I'd like my teaching to steer towards cutting edge technology.
Don't.
Anything 'cutting edge' you try to teach a nine year old will be useless by the time he starts shaving:-) (I'm assuming male).
I'm a final year student, at a very good, academic, university. In the first semester of our course we were taught SML (a functional programming language, a style quite unlike procedural languages such as C) and MIPS assembly. Throughout the course we have touched on lisp, c, java, sql, perl, uml, and many more on options that I didn't take. All the time we have been given a good foundation in hardware, networking protocols, algorithms, patterns, and software engineering.
Give the kid a strong academic education. Teach fun stuff, sure, but make sure you teach dull stuff like orders of complexity of algorithms. Give him as broad education as you can - introduce him to as many areas as possible, and if he is a hacker, he will sit up all night studying the key areas that interest him anyway. That's just my $0.02.
Congratulations on the progress, and I wish you well with the project.
VMware have produced a very useful piece of commercial software for Linux. Plex86 does the same job, and since you are giving it away for free, you may well destroy the market for VMware's product on the Linux platform.
Is there a danger that you are sending a message to commercial software developers? In future, may VMware's experience mean that other software companies who may have thought about releasing software for Linux, will avoid the platform? I am opposed to OS monopolies, but I am happy to pay for Quake3 (commercial != evil).
I don't want to be too negative here, and I don't have a solution myself (apart from being good capitalists, and start charging for everything we write - not likely:-)
It is a 64 bit processor because it has 64 bit registers, ALUs (execution units), and memory space.
No, an individual instruction cannot carry a full 64 bit address - but then neither can a single 32bit RISC instruction carry a full 32bit value, nor a 64bit RISC instruction carry a full 64bit value. No difference on MIPS or Sparc.
If you need to load a new 64 bit address you probably have to do it it two instructions - one containing the lower 32bits and one containing the upper 32bits. But how often are you going to have individual program with a grobal dat segment in excess of 4gb?
Actually, the Itanium will run x86 code (slowly); it has hardware emulation (which can't take full advantage of the Itanium's parallelism).
Hmmm - not sure about this "hardware emulation".
A Pentium 2/3 core basically has
an x86 -> RISC decoder
a bunch of RISC execution units.
An Itanium core basically has
an x86 -> RISC decoder
a bunch of RISC execution units.
The only difference, is that in the Itanium you have the choice to either execute x86 instructions like normal, or to switch off the x86 decoder and to start fetching 128 VLIW instructions that break down to 3 * 41bit RISC instructions, that execute directly on the internal execution units
But the way that x86 instructions are executed in the Itanium is in effect the same as in a pentium 2/3.
You must have an OS compiled for the EPIC instruction set.
Since the processor boots into x86 mode, provided that you have a backwards compatible system architecture, an IA64 machine should run DOS, Minix, x86 Linux, etc - any IA32 OS - without recompilation.
Furthermore, the processor support switching mode (64 -> 32 or vice versa) whenever it is interpted, so an almost fully 32bit OS can cheerfully support 64bit apps, even servicing its system calls with 32bit interrupt handlers. Conversely a 64bit OS can run 32bit apps, servicing its system calls with 64bit interupt handlers.
One could speculate that Intel looked at the amount of 16bit code still kicking around in win 9x, and decided that it would be a long while after release that we saw a fully 64bit windows:-)
A few years ago you could construct an identical arguement, that everyone should run Windows and not waste their time with this little toy OS Linux - you could write a little of key features that Linux lacked five years ago (and you can still construct a fair list of unsupported hardware).
Personally, I have a lot less interest in helping out on the plex86 project than in learning and start contributing to the linux kernel sources (at the end of the day, a monopoly over an application has a lot less drastic consequences than one company holding a monopoly over the OS markets - eg. I don't mind if Quake IV remains closed source).
But why criticize the guys writing plex86?
Don't put other people off playing with plex86 - the fact that plex86 is behind vmware just means that they need all the more help if they are going to be succesful - even if that is just people running plex & reporting bugs.
I say good luck, to the guys out there writing plex86. I hope you succeed. The more good software in the world the better.
They deserve your dollars, and you deserve their fabulous piece of software.
Now are you sure you haven't been doing any PR work for M$?;-)
That the encryption is weak or it is encrypted makes no difference.
IANAL, but I think it does.
Imagine I make a keyboard that encrypts the text you type, and provide special Windows drivers to decrypt the text, and wrap the drivers up in an EULA that makes you promise you will not be naughty and reverse engineer anything.
If you disassemble my software and reverse engineer my code, then I can probably prevent the distribution of any drivers based on your work. It is not a case of me owning the text you typed, but owning the IP over the driver that I wrote (and that your driver is a derivative work of). However, if my encryption is weak, and you can reverse engineer just from experimenting with the hardware, then you do not break my EULA (which only covers the software), and I cannot prevent you from distributing your drivers.
it just discourages other companies from being so generous
DC is being every bit as generous as your local dealer who gives crack to kiddies to get them hooked. DC is not being generous. It is driven by the motive of making money.
Do we really want a situation where every new technology comes out hand in hand with restrictive legislation to give the companies a chance to make a profit?
I have two imaginative thoughts.
Sell things for what they are worth. Crazy, I know, but what if DC tried selling the scanner for what it cost them to make it? Wow!
