The courts did not fail-- by their current definition of failure.
A more pro-Microsoft administration succeeded the previous one in the Federal government. Their idea of "failure" would be if MS did suffer.
When Bush took the white house, one of the first things I thought (after "Oh, shit!";) ) was "Well, there goes the MS case... they'll be let off with a relative slap on the wrist."
Which was, by most observers' assessments, just what happened...
I'll bite the bait this troll is dangling in front of us.
First of all, MS isn't "acting like a capitalist"-- you're right on that accusation-- but they are certainly not acting like a welfare agency. Depending upon which aspects of MS's business plan you dislike the most, they are acting like "a software racket" (think of the Mafia's control of certain industries-- like that, only without all the guns and cement shoes and stuff;) ), or perhaps "corporate fascists", or maybe "anti-competitive hypercapitalists". In reality what MS is doing runs contrary to several core concepts of capitalism... to wit:
The free market. It's not free if one company runs the show (almost) by their lonesome.
Competition. (See above)
Competing on quality and price, not marketing.
At least, that's how the "classical capitalists" would have it-- people like Adam Smith and whatnot.
In any case, MS's behavior in the past decade or so has been sort of a twisted mockery of what capitalism is "supposed to be". Look at what ths Soviets did to socialism-- twisted it into a monstrous nightmare. MS is doing roughly the same thing to capitalism-- wrecking it.
They are most certainly not anything to do with welfare...
They aren't charging $1000 a copy (or $2000, or more) because there is a limit people will stand-- in this area, at least (and perhaps only in this area). Joe Consumer won't care if you tell him "This OS is made by an evil candy-from-babies-stealing monopoly with flappin' heads and beady little eyes", but he WILL care if you say "Hey, did you see that new Windows on sale at Best Buy? It's a thousand bucks!"
I've found that most Americans remain quite apathetic to anything and everything, in general-- until you make it blindingly obvious that something will hit them in the wallet.
Saying "Windows is made by a monopolist" doesn't get them riled up.
Saying "Windows will now cost $1,000 a version" does.
Why? Simple. Since they feel that Windows is great, and therefore "worth" $300-- but $1000 gets it to the point where it's seriously impacting their finances. And that is where most Americans put their collective foot down.
And would love to create a central list of "smaller alternatives to common software".
(Also a central list of "freer alternatives to common software").
Anyone up for creating a Yahoo! Group to discuss? Or does anyone have a better solution like some free mailing-list server?
Hehhehheh.. nnnnutsack! He said nutsack! NNNNNNNNNNUTSACK!
Sorry, I come from a very ill family.. my mom and dad and I used to watch (yes, all three of us, together) Beavis and Butt-Head... and South Park too. Like I said... very ill family...
Wine's maturity as a product isn't quite enough...
on
Fun With Wine
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Wine has come light-years since I first used it, years and years ago... yet every time I try to use it to run some arbitrary WinThing, inevitably I can't figure out how to make it work, or I try feeding it every DLL/etc. it needs, and then it segfaults. Or just doesn't work.
I read these stories of people doing absolutely astonishing things using WINE, but what the rest of us (who only have a need to touch WINE when there is something that they Must Have that isn't available for Linux-- in my case, it was the FightAIDS@Home distributed-computing client) really need is a good, central repository of "How to get Program X to work under WINE" mini-tutorials.
Anyone here work on WineHQ and can comment on this?
My first thought, when reading this article, was "What about non-Windows users?" Then, after reading the comments, "Why is no one bringing up non-Windows users?"
But then, after a moment, I thought this-- would Linux/other "geek" OS users want to use a WiFi monitor, with all the inherent security concerns (not necessarily actual exploitable threats, but the scary POSSIBILITY of such a threat) involved?
Well, not to offend, but as a woman I'd like to see this sort of nasty, abusive, objectifying, revolting stuff removed entirely from the system. Not moderated down to -37... removed.
I'm actually not a newbie; I've been reading SlashDot for years and know how the moderation system works (It's actually rather like school-- it scares the living crud out of me knowing that everything I say will be 'graded' by a bunch of often-overzealous reviewers). I just think that sometimes, moderation isn't enough. I'd love to see Taco rm -f posts like this right out of existence.
I guess, to me, the difference is in the size of the audience. Anything released on a movie or TV screen is hundreds of times more likely for any given fan to see (remember, the books are read mostly by geeks, and I'm not sure how much the additional plotlines from video games-- which also have a much smaller audience than anything movie/TV-- would be taken seriously). This means that anything on TV, or in movie form, introduces tons of new memories of the Star Wars Universe that Lucasfilm would have to work with, contradict or do-a-little-of-both to with any new film...
