I have never seen a compelling economic argument for...
I have never seen a compelling argument that economic benefit was the only valid reason to do something. Do you have a hobby, or any goals other than "make money"? Getting money is only a means to whatever end you ultimately want - so many successful people seem to forget that.
Do the RIAA and MPAA understand that MS wants to become the middle-man? Whoever controls the keys to DRM would effectively be the funnel through which all protected content must flow. Witness XBox and other consoles business models. I suspect these two organizations are aware of this, but haven't got the technical ability to produce an alternative. At least they're running with Apple on the music side - probably find them less threatening than MS. I suppose this is slightly off-topic:-)
Is it just my increased awareness, or is this a growing problem? I know the intent is usually to get the offending party to comply, but keep in mind the environment we're in in the US. Companies will see that they can rip off code for free, and if they get caught they make some deal to release their code. If they plan for that outcome in advance, then it's just a big plus if it never comes to pass. Then you have the folks who don't think the GPL is even binding, just ripping off code. I really think there needs to be a medium to high profile case where an author demands full monetary compensation/fines for a copyright violation of GPLed code. SCO vs IBM does not fit the bill, that's a contract dispute. Linksys seems appropriate, but that might be a bit high-profile for a start, and it's not exactly fair to their new owners who have donated to the FSF in the past.
In short, if there is no pain this practice will continue to grow.
What about the new practice of pumping greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2) underground to stay under emissions caps. Ever read those reports of a stagnant lake turning over and releasing a cloud of gas that kills a bunch of people? Just think what will happen when a geologic change cracks just the right place to spew your good old-fashion byproducts out in large amounts. Granted, it's still not as long lasting (at scales I can imagine) as nuclear waste, but they are starting to bury the chemical waste problem too.
The labels want you to pay for every version of a song you use. You pay for the ability to use it in a CD player, again to use it on an iPod, again to use it in some other form. Using the same thinking, they should pay the artists for each time you buy a song in one of these forms. They just didn't think about it when they released the twofers and now it's a problem.
With all the talk of unexpected 90nm delays and scaling problems over at Intel, one hopes AMDs problems are just typical delays with a new process. At any rate, we hope AMD will push ahead of Intel with the K8 architecture. IFF this happens, how on earth are they going to market them using their "false" speed ratings. Their rating system is flawed in that it uses Intel chips as the gold standard to measure performance against. You can't market a 4000+ if Intel has no 4GHz processor. If you do, you risk having the rating not match when Intel catches up, which makes the numbers completely meaningless. Today, they at least help to compare apples and oranges.
"But when you look at the specifications they are never True 1080P"
Yea, and the sales people always say "oh yes, it displays all the HDTV resolutions". So then I point to the Samsung DLP set that says everything is converted to 720P (most don't even give a screen resolution) and it clicks for them that receiving and displaying are two different things. I asked a guy at best buy if they are trained to avoid that topic, and we were done talking soon. Deliberate deception?
Isn't that what commets are primarily composed of? I fully expect H2O molecules to be present on Mars and every other planet. This should not be a suprise to anyone.
They have a cool chart that shows how Linux 0.01 is derived from earlier unix. I don't see how this is possible since Linus didn't start with Unix source code. Frankly, I find a high correlation between the use of the word "pedigree" and people who are entirely too full of themselves. The pedigree chart is interesting anyway.
"Thus far nobody has really tried the multiple channels on one station gambit, although it is allowed."
I believe most the stations in the Detroit area are sending multiple subchannels. Since there are 8 available stations at my house, I suspect I'll have 20-30 things to view once I get my HD working. I have heard that PBS likes to use 1080i, so they probably don't have multiple yet. Anyway, there is all kinds of stuff out there.
And with activation/registration, does it try to report people who have scanned bills? OTOH, I certainly understand where this is coming from - the last $20 bill only lasted what, 5 years? But installing servailence tools on mp PC is unacceptable. Next they'll build it into Windoze, and finally into the scanners. This will stop casual criminals - I suspect there are more of them than we think.
Gimp and Cinepaint should merge. Why not? The Cinepaint guys roadmap shows some items being pulled across from GIMP and development of new stuff that would certainly be welcome in GIMP. The main difference is Cinepaint was restructured to support the deeper color depths required by the studios. It seems to me that GIMP may actually have more active development going on. The fork just seems unfortunate to me - I suspect politics at work, which can't be productive.
