I agree with you, and also want to point out something else. Dictating that companies and instituations must a certain KIND of software, based on non-proprietary and open source is completely different than say, dictating that they use software from a single company.
Open source does NOT NECESSARILY MEAN FREE. Open source means that most likely it would be free to get the software itself, but for companies and institutions, they would most likely, for certain versions and types of software, need to pay license fees and almost definitely support fees as well to the companies that make it.
Just my two cents on it. I think this is a good thing, and I don't even mean just because it's open source, but because it takes piracy down quite a bit while at the same time allowing their citizenry to learn more about technology (by providing them with source code to learn from others) for free potentially and also giving the entire country a single base to start with.
Totally OT, but this is a funny, and I thought of it because of your multiple use of the word "dictate":
So the gang from "Little Rascals" are at school, and the teacher is asking the students to use words in sentences. She asks Darla "Use the word 'helpful' in a sentence". Darla replies "My mommy is helpful to me.". The teacher says "That's very good Darla!". She then turns to Buckwheat and asks him to use a word. "Buckwheat, use 'dictate' in a sentence, please." Buckwheat replies "Darla says my dictate good!"
There are other alternatives for Chat than Yahoo, plus, the more people use Linux and OpenSource, the more it's in demand. It's kind of a circular problem. The more that use it, the more that need it, so more use it and so on.
So, your move of not switching all machines to Linux seems like a good plan, both to introduce people to the technology, also to allow people to start migrating, as they are aware of the government mandated changes coming.
Mplayer plays Real, QT, WMV, and a whole crap load of other formats too. Of course, it's not REALLY easy to install, and it crashes sometimes, but generally, I like it better than any other.
At least it's completely free, with no strings attached.
Or alternatively, you could use an alternative browser, like Firebird, Mozilla, or Opera. This generally helps keep the spyware and adware down, as these browsers have much better security IMHO than IE.
I just wanted to sum up some things that popped in my head as potential problems with this scenario, and why I think it will fail badly:
1) Multiple thousand dollar equipment, easily breakable and STEALABLE in PUBLIC places. 2) High month-to-month costs. 3) Plasma burn-in/wear and tear. 4) Why replace something you could buy for $100-$1000 potentially (prints, etc.) that will last practically FOREVER, with something this expensive, that will NOT last very long. 5) Power consumption - some of these monitors consume a CRAP load of electricity. 6) Cheaper and easier alternatives. Why buy this proprietary crap, when you can easily, and for MUCH Less set up your own system to display images / screensavers / whatever you want.
Just my thoughts. Some of these are in the posts before, but some of them aren't.
Here (scroll down) is some more information about the California recall election and some interesting numbers resulting from Diebold counts. Seems pretty damned fishy to me.
I seriously doubt that this could hold any legal water. IANAL, but hell, this is just common sense. Not only that, but how the HELL could they possibly enforce this? How would they determine if the TOS is violated? And even if they can tell that, what could they do about it? Seems like total Legal CYA to me.
Holy crap. Not to poke fun or anything, but if you're reading this thread, and actually ENJOYING reading it, you KNOW you're a geek.
I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of these arguments, thinking about myself laughing out loud about it, and then getting into a recursive thought loop about laughing at myself.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to not only post your letter to the author, but also his response back to you. It is very nice to see people nicely disagreeing with one another and objectively posting the results here. If I had points, I'd use 'em here.
Anyone else read the second line as "They just want your CHICKS"?
I just had an amusing picture in my head of Forbes's geeky writers chasing my wife down the hallway going "Here Chicky Chicky Chicky" and flapping their arms like a chicken.
Seems like flame/troll bait, but in this case I completely agree. This article seems like a concession to all the Linux/FSF/OSS zealots who cannot open their minds to other possibilities.
I may disagree with the article itself (the Forbes one), but I DO want to see it on Slashdot, and saying "You may not want to read this" is absolutely disgusting to me.
I come to Slashdot for all sides of the story, not a zealot centric point of view. This is one of the major issues I have with the way Slashdot is run, and the editors it chooses to employ in the disssemination of information to the masses.
