Yup, that's right kids, basing purchasing decisions in part on corporate ethics is "douchebaggish". Just keep consuming mindlessly and it'll all turn out for the best!
Really? I thought moon was depressing, but only because the story stops every ten seconds for Heinlein to try and cram some some more political nonsense down the reader's gullet...
I wasn't using "it's not cool" as a value judgement in itself, you need to infer a little further before being offended by this. Also perhaps before moaning about what slashdot has become, check if the person you're replying to was here before you?
It's not cool -> It won't sell -> There's not much money to be made on apps
Now sure, being the must-have app on a small platform might net you a decent payday, but unless Windows experiences runaway success (see "it's not cool" for why I consider that unlikely) there's not going to be anything like the money in it that there is for, say, iOS.
Seeing as how we're in a discussion about whether devs ought to bother developing for the platform, I consider "it's not cool" to be quite pertinent to the situation.
Not sure why I'm even bothering to reply to an AC but here goes - any fragmentation is really a perception and not reality, if you look into android development at even a surface level you can see that googel have gone out of their way to make apps work seemlessly across versions.
If you're referring to there being different versions of the OS out there then in light of the above that's pretty irrelevant. Piracy... you can do that on whatever platform you feel like, and they are making it harder on android now as you say, and it will take a while to filter through, but lets not pretend that -
1) iPhones do not suffer from it 2) Windows phone has a larger enough market share that anyone cares about pirating software for it
Android doesn't really have fragmentation issues. Older apps run mostly fine on newer phones, and google supplies a compat library for newer apps to run on older phones.
What Android has is choice. Win Phone 7 didn't have that (specs set by MS). i don't know if Windows Phone 8 will or not. but it doesn't really matter because -
MS are not cool.
They're like your dad trying to dance at a nightclub. Even if he gets it right, he's still your dad and it's still highly embarassing.
I'm not sure about EULA's but it has been specifically allowed by the supreme court in contracts. Whether the former count as much as the latter is a matter of contention.
It was only the right to band together in a class-action, it doesn't affect your rights to sue as an individual, and some companies (Sony) give you the option to opt-out of this clause, if you write to them directly to do so.
But I'm pretty sure that in the US there was a SCOTUS decision specifically allowing this. It's possible that that only applies to 'real' contracts though, and EULA's may or may not be real contracts (IMHO, IANAL) due to the lack of negotiation and the relative positions of the two parties.
Unfortunately yes, it does seem to be legally binding. MS, Sony and various others have got in on the act long before Valve.
IIRC there was a decision in the Supreme Court that allowed this.
Individuals can still sue, I'm pretty sure this only applies to class action, and with the Sony agreements you can opt-out of the clause in their EULA by sending them a letter (yes, on dead trees).
It's hard to believe there are still people stupid enough to spout these two talking points, a good decade or more after they've been debunked, soundly and repeatedly.
Clearly there are though, and they're proud of their extreme ignorance.
Of course you're a consumer, and you're being screwed because the publishers are trying to force a model where you don't actually own anything. If you owned it you could resell it.
If I buy a car, I can sell it to someone else. Ford don't get a look in. Both myself and the other purchaser are consumers, though. Whether ford give a crap about the on-sale is irrelevant, but they sure as hell don't get to prevent it.
1) No returns 2) No ability to sell games and use the money to buy more
Now, point 2 has been degrading for a long time anyway, Gamestop and their ilk have been paying next to nothing for used games for a long time. BUT there is a large market segment who do this to stretch their money a little further.
You'll need to spend ~5 minutes playing with the position of the bars and menus when you first log in, after that it looks and feels pretty much like gnome 2.
The PPA system is great. I used it extensively. It's a bandaid, not a solution. If I want to pull my upstream Gnome packages from a fork of Gnome, good luck making that work with existing pre-compiled Ubuntu binaries. It's simply not possible, not with a custom PPA and a month of compiling 100 custom packages (which no one will be crazy enough to use, because they just want your Gnome hacks, not a new distro), and certainly not with editing your sources.list.
That's pretty much exactly what the debian-multimedia project do right now.
I've been playing with linux since the mid 90s, using it seriously since about 2000 and as my primary working environment for about 6 years.
In this time I have seen the UI go from old X11 style stuff, through the early days of gnome and kde when they were finding their feet, through the period when it all came together as a better (IMHO) UI than windows or Mac, and now I'm watching a group of deluded designers try to ruin it.
I used Gnome 2 on linux and solaris for 6 years. To suddenly be told that it's going to be thrown away, that Gnome 3/shell is the new direction, and that no, your input as the user is not only unwanted but you're wrong as well, and stupid for even thinking you like anything about the existing setup.... It's just really really sad.
Still, it looks like xfce is gaining ground rapidly as a result.
You just run your own PPA or apt repository if you don't want to play by the distro's rules about getting into their repos. Then if people want your software they can add it. And it is incredibly easy through the various frontends or by editing sources.list directly.
