"Cradle of Democracy my ass. We're heading to be the laughing stock of Democracy. And we're the punchline."
It's purely black comedy.
I was reading on Wired yesterday about the new 'Free speech' zones that are being put up, which are chainlink and razorwire cages under the lenses of cameras, after the 'Patriot' act (and only America could load the word 'patriot' to emotive effect), which allows for searches based on a whim of law enforcement, and *seems* to completely stomp on the concepts of privacy to the individual you appear to be watching the land of the free turn into the most draconian police state this side of China...China also uses the 'if you have nothing to fear' line, too.
Seriously, for a while I've wondered why you accept a system that rewards the guy that can gather the most cash as your representatives and keep supporting the system in the face of people from the outside telling you that you should have started fighting four years ago.
Hell, I don't think any system is entirely perfect, but America is heading for rocky terrain as the 'Land of the free'.
The other thing is that horrendous feeling that people on the outside are anti-American; some dumbasses are, but there are also people like myself that think that the American national psyche is one of thoroughly good people who want the best, both for themselves and everyone around them, but Your rights are being wholly eroded in the name of producing fear.
For the sake of little green apples, don't get moulded into a fearful nation; our (Britain) government has blown £8.3 million on an Ad campaign designed to tell us what to do during a terrorist attack; like we don't know after 25 years of bombing campaigns and shootings...it's intent is to allow further legislation to get waved through on 'security' grounds.
"how about working on the existing theory so that it doesn't require yet another particle???"
And if that particle actually exists?
There was a furor that surrounded the nuetrino when it was first thought up and they did think that it was so weakly interacting that they'd never find it. Turns out that several hundred tonnes of chlorine and some sensitive photodetectors embedded in a mountain do the trick.
The Higgs boson is another case in point; to find it in a collider requires extremely high energy collisions, but we don't have one. Do we write off the Higgs boson because we don't have a detector for it?
"Could it be that we are killing global paradigms ?"
Nope, it's just that paradigm shifts seem a lot more obvious in retrospect once development has followed a decent amount of testing. It could be argued that we're currently in the grip of a paradigm shift that's affecting society as a whole, given that global, affordable communications have really started to take off in the past 20 years.
On the other hand, there isn't a lot of 'pure' research being undertaken, which means that you're limited to the postgrad, postdoctoral academic work these days.
"Baystar is doing this to tie up their investor's identities"
The main problem with this idea is 'Why would Baystar care?'. Even given that Microsoft 'could' request it, why would they? To make us Linux/BSD folks feel a bit fuzzier towards them?
"In Today's tech climate, how many places do you think they could have found with a business plan worthy of their VC ?"
That would depend what you were looking for. In Baystar's case, I think it was aggressive IP/Licensing with the promise of quick turnaround based on documentary evidence; reading between the lines suggests that they're actually getting snippy about what they've been told rather than the machinations of...the evil empire (scary voice mandatory, I'm afraid).
"worst / most hated / sleaziest tech company"
That's totally subjective; for one thing I'm betting that Darl, speaking with perceived equals or 'betters' is actually a very pleasant man. I've met salesman like him who put you completely at ease before ripping you off royally, and you have to admit that the first proclamations from SCO did appear to be possible. It's only through knowing the case backwards that the tech community considers SCO in the light you painted.
"Or do you think they might have been induced into doing it."
Oh, goes without saying. You get a piece of paper, write in '$', then put lots of numbers after it. Greed is by far a more powerful motivator amongst companies of this ilk than either their public profile or 'products' because their product is the ability to make money grow and generally the moral question doesn't keep anyone awake at night.
"Well, being on a chip doesn't mean it can't be replaced."
Yeah, but replacing the firmware by flashing or replacing the necessary chip is going to mean that, to stay ahead of the curve for most OS', you'd need to keep updating for patches, which seems a little...expensive.
"GASP! Some XYZ providers even outsource their development to ABC and DEF (insert your favorite company and terrorist sponsoring country where necessary)."
Indeedly do, and idiots like that always talk about defence contracts rather than, say, the entire financial records for a given bank, or anything to do with economic control. Hell, shutting down the airlines for a couple of days managed to bring a lot of people to the brink, and a couple of close things have occurred due to crappy untested systems being implemented in the financial sector.
"Windows has been certified to Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL 4)"
"Let's say a math library that would be used to make calculations to calibrate the weapon. How hard would it be to build in a small tiny bit of error that would only be useful in cases of calibration of high-tech weapons?"
Not hard, but then a test harness for the math library should be trivial enough to create.
"how much expertise would be needed to catch that?"
The ability to unit test.
The scenario you painted was amusing enough, but misses out on a couple of vital points; enemies tend to go for the flashy loud bangs rather than messing with error bars; governments are paranoid to the extent where they secondguess themselves; mission critical components are tested to _death_ and you never get to find out the unit testing in closed source. The unsigned integer 'bug' in IE is going to be fairly typical of the stuff we never see floating around at the moment, and that was laziness/a mistake. In terms of software, those two problems are going to crop up infinitely more often than a masterspy crafting a method of throwing out the calibration of a gun.
