As I understand it, the basic claim of the police is that if it's easily accessible, it's public information.
So, how does this apply to the Internet?
For instance, is unencrypted email now public information? What about information on a HTML page - with no links leading to it?
I particularly like the police officers claiming that the lack of a "No tresspassing" sign / "don't open garbage" sign gives them the right to do this... Does a woman have to wear a "Don't Rape" sign to make this clear to potential attackers?
Perhaps the "Don't Rape" sign should really go on the Constitution - particularly the Fourth Amendment.
Kneejerk response #1: Yeah, but what good does that do me if all my files are.OGG?
Although I'd seriously consider going through and re-ripping all of them if I had the money... The iPod is just one of the coolest little gadgets I've seen in a while - especially the clean interface.
Has Apple indicated any wish to support alternate compression? A quick Google didn't find anything.
I suspect Apple should start researching OGG, as it seems much more likely than MP3 to remain un-DRM-contaminated... and Apple seems to be placing itself in the position of "use our computers - no stupid DRM!"
I also wonder if Apple could be persuaded to issue a release of iPod software for Darwin... that way it could more easily be converted.
For those of you who are wondering, it can be found in Heinlein's book, "6 X H" (also known as "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag") - along with some other truly wonderful stories. ("...and he build a crooked house")
2) An Anonymous poster put a VERY exact and detailed argument about having either VB or Java replace C as a Standard Language. I have to totally agree with this for the exact reasons that the poster did. Sun Java (in it's current molasses state/form) is nowhere deserving of replacing C.
This poster also wrote:
Microsoft's "shared source" under which Visual Basic is released definately seems to be the most fair and reasonable of all the licenses in existance, with none of the harsh restrictions of the BSD license. It also lacks the GPLs requirement that anything coded with its tools becomes property of the FSF.
Hint, hint - if something's moderated as "Funny..." it might be sarcasm.
Microsoft had the vision to remove Java from their systems because of the lack of stability and usefulness in their systems.
Sure, Java may be slow... but lack of usefulness? You just wrote that Morpheus was written in Java... Morpheus seemed pretty popular for a while there.
Besides, if you contract with someone to use a particular protocol, then don't follow that contract, whatever the reasons - that's not vision, that's breach of contract.
The people who buy these PCs probably do not know the difference between Mandrake and Lindows. They will let the default settings ride (unless they're fantasy fans, or something)
In order to promote "good" OSS like Mandrake, it has to be the default...
Speaking as a fairly advanced end-user who just switched to Linux, this is where I think the "choices" part of open-source breaks down... giving the user too many initial choices creates an impression of chaos - it should just boot up into Mandrake Linux with KDE (or GNOME) without asking...
I read German fairly well, and I agree with all of the comments about the rudeness of the response, as well as the accuracy of the translation.
However, there is no translation available of the original email sent to him - but in the German site, there is this quote:
* es gibt keinen Kopierschutz, der nicht zu knacken ist:-) (There is no copy-protection method that is uncrackable)
Not to defend this Consumer Service person's actions, but I would bet that it was this sentence that ticked him or her off...
The rest of the letter to EMI is very polite - but it could be that this rep just overreacted to this one part - let's focus on whether this is the true attitude of EMI.
Badge 17
"If 18% of the public believes they shouldn't have the right to back-up their own software, we should begin to panic."
Nah, it's time to panic already. About 49% of the United States, according to a recent Newsweek article, believes that the First Amendment grants too many freedoms. (If you don't believe in free speech, and want to tell me so, that will be ten dollars.)
82% is a huge number for an issue that is largely out of the public view. I'm pretty happy with it.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems to be an interesting precedent...
As I understand it, the basic claim of the police is that if it's easily accessible, it's public information.
So, how does this apply to the Internet?
For instance, is unencrypted email now public information? What about information on a HTML page - with no links leading to it?
I particularly like the police officers claiming that the lack of a "No tresspassing" sign / "don't open garbage" sign gives them the right to do this... Does a woman have to wear a "Don't Rape" sign to make this clear to potential attackers?
Perhaps the "Don't Rape" sign should really go on the Constitution - particularly the Fourth Amendment.
Kneejerk response #1: Yeah, but what good does that do me if all my files are .OGG?
Although I'd seriously consider going through and re-ripping all of them if I had the money... The iPod is just one of the coolest little gadgets I've seen in a while - especially the clean interface.
Has Apple indicated any wish to support alternate compression? A quick Google didn't find anything.
I suspect Apple should start researching OGG, as it seems much more likely than MP3 to remain un-DRM-contaminated... and Apple seems to be placing itself in the position of "use our computers - no stupid DRM!"
I also wonder if Apple could be persuaded to issue a release of iPod software for Darwin... that way it could more easily be converted.
Ha! I read that just this morning...
For those of you who are wondering, it can be found in Heinlein's book, "6 X H" (also known as "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag") - along with some other truly wonderful stories. ("...and he build a crooked house")
It's Ouroborosian!
Take a lesson from LOTR... "we could have found few treasures in Orthanc more precious than the thing which Wormtongue threw down at us."
So, to sum up: throwing round objects at powerful people is bad. (Hah! I said "round objects"!)
Hint, hint - if something's moderated as "Funny..." it might be sarcasm.
Microsoft had the vision to remove Java from their systems because of the lack of stability and usefulness in their systems.
Sure, Java may be slow... but lack of usefulness? You just wrote that Morpheus was written in Java... Morpheus seemed pretty popular for a while there.
Besides, if you contract with someone to use a particular protocol, then don't follow that contract, whatever the reasons - that's not vision, that's breach of contract.
Rorschach test? Well, somehow running on a typical computer, "Your responses show you have an unhealthy obsession with pornography..."
How long after something passes the Turing test do we start psychoanalyzing it?
The people who buy these PCs probably do not know the difference between Mandrake and Lindows. They will let the default settings ride (unless they're fantasy fans, or something)
In order to promote "good" OSS like Mandrake, it has to be the default...
Speaking as a fairly advanced end-user who just switched to Linux, this is where I think the "choices" part of open-source breaks down... giving the user too many initial choices creates an impression of chaos - it should just boot up into Mandrake Linux with KDE (or GNOME) without asking...
I read German fairly well, and I agree with all of the comments about the rudeness of the response, as well as the accuracy of the translation. However, there is no translation available of the original email sent to him - but in the German site, there is this quote: * es gibt keinen Kopierschutz, der nicht zu knacken ist :-) (There is no copy-protection method that is uncrackable)
Not to defend this Consumer Service person's actions, but I would bet that it was this sentence that ticked him or her off...
The rest of the letter to EMI is very polite - but it could be that this rep just overreacted to this one part - let's focus on whether this is the true attitude of EMI.
Badge 17
Hmmm... I always thought that it would be the EULAs that would kill Microsoft.
"If 18% of the public believes they shouldn't have the right to back-up their own software, we should begin to panic."
Nah, it's time to panic already. About 49% of the United States, according to a recent Newsweek article, believes that the First Amendment grants too many freedoms. (If you don't believe in free speech, and want to tell me so, that will be ten dollars.)
82% is a huge number for an issue that is largely out of the public view. I'm pretty happy with it.