Google do this for chrome, debian-multimedia for this for their extra codec offerings, skype have a debian repo.
It's not pie in the sky, the only barrier to this is your own incompetence and ignorance, which you seem quite intent on displaying here.
"You seem unaware that the only way to "forbid screwing with legit traffic" requires that you determine whether any particular bit of traffic is "legit traffic" or not.... "
You could do nothing at all, which is fully in line with this agreement.
I don't usually reply to someone twice, but my mind is boggling at the stupidity here. I mean seriously, how the fuck do you not get the difference between signing up for a code that forbids screwing with legit traffic, and the fantasy that you and the OP seem to be living in where this code enforces monitoring of all data and blocking things at will?
Sure, this code does not guarantee real, full net neutrality, but neither does it remove it. It's a step in the right direction.
The code says that they will not discriminate between types of legal traffic.
Nothing about the agreement requires them to monitor or block any traffic at all, sure it leaves them the option, but it doesn't require it. It requires that they don't block legit traffic.
Yeah, wonderfully insightful I'm sure, but none of that is relevant here. They'renot being asked to police illegal content, they're being asked NOT to throttle back on legal content. Whether they look for or do anything with illegal content is up to them.
Also, it's worth noting that this is the UK we're talking about, which has a much more homogenous set of rules than the US, so your comment about things being differently legal in different places is also irrelevant.
Truem on a well set-up point to point transmission, they can record the encrypted data stream, probably. They may be able to figure out who you're talking to, where both parties are and how long the conversation lasted. Some or all of these things can be hidden with services like Tor, though I'm not sure I'd want to try streaming video via Tor...
That's true, and is also why it's a good idea to use an open standard and an implementation in a thoroughly reviewed and actively developed library.
A point-to-point VOIP session over an SSH tunnel set up using pre-shared keys and signatures should do the job nicely. Or via SSL, making sure only to use certificates from an authority you control, and using (EC)DH(E) key exchange protocols, which result in a network stream the nobody can decode after the fact, no matter what server keys they have access to.
I know, nearly all implementations have some sort of weakness if enough talented people look at them for long enough. I was just voicing my objection to the fantasy that some folks have that the NSA or MI5 or Mossad or whoever it is have access to secret knowledge rendering any and all crypto irrelevant. They probably are ahead of the game in some ways, but aren't magical wizards.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, that's right kids, basing purchasing decisions in part on corporate ethics is "douchebaggish". Just keep consuming mindlessly and it'll all turn out for the best!
Fucking moron.
Really? I thought moon was depressing, but only because the story stops every ten seconds for Heinlein to try and cram some some more political nonsense down the reader's gullet...
Still preferable to having your dad turn up at a nightclub and show all your friends how much he's down with the kids and this 'modern music'.
Basically, what the other guy said.
I wasn't using "it's not cool" as a value judgement in itself, you need to infer a little further before being offended by this. Also perhaps before moaning about what slashdot has become, check if the person you're replying to was here before you?
It's not cool -> It won't sell -> There's not much money to be made on apps
Now sure, being the must-have app on a small platform might net you a decent payday, but unless Windows experiences runaway success (see "it's not cool" for why I consider that unlikely) there's not going to be anything like the money in it that there is for, say, iOS.
Seeing as how we're in a discussion about whether devs ought to bother developing for the platform, I consider "it's not cool" to be quite pertinent to the situation.
Not sure why I'm even bothering to reply to an AC but here goes - any fragmentation is really a perception and not reality, if you look into android development at even a surface level you can see that googel have gone out of their way to make apps work seemlessly across versions.
If you're referring to there being different versions of the OS out there then in light of the above that's pretty irrelevant. Piracy... you can do that on whatever platform you feel like, and they are making it harder on android now as you say, and it will take a while to filter through, but lets not pretend that -
1) iPhones do not suffer from it
2) Windows phone has a larger enough market share that anyone cares about pirating software for it
Android doesn't really have fragmentation issues. Older apps run mostly fine on newer phones, and google supplies a compat library for newer apps to run on older phones.
What Android has is choice. Win Phone 7 didn't have that (specs set by MS). i don't know if Windows Phone 8 will or not. but it doesn't really matter because -
MS are not cool.
They're like your dad trying to dance at a nightclub. Even if he gets it right, he's still your dad and it's still highly embarassing.
I'm not sure about EULA's but it has been specifically allowed by the supreme court in contracts. Whether the former count as much as the latter is a matter of contention.
It was only the right to band together in a class-action, it doesn't affect your rights to sue as an individual, and some companies (Sony) give you the option to opt-out of this clause, if you write to them directly to do so.
EU - certainly.
But I'm pretty sure that in the US there was a SCOTUS decision specifically allowing this. It's possible that that only applies to 'real' contracts though, and EULA's may or may not be real contracts (IMHO, IANAL) due to the lack of negotiation and the relative positions of the two parties.
