MS is basically daring the EU to try to punish it, because they can't without hurting themselves. If MS were to pull out of Europe, the damage would be huge.
For argument's sake, let's say that all European governments/consumers spend US$ 0.5 billion on MS software. Now if sale of MS software is banned, and *all* of that money went into developing or improving replacement software (which could be done by local Europeans if it was all OSS), then how the hell is this bad? Half a billion that was going into MS's coffers is now being poured right back into the local European economies. In fact, it seems that banning MS would be the best thing they can possibly do for their economies, even if only a fraction of that money were reinvested in local software development.
... it wasn't me but my hijacked computer that committed the crime.
If I run somebody over with my car and kill them, I am guilty of vehicular manslaughter (or worse). If someone steals my car and does the same, they are guilty. No matter that I am the owner and someone got the plate number from the scene. I may be considered a suspect, but I did not commit the crime. Whether the American justice system can tell the difference in the case of a hacker (especially when you throw in the technological aspect) remains to be seen.
Why not just establish a web-o-trust and sign patches?
Because this made it into the code by someone directly modifying the CVS tree, not by a patch. Signing every patch would help overall security, but would not have made a lick of difference in this case.
BTW, does customs allow CDRWs to be shipped from Canada? I'd like to not fund the ongoing RIAA battle, because I have nothing to do with it. I figure it's time now to actively avoid funding this nonsense.
It doesn't make a difference. Candians pay a "piracy" tax on their recordable media as well. Only, it goes to the Canadian version of the RIAA, which I imagine is directly connected to the RIAA.
Force a rather large deposit. If the patent is found to clearly be invalid, don't return the deposit for wasting the examiner's time. To keep this from hurting small inventors, make it only apply to organizations applying for more than 3 in a year.
Two problems:
Makes it very difficult for someone little startup capital who has a legitimate process/patentat device
What's to stop a company like Amazon having their employees file the application as individuals and then signing it over or exclusively licensing it to the company.
At a quick glance, your seems like an OK idea. But I imagine it will make things harder for legitimate inventors and not affect the abusers. Much like the tired old saying, "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." It will only just hurt the people who actually follow the rules.
I prefer to know what the patch contains, and who signed the bundle, even if I don't hand-compile it myself.
That is great. I'm glad to hear that you don't run any non-opensource software. Neither do I. I also check the patches, when I can. But sometimes I just have faith that the Debian Developers know what they are doing.
This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.
IIRC, MS Office costs anywhere from 2 or 3 times, in the case of WP, to 00 (that should be an infinity, but two zeros side by side is the best I could do) times, in the case of OOo, as much as MS Office. To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors, but plenty of people still buy it and plenty of people frown at the idea of a "work-alike" or whatever you want to call it. As much as I would like to see Corel, Sun and OOo eat MS's lunch on the office suite (and I think we are approaching that) there is lots of inertia to overcome.
God help you if you use a kernel that did not come with a distro and call support...
Really? I called them for support when I had a problem on my Debian box and the lady who I spoke with was very helpful. Near the beginning of the conversation she asked if I knew that Debian was not an officially supported distro. I told her that I understood, and it was surprisingly not an issue for the rest of the conversation. Maybe should try and get a different support tech...
If VMWare allows this distro as a 'supported' host, this is great news. One of my issues with VMWare on Linux is you even look funny at a kernel, it is not supported. Looks like they just added RH9 to the list. Bout time...
Have you even tried installing on a different distro? I've tried under RH8, RH9 (both supported), Gentoo, Debian Stable, and Debian Unstable (none of those supported), and I have never had a single problem. Just install and compile/configure the kernel modules. Switch kernels? No problem. Reboot and run vmware-config.pl, and voila it works again.
is, given that we are seeing lots of governments adopting or considering adopting F/OSS, how long before document and data interchange in its current form (read: MS Office) becomes enough of a hassle that consumers and businesses will demand software that conforms to open data interchange standards?
ISP = Internet Service Provider. Providing a website with content on the Internet is a service.
We've always associated ISP with Internet Access Provider, but is that really accurate? How is it defined withing the law?
Yes. But just as society has come to understand that a "software pirate" is not a guy with an eye-patch and a parrot on the shoulder with a treasure of stolen MS Windows boxes--rather he is someone engaging in copyright infringement--we have likewise come to understand that "internet service" is the service of providing internet access (broadband, dial-up). What his guy is doing is not enabling people to gain access to the internet. He is really a content provider.
Clearly this DRM was not tested with the single most common user behaviour (negating autorun with the shift key) -- demonstrating that the designer was less than fully competent.
"We were fully aware that if someone held down the Shift key the first and every subsequent time [they played the disc] that the technology could be circumvented," BMG spokesman Nathaniel Brown told Reuters, adding the company "erred on the side of playability and flexibility."
Not only did they test. They *knew* it could be done and *still* released. They have no room to talk.
