Well, I suppose Microsoft would first look to see if Asus had violated any contractual arrangements and then proceed accordingly
So then you concede that Microsoft would most likely feel they'd been wronged in the matter, and accordingly, they'd start the lawyers
looking to see if they had any avenue of legal recourse?
Microsoft would not launch into a rant about the Evilness of it all.
Well, probably not in public. I expect that when Microsoft's possible reactions to our hypothetical link were discussed,
we'd find all sorts of name calling. That said, I still can't find anyone other than yourself using the word "Evil" in this connection.
Asus, et al, don't see it that way. They just see a chance to make a few bucks selling into a niche market
I doubt it's even that. The saw an opportunity to make a shitload of money by sidestepping the overhead of an XP licence and shipping an ultralite laptop at a price point way, way lower than anyone else was offering. And it worked too; well enough that everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, which is why we have the netbook market now.
Linux is a piece of software, an operating system, not a new way of life.
I think it's probably different things to different people, really. Most things are, in my experience. But really, you can't expect us not to at least discus an event like this. That's all that's happening here.
BTW, when I use the link provided, I see a page for a Windows-based Asus machine.
Sorry, but I don't follow you at all here. Which link, provided by whom, and so what?
So for all the folks who can't watch the TV because the XBox is plugged into it, now have a slution. They can watch the TV through the XBox,
with an added layer of DRM, customer profiling and what have you added in, I have no doubt.
Can't really see this one changing the world, somehow...
I suspect there's a typo in your question. I'm not sure what it is you are trying to ask.
OK. One more time. If you still dodge the question after that, I'll take that as conceding the point:)
Suppose the situation was reversed. Suppose that Asus UK had a link on its home page saying "It's better with Linux".
Suppose that link pointed to a third party advocacy site that disparaged Windows and encouraged people to buy the Linux
version of the Eee in preference to the XP model.
Supposing all of the above, do you suppose Microsoft would blithely declare, "Oh, it's just Asus running an ad. Nothing to do with us".
Because I can't see it happening like that, myself. As you say, look in the mirror.
In any case, I'm trying to figure out why you guys think this is a moral issue in the first place. It's an ad.
Well, to be fair, the only person I've seen trying to cast this into terms of stark morality is you. I can understand why a lot of Linux
fans feel let down and disappointed, certainly, but I don't think I've seen anyone so far claiming that Asus are going to burn in Hell
for this.
If I had to guess, Asus is disappointed by sales of the Linux machine and had a fair number of people complain when they found Linux on the machines they bought, not Windows
Solution to that is simple: withdraw the Linux model. Only the XP Eee is sold thereafter, and without any need to advertise against their own product - which, let's face it, is more than a little strange. On the other hand, the fact that they're still selling the Linux version suggests that the sales remain viable, at the very least.
Very well. Let me rephrase the question with a little more precision:
Are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft would see deserving of reproach were Asus to link to a website disparaging XP, promoting Linux, and encouraging its customers to buy Asus' Linux models in preference to those with Windows installed?
If Asus and Torvalds had put up a site to help people put Linux on Windows machines, would it be as Evil?
To answer that, we take you now, by the magic of the internet, to One Microsoft Way where we can put that question direct to Steve Ballmer.
Steve, hypothetically suppose that ASUS linked to a site both critical of Windows and,
which encouraged Asus customers to purchase the Linux version of the Eee in preference to Windows.
It's been suggested this may be a morally grey area. Perhaps you can give us the Microsoft
perspective on this issue? How would you feel, Steve?
Sounds of flying chairs. Distant screams. One voice, clearly pleading, says "no no, please, not again..."
I'm sorry, it seems we've arrived at a bad time for Mr. Ballmer. Moving on, we have another pointless question from the audience: What if Richard Stallman was the secret reincarnation of Adolf Hitler...
