Time was that the disks/CDs came inside a seperate envelope with the EULA printed on the outside, with a seal sticker that had printed on it that "by breaking this sticker you agree to the EULA" and any retailer would accept a return of a product with this envelope unopedned, because the software could not have been copied, which is why CompUSA et. al. will not accept opened software nowadays.... Going back to the envelopes, while a pain, would get them back out of this legal grey area.
When I worked at a software retailer long ago (not named because I don't want trouble), we used hair dryers to open and reseal packages for in-store demos, and "employee evaluation" purposes. Most of the manufacturers used some form of rubber cement. It's pretty easy to open a glued envelope in such a manner it's not easy to tell it's been done once (or twice, or....).
I remember something about this back from my BBS days... Renegade and Tele---something were essentially clones of one another... Tele--whatever was commercial and Renegade went free after 60% or so of the code had been "rewritten".
So I guess my point is that the rule of thumb is -- from what I remember -- 60% of the code should be orignal to be considered a fair use of the remaining 40%.
Anyone out there who remembers that can clarify I'd be grateful.
The article points out that the major reason the bells (er, bell; hasn't SBC bought all the others yet?) don't want to do this is because they are required to lease out the lines to competitors.
So why not swap business models and become a service provider to the "competitors" instead of "end users." This gives you the incentive to build the infrastructure.
This thread quickly made it's way into the "what is OSS really about?"
One contributor put it nicely "Engineers like to create things". I think it goes beyond that. I mean, here are all us/.ers here, giving away our keen insight and wit -- for what? Why, of course, to be a part of a community.
That's all it really is... Humans are social animals (even those of us stereotyped as "antisocial") and we end up gathering in groups of folks getting together and doing stuff we like.
Cheers
Yeah, sourceforge is where I do "fun stuff in my spare time". Paid programmers on OSS projects just get the codebase going though. The hobbists are the folks who fix glaring errors that "work" well enough, but are eyesores or personal peeves.
I agree with you that there is no magic that gets OSS perfect design, especially on the first rev or two -- it just allows a larger creative body to attack problems.
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When I worked at a software retailer long ago (not named because I don't want trouble), we used hair dryers to open and reseal packages for in-store demos, and "employee evaluation" purposes. Most of the manufacturers used some form of rubber cement. It's pretty easy to open a glued envelope in such a manner it's not easy to tell it's been done once (or twice, or ....).
the real question is if this will dissapear into obscurity as JINI has (a similar technology using Java).
So I guess my point is that the rule of thumb is -- from what I remember -- 60% of the code should be orignal to be considered a fair use of the remaining 40%.
Anyone out there who remembers that can clarify I'd be grateful.
So why not swap business models and become a service provider to the "competitors" instead of "end users." This gives you the incentive to build the infrastructure.
I'd be glad to ignore any localized ads if it subsudized my otherwise very expensive gadget. There's always a tradeoff, eh?
He wasn't familiar with K, even in the evil-lookalike mode, therefore he couldn't be bothered to use it.
FWIW, my sister is pissed withe me now becase she can't use her SIMS game on Linux. (oh the horror)
Interesting you should bring that up... I installed Linux on my Dad's home PC a few months ago. His use is web (and email via web interface).
The main affect? I don't get much email from him anymore even though KDE in windows compatability mode is pretty darn close to Windows.
Intuitive === Familiar.
This thread quickly made it's way into the "what is OSS really about?" One contributor put it nicely "Engineers like to create things". I think it goes beyond that. I mean, here are all us /.ers here, giving away our keen insight and wit -- for what? Why, of course, to be a part of a community.
That's all it really is... Humans are social animals (even those of us stereotyped as "antisocial") and we end up gathering in groups of folks getting together and doing stuff we like.
Cheers
Yeah, sourceforge is where I do "fun stuff in my spare time". Paid programmers on OSS projects just get the codebase going though. The hobbists are the folks who fix glaring errors that "work" well enough, but are eyesores or personal peeves. I agree with you that there is no magic that gets OSS perfect design, especially on the first rev or two -- it just allows a larger creative body to attack problems.