Just write off the loss. Okay, hands up anyone who has ever taken a free T-shirt at a trade show, for a product that they will never, ever, buy. Should there be an EULA on the T-shirt against that? If DC were really feeling generous, they could just write off the loss of a handful of scanners to/. geeks who want to hack around with them, and concentrate on pushing more scanners at lusers who are more likely to use their software.
DC are currently expending a lot of energy on fighting us, not on making money. This is very dumb.
despite the fact that they sell their hardware as a loss leader and rely on the subscription charges to make any money.
Ah! DC is stupid. Tell me again, why is that my problem?
The key change in the license agreement would seem to me, to be that this:
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the:C.R.Q. Software in whole or part or transmit the:C.R.Q. Software over a network or from one computer to another.
Has been changed to this:
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the:CRQ software or:CueCat reader in whole or part or transmit the:CRQ software over a network or from one computer to another.
They clearly thought that anybody wanting to reverse engineer their scanners would have to disassemble their software, so they thought that they could prevent this with the software licence agreement. They clearly didn't realize that by using such a braindead-simple protocol, people could reverse engineer the protocol just from the hardware, so they have extended the EULA to cover reverse engineering from the CueCat itself.
But how can this be legal? What you buy a piece of software, you are buying a license to use that software. When you buy (/are given ) a piece of hardware you own it. You can do what you like with it. You have the right to sell it to someone else, and DC have no contract with that person.
<discliamer>
This was just an off the cuff remark, meant in humour, and I did make that quite clear.
</discliamer>
But I do believe in gun control, so here goes:
I think that the general problem here is that there is a perception that you cannot own and use tools in a responsible manner. You cannot outlaw a screwdriver because someone in Timbuktu used one to commit murder, rape, or burglary, because screwdrivers have legitimate legal uses.
Non-sensical arguement. Making screwdrivers illegal wouldn't make the world any safer. Noone is talking about banning screwdrivers. Arguements like this try to twist focus away from how dangerous guns are.
Personal responsibility is the issue.
And I do not want to live in a society where my child may die because of the irresponsibe actions of others. You know the recent school shooting? The one where that really young kid shot a classmate? He got the gun, because a parent/guardian had left it lying around the house in a shoebox. The bottom line is, that there are a lot of people in this world who are irresponsible. I choose to live in a society that treats me as not being responsible enough to own a gun. I am happy with this fact. It takes away the right for myself and responsible people like myself to own a gun, but it also means that I know that there are a lot less guns in the hands of irresponsible people. That is a trade-off I choose to accept, as I believe it makes my society a safer place to live.
This, for people in countries where gun ownership is highly limited, seems often to be the crux of the arguement, and your petty screwdriver analogies deliberately duck this issue.
<tasteless>
If you want to prevent another Columbine, stop pissing around arguing about parental controls for fscking Eminem CDs. Quake players don't kill people - people with guns kill people.
</tasteless>
Citizens have the ability to vote and often don't, because they are being brainwashed by corporations NOT to.
Interesting comment. I would like to see some justification for it, and you are starting to sound a little paranoid now. But I am not entirely cynical about that.
Think for a moment on the current protests in the UK and Europe about fuel prices.
Think about how mad those people are. Realize that the Prime Ministers of most of the EU are defying the people to rise up in rebellion.
Please explain this remark. [FYI, I am English]
The Prime Minister in the UK is taking a stand, saying that public policy will not be dictated by mobs on the street. We had this happening in the UK in the 70's, and I can tell you that this is not a good thing. If you are seriously trying to suggest that People in the UK are about to overthrow the government you have no concept of the political situation.
I would say that this is a perfect example of gun cotrol in effect. After all, look at situations around the world in recent years where there has been civil unrest on the streets, shortages, people stockpiling food, etc. This kind of polictical unrest seems invariably to lead to violence, yet it hasn't in this case. If fuel prices in America were $5.50 a gallon, and blockades of refineries were making gas stations run out, do you honestly think that no-one would get shot over this?
What point were you trying to make?
At the core of the American system is the struggle of the common man to use the things he owns versus the 'compelling interest' to protect the revenue streams of Tine Warner and Disney. Corporations are not citizens and should not have the ability to vote, but they do--it's called money.
You must remember that the gun manufacturers are also a powerful lobbying unit, with a view to mindwashing the public into acceptance of its wares - it is unbalanced not to take this into account.
I'm sure that you would be fine (eg., the CD vs tape arguement), if it is for personal use.
I'm not sure how legal it would be to rip a DVD to mpeg4 CD. In this thread of posts I have said that it should be, and I feel that it is at least morally fine. But even if it is acceptable to own an mpeg4 CD of a film as you own the DVD it came from, What if the means you used to create the mpeg4 CD were illegal? If DeCSS and all derived software are illegal, what about any physical artifacts (the CD) that they were used to create?
I think the guy is just doing everything he can to cover his ass from the MPAA lawyers. And I don't blame him.
Yes, if the original DeCSS is found to be illegal, then so presumably will be any derivative works, including FlasKMPEG DeCSS.
But just declaring a program illegal doesn't make it the least bit more difficult for a pirate to lay his hands on a copy. Do you think that the US gov ended up slackening controls on the use of strong crypto out of choice? It couldn't control it. And the MPAA cannot stop pirates getting DeCSS.
By fighting DeCSS, they maintain a use for FlasKMPEG that is at least morally legitamate [even if not legally so due to the need for DeCSS]. By fighting DeCSS, they stop it becoming a standard part of Linux, available straight off the CD you install from. But they push us towards FlasKMPEG, and ripping DVD -> mpeg4. Surely DeCSS alone is the lesser of two evils, given how cheap and easy it is to copy a CD?