I just wanted to comment on the fact that your business model in regard to the "hacking" of your CD software protection is absolutely brilliant. I had never heard of using the DMCA to "bait" a hacker into breaking the simplistic protection scheme implemented in order to sue him/her and their institution to make money without having to put much effort into the actual protection mechanism itself. Congratulations! This is a truly revolutionary use of the DMCA.
Someone mod the parent up please. I wish I could. I totally agree with KoshClassic's point in that it is entirely possible that someone has figured out how to use the DMCA to profit. Strangely enough, it seems the old Slashdot cliche seems to work in this respect!
And they're NOW SOLD OUT at my theater. Whew! I got there just as the box office opened, to quite a line around the corner. They sold out in about 1 hour.
Anyway, I cannot wait. As I have a renaissance costume for the Renaissance Faires I attend, I'll be wearing that. I also bought a special package that lets me eat all the hot dogs, popcorn, soda, candy, and whatever else I want for the snack bar all day at no extra charge.
Oh man, that just brought back memories. A bunch of geeks sitting at Round Table pizza for a BBS party all trying to get the highest in base 2 decimals. 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, etc. all shouting to be heard.
No wonder you'd never see a woman at those parties, must have scared them off. of course, nowadays, you see women geeks much more often, thank God.
I am in agreement with you on this. There is no reason whatsoever for product placement to be taken out as long as it is being done tastefully. Frankly, the vast majority of product placements are practically invisible, unless you are looking for them. After all, doesn't everyday life have product placements everywhere? Do you want companies to stop advertising to you by having product placements like your co-workers buying Coke and leaving it on their desk? Are we going to require that they cover it up or something? Come on, at least they're doing it the right way.
No crap! I was reading the rules, and the fact that you completely sign away EVERYTHING related to the game you make, in return for $25,000 IF YOU WIN. WHAT about all the OTHER people who enter with good games but don't win? Guess what? You just slaved away to create a good game that someone else is going to sell, and you don't get a damned penny!
What a load of bull, and I really hope you aspiring developers don't fall for this baloney.
I don't really want to get into a whole Dell vs. Apple / Support thing but personally, I've had nothing but excellent support from Dell. They were the only ones we could get to answer the phone when MsBlast started wreaking havoc.
That is a good point, thanks. Other issues also related to because they removed the error correction, it's not actually a CD anymore, because they broke with the Red Book standards as well.
I'm not saying what they did was correct, I'm just saying that it's a good step forward.
I've been reading the comments posted so far, and have found that a large majority are quite negative. But mostly, it's negative in regards to the following:
1) Modifying the way the CD works will make it unplayable in certain players 2) Some people don't use WMA, either because they can't, or because they refuse. 3) The general "RIAA" sucks comments. 4) Other issues I didn't notice, cuz I'm too slow and lazy to list them all.
However, I didn't see anything come up that really pointed to whether this idea was sound in general. i.e. They're trying SOMETHING other than just suing the crap out of their customers, it appears that they're trying to both appease the consumer AND keep their margins up. After all, they ARE allowing personal copying and use, including sending a free copy to your friends for ten days. I'm sure the intention was NOT to make it not work on certain players or regions.
In my humble opinion, this seems like a step in the right direction. Now, that doesn't mean they should not continue to take further baby steps, and try harder to really get at what their consumers want, which is very low cost single track downloadable and convertable music in an easy to find manner.
Anyone else feel the same way? I'm not looking for flames here, and if what I said was inflammatory to you, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to point out my differing opinion from the majority of slashdot readers.
Re:Just tape off the floor around you.
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I agree with you, and also want to point out something else. Dictating that companies and instituations must a certain KIND of software, based on non-proprietary and open source is completely different than say, dictating that they use software from a single company.
Open source does NOT NECESSARILY MEAN FREE. Open source means that most likely it would be free to get the software itself, but for companies and institutions, they would most likely, for certain versions and types of software, need to pay license fees and almost definitely support fees as well to the companies that make it.