"I personally won't download games from "warez" sites, but I'd bet that if more care went in to the final product, people might value them more."
The rot goes a bit further and was thrown into sharp relief by the recent 'Driv3r' astro-turfing debacle...there used to be a day when you could by a gaming magazine (Remember Zzap!64?) and get a fairly honest review by someone who had a slight shred of integrity. Now you get six months hype, a bit of viral marketing and review that frequently and suspiciously appears to promote the hell out of a game that on later inspection appears to be absolute sh*t. Yes, C&C Generals, I am looking at you.
On the flipside, you occasionally get blindsided by releases like 'Mashed' that aren't getting the promotion they deserve in the press because they lack the ability to command the magazines.
In other words, we're looking at the thin end of the wedge of marketing that tends to stipulate that enough positive press can shift units rather than the product actually being good.
" What annoys me is that its often easier to get a download a pirated game than buying it in a shop."
I contacted Cenaga about having a dodgy CD2 for UFO:Enemy Unknown. They concluded that my CDROM drive was at fault, to which I asked the question, 'both of them and my DVD rom drive?'.
At that point the conversation stopped and I was never offered the chance to return the media, even after saying that I'd be happy to pay a small charge for new media. Bear in mind that I'd already bought it, it's just that I got consistent CRC errors.
So I made my own CD 2.
No real moral to the story, other than it's a damn sight easier to act illegally, even given the penalties, than go through the correct channels, especially for replacing damaged or otherwise unusable media. It wasn't even worth the hassle of trying to get replacement under warranty (which would have involved at least four legal entities and more trouble than 2 days downloading and $0.50 CD blank.)
"There is nothing in the Patriot Act that says it should only be used for terrorism."
True enough, but questions have to be asked about the speed in which it was redacted into law without review and the applications thereof, _specifically_ where it buts against the constitutional rights of individuals. I find it ludicrous that nobody even skimmed the document first, and that creates a pretty dangerous precedence if you assume that Congress is charged as one of the three wings of government to avoid an overall majority.
"If it can catch my daughter's murderer"
Hypothetically, I can do better than that. Your daughter can be monitored with cameras 24 hours a day in a controlled environment; we will control her stimuli and offer work that matches her skills and competence. Upon request, we can supply possible sexual partners that have been carefully vetted and tissue typed to ensure genetic purity, and she need never come into contact with anything that could possibly harm her, destabilise her mental condition or cause her cause for concern.
At what point does the above scenario become unbelievable, and at which point would it go too far?
"BTW, we DID change the laws, sort of. We just created our own."
Yeah, it's just that occasionally breaking the law is a decent enough organ to foster change, and American Independance was one of those treasonous actions undertaken in the name of 'right' that went against legality. The Scopes trial was another. In fact, everytime someone goes to court, there is an allegation of a law being broken, and I wouldn't like to even guess how many cases are being heard daily in the world.
You might figure out at some point that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the government organ for handling internal federal problems, and currently is enagaged in everything from counter-terrorism thru to tracking down bank robbers. Enforcement of copyright is generally down to a civil action rather than getting a government body to kick your doors down. For one thing, every taxpayer is now engaged in protecting the copyright holders, so now you're not only buying their products, but paying for them to keep the prices where they want them.
Next time someone detonates a large-ish bomb in a city centre, think about whether the FBI's manpower is better spent working for the good of society or the good of a corporation.
As for the moral aspect of it, usually it's considered polite to send some contact first, and generally to a postal address. Getting a PI to serve papers has to be easier on the taxpayer than invoking an anti-terrorism law, just not as scary.
"Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive."
Whereas someone hit with a lawsuit has to start paying money to defend it from the word "go", which is the real chilling effect of software patents, not that the battle will be hard for the people sending out the lawsuit.
"That alone does not confer ability, merely opportunity."
Fair enough.
"I'm nit-picking, but then so are you."
Horse testes; the article was based on free as in beer and I slipped up semantically, whereupon you arrived.
"Non-programmers (ie the vast majority of computer users) simply cannot modify their applications at source-level. They lack the required skill, and most likely the time (and perhaps even ability) to acquire it, too."
Nobody ever said you could actually do it yourself without some knowledge, and that's where you're beginning to sound really odd. WTH do you think OSS is about if you think users should be able to read and understand source code to the extent where my mum could change the workings of a given application, Captain Obvious?
"I will be voting Lib Dem in my seat although this will have no effect since it is one of the safest Labour seats in the country."
I hear you, but it takes two consecutive 'protest' votes to get anyone to take notice. I did note with some glee that the lacklustre european results appeared to cause a bit of concern.
"all I get are bland polite replies and it's hard to see that I have any effect."
That's the very basis of voter apathy; can't change the system, won't try...I'm not suggesting you're apathetic, but the whole notion of the UK democratic process means that you have to go through your MP, and that's a disheartening process for most people to get involved in unless the reason you contact them is worthy of a photo-op. But the tide is turning slowly to suggest that we can get some kind of grass roots movement to remind the buggers that they still work for us.
