I'd be interested to know more about the claim that it works in Linux with MPlayer. What, if any, DRM is there? Do you need to do something special to let MPlayer know your key?
If there's DRM, and MPlayer can support it, yay for MPlayer. If it's been cracked, that's a testament to the weakness inherent in DRM. If there's no DRM, are we one step closer to the ideal of cheap unencumbered Vorbis or MP3 files? I sure hope so.
Their concern is that commercial sites will feel cheated out of ad revenue. But this problem is trivial to avoid: Don't cache pages initially, but have a system for caching them quickly if the webmaster asks. The stories wouldn't be delayed, but when they are accepted, a notification would be sent and a copy made. When the webmaster asks to be relieved, the links in the story would be changed to the cache.
I can accept that DRM made iTMS possible. But this is only because the RIAA made it impossible! The root cause is the complete lack of competition in the music industry.
The vast majority of popular content is controlled by several companies, all members of one organization which has already been legally accused of price fixing. In an ideal world, these companies would be tripping over each other to distribute more content, and as soon as one decided not to use DRM, they'd get an instant boost. Instead, one organization dictates what formats it will allow it's music to be sold in (that is, when it's not busy buying unjust laws), instead of giving the customers what they want.
To clarify, Apple has not shown that DRM sells better than no DRM. They've shown only that the RIAA demands DRM, even if the limits are nominal. (I believe the industry thinks of this as a first step towards more restrictions.) I think they've also shown that less DRM sells much better than more DRM. By extension, no DRM, if the industry would allow it, would sell even better.
I share your hope that some iTunes-alike will convince the RIAA to allow unencumbered distribution. Wouldn't it be great if there were real competition, so a clueful content owner could step in and win by giving people what they want?
The only scenerio that makes *any* sense to me is if some new DRM device came on the scene and had inexpensive access to a massive library of content.
Oh, you mean like an iPod?
Whenever iTMS and DRM are mentioned in the same sentence, people quickly mention that iTMS's limits aren't too restrictive, and you can always burn CDs and rip them. And obviously the iPod's DRM isn't mandatory - you can still play your own unencumbered MP3s. I'm picking on iPod, but my point applies equally well to the various copycat WMA music services and other players.
The infrastructure is actively being built. People are being told that DRM is necessary to prevent piracy; most are blind to its true purpose. DRM schemes have legal protection. And DRM support is creeping into all popular hardware and software.
What if some iTunes clone with an 80% market share decides it will take a "leadership position" by only allowing mandatory-DRM hardware access to the newest hits? Will there be enough consumer outrage, and enough alternate choices, to stop them from succeeding? I think so, but it will be a close call.
Capturing audio isn't quite that simple - the program may check the return values of ioctl(2)s it issues, so it would fail. It is, however, easy with LD_PRELOAD hacks like VSound. Unless hardware becomes completely locked down, it'll always be possible. And even then, there's the analog hole.
As much as I hate to say it, you're right - most people won't complain, because they simply don't care, and they haven't thought about what's best for them in the long run.
But I certainly don't think "anything you ever want will be available for a cheap price (because of competition)." Currently, there is very little competition, and DRM will destroy even that. It's an issue of infrastructure.
In meatspace, the infrastructure is moderately open. For example, although the RIAA has a great deal of marketing power and well-established channels to sell CDs, it's still possible for Joe Public to publish content. The Internet is far more open than this - the effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing is amplified, and publishing is much easier. But a DRM infrastructure would almost certainly be totally closed.
If mandatory-DRM devices become popular, or worse, legally required, then to publish anything, you have to talk to the DRM authorities. Instead of many fine-grained copyright based monopolies, there'd be one ubiquitous DMCA-based monopoly, and no competition.
Finally! OO.org's toolkit has always bugged me - it's kinda slow, never looks like anything else, and menus don't go away when you click on the titlebar. Besides, having yet another toolkit increases the load time and memory requirements. One of the goals seems to be a Qt backend for VCL, and eventually a new widget set might be used.
