And considering that most kazaa users are average folks, they won't bother to configure the application or mess with any settings because they are already happily downloading music. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) So most people are sharing whether they know it or not.
But preying off the dumb and the lazy only works for so long. Just look at Windows... oh wait.
Secondly, news sites are planning to go the 'pay' way in about a couple of years.
Good! I hope they do. That would open the door for independent and alternative news organizations... unless the man gobbles them up or silences them another way.
I bought an XBox because it can be hacked. Over time I happened to buy about 10 or so games I thought were cool... In my case, hacking is making MS money.
I'm always disappointed when people quote the Bible trying to disprove science. There are 2 things to remember here...
1. The Bible is a blueprint. Very few theological scholars believe the Bible should be taken as an account of history. What we were given wasn't a reference manual, it was a lesson book. In my view (as off-base as it may be) reading the Bible to get an account of what happend a couple thousand years ago is missing the point and somewhat cheapening the meaning of the book.
2. God was speaking to scientifically primitive people. If he mentioned aliens on other planets how would they take it? How would they write it? They didn't even have the words in their vocabulary. God just described the book, it was up to people with no knowledge of space, biology, evolution, etc. to write it. God chose his words carefully like any good parent. He didn't tell us everything (or there would be no science) but he told us what we needed to hear.
Any anyone who reads this and exclaims "He's calling God a liar!" is REALLY missing the point.
"lisp, cobol, fortran, c, c++, java, and unix shell scripting"
All are multi-platform, company agnostic and most (all?) have a free compiler and operating system to learn and experiment on. There's only one place you're going to use 'XYZ'.NET and one environment to develop it in. Furthermore, most of those languages are custom suited to a task or are a very important interation in the evolution of programming languages. What's VB have to offer academia besides "you can develop crap real fast."
Besides, a few community colleges around here do offer CS courses in VB and the like and some universities have those courses in their MIS programs... where they belong.
Instead of applauding their innovations and acknowledging their right of first use on ideas they made up, we are demanding that they share them with us
So in your world, 'one click shopping' and 'fixed price auctions' are inventions worthy of applause? The Slashdot crowd may be reactionary and leftist but they can usually identify a spade when they see it.
I'm sure there are pleny of shiny new business models worth of a patent but online DVD rentals is just the next iteration in an evolving economy. What if someone had patented online banking, online ticket purchases, etc. These kinds of patents hault the evolution of our economy for the sake of profit. They're stifiling innovation, not encouraging it.
In fact Netflix should be a shining example against business patents. They've been around for many years and some have tried, mostly-unsuccessfully, to mimic them. They've made themselves quite rich and the company how grown to what, 7 distribution centers. It's nearly a household name. And they did it without enforcing the bunk patent they recently pushed through. That's how capitalism works!
This is a pointless study. While yes, the slight possibility that one may dereference a NULL pointer is a bad thing it's miniscule compared to bad design. A perfectly programmed web server designed poorly will have bazillions more bugs and security flaws than a slightly bugged well-designed one. An objective code scanning bug-finder can't fix stupid.
First of all, that what an open market is about. If the refills are junk, people won't buy them. As for damaging your printer, in all my years of using recycled ink (now I'm locked into chipped carts btw) I've never had a printer damaged nor heard of anyone having their printer damaged by inferior ink. The build quality of these $50 printers is completely terrible. Most break on their own under normal usage! I point and scoff at your 'quality control' comment.
Similarly, what if Lexmark locked you into their paper which is %30 more than generic because 'the print quality is better.' Hell, dusty paper eats laser fusers and rollers alive. Might as well lock them into high quality brand name paper. And USB cables... lord knows cheap cables are inferior.
But I only read them for the articles. Damn shrinkwrap.
On another note, they should teflon coat the pages like stain resistant Dockers. Ummm...That way, if someone spills something on one, the articles won't be ruined.
This guy seems to be arguing there is no liability for GPLed software but every EULA I've ever read (I think I read one once) on any proprietary software pretty much says the software developer, company, friends, and their dogs are NOT liable for any damages done by their software. Wasn't there even a Slashdot article recently covering the lack of liability for software companies?
In fact, from the Windows 98 EULA: "IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (...)"