Unfortunately yes, it does seem to be legally binding. MS, Sony and various others have got in on the act long before Valve.
IIRC there was a decision in the Supreme Court that allowed this.
Individuals can still sue, I'm pretty sure this only applies to class action, and with the Sony agreements you can opt-out of the clause in their EULA by sending them a letter (yes, on dead trees).
It just seems wrong that a product EULA can make you forfeit your rights like this.
But at the same time they are absolutely correct, class action seldom really benefits anyone but the law firms.
It's hard to believe there are still people stupid enough to spout these two talking points, a good decade or more after they've been debunked, soundly and repeatedly.
Clearly there are though, and they're proud of their extreme ignorance.
Of course you're a consumer, and you're being screwed because the publishers are trying to force a model where you don't actually own anything. If you owned it you could resell it.
If I buy a car, I can sell it to someone else. Ford don't get a look in. Both myself and the other purchaser are consumers, though. Whether ford give a crap about the on-sale is irrelevant, but they sure as hell don't get to prevent it.
Two things -
1) No returns
2) No ability to sell games and use the money to buy more
Now, point 2 has been degrading for a long time anyway, Gamestop and their ilk have been paying next to nothing for used games for a long time. BUT there is a large market segment who do this to stretch their money a little further.
Not if you tell it never to group icons, because you like the taskbar metaphor better without that 'feature'
XFCE.
You'll need to spend ~5 minutes playing with the position of the bars and menus when you first log in, after that it looks and feels pretty much like gnome 2.
That's pretty much exactly what the debian-multimedia project do right now.
You can already do all of this
You'd be wrong.
I've been playing with linux since the mid 90s, using it seriously since about 2000 and as my primary working environment for about 6 years.
In this time I have seen the UI go from old X11 style stuff, through the early days of gnome and kde when they were finding their feet, through the period when it all came together as a better (IMHO) UI than windows or Mac, and now I'm watching a group of deluded designers try to ruin it.
I used Gnome 2 on linux and solaris for 6 years. To suddenly be told that it's going to be thrown away, that Gnome 3/shell is the new direction, and that no, your input as the user is not only unwanted but you're wrong as well, and stupid for even thinking you like anything about the existing setup.... It's just really really sad.
Still, it looks like xfce is gaining ground rapidly as a result.
Umm, that's all already the case.
You just run your own PPA or apt repository if you don't want to play by the distro's rules about getting into their repos. Then if people want your software they can add it. And it is incredibly easy through the various frontends or by editing sources.list directly.
Google do this for chrome, debian-multimedia for this for their extra codec offerings, skype have a debian repo.
It's not pie in the sky, the only barrier to this is your own incompetence and ignorance, which you seem quite intent on displaying here.
You could do nothing at all, which is fully in line with this agreement.
I don't usually reply to someone twice, but my mind is boggling at the stupidity here. I mean seriously, how the fuck do you not get the difference between signing up for a code that forbids screwing with legit traffic, and the fantasy that you and the OP seem to be living in where this code enforces monitoring of all data and blocking things at will?
Sure, this code does not guarantee real, full net neutrality, but neither does it remove it. It's a step in the right direction.
What is it you don't understand here?
The code says that they will not discriminate between types of legal traffic.
Nothing about the agreement requires them to monitor or block any traffic at all, sure it leaves them the option, but it doesn't require it. It requires that they don't block legit traffic.
Yeah, wonderfully insightful I'm sure, but none of that is relevant here. They'renot being asked to police illegal content, they're being asked NOT to throttle back on legal content. Whether they look for or do anything with illegal content is up to them.
Also, it's worth noting that this is the UK we're talking about, which has a much more homogenous set of rules than the US, so your comment about things being differently legal in different places is also irrelevant.
Not really, any child of the 80s can only just be past 30.
I'm a child of the 70s and I'm not pushing 40 yet unless I've lost count somewhere along the way.
Truem on a well set-up point to point transmission, they can record the encrypted data stream, probably. They may be able to figure out who you're talking to, where both parties are and how long the conversation lasted. Some or all of these things can be hidden with services like Tor, though I'm not sure I'd want to try streaming video via Tor...
That's true, and is also why it's a good idea to use an open standard and an implementation in a thoroughly reviewed and actively developed library.
A point-to-point VOIP session over an SSH tunnel set up using pre-shared keys and signatures should do the job nicely. Or via SSL, making sure only to use certificates from an authority you control, and using (EC)DH(E) key exchange protocols, which result in a network stream the nobody can decode after the fact, no matter what server keys they have access to.
I know, nearly all implementations have some sort of weakness if enough talented people look at them for long enough. I was just voicing my objection to the fantasy that some folks have that the NSA or MI5 or Mossad or whoever it is have access to secret knowledge rendering any and all crypto irrelevant. They probably are ahead of the game in some ways, but aren't magical wizards.