I don't get it. Even the basic subscription is $9.99/40 tracks = $.25
That's a quarter per download. That's a better price than iTunes. I'm not up to speed on the particulars of both services (i.e., digital restrictions management, avilability inside/outside the US, etc), but they are company trying to make a profit.
Now, if they came in and said, "by subscribing to our service you agree to buy musix *only* from us," that would be a different story. As it stands, you are free to get music somewhere else if it suits you.
She needs to watch more TV ....
on
TV's Tipping Point
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels
It's obvious Ms. Highflied doesn't watch very much TV. Because the few times I do watch TV,I think how much crap is on the tube and wonder what happened the "real channels and programming."
McLaughlin casts the debate over sitefinder in terms of 'innovation' versus the status quo and threatens that stifling 'innovation' will lead to a weaker internet.
Great. Where can I send donations to their lobby group/PAC that is lobbying for repeal of the DMCA/UCITA/Palladium/whatever and fighting for our digital freedom?
What? They have no such group? They don't really want to strengthen the internet in general? Just the parts that profit them?
As was explained to me by a Lawyer who worked for Congress at one time, most laws are the result of knee-jerk reactions to public/corporate demand. Unfortunately, not much thought goes into the consequences of these laws. They just want to keep their jobs.
I think that the Patriot Act is a great example of why knee-jerk reactions are bad. When the law was being pushed through congress in the aftermath of 9/11, people who were conerned, even bothered, by many of the provisions in the law were afraid to speak up. Not to say that these people opposed trying to do something about terrorism, but that they felt it needed to be a well thought out reaction. Instead, everyone kept quiet for fear of being labeled a "pinko-commie-terrorist-supporting-unamerican," becuase when the law did pass all those people would be carted off as supporters of international terrorism.
Don't get me wrong. I think something needs to be done about terrorism and the governments that support it. But, the consequences of our actions must be thought out. Particularly because our children and grandchildren will bear the burden imposed by us.
Slashdot Mirror
MS is basically daring the EU to try to punish it, because they can't without hurting themselves. If MS were to pull out of Europe, the damage would be huge.
For argument's sake, let's say that all European governments/consumers spend US$ 0.5 billion on MS software. Now if sale of MS software is banned, and *all* of that money went into developing or improving replacement software (which could be done by local Europeans if it was all OSS), then how the hell is this bad? Half a billion that was going into MS's coffers is now being poured right back into the local European economies. In fact, it seems that banning MS would be the best thing they can possibly do for their economies, even if only a fraction of that money were reinvested in local software development.
If I run somebody over with my car and kill them, I am guilty of vehicular manslaughter (or worse). If someone steals my car and does the same, they are guilty. No matter that I am the owner and someone got the plate number from the scene. I may be considered a suspect, but I did not commit the crime. Whether the American justice system can tell the difference in the case of a hacker (especially when you throw in the technological aspect) remains to be seen.
I stopped reading after the elves never showed up at Helm's Deep. Who is the Tolkien guy and how dare he mess with a Peter Jackson classic film?
Uh, if you stopped reading, how do you know they never showed up? I mean, sheesh. Maybe the book got a little slow and you didn't give it enough time.
Why not just establish a web-o-trust and sign patches?
Because this made it into the code by someone directly modifying the CVS tree, not by a patch. Signing every patch would help overall security, but would not have made a lick of difference in this case.
BTW, does customs allow CDRWs to be shipped from Canada? I'd like to not fund the ongoing RIAA battle, because I have nothing to do with it. I figure it's time now to actively avoid funding this nonsense.
It doesn't make a difference. Candians pay a "piracy" tax on their recordable media as well. Only, it goes to the Canadian version of the RIAA, which I imagine is directly connected to the RIAA.
Force a rather large deposit. If the patent is found to clearly be invalid, don't return the deposit for wasting the examiner's time. To keep this from hurting small inventors, make it only apply to organizations applying for more than 3 in a year.
Two problems:
At a quick glance, your seems like an OK idea. But I imagine it will make things harder for legitimate inventors and not affect the abusers. Much like the tired old saying, "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." It will only just hurt the people who actually follow the rules.
I'll spoil the ending right now and tell you that Vector Linux won, but you should check out the findings.
Great, now no one has to RTFA. Oh wait, I forgot this is /.
I prefer to know what the patch contains, and who signed the bundle, even if I don't hand-compile it myself.
That is great. I'm glad to hear that you don't run any non-opensource software. Neither do I. I also check the patches, when I can. But sometimes I just have faith that the Debian Developers know what they are doing.
I run Debian Woody servers, so I apt-get update && apt-get upgrade every morning. Since I never have to reboot, that is not an issue.
This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.