Learn from the unions, buy software made for Linux native if you want more of it. Continue to support businesses who do not support you and see desktop support for your operating system dwindle.
a) You're a Communist. (No, in case you're wondering; that isn't meant as a compliment;))
Odd. I got the distinct impression that the GP was advocating that people spend their own money on software
that was written to run natively on their OS of choice. That's your basic free market capitalism in a nutshell.
And yet, from this you manage to infer that the GP supports forcible state seizure of all privately owned property?
It is hysterical, irrational, spurious, and completely unproductive. Stop it.
Actually, I don't see the Vogons coding at all. I think they fill more of a PHB sort of role.
I reckon they get some other Dentrassi like species to do the actual coding.
The Vogons, I imagine as restricting themselves to writing coding standards, leading focus groups
and conducting performance reviews. Quite possible in iambic pentameter
Get out of wrong side of the bed this morning, did we?
There is no place in his books where you could possibly get the idea that the Vogons would be 'slick and professional', let alone superficially.
Sod the books. Go for the original source: listen to the radio series. Or the LP version. Listen to the
smooth, oily delivery of the captain as he talks to Ford and Arthur.
Vogons -- slick? Officiousness and petty self interest only beneath the surface?
Well... I figure we only ever saw the vogon constructor fleet from the POV of mankind when their planet was being demolished. I expect when they turn up to a boardroom to pitch for a contract, they're all
oily hypocrisy and smooth lies. If they wrote software. I'd expect it to be much the same.
Comparing MS to Sirius Cybernetics... gives them too much credit, I can't help thinking. I mean Marvin would never have got past the first focus group if he'd been designed by MS. Eddie the Shipboard Computer, now...
No, they're not The Borg, they're Vogons. Much, much worse.
Now there's a meme that deserves to be propagated!
Vogon software: superficially slick and professional, but beneath the surface riddled with
officiousness and petty self interest, and breathtaking contempt for the general public.
It always fascinates me, the way grown men retreat to the "you're just jealous!" argument when encountering criticism of their idols.
Well, fine. If you want to criticise Mr. Doctorow then by all means do so. All I'd ask is to see some actual critical thinking there, rather than just arbitrary abuse. As someone already pointed out, it's difficult to see how some whose blog is widely read can be considered "irrelevant". Equally, the man seems to work rather hard in support of his chosen causes, so it's hard to make "blowhard" stick either.
On the other hand, I think I'd be slower to ascribe to jealousy that which could adequately be explained by trolling. Still, I don't think a word or two in Cory's defence was entirely uncalled for.
How about we make the punishment for infecting a computer $100 and one day in jail for each system you infect. This way, someone who does something stupid but isn't actually malicious pays a few hundred dollars and spends a few days in jail while the real criminals pay big bucks and spend years in jai
So Great Aunt Mildred opens an email with the subject "Mildred, Improtant News From An Old Friend!!1!", gets a worm, and winds up infecting the 30 people in her outlook contacts list.
She has to pay three grand in fines and spend a month in jail for this? I can't see that working.
If you haven't been following web security (or reading the changelog) these guys are extremely cutting edge when it comes to blocking various XSS based exploitation techniques.
Which is all fine and dandy and all that. But all I really want is to be able to block javascript based on a regular expression list. I don't mind having the XSS measures in there, but I think I'm savvy enough not to need them.
If there were such a fork, I'd probably switch to that, based on this turn of events.
Microsoft was able to enter that market - same price for the machine but with the specs that XP needs. Next iteration they'll be selling units with Vista on them.
Of course, to keep Linux machines out of the market, they need to offer a competitive price against free software. They may dominate the market,
but they'll haemorrhage money with each unit sold. And if they try to creep the margins back up, suddenly Linux becomes viable as a competitor again.
Now normally, they'd only need to do this until the competitor went out of business. But that isn't going to happen with Linux.
So the question becomes how long MS are willing to keep throwing money away.
Of course, this is taking the MS figure at face value, which I must admit, I don't. Still, interesting times...
Well, clearly, yes. Although a small clarification is in order. Something that is provocative need not be intended to provoke a violent response.