Just my two cents on it. I think this is a good thing, and I don't even mean just because it's open source, but because it takes piracy down quite a bit while at the same time allowing their citizenry to learn more about technology (by providing them with source code to learn from others) for free potentially and also giving the entire country a single base to start with.
Totally OT, but this is a funny, and I thought of it because of your multiple use of the word "dictate":
So the gang from "Little Rascals" are at school, and the teacher is asking the students to use words in sentences. She asks Darla "Use the word 'helpful' in a sentence". Darla replies "My mommy is helpful to me.". The teacher says "That's very good Darla!". She then turns to Buckwheat and asks him to use a word. "Buckwheat, use 'dictate' in a sentence, please." Buckwheat replies "Darla says my dictate good!"
There are other alternatives for Chat than Yahoo, plus, the more people use Linux and OpenSource, the more it's in demand. It's kind of a circular problem. The more that use it, the more that need it, so more use it and so on.
So, your move of not switching all machines to Linux seems like a good plan, both to introduce people to the technology, also to allow people to start migrating, as they are aware of the government mandated changes coming.
Mplayer plays Real, QT, WMV, and a whole crap load of other formats too. Of course, it's not REALLY easy to install, and it crashes sometimes, but generally, I like it better than any other.
At least it's completely free, with no strings attached.
I know of a good one, it's called Linux.
Or alternatively, you could use an alternative browser, like Firebird, Mozilla, or Opera. This generally helps keep the spyware and adware down, as these browsers have much better security IMHO than IE.
I just wanted to sum up some things that popped in my head as potential problems with this scenario, and why I think it will fail badly:
1) Multiple thousand dollar equipment, easily breakable and STEALABLE in PUBLIC places.
2) High month-to-month costs.
3) Plasma burn-in/wear and tear.
4) Why replace something you could buy for $100-$1000 potentially (prints, etc.) that will last practically FOREVER, with something this expensive, that will NOT last very long.
5) Power consumption - some of these monitors consume a CRAP load of electricity.
6) Cheaper and easier alternatives. Why buy this proprietary crap, when you can easily, and for MUCH Less set up your own system to display images / screensavers / whatever you want.
Just my thoughts. Some of these are in the posts before, but some of them aren't.
Any ideas or refutations on these?
Here (scroll down) is some more information about the California recall election and some interesting numbers resulting from Diebold counts. Seems pretty damned fishy to me.
I seriously doubt that this could hold any legal water. IANAL, but hell, this is just common sense. Not only that, but how the HELL could they possibly enforce this? How would they determine if the TOS is violated? And even if they can tell that, what could they do about it? Seems like total Legal CYA to me.
Oh God, I LOVED Ball Blaster. I still have a 2600 and a Ball Blaster cartridge at my parents house. Is it wrong that I know exactly where it is?
Holy crap. Not to poke fun or anything, but if you're reading this thread, and actually ENJOYING reading it, you KNOW you're a geek.
I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of these arguments, thinking about myself laughing out loud about it, and then getting into a recursive thought loop about laughing at myself.
Now I can't stop.
Just had to share.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to not only post your letter to the author, but also his response back to you. It is very nice to see people nicely disagreeing with one another and objectively posting the results here. If I had points, I'd use 'em here.
Anyone else read the second line as "They just want your CHICKS"?
I just had an amusing picture in my head of Forbes's geeky writers chasing my wife down the hallway going "Here Chicky Chicky Chicky" and flapping their arms like a chicken.
Oh god, I shouldn't drink so much coffee.
Seems like flame/troll bait, but in this case I completely agree. This article seems like a concession to all the Linux/FSF/OSS zealots who cannot open their minds to other possibilities.
I may disagree with the article itself (the Forbes one), but I DO want to see it on Slashdot, and saying "You may not want to read this" is absolutely disgusting to me.
I come to Slashdot for all sides of the story, not a zealot centric point of view. This is one of the major issues I have with the way Slashdot is run, and the editors it chooses to employ in the disssemination of information to the masses.