I am not arguing whether any of this is legal, I'm just saying what I think will actually happen.
And quite a good troll at that - as RedWizzard's claims are the exact opposite of reality:-)
people will want to make perfect copies of DVDs. To do that you need to decode the DVD (using DeCSS, for example)
Switch brain on. By definition, if you are making a perfect copy, then there is no need to decode the DVD first. You just do a bit by bit copy.
Since you're re-encoding the video you don't need DeCSS - any DVD player will do because you can capture the data after the MPEG2 decoding (e.g. with a hacked video driver).
No, not true. To quote the FlaskMPEG website, "The original FlasKMPEG can't and won't read files from encrypted DVDs". You do need DeCSS.
This really highlights a flaw in the CSS system - it only protects the MPEG2 signal. If you don't need a bit perfect MPEG2 copy it's worthless as a protection scheme.
The closing sentence makes sense if you switch do for don't.
Moderators, please: (Score:-1, Troll), not (Score:2, Informative).
Well, unless I missed something, you can only use FlaskMPEG to copy non-encrypted DVD's. So if your DVD is CSS-encrypted, you need both FlaskMPEG *and* DeCSS to copy it to a CD-ROM. You cannot do that alone with FlaskMPEG (unless the DVD isn't encrypted).
If you check out FlaskMPEG's website, there is mention of a program called 'FlasKMPEG DeCSS'. In the same paragraph, it states:
FlasKMPEG sources are available under the GPL license and it's totally out of our responsibility
...and...
The original FlasKMPEG can't and won't read files from encrypted DVDs
Ah, the joy of GPL - so, you are totally right, but someone has already fixed this issue:-)
This really is a non-issue. Either through use of 'FlaskMPEG DeCSS', or by simply DeCSSing the DVD to HD, then running FlaskMPEG, one person can cut a CD of the DVD. Then anyone with a CD writter can copy it in 5 minutes. This is all about as legal as trading mp3s;-)
The bottom line, IMO, is that they are better just letting geeks watch DVDs freely under Linux, than encouraging people to start ripping DVDs to CD. But that's their call.
I agree with you, that FlaskMPEG is legal. Therefore, shouldn't the MPAA stop fighting DeCSS? MPAA must hate FlaskMPEG even more than DeCSS, but probably can't use the law to stop it.
While they pretend that the DeCSS case is about the copying of DVDs, it is really about limiting their distribution, through the region lock. DeCSS doesn't help people copy DVDs at all. FlaskMPEG totally circumvents all region protection, and makes it easy to copy the resulting mpeg4 CDs. It must be MPAAs worst nightmare come true.
Surely banning DeCSS makes it more likely for people to turn to FlaskMPEG?
If you won't let me watch my DVDs under Linux, I'll just back them up to CDs, and watch these:-) This should be perfetcly legal: I can back up audio CDs to tape, etc. Surely DeCSS is the lesser of two evils?
Warning:
The author declines any responsability from the use of this program. This software can not be used with copyrighted material because doing so, would infringe many laws all around the world.
The author doesn't intend to promote piracy by any means, and the scope of the application is limited to video processing tasks with home made digital video material.
This is kinda like selling guns unrestricted and saying "please don't shoot anyone, cuz that would be against the law". Oh wait, you guys already do that.;-)
Joke, okay. Calm down and don't flame.
But seriously, I want the ability to back up my DVDs, and play them back on machines without DVD drives, in exactly the same way that I can backup audio CDs to tape, and play them in my car.
I don't see anything in the least bit illegal about FlaskMPEG, but I'm sure that the MPAA lawyers will be doing their best to take a different view on that.
I wonder whether this could have any impact on the DeCSS situation? Surely, it would be better to let people view DVDs unrestricted under Linux, rather than be a pain in our ass and encourage us to start backing our DVDs up on CD.
but overall if her music was free no one would ever bother to buy the CD's
Her music is already freely available. Have you never heard of radio? Anyway, if people want it for free, it is just as easy to get a friend to tape it for you, as it is to go to the shop. People seem quite happy handing over their hard earned cash.
People go out and buy the singles, despite the music being crap. People go out and buy the albums anyway, despite the fact that they contain exactly the tracks, along with a bunch of b-sides. They also buy more posters than they have wallspace for. Then they go to the live concerts, despite the fact that the bands are just lip-syncing to exactly the same goddamn tracks.
The market after all would only stand good music being rewarded & well that wouldn't please RIAA to much as those junk bands are what they make the most money off of these days...
Oh I wish that was true. But, in taste tests people often can't tell bottled water from tap water. The what is the differencial, why do people cough up the money? Marketing. Why is Britney successful? Marketing. No need for this to change, I'm afraid.
Um, don't radio stations have to pay the music studios when the play the music?
Yes, they do. There are bodies who collect fees from radio/TV stations, advertisers, film companies depending on when/where/how often the music is used.
But to go back to my original post:
The biggest danger to the music industry is the music industry.
I believe that all the radio stations playing music off vinal were originally pirates, and the music industry fought them, until these organizations were set up to collect money. The music industry found a way to increase their sales through the new technology it feared. A lesson that they should have learnt, and that was repeated in the VCR.
Their problem is that there's no way to do that with mp3s.