And in the context of porn/ertoica/what-have-you "provocative" is generally understood as intended to provoke a sexual response. So I don't think
it's entirely fair to label the GP as "stupid" on that basis.
You don't think you can claim that some guy "just standing around minding his own business" is "provoking" you, can you?
In the general case, no, But (sticking with violence) there are a wide range of passive aggresive behaviours that are intended to provoke a
violent response, whilst remaining uperficially innocuous. So even in the relatively clear cut case of violence, there are subtle provocations
that might be difficult to categorise.
This notion that no one knows what "provocative" is is just assinine.
I think the point was more that it is difficult to categorise many pictures into those which may be
legally considered as provocative, and those which may not. The problem is not recognising
provocation as such - it is finding a consistent standard for provocation that isn't largely personal to
the tastes and beliefs of local law enforcement officials.
It boggles the mind that I have to go through this nonsense to store an array in an array. Guess what I have to do in order to store an array in an array in ruby...
Would it be something like this?
ruby -e '
foo=Array.new
foo[1]=Array.new
foo[1][2] = 3
'
or rather, guess what I don't have to do in order to store an array in an array in ruby
Something like this?
perl -e '$foo[1][2] = 3'
Perhaps it would help if you said which nonsense, specifically, struck you as being onerous?
Perhaps they did it age blind based on shoe size??
Well, that's not what Moffat actually said, but I suppose anything's possible.
The program is on
YouTube.
Maybe you can glean some further insight from watching it yourself. (I don't know which is the part where moffat talks about the interview
process, so I've linked to the first one).
Really this choice has everything to do with Steven Moffatt, the new head writer of the show, and what he wants to do with the character
Good point.
There was a special episode of "Dr Who Confidential" last night, just to announce the new Doctor, and it had interviews with RTD, Stephen Moffat and Matt Smith.
Stephen Moffat said that he started auditions determined to cast an older Doctor this time, but that it soon became overwhelmingly apparent that Matt Smith
was the one for the role. Something about being able to handle the dramatic bits and the quirky mercurial aspects, and being able to switch between them fairly easily.
They had a couple of clips from Smith's earlier roles; not much to judge by, but I think I can see what he's getting at.
It's going to be interesting to see how he handles the role
I've said it before on Slashdot, but I'll ask again: what can we do when our politicians try to do things like this
Talk about it. An effective protest movement needs popular support. The only way you get that is by convincing people
that the issue is important and that it affects them. And the only way to do that is to discuss it. Talk to
people and get them to talk to people.
And don't give up on voting. Just don't vote for the main parties, since they almost certainly are bought and paid for in advance,
regardless of what it says on their manifestos. Find someone who gives a shit, and who isn't going to be shut down by party head office if they make a fuss, and vote for them.
And in any case, what does anyone hope to prove by saying "it's not piracy because it's not robbery at sea?"
I don't mind people using "piracy" as a sort of shorthand for "copyright infringement". I just object when people try to reason that because the word is also used to refer to armed robbery on the high seas, it is therefore morally and legally equivalent to armed and violent robbery and should be treated in a similar manner.
Slashdot Mirror
So then you concede that Microsoft would most likely feel they'd been wronged in the matter, and accordingly, they'd start the lawyers looking to see if they had any avenue of legal recourse?
Well, probably not in public. I expect that when Microsoft's possible reactions to our hypothetical link were discussed, we'd find all sorts of name calling. That said, I still can't find anyone other than yourself using the word "Evil" in this connection.
I doubt it's even that. The saw an opportunity to make a shitload of money by sidestepping the overhead of an XP licence and shipping an ultralite laptop at a price point way, way lower than anyone else was offering. And it worked too; well enough that everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, which is why we have the netbook market now.
I think it's probably different things to different people, really. Most things are, in my experience. But really, you can't expect us not to at least discus an event like this. That's all that's happening here.
Sorry, but I don't follow you at all here. Which link, provided by whom, and so what?