Of course, the big question is, which one. What are your favorites, people? I like the idea of wxWindows, though I wish it had a Qt port. In the long run, I'd rather see something like X but with server-side widgets, and I think wxWindows might be easiest to adapt to this model. In the short term, Qt or GTK would be great.
Well, backscatter seems to make sense, but most of us don't have a few tens of thousands of IP addresses to monitor. Where can one get recent statistics from someone who does?
I'm not sure of the technical details of either statistic, but Linux 2.6 offers an iowait statistic in/proc/stat. The format of the cpu field is "cpuN user nice system idle iowait irq softirq". My recent top offers all these stats. That's Linux, and I'm not sure about FreeBSD.
Well, for starters, they were right. He was too old, he was easily corrupted by Palpatine despite his Jedi training, and he eventually became the second most evil person in the universe. Whether this had a positive or negative effect in the long run is just speculation, however.
You say the Council not training him was an invitation to the Sith to recruit him. The council didn't see it this way. The Council thought the Sith had been eradicated two thousand years ago, so they thought if they didn't teach Anakin, nobody would. They did know of one assailant "skilled in the Jedi arts," but they were divided as to whether it was a Sith. So yes, they were stupid for not making the connection, but it was a perfectly reasonable mistake.
When the Council knew for sure that the Sith existed, they decided to let him be trained, although Yoda disagreed. It's still not an invitation, though. Yoda was aware of the Sith, but he didn't know Palpatine was one of them, so he didn't think Anakin would come into contact with him, regardless of whether he was trained.
Yoda didn't do anything in Episode 1. You mean Episode 2, right?
Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino, tells us that Master Sifo-Dyas, a leading member of the Jedi Council, ordered the creation of the clone army almost ten years ago. Obi-Wan believes Sifo-Dyas was killed ("was killed," not "died") before that.
I see two theories. In the first theory, Master Sifo-Dyas becomes corrupt, erases Kamino from the Archives, orders the clone army's creation, fakes his death, and re-emerges as Senator Palpatine of Naboo. In the second theory, Darth Sideous kills Sifo-Dyas and orders the clones in his name.
I prefer the first theory. Because of their training, fallen Jedi, like Anakin, Count Dooku, and possibly Sifo-Dyas, make good Sith Lords. Yoda says that only a Jedi could have erased Kamino from the archives, and the first theory explains this nicely. The second theory doesn't, but it has the advantage of explaining Sifo-Dyas's death more easily.
In any case, I think Sideous ordered the creation of the army. We know that Darth Tyranus, also known as Count Dooku, is Sideous's apprentice. Jango Fett says he was recruited by Darth Tyranus, while Lama Su says he was chosen by Sifo-Dyas. This is easily explained by assuming it was Sideous's idea.
Yoda wasn't involved in any of this, and is not evil.
The kernel provides (or should provide) interface abstraction to a sensible level where it's possible for safe "black box" drivers to be written.
Actually, it doesn't. Besides the idealistic reasons, there are pragmatic ones - the kernel developers want to be able to change their internal APIs at will. It's usually not a problem, because they can then change all the drivers to match, because they're right there in the source tree and under the GPL. But if they have to stick to a stable internal API, let alone an internal ABI, they might get stuck with badly-designed APIs.
Very true, but the real question is, why is a new law necessary? If it's already going to be illegal, then arrest (or sue) the person when they press record. If copyright infringement isn't something you can be arrested for, perhaps they should work to change that.
I think it would be preferable for the industry to attempt to alter the law in a more straightforward manner. Penalties could be set, or certain types of infringements could be made felonies. This way, there would be debate about whether it was the right thing, and the end result would be a more consistent system. Instead, we're adding a new special-case law with little real discussion. The result is probably the same, except the laws become more complex.
Chances are, nobody's Portage tree was affected. The bigger question, however, is how Gentoo's security could be improved. As a start, the md5sum of the important parts of a client's portage tree could be compared with one from gentoo.org, which would of course be signed, after each emerge sync. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this already exists, though.