I've seen digital artifacts in broadcast analog TV. Because the station/studio/whoever uses digital somewhere along the line, any glitches they have result in lost blocks or other glitches from that point on even when I have a clear day. Lightning is just an extreme example. Funny, I'm annoyed by digital glitches and I'm not even watching digital broadcasts yet...
When there is static you get total dropouts. I prefer analog TV because lighting causes static which is much less disturbing than lost bits in an MPEG stream. OTOH the resolution is fantastic when its working.
"if collectable, $699/installation for single-cpu installations, more for more processors; also $39(?) per embedded device"
The problem with this is that if SCO wins in court, they still do not have the right to collect license fees for Linux. If part of the Linux kernel infringes, that doesn't mean SCO owns the rest of it - at worst, they'd kill the Linux kernel, and there are replacements in the works anyway. There is no long term business here, but $1B from an IBM win would be of some value in the short term. So the PERCEPTION on wallstreet may be that it's like buying a lottery ticket... Of course the perceived value of an actual court victory would make those shares, ummm, like lottery tickets after all.
Imagine a distributed P2P search engine with no central control that can spider faster than Google. Imagine some form of authentication so only known good software can participate as part of it. Not sure how the system knows what is a valid upgrade yet but hey. You run the search engine in the background, it scans the net at whatever rate you set and maintains a small part of the DB. Naturally it would have to be Free software (not just OSS) to prevent someone getting control. I just had to throw this out there in the hope someone can figure out the hard parts and build it.
Because the production cost of software is zero. It's the design that takes effort. Most commercial software developements have reinvented the majority of their product, hence the high cost that you think they need to recoup in sales. Had they simply used and improved what already existed it would be much cheaper and they need not worry about giving away source code. There are underlying social problems of far greater scope here, but/. has not the space for me to babble on about that.
Some friends and I entered the 2nd IGVC and took 2nd place. We used an old electric wheelchair frame, a PC, an old-style camcorder mounted on a tripod clamped down on the base, a big battery, some old Kodak sonars, and a cheapo power inverter to run the PC. Oh, and some homebrew software. You'd be amazed how many teams are still struggling with basic issues right up to competition day. The amount of re-learning is incredible, just about every team has ground-loop issues at some point in development. The cost these days is certainly = the prize if your thrifty (laptop + webcam + some controllable motors). I still stop by when I can, as this competition is always fun to watch.
Remember what we've all learned from previous cases. One doesn't take someone to court for violating the GPL, you take them to court for violating your copyright. If they choose to claim the GPL allows redistribution then they've 1) admitted doing what you claim, and 2) validated their acceptance of GPL. Then they need to show they've complied with their end of the GPL, which is where the problem will be.
90% of all headaches are due to dehydration and can be cured by drinking water (this includes hangovers). I kicked cafine 2 years ago. I couldn't resist going to the vending machine at work and drank a couple (Pepsi's) a day. I noticed that I didn't drink much over the Holiday break, so I decided not to start when I got back to work in January. After a couple of months, I found that a single can could get me so wired I couldn't stand it. I can still drink a cafinated orange pop or root beer if I need a boost, but the major beverages are out for me. Best part is I didn't notice any withdrawl because I took advantage of a time when I naturally cut back.
If you are refering to the BSD license, well, you're just wrong, because I'm even free to take FreeBSD and change it and sell it as my own, as long as I mention that it's based on FreeBSD code."
You can do that with code released under GPL too, provided you supply source code. The problem with the BSD license is that someone with a big name (i.e. MS) can come along, take the code, add DRM to it, and release MS-*NIX. Because they don't have to release source code, they can assimilate and extend it into a proprietary product. After establishing themselves as the dominant player, DRM becomes mandatory for their distribution so all the free applications won't run. Meanwhile, because they've become the dominant distribution and simply integrate all additional features developed by the BSD community (who now feel like free labor to said company) they've given up, and only the proprietary version remains. Don't think this can work? Can it be done for $50Billion? You bet. Can it be done to Linux? Yes, as long as we continue to use X"free"86 which is not free either.
The BSD style licenses are for people who say they're open-source/free but have ambitions of later making a proprietary product. The problem is that if the software is successful, the winning product will not come from them. It will come from the one who has the most marketing ability.
RMS may be a bit extreme, but he was the first to really understand this.