IIRC, MS Office costs anywhere from 2 or 3 times, in the case of WP, to 00 (that should be an infinity, but two zeros side by side is the best I could do) times, in the case of OOo, as much as MS Office. To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors, but plenty of people still buy it and plenty of people frown at the idea of a "work-alike" or whatever you want to call it. As much as I would like to see Corel, Sun and OOo eat MS's lunch on the office suite (and I think we are approaching that) there is lots of inertia to overcome.
There aren't even programs such as AutoCad, Rational Rose or stuff like this.
You mean like Rational Rose Developer for Unix?
Or what about Pro/E, instead of AutoCad. Or maybe LinuxCAD.
God help you if you use a kernel that did not come with a distro and call support...
Really? I called them for support when I had a problem on my Debian box and the lady who I spoke with was very helpful. Near the beginning of the conversation she asked if I knew that Debian was not an officially supported distro. I told her that I understood, and it was surprisingly not an issue for the rest of the conversation. Maybe should try and get a different support tech ...
If VMWare allows this distro as a 'supported' host, this is great news. One of my issues with VMWare on Linux is you even look funny at a kernel, it is not supported. Looks like they just added RH9 to the list. Bout time...
Have you even tried installing on a different distro? I've tried under RH8, RH9 (both supported), Gentoo, Debian Stable, and Debian Unstable (none of those supported), and I have never had a single problem. Just install and compile/configure the kernel modules. Switch kernels? No problem. Reboot and run vmware-config.pl, and voila it works again.
This is like Microsoft ignoring security holes - and we've all heard those stories.
Yeah, except Microsoft wouldn't have you tried as a criminal and incarcerated .... Oh wait.
is, given that we are seeing lots of governments adopting or considering adopting F/OSS, how long before document and data interchange in its current form (read: MS Office) becomes enough of a hassle that consumers and businesses will demand software that conforms to open data interchange standards?
If there was ever an incentive to get people to lock down their wireless networks, this is it.
ISPs will probably also like the idea that it provides an incentive for people to not share their broadband connections with their neighbors.
ISP = Internet Service Provider. Providing a website with content on the Internet is a service.
We've always associated ISP with Internet Access Provider, but is that really accurate? How is it defined withing the law?
Yes. But just as society has come to understand that a "software pirate" is not a guy with an eye-patch and a parrot on the shoulder with a treasure of stolen MS Windows boxes--rather he is someone engaging in copyright infringement--we have likewise come to understand that "internet service" is the service of providing internet access (broadband, dial-up). What his guy is doing is not enabling people to gain access to the internet. He is really a content provider.
Here are some choices:
Clearly this DRM was not tested with the single most common user behaviour (negating autorun with the shift key) -- demonstrating that the designer was less than fully competent.
Check this out:
Not only did they test. They *knew* it could be done and *still* released. They have no room to talk.
Apple has planned an event for next Thursday to formally introduce their iTunes player and online music store for the Windows platform.
I know Windows has the larger market share, but what about Linux? Surely, it cannot be that difficult to port from OSX (BSD-based) to Linux.
I don't get it. Even the basic subscription is $9.99/40 tracks = $.25
That's a quarter per download. That's a better price than iTunes. I'm not up to speed on the particulars of both services (i.e., digital restrictions management, avilability inside/outside the US, etc), but they are company trying to make a profit.
Now, if they came in and said, "by subscribing to our service you agree to buy musix *only* from us," that would be a different story. As it stands, you are free to get music somewhere else if it suits you.
but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels
It's obvious Ms. Highflied doesn't watch very much TV. Because the few times I do watch TV ,I think how much crap is on the tube and wonder what happened the "real channels and programming."
McLaughlin casts the debate over sitefinder in terms of 'innovation' versus the status quo and threatens that stifling 'innovation' will lead to a weaker internet.
Great. Where can I send donations to their lobby group/PAC that is lobbying for repeal of the DMCA/UCITA/Palladium/whatever and fighting for our digital freedom?
What? They have no such group? They don't really want to strengthen the internet in general? Just the parts that profit them?
Phew, glad that was cleared up.
Posts like this make me wish we had a (Score: 10, Wet My Pants) moderation. This without a doubt the funniest post I have read in the last year.
As was explained to me by a Lawyer who worked for Congress at one time, most laws are the result of knee-jerk reactions to public/corporate demand. Unfortunately, not much thought goes into the consequences of these laws. They just want to keep their jobs.
I think that the Patriot Act is a great example of why knee-jerk reactions are bad. When the law was being pushed through congress in the aftermath of 9/11, people who were conerned, even bothered, by many of the provisions in the law were afraid to speak up. Not to say that these people opposed trying to do something about terrorism, but that they felt it needed to be a well thought out reaction. Instead, everyone kept quiet for fear of being labeled a "pinko-commie-terrorist-supporting-unamerican," becuase when the law did pass all those people would be carted off as supporters of international terrorism.
Don't get me wrong. I think something needs to be done about terrorism and the governments that support it. But, the consequences of our actions must be thought out. Particularly because our children and grandchildren will bear the burden imposed by us.