I can't believe SlashDot can't censor this sort of crap right off the list. Can't there be a line drawn somewhere?
I'm about as sexually liberated as anyone can get, but this just disgusts the living hell out of me.
If anyone (surely a guy, I doubt girls would do any of this rubbish-- I know I wouldn't) tried ANY of this crap to me, I'd have him arrested. Surely no one really wants to read of this stuff? (Maybe I'm wrong?)
Hmm. Well, this could be a boon to the Star Wars franchise (which of course has done amazingly well anyhow;) ) or it could just throw the chances of any sequels (Episode VII, anybody?) into the toilet.
It's simple, and I'll illustrate it by the example of Back to the Future. BTTF was a successful trilogy with many fans (among whom I am one), but then they introduced an animated TV show, and did a ride at Universal Studios: Florida, which used a plotline set after (fourth-dimensionally-speaking) all three of the movies. Both of these things added quite substantially to "the canon", as they were all officially blessed by the producers of the original BTTF trilogy.
Every episode of any official "Star Wars" cartoon that's even remotely related to the Skywalker clan or other key figures from the series has the potential to -greatly- complicate the Star Wars "canon", and making another series of movies that fit with the sum of the existing canon that much more difficult...
Plentiful, yes-- by far. But "cheaper"? Maybe you're talking about the fact that to run many Windows games on Linux, you need to buy a plug-in/utility/emulator of some sort?
Most of the games that were originally created for Linux/Unix are free (as in beer, at least). There are exceptions, like TuxRacer, but they are rare.
My current favorite Linux game, simple but venerable little "Floating Bubble", is free as in beer AND speech.. And written in Perl, my favorite interpreted language:)
The "you guys hate BillG cuz he's an amazing success" notion isn't necessarily correct. Actually, the more sensible MS-dislikers among us (myself included) really don't care if MS is as rich as God (and actually, as of last quarter, Bill Gates was approximately 23 times richer than him anyhow;) ).
Most sensible people who dislike Microsoft dislike it for HOW it got big.
Namely, the various illegal/"immoral" (by many of our definitions of that word, anyhow) actions which MS performed... many of which were mentioned in the Feds' lawsuit.
All that's needed, then, for a large and ever-growing supply of "free" classical recordings, is for a single big orchestra (or two, or three)-- possibly the higher-quality college orchestras-- to declare "The public has the right to distribute our recordings as often as they like".
Anyone here have connections with orchestras at their school/in their community? Maybe we could start a list of "free (as in speech) orchestras"...
They can certainly try. But unless they can prove that they "own" streaming audio technology, or (even more silly) "own" the concept of "music" at all, let's see them get it past a court.
Although with some of the other drivel that's made it past the courts nowadays... well...
What about classical stations?
on
Congress Passes SWSA
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What happens to classical stations now?
The music companies might put out an argument "Well, since we sell Beethoven and Bach CDs, you owe us", but realistically, what do you guys think will happen to those who only play music too old to be copyrighted (at least, until Congress ups the copyright time limits retroactively again;) )? Like Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and other artists whose name doesn't begin with B?
Wait, though... unless I read it wrong, non-profits will still have to pay-- they'll just have a larger "grace period" in which they won't have to? So how is this good news for ANYONE, even the non-profits?
Or maybe I read it wrong...
There seem to be TWO possible outcomes.
on
Congress Passes SWSA
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
1) Web radio dies, or goes "underground" and just becomes a lot less popular, and a lot more scary to be involved in. (due to the new-found illegality thanks to this bill)
2) Web radio stations start playing works by independent (non-RIAA-affiliated) artists en masse-- thereby avoiding having to pay the RIAA a red cent.
Actually, there's a third that is somewhere in between:
3) Web radio stations start playing only "mixed" versions of RIAA tunes, claiming that by producing a "modified, derivative work" it is legal. Then this gets hashed out in court, or worse in Congress...
As I see it, though, (1) is by far the most likely. Lots of the SlashDot types might be interested in indie music... but remember, lots of the listeners of these online stations are/were regular Joe-Blows. They want to hear Queen and Sting and Madonna and Eminem and Snoop Dawg, not (insert obscure indie band name here).
Le sigh... But if outcome #2 was the case... that would be very nice.. and might even spark a nationwide change in buying habits (i.e. people would start buying more indie music, leaving the RIAA bit by little bit... of course, this would only affect the mostly young and relatively Internet-literate (not necessarily computer-literate, but they're familiar with the Net and much of its underlying tech) folks who use Web streaming...)
Slashdot Mirror
I'll put it simply.
;) ) was "Well, there goes the MS case... they'll be let off with a relative slap on the wrist."
The courts did not fail-- by their current definition of failure.