"They ONLY way to keep that information secret (and protect Bill) is to get it wrapped up in a lawsuit with "confidential" terms and a confidentiality agreement."
Zounds, that must be the trick the bounders are pulling. I mean it was only because the Halloween documents came tagged with 'press release' that we actually saw them.
"This has NOTHING to do with getting back the money they were instructed to channel to SCO."
Well, there you're right. It's the difference between what SCO said they were doing and what SCO actually did coupled with what SCO told Baystar compared with what they claimed in teleconference.
As for 'instructed', I take it that you've had limited exposure to venture capital?
"That 45% includes a lots of people who support him because the alternative is worse"
Nope, they were polls in support of Tony Blair's actions, not the best candidate for the big chair. Kinda a completely different question.
"the ultra-creepy ultra-authoritarian Tory leader Michael Howard"
The father of the community charge. As for 'ultra-authoritarian', they have a tendency to not be as controlling as Labour, although this seems contrary to common sense. However, I'll vote for him the day Mandelson dons a pretty frock and sings Gilbert & Sullivan.
"who has opposed the few mild liberalisations"
Who has opposed everything because he's confusing 'vocal and loud' with 'dynamic and commanding'. It's political gainsaying that doesn't do him any favours, but as you said, you have a bad choice and a worse choice.
"Realistically the choice is between him and Tony Blair at the next election."
Now you're depressing me. You mean to suggest that we should be voting for the frontman rather than your local MP and his record? That's a fairly whack way of exercising a democratic right, as neither Tony or Mike will be representing you as anything other than the leader of their parties, and that _can_ change based upon the cluster of people behind them...
Nip over to http://www.theyworkforyou.com and research your MP...engage with him over the things you don't like rather than wait four years.
Part of the bloody problem with throwing out the conservatives last time was that people voted to get them out rather than seeing how ill-prepared the labour party was to govern after the death of John Smith; for weeks after the election Labour ministers could be seen looking like bunnies caught in headlights.
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
Personally I've never heard this one, although I've fixed quite a few things, then submitted the necessary as it kills that one dead.
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems" - Maybe you'll poke around a bit in the code, and if it's trivial then you can fix it - but again, this really isn't something your average user is going to do.
Look! Over there, other side of the road, travelling in the other direction...it's the point...
The point of this 'myth' is you have the ability to. That's it. Whether you submit the patches or not, you can make any modifications that your little heart desires.
"All software should be free" - I write something independently, then there is basically not a chance in hell of being able to sell it or make money directly from it.
There is money being made, but I think the point is that all software should be free in terms of usage rather than monetary cost. Frequent mistake, but a schoolboy error for someone with 20 years experience.
"As a developer myself, this prospect is profoundly depressing"
Why the hell should it? I'm currently developing like there's no tomorrow; people pay for my ability to make things work how they want them to, they don't care about which tools I use. You don't stand over your plumber's shoulder and demand he uses branded Stilsons; you'd get one in the mouth after a short amount of time.
"Yeah, I know, some will say "Go ahead and try, it's a free world". But you know as well as I do that if I am successful then inevitably some kid in his parents' basement will write his own Open Source version of the thing, for free."
Unlike the corporation that could also do the same thing and just slightly undercut you? Grow up. Competition means going out there and seeing if your product/service will fly, and the capitalist ideal means that you could find yourself competing against an eight-year old wunderkind. On a long enough timescale kids will always kick your ass.
"the Linux desktop"
'The'?
"Some of these benefits include having a more focused direction for the team, given the fact that there is (usually) just one manager and team leader, firmer schedules and deadlines, tighter management, profit incentives, salaries and bonus motivations. While this can also be true for open source projects, the "design by committee" that goes on with community projects often results in a more bloated and less focused product that tries to be all things to all people."
Have you worked in a closed source environment? For one thing the manager generally doesn't code, the bonus motivations are usually in place to sweeten the complete lack of innovation and flair that are endemic to a heavily specified job and the deadlines usually slide for whatever reason. OTOH, you'll find that most of the _successful_ OSS projects actively try to cut down on the 'committee' element to the extent where someone usually throws their toys on the floor. Same shit, just slightly more transparent and vocal when it happens.
"A commercial company, on the other hand, can afford to scratch the personal itches of its end-users"
If it listens. Experience has shown that frequently features are thought of as more important than fixing problems, which has led to the current bloat cycle that usually results in the various companies talking about thin-clients...until they bloat the client again.
"Some people will inevitably condemn me for putting down Open Source"
Personally I'm disappointed that you appear to have such a narrow viewpoint. Your major concerns appear to be your own inertia, a couchlock attitude when faced with the idea that you can no longer simply code a product and leave it, that you may be faced with competition and that convienience should be paramount
"I mean, who the hell needs a web browser in your file browser?"