We have a regular VHS recorder that skips commercials on playback. I suspect it uses that nasty characteristic of commercials being louder than the shows to do so. The obvious way to combat it is not to blast the volume on commercials, which would actually make me more willing to tollerate them anyway. Don't go to far with commercial skipping, or they'll really start to integrate the advertising into the shows... or lobby to take away your rights. Sure, it's fun to skip and laugh today.
I have never seen a compelling argument that economic benefit was the only valid reason to do something. Do you have a hobby, or any goals other than "make money"? Getting money is only a means to whatever end you ultimately want - so many successful people seem to forget that.
If they invented the idea, everyone should follow their lead, that company has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade!
Do the RIAA and MPAA understand that MS wants to become the middle-man? Whoever controls the keys to DRM would effectively be the funnel through which all protected content must flow. Witness XBox and other consoles business models. I suspect these two organizations are aware of this, but haven't got the technical ability to produce an alternative. At least they're running with Apple on the music side - probably find them less threatening than MS. I suppose this is slightly off-topic :-)
In short, bitching on /. and making jokes is not going to fix the problem.
In short, if there is no pain this practice will continue to grow.
I like to wear a jacket on a bright sunny day. This is like the old solar powered flashlight.
What about the new practice of pumping greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2) underground to stay under emissions caps. Ever read those reports of a stagnant lake turning over and releasing a cloud of gas that kills a bunch of people? Just think what will happen when a geologic change cracks just the right place to spew your good old-fashion byproducts out in large amounts. Granted, it's still not as long lasting (at scales I can imagine) as nuclear waste, but they are starting to bury the chemical waste problem too.
The labels want you to pay for every version of a song you use. You pay for the ability to use it in a CD player, again to use it on an iPod, again to use it in some other form. Using the same thinking, they should pay the artists for each time you buy a song in one of these forms. They just didn't think about it when they released the twofers and now it's a problem.
With all the talk of unexpected 90nm delays and scaling problems over at Intel, one hopes AMDs problems are just typical delays with a new process. At any rate, we hope AMD will push ahead of Intel with the K8 architecture. IFF this happens, how on earth are they going to market them using their "false" speed ratings. Their rating system is flawed in that it uses Intel chips as the gold standard to measure performance against. You can't market a 4000+ if Intel has no 4GHz processor. If you do, you risk having the rating not match when Intel catches up, which makes the numbers completely meaningless. Today, they at least help to compare apples and oranges.
Yea, and the sales people always say "oh yes, it displays all the HDTV resolutions". So then I point to the Samsung DLP set that says everything is converted to 720P (most don't even give a screen resolution) and it clicks for them that receiving and displaying are two different things. I asked a guy at best buy if they are trained to avoid that topic, and we were done talking soon. Deliberate deception?
Isn't that what commets are primarily composed of? I fully expect H2O molecules to be present on Mars and every other planet. This should not be a suprise to anyone.
They have a cool chart that shows how Linux 0.01 is derived from earlier unix. I don't see how this is possible since Linus didn't start with Unix source code. Frankly, I find a high correlation between the use of the word "pedigree" and people who are entirely too full of themselves. The pedigree chart is interesting anyway.
I believe most the stations in the Detroit area are sending multiple subchannels. Since there are 8 available stations at my house, I suspect I'll have 20-30 things to view once I get my HD working. I have heard that PBS likes to use 1080i, so they probably don't have multiple yet. Anyway, there is all kinds of stuff out there.
And with activation/registration, does it try to report people who have scanned bills? OTOH, I certainly understand where this is coming from - the last $20 bill only lasted what, 5 years? But installing servailence tools on mp PC is unacceptable. Next they'll build it into Windoze, and finally into the scanners. This will stop casual criminals - I suspect there are more of them than we think.
Gimp and Cinepaint should merge. Why not? The Cinepaint guys roadmap shows some items being pulled across from GIMP and development of new stuff that would certainly be welcome in GIMP. The main difference is Cinepaint was restructured to support the deeper color depths required by the studios. It seems to me that GIMP may actually have more active development going on. The fork just seems unfortunate to me - I suspect politics at work, which can't be productive.
I've seen digital artifacts in broadcast analog TV. Because the station/studio/whoever uses digital somewhere along the line, any glitches they have result in lost blocks or other glitches from that point on even when I have a clear day. Lightning is just an extreme example. Funny, I'm annoyed by digital glitches and I'm not even watching digital broadcasts yet...
