Re:The real 90s versus outdated 00s software
on
Java Is So 90s
·
· Score: 1
Perl/Python/PHP/Ruby are all simple and flexible, but not robust: trivial type errors can break applications that have been running for days.
I don't think type errors are that big a deal. I've been programming for quite a while, and I can't recall ever having run across a type error in a running piece of software. Also, the lack of static typing allows the programmer extra flexibility that may be worth the tradeoff of having no compile-time type checking.
I still use GNOME for now - I'm still angry with the KDE developers' cavalier attitude towards the GPL (remember, KDE was not legal until TrollTech changed the Qt license - the KDE developers could have acknowledged the problem and fixed it by adding an exception for Qt to their license, which I believe is allowed by the GPL if all contributors consent to it, but instead they chose to ignore the issue for over a year.)
That was over 5 years ago, and you're still angry about it?
I tend toward being a skeptical person, so forgive me if I don't take your word for it. However, I fully understand your preference to anonymity, so I shall not pursue it.
Totally misunderstood you? You went from a bizzarrely incorrect argument that it's more expensive to deliver something via pirate means
That's it, that's my argument, right there! Distributing content illegally is inherently more costly than distributing content legally. Note that I'm talking about cost in an economic sense, ie. "The expenditure of something, such as time or labor, necessary for the attainment of a goal". Therefore I count bandwidth and the time to locate files as costs, as I alluded to in my original argument.
However, I cannot for the life of me understand why you think this is a bizare argument. It seems so obvious as to be almost self evident. But, I have spent some time looking into P2P technologies, so perhaps these things are obvious to me and not to others who may not be so well informed.
Consider; lets say I put a Britney Spears album up on my website, and allow people to download it via bittorrent. The economic costs for this will be some of the bandwidth, plus the legal fees incurred when I get sued for copyright infringement (lets say $20'000). If I put up an album that I myself have created, then I must only pay for the bandwidth. In this example, distributing illegal content is more expensive than distributing legal content.
By using a decentralised P2P network like Kazaa, I can vastly reduce the probability of being sued, but not completely reduce it. In economic terms, the cost is calculated as the legal costs multiplied by the probability of being sued. For instance, if I have a 1 in 10'000 chance of being sued for each song I download, and the legal costs are the same as my previous example, then the economic cost of each song is $2. However, this reduction in cost comes at a increase in search time, and a decrease in bandwidth. It's harder to find files through a decentralised P2P system, than it is to find them through a centralised search engine such as iTunes.
I can reduce the chance of being sued to near nil, by using a psuedononymous network like MUTE or GNUnet. However, this again results in a significant increase in search time, and a considerable decrease in bandwidth.
So long as I'm sharing illegal content, I have to choose between covering my tracks, or getting sued. These are the costs associated with illegal content sharing. If I were to distribute my own music, I would not have these costs. Nor are there any extra costs with distributing legal music, compared to distributing illegal music; I can still use Kazaa or Bittorrent if to distribute my own songs, and not have to worry about covering my tracks, nor getting sued by the RIAA.
Therefore, illegal content distribution is inherently more costly than legal content distribution. QED.
Do you understand now?
Nice try as well for attmepting to claim somehow that software protection is not DRM. Way to go, champ.
I claimed no such thing. The article/. linked to is by a musician, who talks about DRM on music. In my original comment, I was arguing against DRM on music (and video, incidentally), though I did not explicitly mention this, which was probably a mistake. When you started talking about software DRM, I pointed out the differences between software DRM and music DRM. I was not arguing that software protection is not DRM. I was arguing that DRM on music is a different animal from DRM on software, and that music DRM is significantly less effective for reasons I have already listed in detail.
Returning to the real world: does the use of a lock on the front door of your house "prevent" thieves from coming in and stealing things? no... it simply reduces the likelihood of them doing so. Should you go on holiday, and one thief breaks the lock, all subsequent theives can steal whatever stuff the previous theif left, right?
Ah - but what if you don't go on holiday? What if you come home every night and change the lock, regardless of whether or not it was broken or not? Yes, a thief might break it one day and get some stuff, but he won't be able to come back the next day unless he goes through the same laborious process.
Ah yes, but that's the "real world", as you so precisely point out. Copyright infringement works a little differently. Once a pirate breaks DRM on a song, they may copy as they please, which usually includes copying it to P2P networks, where anyone can access it. DRM has only to be broken once for it to become useless.