Yes, even as a windows user I was a bit bummed out by that, but if you consider that iexpore/explorer (not the kernel, but the file manager portion) is a method of displaying formatted data, you could conceivably use XML/XSLT as a middle layer rather than have the application shift context all the time; N-tier design within the operating system.
I'm not suggesting that it's desirable, just a possible motive other than 'hide the code from the government'.
"It's a very lucrative black economy the dealers have going on there."
Not for marijuana, particularly in the UK. Hashish has all but dried up, meaning that roughly 65% of everything sold is 'homegrown' rather than imported. There have been estimates that it actually feeds back into the economy because of the snacks and products to grow the dope.
This has led to a 'harder' drug economy as the dealers have ditched cannabis, acid and ecstacy in favour of heroin, crack and cocaine, but personally speaking I'd like to castrate dealers of the former two and have very little to do with the last.
"but by disassociating money with drugs and I can almost guarantee the rate of addiction will go down."
I was going to call you dumb, but it seemed a trifle unfair. What you completely fail to realise is that exposure goes up when it becomes legalised, meaning your potentials for Psychological and physical addiction go up, not to mention the lability to mental illness, which in turn places stress on the social systems for handling such illness. Bigger pool of people, lots more potential for things go pear-shaped.
"In this day and age, however, many people automatically assume drug use == bad person."
Not really. I don't know anyone that hasn't at some time or another.
"Controlling behaviour is the absolute WORST way to get around problems."
True, but not for your reasons. Control breeds fear, fear breeds resentment.
I've no doubt that there were a few more agendas floating around at the time, but the international world looked on aghast at the posturing that seemed to surround a stringy bit of jizz.
"I said take it literally, not that people follow a religion."
Exsqueeze me? Belief implies faith, faith implies following; simply waving a hand and saying you're a bhuddist doesn't make you one, likewise it's fairly untrendy to claim that Billy Graham rocks your world. In terms of literal translation you can't get more fundamental than fundamental christians.
"I am catholic, for instance, but how many of all the christans, do you suppose, actually believe and follow the rules?"
Very few. Do you follow the rules because they're a good idea, the vatican says they're a good idea, or you believe that God wants you to do things this way?
"marriage is (atleast for catholics) a sacrement, and it's itended for 1 male and 1 female."
That's one of the bigger problems. A translated book written from the oral traditions of several extremely old and culturally inverse civilisations is picked over to provide any interpretation that is required. Therefore 'marriage between a man and a woman' becomes the central tenet of the sacrament and becomes a lot more specific as time goes by. There are a number of loathsome practices described in the Old testament that are savagery incarnate, but people don't write those off as 'God having a bad day', they just ignore it. Or would you sidestep the whole 'idols' issue as 'false gods', because it's neater for interpretation?
The thing is I personally don't have a problem with people believing in Big Brother, God, a giant spider, Satan, the clitoris or Jesus the astronaut until they start killing people because of it. Then it becomes something bad. I'm hoping you can agree with a heathen on that last point.
"That movie took everything it could out of context and was entirely one sided."
That's the nature of propoganda; hopefully it provokes people into asking questions to find out how one-sided that it was, but I'm surprised that you didn't consider the use of MOAB 'daisy cutters' on an urban environment 'quite likely' to produce civilian casualties.
Moore's take on all of this was that if you're going to have Fox and the rest be manipulated into producing war correspondance that carefully avoided any mention of civilian casualties (being, as they are, one of the enshrined principles of the geneva convention; avoidance of non-combatants), in favour of a blitzkrieg engagement that minimises coalition casualties and exposure to urban fighting, you'd better be prepared to do some tapdancing afterwards.
In terms of his factual accuracy, you'd have to argue some of the more salient facts were wrong; yes he does punch the emotive buttons, but your president talked about stock aluminium tubes being nuclear weapons components in the State of the Union address...bear in mind that Iraq had no delivery systems or nuclear programme at that time as reported by the various weapons inspectors and you have some fairly direct manipulation of the populace in rough parallel to the 'red fever' of the 1950s.
"It's only use is to get people ot believe that bush is the worst thing that's ever happened to the US."
Oh, that's a given; on the positive side he has given your economy a boost, but at the cost of destabilising a region known for it's volitility.
"It does not server to educate people"
But it did pick holes in everything that was said publically by the administration, especially regarding the 'weapons of mass destruction' that the 'knew' in a SCO-esque feat of mesmerisation that existed, despite the people _actually_ on the ground saying that they weren't there. Wow, we've drifted quite a way.
Slashdot Mirror
"Cradle of Democracy my ass. We're heading to be the laughing stock of Democracy. And we're the punchline."
It's purely black comedy.
I was reading on Wired yesterday about the new 'Free speech' zones that are being put up, which are chainlink and razorwire cages under the lenses of cameras, after the 'Patriot' act (and only America could load the word 'patriot' to emotive effect), which allows for searches based on a whim of law enforcement, and *seems* to completely stomp on the concepts of privacy to the individual you appear to be watching the land of the free turn into the most draconian police state this side of China...China also uses the 'if you have nothing to fear' line, too.