IN ANY CASE, MICROSOFT'S ENTIRE LIABILITY UNDER ANY PROVISION OF THIS EULA SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT ACTUALLY PAID BY YOU FOR THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT OR U.S.$5.00"
So I guess they're liable for like 100 bucks. Or 5 if they were 'fairly competing' with Linux on price.
BTW, Slashdot lameness filter (caps) is itself, lame.
would you as a software producer keep up support for your DOS-based application you wrote seven years ago
If your software was vital to the workings of thousands of companies and had billions of dollars riding on it's security and reliability... not to mention people are still *paying* for support and would probably still buy that version for the maturity and inertia factors alone; I'd say yes, I would probably still support it.
The vast majority of business moves at a snails pace and in a weak economy nobody wants to spend money where they don't have to. Hell, we just bought a couple more copies of VMS to go with our fancy new *relative of course* refrigerators... I mean VAXes. It's not a matter of being caught off-gaurd, it's a matter of costing a lot of companies a lot of money for no benefit.
And the comparison to the Linux kernel is a bit unfair. First, complete new versions of Windows would be more likened to kernel major versions which are few and far between. And I bet most people have changed Windows 'kernel versions' more than they think. Just look at the build numbers after you install a service pack. Second, Linux kernel upgrades are free. That's new features, bugfixes and the like for free.
Dropping NT4 support is like Linus proclaiming "Noone can backport fixes to any pre-2.0 kernels." That CAN'T happen (thanks GPL) and as long as there are people that run the older kernels and need these fixes, there will be people to backport them.
Slashdot Mirror
And considering that most kazaa users are average folks, they won't bother to configure the application or mess with any settings because they are already happily downloading music. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) So most people are sharing whether they know it or not.
But preying off the dumb and the lazy only works for so long. Just look at Windows... oh wait.
It's a joke, not a troll damnit!
is the mini-games you get to play on the way through.
Secondly, news sites are planning to go the 'pay' way in about a couple of years.
Good! I hope they do. That would open the door for independent and alternative news organizations... unless the man gobbles them up or silences them another way.
NYT does not let you access their content without logging in. That's nothing like Slashdot's system.
I bought an XBox because it can be hacked. Over time I happened to buy about 10 or so games I thought were cool... In my case, hacking is making MS money.
It almost feels dirty to say that.
*I* can rifle through *YOUR* stuff without damaging or disrupting anything... just tell me where you live and toss me a key.
What is success to a geek?
Money, Power, a geek craves not these things.
I'm always disappointed when people quote the Bible trying to disprove science. There are 2 things to remember here...
1. The Bible is a blueprint. Very few theological scholars believe the Bible should be taken as an account of history. What we were given wasn't a reference manual, it was a lesson book. In my view (as off-base as it may be) reading the Bible to get an account of what happend a couple thousand years ago is missing the point and somewhat cheapening the meaning of the book.
2. God was speaking to scientifically primitive people. If he mentioned aliens on other planets how would they take it? How would they write it? They didn't even have the words in their vocabulary. God just described the book, it was up to people with no knowledge of space, biology, evolution, etc. to write it. God chose his words carefully like any good parent. He didn't tell us everything (or there would be no science) but he told us what we needed to hear.
Any anyone who reads this and exclaims "He's calling God a liar!" is REALLY missing the point.
Riiiiight... next you'll be saying Dilythimum Crystals are fake too. You obviously have NO idea.
"lisp, cobol, fortran, c, c++, java, and unix shell scripting"
All are multi-platform, company agnostic and most (all?) have a free compiler and operating system to learn and experiment on. There's only one place you're going to use 'XYZ'.NET and one environment to develop it in. Furthermore, most of those languages are custom suited to a task or are a very important interation in the evolution of programming languages. What's VB have to offer academia besides "you can develop crap real fast."
Besides, a few community colleges around here do offer CS courses in VB and the like and some universities have those courses in their MIS programs... where they belong.
You obviously don't know what programming is if you're lumping programmers in with 'perl/php script kiddies.'
Dude... Tang is already radioactive.
How about a space station? There's got to be some kind of supplies up there somewhere to sustain the 'nauts until something can be done.
If not, maybe that should be the next mission. Just toss a heap of air, fuel, and food on a satellite and let it sit 'just in case.'
Instead of applauding their innovations and acknowledging their right of first use on ideas they made up, we are demanding that they share them with us
So in your world, 'one click shopping' and 'fixed price auctions' are inventions worthy of applause? The Slashdot crowd may be reactionary and leftist but they can usually identify a spade when they see it.