There is currently no way to do that with mp3s. Check out this recent Slashdot article for one solution to the problem. I know that I would pay money for a radio station where, in my user prefferences, I could click "Ooops, Brittany, don't do it again. Ever." How do radio and TV stations make the money to pay for using the songs? Advertisments and subscription fees.
But even if they can't make money out of mp3s, once this takes off in a big way, no record company will be able to afford not to have their music available over the net. People using Napster today, are like the first people listening to pirate radio stations. Nowadays, record companies rely on air play to sell their music. In the future, the same will probably be true of the Internet. In reality, any major record label could find a way to survive if they stopped recieving fees from radio stations, but couldn't if all their artists stopped getting air play.
If they are using stalling tactics to buy time to catch up, they are smart. If they think they can stop people downloading music off the Internet, they are shooting at their own feet with a sawn-off shotgun.
But to address this as a serious point, the differencial in quality is one of the reasons people buy bottled water, and also one of the reasons people buy CDs of music that they already have on mp3.
The main reason is both cases in probably marketing, though.:-)
True, in the sense that they allow music to be distributed at no visibe cost to the user. Exactly the same arguement could be applied to radio. That hasn't killed the music industry; quite the opposite - record sales depend on getting air play. Mp3s are not a competitor to CDs. As the trade in mp3s rises, so does the sale of CDs; but I know this I listen to the radio a little less these days.
napster creates a competitive market.
For whom, though?
The whole point of the article was to say: who says mp3s pose any competiton to the music industry, in the same way that the vcr has proven a help, not a hinderance to the motion picture industry.
People still buy CDs, despite music being freely available on the radio.
People still buy bottled water, despite water being freely available from the tap.
People still buy CDs, despite music being freely available as mp3s.
We're capable of selling bottled water in this country (something that comes out of the tap by the gallon, virtually for free).
Spot on. The more people who recieve your music for free, the more people who will pay you for it. Logical? probably not. But then we aren't all vulcans.
But the tired old men circling the wagons around the old technology can't wrap their heads around that concept in a new context.
Yup. The biggest danger to the music industry is the music industry. If they have any sense, these court cases are about buying themselves some time to catch up.
In the UK, and probably elsewhere, I know that singles are usually sold as loss leaders to get people to buy the album. They actually sell singles to LOSE money, but to buy public awareness, so why not just give them away free on the internet? And everyone knows that the singles are supposed to be the best tracks on the album, so why not give away the weak tracks too?
What has made OpenBSD so successful is not the many eyes, but rather the FEW GOOD eyes.
Very good point. But remember that the OpenBSD guys took what was meant to be one of the most secure OSes, and gave it a damn good polish. Also, a lot of their job, was going through outstanding bug reports, that no one had got around to fixing. Would *BSD have been as secure as it was, to give them such a good foundation, without the hundreds more OSS programmers using/working on it for years? Would they have recieved the same quality of information in bug reports, if BSD users did not have the source code? Do you think Windows public beta test are really useful for anything more than guaging public opinion of the product?
I'm not meaning to dismiss the work done by de Raadt et al, and know that I am not providing empirical facts. But I do not doubt that the coders in the public having the source helped the core development team.
police state
Function: noun
Date: 1865
: a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures
Not necessarily just guys with guns. Reading my email without even telling me what you are doing, when, where, why and how it is happening, is an arbitrary exercise of power by police [FBI] and especially secret police [NSA].
My point was, that at least the answers to these questions are covered by publicly known legal procedures, when it comes to tapping phones.
Well, it depends. Frankly, some code is proprietary, and as such, we cannot legally look at it.
I'm not asking for the source code to Windows. The FBI is not a private entity. It is meant to be there to serve the American public, and just saying, "it's our proprietary code, and we don't want to show you," isn't good enough. The American people paid for it. It is the American people's code.
There are open protocols that the police have to follow if they want to tap your phone. Why? because this is not a police state. I have a right to ask what, when, where and how this may happen. Surely I have equal rights to know what is going on with carnivore. Was that FBI you said, or KGB? I couldn't quite hear.
We still can see what it does, and if we know what language it was written in, we can reverse-engineer it, but there will most likely be differences between that code and the original.
WTF? Are you a troll, or on crack?
Are you suggesting people try to reverse engineer the carnivore communication protocols? Just how fast do you want a SWAT team on your ass? Please, don't try this at home kids, it would be a bad idea.
Or do you want to reverse engineer the carnivore program itself? If so, I recommend that an ouija-board will be more useful, than knowledge of what programming language it was written in. How, short of psychic powers, do you intend to calculate what a program that you never get to see running, which is running on a computer that you have no access to, and that you cannot directly communicate with (unless you happen to be a FBI agent), is up to?
Also, I can understand, from a security standpoint, that some code may not be made freely available in order to provide greater security for the program that the code is for. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it.
Ah - security through obscurity, that old favourite.
Does the fact that Linux's source code is availably make it inherently more or less secure that Windows NT? Tough one to prove. But I would rather that carnivore was fully security auditted, OpenBSD-style. Many eyes. Shallow bugs.
Later, you go on to say, "I prefer it if not all information is free," well what if it comes down to this: making information about carnivore free, may make it less likely that your private emails are turned into freely available information. Saying, "I don't either to be free," may not be an option.
Slashdot Mirror
might be ;-)
-
I'd like my teaching to steer towards cutting edge technology.
Don't.Anything 'cutting edge' you try to teach a nine year old will be useless by the time he starts shaving :-) (I'm assuming male).