A more pro-Microsoft administration succeeded the previous one in the Federal government. Their idea of "failure" would be if MS did suffer.
When Bush took the white house, one of the first things I thought (after "Oh, shit!"
Which was, by most observers' assessments, just what happened...
First of all, MS isn't "acting like a capitalist"-- you're right on that accusation-- but they are certainly not acting like a welfare agency. Depending upon which aspects of MS's business plan you dislike the most, they are acting like "a software racket" (think of the Mafia's control of certain industries-- like that, only without all the guns and cement shoes and stuff
The free market. It's not free if one company runs the show (almost) by their lonesome.
Competition. (See above)
Competing on quality and price, not marketing.
At least, that's how the "classical capitalists" would have it-- people like Adam Smith and whatnot.
In any case, MS's behavior in the past decade or so has been sort of a twisted mockery of what capitalism is "supposed to be". Look at what ths Soviets did to socialism-- twisted it into a monstrous nightmare. MS is doing roughly the same thing to capitalism-- wrecking it.
They are most certainly not anything to do with welfare...
They aren't charging $1000 a copy (or $2000, or more) because there is a limit people will stand-- in this area, at least (and perhaps only in this area). Joe Consumer won't care if you tell him "This OS is made by an evil candy-from-babies-stealing monopoly with flappin' heads and beady little eyes", but he WILL care if you say "Hey, did you see that new Windows on sale at Best Buy? It's a thousand bucks!"
I've found that most Americans remain quite apathetic to anything and everything, in general-- until you make it blindingly obvious that something will hit them in the wallet.
Saying "Windows is made by a monopolist" doesn't get them riled up.
Saying "Windows will now cost $1,000 a version" does.
Why? Simple. Since they feel that Windows is great, and therefore "worth" $300-- but $1000 gets it to the point where it's seriously impacting their finances. And that is where most Americans put their collective foot down.
And would love to create a central list of "smaller alternatives to common software". (Also a central list of "freer alternatives to common software").
Anyone up for creating a Yahoo! Group to discuss? Or does anyone have a better solution like some free mailing-list server?
We could chat as a community, and build a list...
...who would buy one of these just for "fun" >kof kof kof<
Hehhehheh.. nnnnutsack! He said nutsack! NNNNNNNNNNUTSACK!
Sorry, I come from a very ill family.. my mom and dad and I used to watch (yes, all three of us, together) Beavis and Butt-Head... and South Park too. Like I said... very ill family...
Wine has come light-years since I first used it, years and years ago... yet every time I try to use it to run some arbitrary WinThing, inevitably I can't figure out how to make it work, or I try feeding it every DLL/etc. it needs, and then it segfaults. Or just doesn't work.
I read these stories of people doing absolutely astonishing things using WINE, but what the rest of us (who only have a need to touch WINE when there is something that they Must Have that isn't available for Linux-- in my case, it was the FightAIDS@Home distributed-computing client) really need is a good, central repository of "How to get Program X to work under WINE" mini-tutorials.
Anyone here work on WineHQ and can comment on this?
Naah. I'm too busy working on my Jedi Mind Control tricks so I can ensnare Harrison Ford.
"You want to go out with JessLeah, Captain Solo..." >funky hand motion<
My first thought, when reading this article, was "What about non-Windows users?" Then, after reading the comments, "Why is no one bringing up non-Windows users?"
But then, after a moment, I thought this-- would Linux/other "geek" OS users want to use a WiFi monitor, with all the inherent security concerns (not necessarily actual exploitable threats, but the scary POSSIBILITY of such a threat) involved?
Hmm. Well, I had sex with a geek once! ;)
Well, not to offend, but as a woman I'd like to see this sort of nasty, abusive, objectifying, revolting stuff removed entirely from the system. Not moderated down to -37... removed.
I'm actually not a newbie; I've been reading SlashDot for years and know how the moderation system works (It's actually rather like school-- it scares the living crud out of me knowing that everything I say will be 'graded' by a bunch of often-overzealous reviewers). I just think that sometimes, moderation isn't enough. I'd love to see Taco rm -f posts like this right out of existence.
I guess, to me, the difference is in the size of the audience. Anything released on a movie or TV screen is hundreds of times more likely for any given fan to see (remember, the books are read mostly by geeks, and I'm not sure how much the additional plotlines from video games-- which also have a much smaller audience than anything movie/TV-- would be taken seriously). This means that anything on TV, or in movie form, introduces tons of new memories of the Star Wars Universe that Lucasfilm would have to work with, contradict or do-a-little-of-both to with any new film...
I can't believe SlashDot can't censor this sort of crap right off the list. Can't there be a line drawn somewhere?