So for all the folks who can't watch the TV because the XBox is plugged into it, now have a slution. They can watch the TV through the XBox, with an added layer of DRM, customer profiling and what have you added in, I have no doubt.
Can't really see this one changing the world, somehow...
OK. One more time. If you still dodge the question after that, I'll take that as conceding the point :)
Suppose the situation was reversed. Suppose that Asus UK had a link on its home page saying "It's better with Linux". Suppose that link pointed to a third party advocacy site that disparaged Windows and encouraged people to buy the Linux version of the Eee in preference to the XP model.
Supposing all of the above, do you suppose Microsoft would blithely declare, "Oh, it's just Asus running an ad. Nothing to do with us". Because I can't see it happening like that, myself. As you say, look in the mirror.
Well, to be fair, the only person I've seen trying to cast this into terms of stark morality is you. I can understand why a lot of Linux fans feel let down and disappointed, certainly, but I don't think I've seen anyone so far claiming that Asus are going to burn in Hell for this.
Solution to that is simple: withdraw the Linux model. Only the XP Eee is sold thereafter, and without any need to advertise against their own product - which, let's face it, is more than a little strange. On the other hand, the fact that they're still selling the Linux version suggests that the sales remain viable, at the very least.
Very well. Let me rephrase the question with a little more precision:
Are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft would see deserving of reproach were Asus to link to a website disparaging XP, promoting Linux, and encouraging its customers to buy Asus' Linux models in preference to those with Windows installed?
You trying to tell me that Ballmer would be pleased if the situation was reversed?
That would explain it, I suppose. You want to cut down on that stuff.
To answer that, we take you now, by the magic of the internet, to One Microsoft Way where we can put that question direct to Steve Ballmer.
Steve, hypothetically suppose that ASUS linked to a site both critical of Windows and, which encouraged Asus customers to purchase the Linux version of the Eee in preference to Windows. It's been suggested this may be a morally grey area. Perhaps you can give us the Microsoft perspective on this issue? How would you feel, Steve?
Sounds of flying chairs. Distant screams. One voice, clearly pleading, says "no no, please, not again..."
I'm sorry, it seems we've arrived at a bad time for Mr. Ballmer. Moving on, we have another pointless question from the audience: What if Richard Stallman was the secret reincarnation of Adolf Hitler...
Odd. I got the distinct impression that the GP was advocating that people spend their own money on software that was written to run natively on their OS of choice. That's your basic free market capitalism in a nutshell.
And yet, from this you manage to infer that the GP supports forcible state seizure of all privately owned property?
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Actually, I don't see the Vogons coding at all. I think they fill more of a PHB sort of role.
I reckon they get some other Dentrassi like species to do the actual coding. The Vogons, I imagine as restricting themselves to writing coding standards, leading focus groups and conducting performance reviews. Quite possible in iambic pentameter
Give it time, give it time :)
Get out of wrong side of the bed this morning, did we?
Sod the books. Go for the original source: listen to the radio series. Or the LP version. Listen to the smooth, oily delivery of the captain as he talks to Ford and Arthur.
Then we'll talk
Oh, and get off my lawn!
Well... I figure we only ever saw the vogon constructor fleet from the POV of mankind when their planet was being demolished. I expect when they turn up to a boardroom to pitch for a contract, they're all oily hypocrisy and smooth lies. If they wrote software. I'd expect it to be much the same.
Comparing MS to Sirius Cybernetics ... gives them too much credit, I can't help thinking. I mean Marvin would never have got past the first focus group if he'd been designed by MS. Eddie the Shipboard Computer, now ...
Now there's a meme that deserves to be propagated!
Vogon software: superficially slick and professional, but beneath the surface riddled with officiousness and petty self interest, and breathtaking contempt for the general public.
That sounds about right to me.