Seriously, for a while I've wondered why you accept a system that rewards the guy that can gather the most cash as your representatives and keep supporting the system in the face of people from the outside telling you that you should have started fighting four years ago.
Hell, I don't think any system is entirely perfect, but America is heading for rocky terrain as the 'Land of the free'.
The other thing is that horrendous feeling that people on the outside are anti-American; some dumbasses are, but there are also people like myself that think that the American national psyche is one of thoroughly good people who want the best, both for themselves and everyone around them, but Your rights are being wholly eroded in the name of producing fear.
For the sake of little green apples, don't get moulded into a fearful nation; our (Britain) government has blown £8.3 million on an Ad campaign designed to tell us what to do during a terrorist attack; like we don't know after 25 years of bombing campaigns and shootings...it's intent is to allow further legislation to get waved through on 'security' grounds.
"how about working on the existing theory so that it doesn't require yet another particle???"
And if that particle actually exists?
There was a furor that surrounded the nuetrino when it was first thought up and they did think that it was so weakly interacting that they'd never find it. Turns out that several hundred tonnes of chlorine and some sensitive photodetectors embedded in a mountain do the trick.
The Higgs boson is another case in point; to find it in a collider requires extremely high energy collisions, but we don't have one. Do we write off the Higgs boson because we don't have a detector for it?
"Could it be that we are killing global paradigms ?"
Nope, it's just that paradigm shifts seem a lot more obvious in retrospect once development has followed a decent amount of testing. It could be argued that we're currently in the grip of a paradigm shift that's affecting society as a whole, given that global, affordable communications have really started to take off in the past 20 years.
On the other hand, there isn't a lot of 'pure' research being undertaken, which means that you're limited to the postgrad, postdoctoral academic work these days.
"It was a bit tinfoil hat, I'll admit"
Hence my complete sarcasm.
"Baystar is doing this to tie up their investor's identities"
The main problem with this idea is 'Why would Baystar care?'. Even given that Microsoft 'could' request it, why would they? To make us Linux/BSD folks feel a bit fuzzier towards them?
"In Today's tech climate, how many places do you think they could have found with a business plan worthy of their VC ?"
That would depend what you were looking for. In Baystar's case, I think it was aggressive IP/Licensing with the promise of quick turnaround based on documentary evidence; reading between the lines suggests that they're actually getting snippy about what they've been told rather than the machinations of...the evil empire (scary voice mandatory, I'm afraid).
"worst / most hated / sleaziest tech company"
That's totally subjective; for one thing I'm betting that Darl, speaking with perceived equals or 'betters' is actually a very pleasant man. I've met salesman like him who put you completely at ease before ripping you off royally, and you have to admit that the first proclamations from SCO did appear to be possible. It's only through knowing the case backwards that the tech community considers SCO in the light you painted.
"Or do you think they might have been induced into doing it."
Oh, goes without saying. You get a piece of paper, write in '$', then put lots of numbers after it. Greed is by far a more powerful motivator amongst companies of this ilk than either their public profile or 'products' because their product is the ability to make money grow and generally the moral question doesn't keep anyone awake at night.
"Well, being on a chip doesn't mean it can't be replaced." Yeah, but replacing the firmware by flashing or replacing the necessary chip is going to mean that, to stay ahead of the curve for most OS', you'd need to keep updating for patches, which seems a little...expensive.
Just idle speculation.
"GASP! Some XYZ providers even outsource their development to ABC and DEF (insert your favorite company and terrorist sponsoring country where necessary)."
Indeedly do, and idiots like that always talk about defence contracts rather than, say, the entire financial records for a given bank, or anything to do with economic control. Hell, shutting down the airlines for a couple of days managed to bring a lot of people to the brink, and a couple of close things have occurred due to crappy untested systems being implemented in the financial sector.
"Windows has been certified to Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL 4)"
Was that before or after the AODBstream bug?
"Let's say a math library that would be used to make calculations to calibrate the weapon. How hard would it be to build in a small tiny bit of error that would only be useful in cases of calibration of high-tech weapons?"
Not hard, but then a test harness for the math library should be trivial enough to create.
"how much expertise would be needed to catch that?"
The ability to unit test.
The scenario you painted was amusing enough, but misses out on a couple of vital points; enemies tend to go for the flashy loud bangs rather than messing with error bars; governments are paranoid to the extent where they secondguess themselves; mission critical components are tested to _death_ and you never get to find out the unit testing in closed source. The unsigned integer 'bug' in IE is going to be fairly typical of the stuff we never see floating around at the moment, and that was laziness/a mistake. In terms of software, those two problems are going to crop up infinitely more often than a masterspy crafting a method of throwing out the calibration of a gun.
"Embedded Operating Systems"
Just a very brief point, but how do you fix embedded system bugs? Am I incorrect in thinking that embedded means that the OS is onchip?
"I personally won't download games from "warez" sites, but I'd bet that if more care went in to the final product, people might value them more."