I'm about as sexually liberated as anyone can get, but this just disgusts the living hell out of me.
If anyone (surely a guy, I doubt girls would do any of this rubbish-- I know I wouldn't) tried ANY of this crap to me, I'd have him arrested. Surely no one really wants to read of this stuff? (Maybe I'm wrong?)
Hmm. Well, this could be a boon to the Star Wars franchise (which of course has done amazingly well anyhow ;) ) or it could just throw the chances of any sequels (Episode VII, anybody?) into the toilet.
It's simple, and I'll illustrate it by the example of Back to the Future. BTTF was a successful trilogy with many fans (among whom I am one), but then they introduced an animated TV show, and did a ride at Universal Studios: Florida, which used a plotline set after (fourth-dimensionally-speaking) all three of the movies. Both of these things added quite substantially to "the canon", as they were all officially blessed by the producers of the original BTTF trilogy.
Every episode of any official "Star Wars" cartoon that's even remotely related to the Skywalker clan or other key figures from the series has the potential to -greatly- complicate the Star Wars "canon", and making another series of movies that fit with the sum of the existing canon that much more difficult...
...the condoms that bluescreen.
Where do you want to Put It Today?(TM)
...they don't get a patent on using that fourth channel ;)
<kiki>Stay good, cute lil' 802.11b startup! Stay good!</kiki>
...what if they made a Beowulf cluster of these?
(dodges lobbed fruit) "Hey!"
I'd hate to be the one tasked with counting all the fallen dominoes...
;)
Does anyone have the rundown on how many people and how many weeks that took?
Plentiful, yes-- by far. But "cheaper"? Maybe you're talking about the fact that to run many Windows games on Linux, you need to buy a plug-in/utility/emulator of some sort?
:)
Most of the games that were originally created for Linux/Unix are free (as in beer, at least). There are exceptions, like TuxRacer, but they are rare.
My current favorite Linux game, simple but venerable little "Floating Bubble", is free as in beer AND speech.. And written in Perl, my favorite interpreted language
The "you guys hate BillG cuz he's an amazing success" notion isn't necessarily correct. Actually, the more sensible MS-dislikers among us (myself included) really don't care if MS is as rich as God (and actually, as of last quarter, Bill Gates was approximately 23 times richer than him anyhow ;) ).
Most sensible people who dislike Microsoft dislike it for HOW it got big.
Namely, the various illegal/"immoral" (by many of our definitions of that word, anyhow) actions which MS performed... many of which were mentioned in the Feds' lawsuit.
All that's needed, then, for a large and ever-growing supply of "free" classical recordings, is for a single big orchestra (or two, or three)-- possibly the higher-quality college orchestras-- to declare "The public has the right to distribute our recordings as often as they like".
Anyone here have connections with orchestras at their school/in their community? Maybe we could start a list of "free (as in speech) orchestras"...
They can certainly try. But unless they can prove that they "own" streaming audio technology, or (even more silly) "own" the concept of "music" at all, let's see them get it past a court.
Although with some of the other drivel that's made it past the courts nowadays... well...
What happens to classical stations now?
;) )? Like Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and other artists whose name doesn't begin with B?
The music companies might put out an argument "Well, since we sell Beethoven and Bach CDs, you owe us", but realistically, what do you guys think will happen to those who only play music too old to be copyrighted (at least, until Congress ups the copyright time limits retroactively again
Wait, though... unless I read it wrong, non-profits will still have to pay-- they'll just have a larger "grace period" in which they won't have to? So how is this good news for ANYONE, even the non-profits?
Or maybe I read it wrong...
1) Web radio dies, or goes "underground" and just becomes a lot less popular, and a lot more scary to be involved in. (due to the new-found illegality thanks to this bill)
2) Web radio stations start playing works by independent (non-RIAA-affiliated) artists en masse-- thereby avoiding having to pay the RIAA a red cent.
Actually, there's a third that is somewhere in between: 3) Web radio stations start playing only "mixed" versions of RIAA tunes, claiming that by producing a "modified, derivative work" it is legal. Then this gets hashed out in court, or worse in Congress...
As I see it, though, (1) is by far the most likely. Lots of the SlashDot types might be interested in indie music... but remember, lots of the listeners of these online stations are/were regular Joe-Blows. They want to hear Queen and Sting and Madonna and Eminem and Snoop Dawg, not (insert obscure indie band name here).
Le sigh... But if outcome #2 was the case... that would be very nice.. and might even spark a nationwide change in buying habits (i.e. people would start buying more indie music, leaving the RIAA bit by little bit... of course, this would only affect the mostly young and relatively Internet-literate (not necessarily computer-literate, but they're familiar with the Net and much of its underlying tech) folks who use Web streaming...)