I'm a final year student, at a very good, academic, university. In the first semester of our course we were taught SML (a functional programming language, a style quite unlike procedural languages such as C) and MIPS assembly. Throughout the course we have touched on lisp, c, java, sql, perl, uml, and many more on options that I didn't take. All the time we have been given a good foundation in hardware, networking protocols, algorithms, patterns, and software engineering.
Give the kid a strong academic education. Teach fun stuff, sure, but make sure you teach dull stuff like orders of complexity of algorithms. Give him as broad education as you can - introduce him to as many areas as possible, and if he is a hacker, he will sit up all night studying the key areas that interest him anyway. That's just my $0.02.
cheers,
G
Congratulations on the progress, and I wish you well with the project.
:-)
VMware have produced a very useful piece of commercial software for Linux. Plex86 does the same job, and since you are giving it away for free, you may well destroy the market for VMware's product on the Linux platform.
Is there a danger that you are sending a message to commercial software developers? In future, may VMware's experience mean that other software companies who may have thought about releasing software for Linux, will avoid the platform? I am opposed to OS monopolies, but I am happy to pay for Quake3 (commercial != evil).
I don't want to be too negative here, and I don't have a solution myself (apart from being good capitalists, and start charging for everything we write - not likely
cheers,
G
It is a 64 bit processor because it has 64 bit registers, ALUs (execution units), and memory space.
No, an individual instruction cannot carry a full 64 bit address - but then neither can a single 32bit RISC instruction carry a full 32bit value, nor a 64bit RISC instruction carry a full 64bit value. No difference on MIPS or Sparc.
If you need to load a new 64 bit address you probably have to do it it two instructions - one containing the lower 32bits and one containing the upper 32bits. But how often are you going to have individual program with a grobal dat segment in excess of 4gb?
(btw, the instructions are 41 bit, not 42.)
cheers,
G
-
Actually, the Itanium will run x86 code (slowly); it has hardware emulation (which can't take full advantage of the Itanium's parallelism).
Hmmm - not sure about this "hardware emulation".A Pentium 2/3 core basically has
- an x86 -> RISC decoder
- a bunch of RISC execution units.
An Itanium core basically hasThe only difference, is that in the Itanium you have the choice to either execute x86 instructions like normal, or to switch off the x86 decoder and to start fetching 128 VLIW instructions that break down to 3 * 41bit RISC instructions, that execute directly on the internal execution units
But the way that x86 instructions are executed in the Itanium is in effect the same as in a pentium 2/3.
-
You must have an OS compiled for the EPIC instruction set.
Since the processor boots into x86 mode, provided that you have a backwards compatible system architecture, an IA64 machine should run DOS, Minix, x86 Linux, etc - any IA32 OS - without recompilation.Furthermore, the processor support switching mode (64 -> 32 or vice versa) whenever it is interpted, so an almost fully 32bit OS can cheerfully support 64bit apps, even servicing its system calls with 32bit interrupt handlers. Conversely a 64bit OS can run 32bit apps, servicing its system calls with 64bit interupt handlers.
One could speculate that Intel looked at the amount of 16bit code still kicking around in win 9x, and decided that it would be a long while after release that we saw a fully 64bit windows :-)
cheers,
G
Personally, I have a lot less interest in helping out on the plex86 project than in learning and start contributing to the linux kernel sources (at the end of the day, a monopoly over an application has a lot less drastic consequences than one company holding a monopoly over the OS markets - eg. I don't mind if Quake IV remains closed source).
But why criticize the guys writing plex86?
Don't put other people off playing with plex86 - the fact that plex86 is behind vmware just means that they need all the more help if they are going to be succesful - even if that is just people running plex & reporting bugs.
I say good luck, to the guys out there writing plex86. I hope you succeed. The more good software in the world the better.
-
They deserve your dollars, and you deserve their fabulous piece of software.
Now are you sure you haven't been doing any PR work for M$?-
That the encryption is weak or it is encrypted makes no difference.
IANAL, but I think it does.Imagine I make a keyboard that encrypts the text you type, and provide special Windows drivers to decrypt the text, and wrap the drivers up in an EULA that makes you promise you will not be naughty and reverse engineer anything.
If you disassemble my software and reverse engineer my code, then I can probably prevent the distribution of any drivers based on your work. It is not a case of me owning the text you typed, but owning the IP over the driver that I wrote (and that your driver is a derivative work of). However, if my encryption is weak, and you can reverse engineer just from experimenting with the hardware, then you do not break my EULA (which only covers the software), and I cannot prevent you from distributing your drivers.
cheers,
G
-
it just discourages other companies from being so generous
DC is being every bit as generous as your local dealer who gives crack to kiddies to get them hooked. DC is not being generous. It is driven by the motive of making money.-
Do we really want a situation where every new technology comes out hand in hand with restrictive legislation to give the companies a chance to make a profit?
I have two imaginative thoughts.-
Sell things for what they are worth. Crazy, I know, but what if DC tried selling the scanner for what it cost them to make it? Wow!
-
Just write off the loss. Okay, hands up anyone who has ever taken a free T-shirt at a trade show, for a product that they will never, ever, buy. Should there be an EULA on the T-shirt against that? If DC were really feeling generous, they could just write off the loss of a handful of scanners to
/. geeks who want to hack around with them, and concentrate on pushing more scanners at lusers who are more likely to use their software.
DC are currently expending a lot of energy on fighting us, not on making money. This is very dumb.-
despite the fact that they sell their hardware as a loss leader and rely on the subscription charges to make any money.
