some mails. That was apparently necessary, since seeing is believing (and now Microsoft can't go on saying "But noone would ever do that"), and we know the users of Outlook to be mostly ignorant of theoretical possibilities until one of them happens to actually manifest and destroy their harddisk.
Microsoft gets its hands dirty in undermining and muddying standards, the result is, that a lot of people wonder what to do with that 'word' document, why they get sent web-Pages in their e-mail, or how to avoid being diverted by nazi webservers, that refuse to serve pages to non-microsoft browsers, even if their client could render them perfectly well.
This behaviour of microsoft, adopted by web-masters, businessmen and Windows-users all over the planet, who refuse to let you join their club until you've got Windows+IE+Word installed (and don't even think about it) is widely accepted and good standing business practice. Now someone dares to raise awareness of that fact and it's childish. Maybe Microsoft should do some more lobbying to get it into the DMCA that any e-mail has to be outlook-compliant. Or maybe the folks over in Redmond should have taken it upon them to read some RFCs.