Alternately, they could charge for the service of whitelisting a spammer or decreasing his Spaminess score. This would be great for them because it wouldn't be useful to simply copy their list, because you'll get more responses if you buy their service, too.
Surely, as a slashdotter, you've heard this before. By default, you can't make copies except fair use. The GPL conditionally grants you that right. EULAs however, revoke other rights, such as your backup copy, your control of your system, and sometimes even your free speech.
Better than that, any scripts to automatically extract ntfs.sys and mount with it should have a list of known-good checksums. Then it would be impossible for MS to cause data corruption with an update overwriting that file - the checksum would change and the script wouldn't load it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, no. Mozilla 55%, IE 28%. Yes, it's a self-selecting sample of technical people, but that's sorta the point.
If there's DRM, and MPlayer can support it, yay for MPlayer. If it's been cracked, that's a testament to the weakness inherent in DRM. If there's no DRM, are we one step closer to the ideal of cheap unencumbered Vorbis or MP3 files? I sure hope so.
Their concern is that commercial sites will feel cheated out of ad revenue. But this problem is trivial to avoid: Don't cache pages initially, but have a system for caching them quickly if the webmaster asks. The stories wouldn't be delayed, but when they are accepted, a notification would be sent and a copy made. When the webmaster asks to be relieved, the links in the story would be changed to the cache.
If Disney had its way, 2 days after opening them, the discs would self-destruct. Oh wait...
The vast majority of popular content is controlled by several companies, all members of one organization which has already been legally accused of price fixing. In an ideal world, these companies would be tripping over each other to distribute more content, and as soon as one decided not to use DRM, they'd get an instant boost. Instead, one organization dictates what formats it will allow it's music to be sold in (that is, when it's not busy buying unjust laws), instead of giving the customers what they want.
I share your hope that some iTunes-alike will convince the RIAA to allow unencumbered distribution. Wouldn't it be great if there were real competition, so a clueful content owner could step in and win by giving people what they want?
Oh, you mean like an iPod?
Whenever iTMS and DRM are mentioned in the same sentence, people quickly mention that iTMS's limits aren't too restrictive, and you can always burn CDs and rip them. And obviously the iPod's DRM isn't mandatory - you can still play your own unencumbered MP3s. I'm picking on iPod, but my point applies equally well to the various copycat WMA music services and other players.
The infrastructure is actively being built. People are being told that DRM is necessary to prevent piracy; most are blind to its true purpose. DRM schemes have legal protection. And DRM support is creeping into all popular hardware and software.
What if some iTunes clone with an 80% market share decides it will take a "leadership position" by only allowing mandatory-DRM hardware access to the newest hits? Will there be enough consumer outrage, and enough alternate choices, to stop them from succeeding? I think so, but it will be a close call.
Perhaps we could convince McBride to go. Heck, I'd pay $699 for that!
Capturing audio isn't quite that simple - the program may check the return values of ioctl(2)s it issues, so it would fail. It is, however, easy with LD_PRELOAD hacks like VSound. Unless hardware becomes completely locked down, it'll always be possible. And even then, there's the analog hole.
In meatspace, the infrastructure is moderately open. For example, although the RIAA has a great deal of marketing power and well-established channels to sell CDs, it's still possible for Joe Public to publish content. The Internet is far more open than this - the effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing is amplified, and publishing is much easier. But a DRM infrastructure would almost certainly be totally closed.
If mandatory-DRM devices become popular, or worse, legally required, then to publish anything, you have to talk to the DRM authorities. Instead of many fine-grained copyright based monopolies, there'd be one ubiquitous DMCA-based monopoly, and no competition.
Of course, the big question is, which one. What are your favorites, people? I like the idea of wxWindows, though I wish it had a Qt port. In the long run, I'd rather see something like X but with server-side widgets, and I think wxWindows might be easiest to adapt to this model. In the short term, Qt or GTK would be great.
I can think of one other use for heavy-metal extracting bacteria - medicine. Could they be used to counteract lead and mercury poisoning?