Ah! DC is stupid. Tell me again, why is that my problem?-
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the
:C.R.Q. Software in whole or part or transmit the :C.R.Q. Software over a network or from one computer to another.
Has been changed to this:-
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the
:CRQ software or :CueCat reader in whole or part or transmit the :CRQ software over a network or from one computer to another.
They clearly thought that anybody wanting to reverse engineer their scanners would have to disassemble their software, so they thought that they could prevent this with the software licence agreement. They clearly didn't realize that by using such a braindead-simple protocol, people could reverse engineer the protocol just from the hardware, so they have extended the EULA to cover reverse engineering from the CueCat itself.But how can this be legal? What you buy a piece of software, you are buying a license to use that software. When you buy ( /are given ) a piece of hardware you own it. You can do what you like with it. You have the right to sell it to someone else, and DC have no contract with that person.
This cannot be enforcable.
<discliamer>
This was just an off the cuff remark, meant in humour, and I did make that quite clear.
</discliamer>
But I do believe in gun control, so here goes:
-
I think that the general problem here is that there is a perception that you cannot own and use tools in a responsible manner. You cannot outlaw a screwdriver because someone in Timbuktu used one to commit murder, rape, or burglary, because screwdrivers have legitimate legal uses.
Non-sensical arguement. Making screwdrivers illegal wouldn't make the world any safer. Noone is talking about banning screwdrivers. Arguements like this try to twist focus away from how dangerous guns are.-
Personal responsibility is the issue.
And I do not want to live in a society where my child may die because of the irresponsibe actions of others. You know the recent school shooting? The one where that really young kid shot a classmate? He got the gun, because a parent/guardian had left it lying around the house in a shoebox. The bottom line is, that there are a lot of people in this world who are irresponsible. I choose to live in a society that treats me as not being responsible enough to own a gun. I am happy with this fact. It takes away the right for myself and responsible people like myself to own a gun, but it also means that I know that there are a lot less guns in the hands of irresponsible people. That is a trade-off I choose to accept, as I believe it makes my society a safer place to live.This, for people in countries where gun ownership is highly limited, seems often to be the crux of the arguement, and your petty screwdriver analogies deliberately duck this issue.
<tasteless>
If you want to prevent another Columbine, stop pissing around arguing about parental controls for fscking Eminem CDs.
Quake players don't kill people - people with guns kill people.
</tasteless>
-
Citizens have the ability to vote and often don't, because they are being brainwashed by corporations NOT to.
Interesting comment. I would like to see some justification for it, and you are starting to sound a little paranoid now.But I am not entirely cynical about that.
-
Think for a moment on the current protests in the UK and Europe about fuel prices.
Please explain this remark. [FYI, I am English]Think about how mad those people are. Realize that the Prime Ministers of most of the EU are defying the people to rise up in rebellion.
The Prime Minister in the UK is taking a stand, saying that public policy will not be dictated by mobs on the street. We had this happening in the UK in the 70's, and I can tell you that this is not a good thing. If you are seriously trying to suggest that People in the UK are about to overthrow the government you have no concept of the political situation.
I would say that this is a perfect example of gun cotrol in effect. After all, look at situations around the world in recent years where there has been civil unrest on the streets, shortages, people stockpiling food, etc. This kind of polictical unrest seems invariably to lead to violence, yet it hasn't in this case. If fuel prices in America were $5.50 a gallon, and blockades of refineries were making gas stations run out, do you honestly think that no-one would get shot over this?
What point were you trying to make?
-
At the core of the American system is the struggle of the common man to use the things he owns versus the 'compelling interest' to protect the revenue streams of Tine Warner and Disney. Corporations are not citizens and should not have the ability to vote, but they do--it's called money.
You must remember that the gun manufacturers are also a powerful lobbying unit, with a view to mindwashing the public into acceptance of its wares - it is unbalanced not to take this into account.cheers,
G
I'm sure that you would be fine (eg., the CD vs tape arguement), if it is for personal use.
I'm not sure how legal it would be to rip a DVD to mpeg4 CD. In this thread of posts I have said that it should be, and I feel that it is at least morally fine. But even if it is acceptable to own an mpeg4 CD of a film as you own the DVD it came from, What if the means you used to create the mpeg4 CD were illegal? If DeCSS and all derived software are illegal, what about any physical artifacts (the CD) that they were used to create?
I think the guy is just doing everything he can to cover his ass from the MPAA lawyers. And I don't blame him.
G
Oh sure, totally. But so what?
Yes, if the original DeCSS is found to be illegal, then so presumably will be any derivative works, including FlasKMPEG DeCSS.
But just declaring a program illegal doesn't make it the least bit more difficult for a pirate to lay his hands on a copy. Do you think that the US gov ended up slackening controls on the use of strong crypto out of choice? It couldn't control it. And the MPAA cannot stop pirates getting DeCSS.
By fighting DeCSS, they maintain a use for FlasKMPEG that is at least morally legitamate [even if not legally so due to the need for DeCSS]. By fighting DeCSS, they stop it becoming a standard part of Linux, available straight off the CD you install from. But they push us towards FlasKMPEG, and ripping DVD -> mpeg4. Surely DeCSS alone is the lesser of two evils, given how cheap and easy it is to copy a CD?