The rot goes a bit further and was thrown into sharp relief by the recent 'Driv3r' astro-turfing debacle...there used to be a day when you could by a gaming magazine (Remember Zzap!64?) and get a fairly honest review by someone who had a slight shred of integrity. Now you get six months hype, a bit of viral marketing and review that frequently and suspiciously appears to promote the hell out of a game that on later inspection appears to be absolute sh*t. Yes, C&C Generals, I am looking at you.
On the flipside, you occasionally get blindsided by releases like 'Mashed' that aren't getting the promotion they deserve in the press because they lack the ability to command the magazines.
In other words, we're looking at the thin end of the wedge of marketing that tends to stipulate that enough positive press can shift units rather than the product actually being good.
" What annoys me is that its often easier to get a download a pirated game than buying it in a shop."
I contacted Cenaga about having a dodgy CD2 for UFO:Enemy Unknown. They concluded that my CDROM drive was at fault, to which I asked the question, 'both of them and my DVD rom drive?'.
At that point the conversation stopped and I was never offered the chance to return the media, even after saying that I'd be happy to pay a small charge for new media. Bear in mind that I'd already bought it, it's just that I got consistent CRC errors.
So I made my own CD 2.
No real moral to the story, other than it's a damn sight easier to act illegally, even given the penalties, than go through the correct channels, especially for replacing damaged or otherwise unusable media. It wasn't even worth the hassle of trying to get replacement under warranty (which would have involved at least four legal entities and more trouble than 2 days downloading and $0.50 CD blank.)
"There is nothing in the Patriot Act that says it should only be used for terrorism."
True enough, but questions have to be asked about the speed in which it was redacted into law without review and the applications thereof, _specifically_ where it buts against the constitutional rights of individuals. I find it ludicrous that nobody even skimmed the document first, and that creates a pretty dangerous precedence if you assume that Congress is charged as one of the three wings of government to avoid an overall majority.
"If it can catch my daughter's murderer"
Hypothetically, I can do better than that. Your daughter can be monitored with cameras 24 hours a day in a controlled environment; we will control her stimuli and offer work that matches her skills and competence. Upon request, we can supply possible sexual partners that have been carefully vetted and tissue typed to ensure genetic purity, and she need never come into contact with anything that could possibly harm her, destabilise her mental condition or cause her cause for concern.
At what point does the above scenario become unbelievable, and at which point would it go too far?
"BTW, we DID change the laws, sort of. We just created our own."
Yeah, it's just that occasionally breaking the law is a decent enough organ to foster change, and American Independance was one of those treasonous actions undertaken in the name of 'right' that went against legality. The Scopes trial was another. In fact, everytime someone goes to court, there is an allegation of a law being broken, and I wouldn't like to even guess how many cases are being heard daily in the world.
"How evil of them to enfoce thier copyright."
You might figure out at some point that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the government organ for handling internal federal problems, and currently is enagaged in everything from counter-terrorism thru to tracking down bank robbers. Enforcement of copyright is generally down to a civil action rather than getting a government body to kick your doors down. For one thing, every taxpayer is now engaged in protecting the copyright holders, so now you're not only buying their products, but paying for them to keep the prices where they want them.
Next time someone detonates a large-ish bomb in a city centre, think about whether the FBI's manpower is better spent working for the good of society or the good of a corporation.
As for the moral aspect of it, usually it's considered polite to send some contact first, and generally to a postal address. Getting a PI to serve papers has to be easier on the taxpayer than invoking an anti-terrorism law, just not as scary.
"Just because you don't agree with the law doesn't mean you should break it. CHANGE it."
Hi America, this is England. We just noticed that your war of independance was illegal and we'd like our colony back.
Hugs'n'Kisses,
England.
PS. You can keep Utah and Oregan
"MS could also just make their own Linux distro"
They are banned from doing such after they got dragged through the courts against Caldera.
"Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive."
Whereas someone hit with a lawsuit has to start paying money to defend it from the word "go", which is the real chilling effect of software patents, not that the battle will be hard for the people sending out the lawsuit.
"That alone does not confer ability, merely opportunity."
Fair enough.
"I'm nit-picking, but then so are you."
Horse testes; the article was based on free as in beer and I slipped up semantically, whereupon you arrived.
"Non-programmers (ie the vast majority of computer users) simply cannot modify their applications at source-level. They lack the required skill, and most likely the time (and perhaps even ability) to acquire it, too."
Nobody ever said you could actually do it yourself without some knowledge, and that's where you're beginning to sound really odd. WTH do you think OSS is about if you think users should be able to read and understand source code to the extent where my mum could change the workings of a given application, Captain Obvious?
"I will be voting Lib Dem in my seat although this will have no effect since it is one of the safest Labour seats in the country."
I hear you, but it takes two consecutive 'protest' votes to get anyone to take notice. I did note with some glee that the lacklustre european results appeared to cause a bit of concern.
"all I get are bland polite replies and it's hard to see that I have any effect."