When there is static you get total dropouts. I prefer analog TV because lighting causes static which is much less disturbing than lost bits in an MPEG stream. OTOH the resolution is fantastic when its working.
The problem with this is that if SCO wins in court, they still do not have the right to collect license fees for Linux. If part of the Linux kernel infringes, that doesn't mean SCO owns the rest of it - at worst, they'd kill the Linux kernel, and there are replacements in the works anyway. There is no long term business here, but $1B from an IBM win would be of some value in the short term. So the PERCEPTION on wallstreet may be that it's like buying a lottery ticket... Of course the perceived value of an actual court victory would make those shares, ummm, like lottery tickets after all.
Imagine a distributed P2P search engine with no central control that can spider faster than Google. Imagine some form of authentication so only known good software can participate as part of it. Not sure how the system knows what is a valid upgrade yet but hey. You run the search engine in the background, it scans the net at whatever rate you set and maintains a small part of the DB. Naturally it would have to be Free software (not just OSS) to prevent someone getting control. I just had to throw this out there in the hope someone can figure out the hard parts and build it.
Because the production cost of software is zero. It's the design that takes effort. Most commercial software developements have reinvented the majority of their product, hence the high cost that you think they need to recoup in sales. Had they simply used and improved what already existed it would be much cheaper and they need not worry about giving away source code. There are underlying social problems of far greater scope here, but /. has not the space for me to babble on about that.
Some friends and I entered the 2nd IGVC and took 2nd place. We used an old electric wheelchair frame, a PC, an old-style camcorder mounted on a tripod clamped down on the base, a big battery, some old Kodak sonars, and a cheapo power inverter to run the PC. Oh, and some homebrew software. You'd be amazed how many teams are still struggling with basic issues right up to competition day. The amount of re-learning is incredible, just about every team has ground-loop issues at some point in development. The cost these days is certainly = the prize if your thrifty (laptop + webcam + some controllable motors). I still stop by when I can, as this competition is always fun to watch.
Remember what we've all learned from previous cases. One doesn't take someone to court for violating the GPL, you take them to court for violating your copyright. If they choose to claim the GPL allows redistribution then they've 1) admitted doing what you claim, and 2) validated their acceptance of GPL. Then they need to show they've complied with their end of the GPL, which is where the problem will be.
90% of all headaches are due to dehydration and can be cured by drinking water (this includes hangovers). I kicked cafine 2 years ago. I couldn't resist going to the vending machine at work and drank a couple (Pepsi's) a day. I noticed that I didn't drink much over the Holiday break, so I decided not to start when I got back to work in January. After a couple of months, I found that a single can could get me so wired I couldn't stand it. I can still drink a cafinated orange pop or root beer if I need a boost, but the major beverages are out for me. Best part is I didn't notice any withdrawl because I took advantage of a time when I naturally cut back.
If you are refering to the BSD license, well, you're just wrong, because I'm even free to take FreeBSD and change it and sell it as my own, as long as I mention that it's based on FreeBSD code."
You can do that with code released under GPL too, provided you supply source code. The problem with the BSD license is that someone with a big name (i.e. MS) can come along, take the code, add DRM to it, and release MS-*NIX. Because they don't have to release source code, they can assimilate and extend it into a proprietary product. After establishing themselves as the dominant player, DRM becomes mandatory for their distribution so all the free applications won't run. Meanwhile, because they've become the dominant distribution and simply integrate all additional features developed by the BSD community (who now feel like free labor to said company) they've given up, and only the proprietary version remains. Don't think this can work? Can it be done for $50Billion? You bet. Can it be done to Linux? Yes, as long as we continue to use X"free"86 which is not free either.
The BSD style licenses are for people who say they're open-source/free but have ambitions of later making a proprietary product. The problem is that if the software is successful, the winning product will not come from them. It will come from the one who has the most marketing ability.
RMS may be a bit extreme, but he was the first to really understand this.
F--- the BSD license.
We have a regular VHS recorder that skips commercials on playback. I suspect it uses that nasty characteristic of commercials being louder than the shows to do so. The obvious way to combat it is not to blast the volume on commercials, which would actually make me more willing to tollerate them anyway. Don't go to far with commercial skipping, or they'll really start to integrate the advertising into the shows... or lobby to take away your rights. Sure, it's fun to skip and laugh today.