I am not arguing whether any of this is legal, I'm just saying what I think will actually happen.
cheers,
G
-
people will want to make perfect copies of DVDs. To do that you need to decode the DVD (using DeCSS, for example)
Switch brain on. By definition, if you are making a perfect copy, then there is no need to decode the DVD first. You just do a bit by bit copy.-
Since you're re-encoding the video you don't need DeCSS - any DVD player will do because you can capture the data after the MPEG2 decoding (e.g. with a hacked video driver).
No, not true. To quote the FlaskMPEG website, "The original FlasKMPEG can't and won't read files from encrypted DVDs". You do need DeCSS.-
This really highlights a flaw in the CSS system - it only protects the MPEG2 signal. If you don't need a bit perfect MPEG2 copy it's worthless as a protection scheme.
The closing sentence makes sense if you switch do for don't.Moderators, please: (Score:-1, Troll), not (Score:2, Informative).
-
Well, unless I missed something, you can only use FlaskMPEG to copy non-encrypted DVD's. So if your DVD is CSS-encrypted, you need both FlaskMPEG *and* DeCSS to copy it to a CD-ROM. You cannot do that alone with FlaskMPEG (unless the DVD isn't encrypted).
If you check out FlaskMPEG's website, there is mention of a program called 'FlasKMPEG DeCSS'. In the same paragraph, it states:-
FlasKMPEG sources are available under the GPL license and it's totally out of our responsibility
...and...
Ah, the joy of GPL - so, you are totally right, but someone has already fixed this issueThe original FlasKMPEG can't and won't read files from encrypted DVDs
This really is a non-issue. Either through use of 'FlaskMPEG DeCSS', or by simply DeCSSing the DVD to HD, then running FlaskMPEG, one person can cut a CD of the DVD. Then anyone with a CD writter can copy it in 5 minutes. This is all about as legal as trading mp3s ;-)
The bottom line, IMO, is that they are better just letting geeks watch DVDs freely under Linux, than encouraging people to start ripping DVDs to CD. But that's their call.
cheers,
G
But this is my point.
:-) This should be perfetcly legal: I can back up audio CDs to tape, etc. Surely DeCSS is the lesser of two evils?
I agree with you, that FlaskMPEG is legal. Therefore, shouldn't the MPAA stop fighting DeCSS? MPAA must hate FlaskMPEG even more than DeCSS, but probably can't use the law to stop it.
While they pretend that the DeCSS case is about the copying of DVDs, it is really about limiting their distribution, through the region lock. DeCSS doesn't help people copy DVDs at all. FlaskMPEG totally circumvents all region protection, and makes it easy to copy the resulting mpeg4 CDs. It must be MPAAs worst nightmare come true.
Surely banning DeCSS makes it more likely for people to turn to FlaskMPEG?
If you won't let me watch my DVDs under Linux, I'll just back them up to CDs, and watch these
I hope this makes my post a bit clearer.
G
- Warning:
This is kinda like selling guns unrestricted and saying "please don't shoot anyone, cuz that would be against the law". Oh wait, you guys already do that.The author declines any responsability from the use of this program. This software can not be used with copyrighted material because doing so, would infringe many laws all around the world.
The author doesn't intend to promote piracy by any means, and the scope of the application is limited to video processing tasks with home made digital video material.
Joke, okay. Calm down and don't flame.
But seriously, I want the ability to back up my DVDs, and play them back on machines without DVD drives, in exactly the same way that I can backup audio CDs to tape, and play them in my car.
I don't see anything in the least bit illegal about FlaskMPEG, but I'm sure that the MPAA lawyers will be doing their best to take a different view on that.
I wonder whether this could have any impact on the DeCSS situation? Surely, it would be better to let people view DVDs unrestricted under Linux, rather than be a pain in our ass and encourage us to start backing our DVDs up on CD.
cheers,
G
Okay, I'll calm down. But really:
-
but overall if her music was free no one would ever bother to buy the CD's
Her music is already freely available. Have you never heard of radio? Anyway, if people want it for free, it is just as easy to get a friend to tape it for you, as it is to go to the shop. People seem quite happy handing over their hard earned cash.People go out and buy the singles, despite the music being crap. People go out and buy the albums anyway, despite the fact that they contain exactly the tracks, along with a bunch of b-sides. They also buy more posters than they have wallspace for. Then they go to the live concerts, despite the fact that the bands are just lip-syncing to exactly the same goddamn tracks.
-
The market after all would only stand good music being rewarded & well that wouldn't please RIAA to much as those junk bands are what they make the most money off of these days...
Oh I wish that was true.But, in taste tests people often can't tell bottled water from tap water. The what is the differencial, why do people cough up the money? Marketing. Why is Britney successful? Marketing. No need for this to change, I'm afraid.
G
-
Um, don't radio stations have to pay the music studios when the play the music?
Yes, they do. There are bodies who collect fees from radio/TV stations, advertisers, film companies depending on when/where/how often the music is used.But to go back to my original post:
-
The biggest danger to the music industry is the music industry.
I believe that all the radio stations playing music off vinal were originally pirates, and the music industry fought them, until these organizations were set up to collect money. The music industry found a way to increase their sales through the new technology it feared. A lesson that they should have learnt, and that was repeated in the VCR.-
Their problem is that there's no way to do that with mp3s.
There is currently no way to do that with mp3s. Check out this recent Slashdot article for one solution to the problem. I know that I would pay money for a radio station where, in my user prefferences, I could click "Ooops, Brittany, don't do it again. Ever." How do radio and TV stations make the money to pay for using the songs? Advertisments and subscription fees.But even if they can't make money out of mp3s, once this takes off in a big way, no record company will be able to afford not to have their music available over the net. People using Napster today, are like the first people listening to pirate radio stations. Nowadays, record companies rely on air play to sell their music. In the future, the same will probably be true of the Internet. In reality, any major record label could find a way to survive if they stopped recieving fees from radio stations, but couldn't if all their artists stopped getting air play.