Oh my god that was a funny picture in my head.
Now we need to get some Perl zealots to figure out the Perl insults and it will be complete.
Here's what I wrote to SunnComm's president.
I wonder if they'll get the sarcasm:
I just wanted to comment on the fact that your business model in regard to the "hacking" of your CD software protection is absolutely brilliant. I had never heard of using the DMCA to "bait" a hacker into breaking the simplistic protection scheme implemented in order to sue him/her and their institution to make money without having to put much effort into the actual protection mechanism itself. Congratulations! This is a truly revolutionary use of the DMCA.
Someone mod the parent up please. I wish I could. I totally agree with KoshClassic's point in that it is entirely possible that someone has figured out how to use the DMCA to profit. Strangely enough, it seems the old Slashdot cliche seems to work in this respect!
1) Create crappy protection software.
2) ???
3) Profit!!!
And they're NOW SOLD OUT at my theater. Whew! I got there just as the box office opened, to quite a line around the corner. They sold out in about 1 hour.
Anyway, I cannot wait. As I have a renaissance costume for the Renaissance Faires I attend, I'll be wearing that. I also bought a special package that lets me eat all the hot dogs, popcorn, soda, candy, and whatever else I want for the snack bar all day at no extra charge.
This is going to be SO SWEET!
Oh man, that just brought back memories. A bunch of geeks sitting at Round Table pizza for a BBS party all trying to get the highest in base 2 decimals. 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, etc. all shouting to be heard.
No wonder you'd never see a woman at those parties, must have scared them off. of course, nowadays, you see women geeks much more often, thank God.
I am in agreement with you on this. There is no reason whatsoever for product placement to be taken out as long as it is being done tastefully. Frankly, the vast majority of product placements are practically invisible, unless you are looking for them. After all, doesn't everyday life have product placements everywhere? Do you want companies to stop advertising to you by having product placements like your co-workers buying Coke and leaving it on their desk? Are we going to require that they cover it up or something? Come on, at least they're doing it the right way.
No crap! I was reading the rules, and the fact that you completely sign away EVERYTHING related to the game you make, in return for $25,000 IF YOU WIN. WHAT about all the OTHER people who enter with good games but don't win? Guess what? You just slaved away to create a good game that someone else is going to sell, and you don't get a damned penny!
What a load of bull, and I really hope you aspiring developers don't fall for this baloney.
I don't really want to get into a whole Dell vs. Apple / Support thing but personally, I've had nothing but excellent support from Dell. They were the only ones we could get to answer the phone when MsBlast started wreaking havoc.
Ok I gotta ask, WTF does that have to do with Fen Branklin?
That is a good point, thanks. Other issues also related to because they removed the error correction, it's not actually a CD anymore, because they broke with the Red Book standards as well.
I'm not saying what they did was correct, I'm just saying that it's a good step forward.
I've been reading the comments posted so far, and have found that a large majority are quite negative. But mostly, it's negative in regards to the following:
1) Modifying the way the CD works will make it unplayable in certain players
2) Some people don't use WMA, either because they can't, or because they refuse.
3) The general "RIAA" sucks comments.
4) Other issues I didn't notice, cuz I'm too slow and lazy to list them all.
However, I didn't see anything come up that really pointed to whether this idea was sound in general. i.e. They're trying SOMETHING other than just suing the crap out of their customers, it appears that they're trying to both appease the consumer AND keep their margins up. After all, they ARE allowing personal copying and use, including sending a free copy to your friends for ten days. I'm sure the intention was NOT to make it not work on certain players or regions.
In my humble opinion, this seems like a step in the right direction. Now, that doesn't mean they should not continue to take further baby steps, and try harder to really get at what their consumers want, which is very low cost single track downloadable and convertable music in an easy to find manner.
Anyone else feel the same way? I'm not looking for flames here, and if what I said was inflammatory to you, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to point out my differing opinion from the majority of slashdot readers.
What city do you live in?
Just curious, as we're looking for a developer.