That's the very basis of voter apathy; can't change the system, won't try...I'm not suggesting you're apathetic, but the whole notion of the UK democratic process means that you have to go through your MP, and that's a disheartening process for most people to get involved in unless the reason you contact them is worthy of a photo-op. But the tide is turning slowly to suggest that we can get some kind of grass roots movement to remind the buggers that they still work for us.
"They ONLY way to keep that information secret (and protect Bill) is to get it wrapped up in a lawsuit with "confidential" terms and a confidentiality agreement."
Zounds, that must be the trick the bounders are pulling. I mean it was only because the Halloween documents came tagged with 'press release' that we actually saw them.
"This has NOTHING to do with getting back the money they were instructed to channel to SCO."
Well, there you're right. It's the difference between what SCO said they were doing and what SCO actually did coupled with what SCO told Baystar compared with what they claimed in teleconference.
As for 'instructed', I take it that you've had limited exposure to venture capital?
"That 45% includes a lots of people who support him because the alternative is worse"
Nope, they were polls in support of Tony Blair's actions, not the best candidate for the big chair. Kinda a completely different question.
"the ultra-creepy ultra-authoritarian Tory leader Michael Howard"
The father of the community charge. As for 'ultra-authoritarian', they have a tendency to not be as controlling as Labour, although this seems contrary to common sense. However, I'll vote for him the day Mandelson dons a pretty frock and sings Gilbert & Sullivan.
"who has opposed the few mild liberalisations"
Who has opposed everything because he's confusing 'vocal and loud' with 'dynamic and commanding'. It's political gainsaying that doesn't do him any favours, but as you said, you have a bad choice and a worse choice.
"Realistically the choice is between him and Tony Blair at the next election."
Now you're depressing me. You mean to suggest that we should be voting for the frontman rather than your local MP and his record? That's a fairly whack way of exercising a democratic right, as neither Tony or Mike will be representing you as anything other than the leader of their parties, and that _can_ change based upon the cluster of people behind them...
Nip over to http://www.theyworkforyou.com and research your MP...engage with him over the things you don't like rather than wait four years.
Part of the bloody problem with throwing out the conservatives last time was that people voted to get them out rather than seeing how ill-prepared the labour party was to govern after the death of John Smith; for weeks after the election Labour ministers could be seen looking like bunnies caught in headlights.
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
Personally I've never heard this one, although I've fixed quite a few things, then submitted the necessary as it kills that one dead.
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems" - Maybe you'll poke around a bit in the code, and if it's trivial then you can fix it - but again, this really isn't something your average user is going to do.
Look! Over there, other side of the road, travelling in the other direction...it's the point...
The point of this 'myth' is you have the ability to. That's it. Whether you submit the patches or not, you can make any modifications that your little heart desires.
"All software should be free" - I write something independently, then there is basically not a chance in hell of being able to sell it or make money directly from it.
There is money being made, but I think the point is that all software should be free in terms of usage rather than monetary cost. Frequent mistake, but a schoolboy error for someone with 20 years experience.
"As a developer myself, this prospect is profoundly depressing"
Why the hell should it? I'm currently developing like there's no tomorrow; people pay for my ability to make things work how they want them to, they don't care about which tools I use. You don't stand over your plumber's shoulder and demand he uses branded Stilsons; you'd get one in the mouth after a short amount of time.
"Yeah, I know, some will say "Go ahead and try, it's a free world". But you know as well as I do that if I am successful then inevitably some kid in his parents' basement will write his own Open Source version of the thing, for free."
Unlike the corporation that could also do the same thing and just slightly undercut you? Grow up. Competition means going out there and seeing if your product/service will fly, and the capitalist ideal means that you could find yourself competing against an eight-year old wunderkind. On a long enough timescale kids will always kick your ass.
"the Linux desktop"
'The'?
"Some of these benefits include having a more focused direction for the team, given the fact that there is (usually) just one manager and team leader, firmer schedules and deadlines, tighter management, profit incentives, salaries and bonus motivations. While this can also be true for open source projects, the "design by committee" that goes on with community projects often results in a more bloated and less focused product that tries to be all things to all people."
Have you worked in a closed source environment? For one thing the manager generally doesn't code, the bonus motivations are usually in place to sweeten the complete lack of innovation and flair that are endemic to a heavily specified job and the deadlines usually slide for whatever reason. OTOH, you'll find that most of the _successful_ OSS projects actively try to cut down on the 'committee' element to the extent where someone usually throws their toys on the floor. Same shit, just slightly more transparent and vocal when it happens.
"A commercial company, on the other hand, can afford to scratch the personal itches of its end-users"
If it listens. Experience has shown that frequently features are thought of as more important than fixing problems, which has led to the current bloat cycle that usually results in the various companies talking about thin-clients...until they bloat the client again.
"Some people will inevitably condemn me for putting down Open Source"
Personally I'm disappointed that you appear to have such a narrow viewpoint. Your major concerns appear to be your own inertia, a couchlock attitude when faced with the idea that you can no longer simply code a product and leave it, that you may be faced with competition and that convienience should be paramount
"I mean, who the hell needs a web browser in your file browser?"