If they are using stalling tactics to buy time to catch up, they are smart. If they think they can stop people downloading music off the Internet, they are shooting at their own feet with a sawn-off shotgun.
LOL.
:-)
But to address this as a serious point, the differencial in quality is one of the reasons people buy bottled water, and also one of the reasons people buy CDs of music that they already have on mp3.
The main reason is both cases in probably marketing, though.
cheers,
G
-
MP3s make marginal cost zero
True, in the sense that they allow music to be distributed at no visibe cost to the user. Exactly the same arguement could be applied to radio. That hasn't killed the music industry; quite the opposite - record sales depend on getting air play. Mp3s are not a competitor to CDs. As the trade in mp3s rises, so does the sale of CDs; but I know this I listen to the radio a little less these days.-
napster creates a competitive market.
For whom, though?The whole point of the article was to say: who says mp3s pose any competiton to the music industry, in the same way that the vcr has proven a help, not a hinderance to the motion picture industry.
-
People still buy CDs, despite music being freely available on the radio.
-
People still buy bottled water, despite water being freely available from the tap.
-
People still buy CDs, despite music being freely available as mp3s.
Nothing changes in the model.cheers,
G
-
It is obviously pandering to the majority of Internet users who know nothing about the way things work in the real world.
Uh, the article makes its point using a "real world" example - the effect of the vcr on the motion picture industry.Please, if you have facts, bring them to the discussion; if you just another damn troll, insert your head up your own arse.
G
-
We're capable of selling bottled water in this country (something that comes out of the tap by the gallon, virtually for free).
Spot on. The more people who recieve your music for free, the more people who will pay you for it. Logical? probably not. But then we aren't all vulcans.-
But the tired old men circling the wagons around the old technology can't wrap their heads around that concept in a new context.
Yup. The biggest danger to the music industry is the music industry. If they have any sense, these court cases are about buying themselves some time to catch up.In the UK, and probably elsewhere, I know that singles are usually sold as loss leaders to get people to buy the album. They actually sell singles to LOSE money, but to buy public awareness, so why not just give them away free on the internet? And everyone knows that the singles are supposed to be the best tracks on the album, so why not give away the weak tracks too?
Cheers,
-
What has made OpenBSD so successful is not the many eyes, but rather the FEW GOOD eyes.
Very good point. But remember that the OpenBSD guys took what was meant to be one of the most secure OSes, and gave it a damn good polish. Also, a lot of their job, was going through outstanding bug reports, that no one had got around to fixing. Would *BSD have been as secure as it was, to give them such a good foundation, without the hundreds more OSS programmers using/working on it for years? Would they have recieved the same quality of information in bug reports, if BSD users did not have the source code? Do you think Windows public beta test are really useful for anything more than guaging public opinion of the product?I'm not meaning to dismiss the work done by de Raadt et al, and know that I am not providing empirical facts. But I do not doubt that the coders in the public having the source helped the core development team.
- Main Entry:
- police state
Not necessarily just guys with guns. Reading my email without even telling me what you are doing, when, where, why and how it is happening, is an arbitrary exercise of power by police [FBI] and especially secret police [NSA].Function: noun
Date: 1865
: a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures
My point was, that at least the answers to these questions are covered by publicly known legal procedures, when it comes to tapping phones.
Thank you: your article supports my post :-)
cheers,
G
-
Well, it depends. Frankly, some code is proprietary, and as such, we cannot legally look at it.
I'm not asking for the source code to Windows. The FBI is not a private entity. It is meant to be there to serve the American public, and just saying, "it's our proprietary code, and we don't want to show you," isn't good enough. The American people paid for it. It is the American people's code.There are open protocols that the police have to follow if they want to tap your phone. Why? because this is not a police state. I have a right to ask what, when, where and how this may happen. Surely I have equal rights to know what is going on with carnivore. Was that FBI you said, or KGB? I couldn't quite hear.
-
We still can see what it does, and if we know what language it was written in, we can reverse-engineer it, but there will most likely be differences between that code and the original.
WTF? Are you a troll, or on crack?Are you suggesting people try to reverse engineer the carnivore communication protocols? Just how fast do you want a SWAT team on your ass? Please, don't try this at home kids, it would be a bad idea.
Or do you want to reverse engineer the carnivore program itself? If so, I recommend that an ouija-board will be more useful, than knowledge of what programming language it was written in. How, short of psychic powers, do you intend to calculate what a program that you never get to see running, which is running on a computer that you have no access to, and that you cannot directly communicate with (unless you happen to be a FBI agent), is up to?
-
Also, I can understand, from a security standpoint, that some code may not be made freely available in order to provide greater security for the program that the code is for. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it.
Ah - security through obscurity, that old favourite.Does the fact that Linux's source code is availably make it inherently more or less secure that Windows NT? Tough one to prove. But I would rather that carnivore was fully security auditted, OpenBSD-style. Many eyes. Shallow bugs.
Later, you go on to say, "I prefer it if not all information is free," well what if it comes down to this: making information about carnivore free, may make it less likely that your private emails are turned into freely available information. Saying, "I don't either to be free," may not be an option.
cheers,
G