Well, fine. If you want to criticise Mr. Doctorow then by all means do so. All I'd ask is to see some actual critical thinking there, rather than just arbitrary abuse. As someone already pointed out, it's difficult to see how some whose blog is widely read can be considered "irrelevant". Equally, the man seems to work rather hard in support of his chosen causes, so it's hard to make "blowhard" stick either.
On the other hand, I think I'd be slower to ascribe to jealousy that which could adequately be explained by trolling. Still, I don't think a word or two in Cory's defence was entirely uncalled for.
No argument there :)
So Great Aunt Mildred opens an email with the subject "Mildred, Improtant News From An Old Friend!!1!", gets a worm, and winds up infecting the 30 people in her outlook contacts list.
She has to pay three grand in fines and spend a month in jail for this? I can't see that working.
Which is all fine and dandy and all that. But all I really want is to be able to block javascript based on a regular expression list. I don't mind having the XSS measures in there, but I think I'm savvy enough not to need them.
If there were such a fork, I'd probably switch to that, based on this turn of events.
There is. It's an about:config setting. Can't remember which one, but it's explained on the NoScript home page.
Of course, to keep Linux machines out of the market, they need to offer a competitive price against free software. They may dominate the market, but they'll haemorrhage money with each unit sold. And if they try to creep the margins back up, suddenly Linux becomes viable as a competitor again.
Now normally, they'd only need to do this until the competitor went out of business. But that isn't going to happen with Linux. So the question becomes how long MS are willing to keep throwing money away.
Of course, this is taking the MS figure at face value, which I must admit, I don't. Still, interesting times...
Well, clearly, yes. Although a small clarification is in order. Something that is provocative need not be intended to provoke a violent response. And in the context of porn/ertoica/what-have-you "provocative" is generally understood as intended to provoke a sexual response. So I don't think it's entirely fair to label the GP as "stupid" on that basis.
In the general case, no, But (sticking with violence) there are a wide range of passive aggresive behaviours that are intended to provoke a violent response, whilst remaining uperficially innocuous. So even in the relatively clear cut case of violence, there are subtle provocations that might be difficult to categorise.
I think the point was more that it is difficult to categorise many pictures into those which may be legally considered as provocative, and those which may not. The problem is not recognising provocation as such - it is finding a consistent standard for provocation that isn't largely personal to the tastes and beliefs of local law enforcement officials.
Would it be something like this?
Something like this?
Perhaps it would help if you said which nonsense, specifically, struck you as being onerous?
Well, that's not what Moffat actually said, but I suppose anything's possible.
The program is on YouTube. Maybe you can glean some further insight from watching it yourself. (I don't know which is the part where moffat talks about the interview process, so I've linked to the first one).
Good point.
There was a special episode of "Dr Who Confidential" last night, just to announce the new Doctor, and it had interviews with RTD, Stephen Moffat and Matt Smith.
Stephen Moffat said that he started auditions determined to cast an older Doctor this time, but that it soon became overwhelmingly apparent that Matt Smith was the one for the role. Something about being able to handle the dramatic bits and the quirky mercurial aspects, and being able to switch between them fairly easily.
They had a couple of clips from Smith's earlier roles; not much to judge by, but I think I can see what he's getting at.
It's going to be interesting to see how he handles the role
Talk about it. An effective protest movement needs popular support. The only way you get that is by convincing people that the issue is important and that it affects them. And the only way to do that is to discuss it. Talk to people and get them to talk to people.
And don't give up on voting. Just don't vote for the main parties, since they almost certainly are bought and paid for in advance, regardless of what it says on their manifestos. Find someone who gives a shit, and who isn't going to be shut down by party head office if they make a fuss, and vote for them.
So how does that work? They've uploaded a soldier to a webserver somewhere, and now they're going to download him hundreds of times?
Dammned fiendish of them, is all I can say.
I don't mind people using "piracy" as a sort of shorthand for "copyright infringement". I just object when people try to reason that because the word is also used to refer to armed robbery on the high seas, it is therefore morally and legally equivalent to armed and violent robbery and should be treated in a similar manner.