Well, backscatter seems to make sense, but most of us don't have a few tens of thousands of IP addresses to monitor. Where can one get recent statistics from someone who does?
I'm not sure of the technical details of either statistic, but Linux 2.6 offers an iowait statistic in /proc/stat. The format of the cpu field is "cpuN user nice system idle iowait irq softirq". My recent top offers all these stats. That's Linux, and I'm not sure about FreeBSD.
You say the Council not training him was an invitation to the Sith to recruit him. The council didn't see it this way. The Council thought the Sith had been eradicated two thousand years ago, so they thought if they didn't teach Anakin, nobody would. They did know of one assailant "skilled in the Jedi arts," but they were divided as to whether it was a Sith. So yes, they were stupid for not making the connection, but it was a perfectly reasonable mistake.
When the Council knew for sure that the Sith existed, they decided to let him be trained, although Yoda disagreed. It's still not an invitation, though. Yoda was aware of the Sith, but he didn't know Palpatine was one of them, so he didn't think Anakin would come into contact with him, regardless of whether he was trained.
Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino, tells us that Master Sifo-Dyas, a leading member of the Jedi Council, ordered the creation of the clone army almost ten years ago. Obi-Wan believes Sifo-Dyas was killed ("was killed," not "died") before that.
I see two theories. In the first theory, Master Sifo-Dyas becomes corrupt, erases Kamino from the Archives, orders the clone army's creation, fakes his death, and re-emerges as Senator Palpatine of Naboo. In the second theory, Darth Sideous kills Sifo-Dyas and orders the clones in his name.
I prefer the first theory. Because of their training, fallen Jedi, like Anakin, Count Dooku, and possibly Sifo-Dyas, make good Sith Lords. Yoda says that only a Jedi could have erased Kamino from the archives, and the first theory explains this nicely. The second theory doesn't, but it has the advantage of explaining Sifo-Dyas's death more easily.
In any case, I think Sideous ordered the creation of the army. We know that Darth Tyranus, also known as Count Dooku, is Sideous's apprentice. Jango Fett says he was recruited by Darth Tyranus, while Lama Su says he was chosen by Sifo-Dyas. This is easily explained by assuming it was Sideous's idea.
Yoda wasn't involved in any of this, and is not evil.
Actually, it doesn't. Besides the idealistic reasons, there are pragmatic ones - the kernel developers want to be able to change their internal APIs at will. It's usually not a problem, because they can then change all the drivers to match, because they're right there in the source tree and under the GPL. But if they have to stick to a stable internal API, let alone an internal ABI, they might get stuck with badly-designed APIs.
There are a few others, but mostly only available in Asia.
I think it would be preferable for the industry to attempt to alter the law in a more straightforward manner. Penalties could be set, or certain types of infringements could be made felonies. This way, there would be debate about whether it was the right thing, and the end result would be a more consistent system. Instead, we're adding a new special-case law with little real discussion. The result is probably the same, except the laws become more complex.
True, but this is the first time in a while we've attempted to slashdot them.
We prefer the term 'epidermally challenged.'
Chances are, nobody's Portage tree was affected. The bigger question, however, is how Gentoo's security could be improved. As a start, the md5sum of the important parts of a client's portage tree could be compared with one from gentoo.org, which would of course be signed, after each emerge sync. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this already exists, though.
Alternately, they could charge for the service of whitelisting a spammer or decreasing his Spaminess score. This would be great for them because it wouldn't be useful to simply copy their list, because you'll get more responses if you buy their service, too.
Surely, as a slashdotter, you've heard this before. By default, you can't make copies except fair use. The GPL conditionally grants you that right. EULAs however, revoke other rights, such as your backup copy, your control of your system, and sometimes even your free speech.
Better than that, any scripts to automatically extract ntfs.sys and mount with it should have a list of known-good checksums. Then it would be impossible for MS to cause data corruption with an update overwriting that file - the checksum would change and the script wouldn't load it.