Yes, even as a windows user I was a bit bummed out by that, but if you consider that iexpore/explorer (not the kernel, but the file manager portion) is a method of displaying formatted data, you could conceivably use XML/XSLT as a middle layer rather than have the application shift context all the time; N-tier design within the operating system.
I'm not suggesting that it's desirable, just a possible motive other than 'hide the code from the government'.
"data protection act"
Not worth the paper it was scribbled on and you should see the Terrorism Act.
"ive yet to see a patriotic flag-waving person who thinks Blair is the greatest and we should back him all the way"
45% of the population, according to polls after the Hutton report. Be scared...they're out there somewhere.
"It's a very lucrative black economy the dealers have going on there."
Not for marijuana, particularly in the UK. Hashish has all but dried up, meaning that roughly 65% of everything sold is 'homegrown' rather than imported. There have been estimates that it actually feeds back into the economy because of the snacks and products to grow the dope.
This has led to a 'harder' drug economy as the dealers have ditched cannabis, acid and ecstacy in favour of heroin, crack and cocaine, but personally speaking I'd like to castrate dealers of the former two and have very little to do with the last.
"but by disassociating money with drugs and I can almost guarantee the rate of addiction will go down."
I was going to call you dumb, but it seemed a trifle unfair. What you completely fail to realise is that exposure goes up when it becomes legalised, meaning your potentials for Psychological and physical addiction go up, not to mention the lability to mental illness, which in turn places stress on the social systems for handling such illness. Bigger pool of people, lots more potential for things go pear-shaped.
"In this day and age, however, many people automatically assume drug use == bad person."
Not really. I don't know anyone that hasn't at some time or another.
"Controlling behaviour is the absolute WORST way to get around problems."
True, but not for your reasons. Control breeds fear, fear breeds resentment.
"That is NOT why he was threatened."
I've no doubt that there were a few more agendas floating around at the time, but the international world looked on aghast at the posturing that seemed to surround a stringy bit of jizz.
"I said take it literally, not that people follow a religion."
Exsqueeze me? Belief implies faith, faith implies following; simply waving a hand and saying you're a bhuddist doesn't make you one, likewise it's fairly untrendy to claim that Billy Graham rocks your world. In terms of literal translation you can't get more fundamental than fundamental christians.
"I am catholic, for instance, but how many of all the christans, do you suppose, actually believe and follow the rules?"
Very few. Do you follow the rules because they're a good idea, the vatican says they're a good idea, or you believe that God wants you to do things this way?
"marriage is (atleast for catholics) a sacrement, and it's itended for 1 male and 1 female."
That's one of the bigger problems. A translated book written from the oral traditions of several extremely old and culturally inverse civilisations is picked over to provide any interpretation that is required. Therefore 'marriage between a man and a woman' becomes the central tenet of the sacrament and becomes a lot more specific as time goes by. There are a number of loathsome practices described in the Old testament that are savagery incarnate, but people don't write those off as 'God having a bad day', they just ignore it. Or would you sidestep the whole 'idols' issue as 'false gods', because it's neater for interpretation?
The thing is I personally don't have a problem with people believing in Big Brother, God, a giant spider, Satan, the clitoris or Jesus the astronaut until they start killing people because of it. Then it becomes something bad. I'm hoping you can agree with a heathen on that last point.
"That movie took everything it could out of context and was entirely one sided."
That's the nature of propoganda; hopefully it provokes people into asking questions to find out how one-sided that it was, but I'm surprised that you didn't consider the use of MOAB 'daisy cutters' on an urban environment 'quite likely' to produce civilian casualties.
Moore's take on all of this was that if you're going to have Fox and the rest be manipulated into producing war correspondance that carefully avoided any mention of civilian casualties (being, as they are, one of the enshrined principles of the geneva convention; avoidance of non-combatants), in favour of a blitzkrieg engagement that minimises coalition casualties and exposure to urban fighting, you'd better be prepared to do some tapdancing afterwards.
In terms of his factual accuracy, you'd have to argue some of the more salient facts were wrong; yes he does punch the emotive buttons, but your president talked about stock aluminium tubes being nuclear weapons components in the State of the Union address...bear in mind that Iraq had no delivery systems or nuclear programme at that time as reported by the various weapons inspectors and you have some fairly direct manipulation of the populace in rough parallel to the 'red fever' of the 1950s.
"It's only use is to get people ot believe that bush is the worst thing that's ever happened to the US."
Oh, that's a given; on the positive side he has given your economy a boost, but at the cost of destabilising a region known for it's volitility.
"It does not server to educate people"
But it did pick holes in everything that was said publically by the administration, especially regarding the 'weapons of mass destruction' that the 'knew' in a SCO-esque feat of mesmerisation that existed, despite the people _actually_ on the ground saying that they weren't there. Wow, we've drifted quite a way.
"This type of thing does NO good IMO."
It starts off debates