I'm sure there are pleny of shiny new business models worth of a patent but online DVD rentals is just the next iteration in an evolving economy. What if someone had patented online banking, online ticket purchases, etc. These kinds of patents hault the evolution of our economy for the sake of profit. They're stifiling innovation, not encouraging it.
In fact Netflix should be a shining example against business patents. They've been around for many years and some have tried, mostly-unsuccessfully, to mimic them. They've made themselves quite rich and the company how grown to what, 7 distribution centers. It's nearly a household name. And they did it without enforcing the bunk patent they recently pushed through. That's how capitalism works!
This is a pointless study. While yes, the slight possibility that one may dereference a NULL pointer is a bad thing it's miniscule compared to bad design. A perfectly programmed web server designed poorly will have bazillions more bugs and security flaws than a slightly bugged well-designed one. An objective code scanning bug-finder can't fix stupid.
So what I'm hearing is all that fancy error-finding software does the same thing as assert?
It's only used by about 100 or so people but still...
As for web browsers, we're kinda stuck with IE as while other browser *may* work ok, most aren't extensively tested in that environment.
First of all, that what an open market is about. If the refills are junk, people won't buy them. As for damaging your printer, in all my years of using recycled ink (now I'm locked into chipped carts btw) I've never had a printer damaged nor heard of anyone having their printer damaged by inferior ink. The build quality of these $50 printers is completely terrible. Most break on their own under normal usage! I point and scoff at your 'quality control' comment. Similarly, what if Lexmark locked you into their paper which is %30 more than generic because 'the print quality is better.' Hell, dusty paper eats laser fusers and rollers alive. Might as well lock them into high quality brand name paper. And USB cables... lord knows cheap cables are inferior.
But I only read them for the articles. Damn shrinkwrap.
On another note, they should teflon coat the pages like stain resistant Dockers. Ummm...That way, if someone spills something on one, the articles won't be ruined.
If anyone ever got an entire 400-700 page book by taking a picture of it, I applaud them. They must have had an awful lot of time on their hands.
Isn't there some kind of award for that?
If they died in the process they'd probably be up for a Darwin.
This guy seems to be arguing there is no liability for GPLed software but every EULA I've ever read (I think I read one once) on any proprietary software pretty much says the software developer, company, friends, and their dogs are NOT liable for any damages done by their software. Wasn't there even a Slashdot article recently covering the lack of liability for software companies?
In fact, from the Windows 98 EULA:
"IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (...)"
IN ANY CASE, MICROSOFT'S ENTIRE LIABILITY UNDER ANY PROVISION OF THIS EULA SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT ACTUALLY PAID BY YOU FOR THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT OR U.S.$5.00"
So I guess they're liable for like 100 bucks. Or 5 if they were 'fairly competing' with Linux on price.
BTW, Slashdot lameness filter (caps) is itself, lame.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation gives an assload of money to charity every year...
They must be EXCELLENT moral people.
I get your sarcasm but c'mon, we both know Al Gore invented the internet.
"Now I'm saving to buy myself Windows 2003. Proof by numbers, it's *got* to be 0.15% better than Windows 2000!"
Actually, That's about right...
would you as a software producer keep up support for your DOS-based application you wrote seven years ago
If your software was vital to the workings of thousands of companies and had billions of dollars riding on it's security and reliability... not to mention people are still *paying* for support and would probably still buy that version for the maturity and inertia factors alone; I'd say yes, I would probably still support it.
The vast majority of business moves at a snails pace and in a weak economy nobody wants to spend money where they don't have to. Hell, we just bought a couple more copies of VMS to go with our fancy new *relative of course* refrigerators... I mean VAXes. It's not a matter of being caught off-gaurd, it's a matter of costing a lot of companies a lot of money for no benefit.
And the comparison to the Linux kernel is a bit unfair. First, complete new versions of Windows would be more likened to kernel major versions which are few and far between. And I bet most people have changed Windows 'kernel versions' more than they think. Just look at the build numbers after you install a service pack. Second, Linux kernel upgrades are free. That's new features, bugfixes and the like for free.
Dropping NT4 support is like Linus proclaiming "Noone can backport fixes to any pre-2.0 kernels." That CAN'T happen (thanks GPL) and as long as there are people that run the older kernels and need these fixes, there will be people to backport them.