Secondly, anyone online can have a crack at breaking the DRM, at little to no risk to themselves. In the real world, a thief is hardly likely to fly from Australia to have a crack at opening my locks. And thievery is a risky business. Breaking DRM is not, as it is ridiculously easy to post an anonymous message online.
Even changing the locks is of limited use, as all the files downloaded with the old lock can still be broken into. Changing the locks protects against future cracks, but closing the gate after the livestock have escaped isn't going to do anything for the files that have already been downloaded.
A business guy who 4 years ago could just do a google search for "newprogram serialz" for an algorithmically passing serial number now has to contend with either a more complicated crack or some other mechanism - including ones that cleverly claim to be a successful unlock and then report back to the company the IP address, etc of the infringer for the basic purpose of making a civil claim against his company. All these things CAN and DO help. Your philosophical result is true in only some ideal sense.
Software is somewhat different from music and video, since music and video are datastreams, and thus must somehow be delivered intact through our eyes and ears without being intercepted along the way, whilst software is not directly interpretted; only its effects are. Also, software can have online checks, whilst music and video have to be playable offline. This makes the two mediums quite different.
Further, each piece of software can have a different DRM technique, whilst large collections of music are protected by the same DRM algorithm. Music has a more general audience, whilst software has more specific audiences - and those rare pieces of software that are big enough to warrent attention can be found cracked on P2P networks just the same as the latest chart-topper. Also, as you point out, spyware and malware can disguise themselves as game cracks. Playing a copied MP3 or AVI won't infect your computer.
This is comedy gold. Do you even believe or read what you are writing? While your last sentence above is true, the rest is not worthy of a response.
Excuse me? Are you seriously claiming that there are no drawbacks whatsoever associated illegal content distribution? I'm sure I'm completely misunderstanding what you're trying to say, or you've totally misunderstood me.
Or are you trying to dodge the argument by writing it off as 'comedy gold'?
(I am in the software business and know as a 100%, indisputable fact that the DRM that we put on our products increases sales and decreases piracy.)
I overlooked this sentence in my previous post; to err is human and all that. I too am in the software business, and I was wondering how you know it is a "100%, indisputable fact" that the DRM you put on your product increases sales. This seems a rather strong assertion to make. Did you have a control group? How big was your sample space? To be as 100% sure as you are, your company must have spent a good many years of research and a significant sum of money getting that certain.
Also, as I'm sure you're aware, Software DRM is somewhat different from music/video DRM. Music has to work offline, whilst software can use online verification. Software is usually marketed to a smaller market, with unique DRM systems for each product. Music DRM, such as the one for iTunes, is the same for all tracks. And if all that fails, one can grab the output from the soundcard and convert it to FLAC or somesuch. All which make music considerably easier to pirate than software products.
Let's pretend for a moment that your basic thinking is true: one, that your baseless empirical statement is true that DRM doesn't prevent copyright infringement and two, that the ONLY effect of DRM is to prevent legal owners from doing legal things.
I think that you are completely wrong on #1 and probably only very marginally correct on #2, but #1 negates this (I am in the software business and know as a 100%, indisputable fact that the DRM that we put on our products increases sales and decreases piracy.)
Whilst we're assuming for the sake of argument that DRM doesn't work, let me attempt to explain why this is so in the real world. Classic encryption attempts to allow a recipient to decode a message, without an attacker being able to. In DRM, the attacker and the recipient are the same person. DRM works by hiding the encryption keys somewhere on the computer. This can delay an attack, but not to prevent one, since the encryption keys are stored on the attacker's property. All the attacker has to do is watch the DRM program to see where it gets the keys from, and then to replicate the process. And once the DRM is cracked, then there is no longer any limit to the amount of times that file can be copied.
There are many intelligent people on this planet; all it takes is for one person to crack the DRM, and it's all over. This is why DRM cannot prevent piracy. Anyone with a rough working knowledge of encryption can tell you this.
Anyway, let's ignore this for a moment. Now I ask you this: hopefully as I write to you you are an intelligent person who recognizes the social good of a limited copyright and general intellectual property protection for creators and rightsholders as a Good Thing and NOT some "abolish all copyright now" idiot.
Now, putting aside all your marginal thoughts and objections to issues relating to, for example length of copyright duration, let me ask you this simple question: what should rightsholders currently do to protect their legal rights and economic well-being, given an ever-more pervasive culture on the internet that basically condones piracy.
I recall reading an article by a cryptographer who had pointed out that DRM was essentially useless for the purposes of combatting piracy, and was asked a similar question to the one you pose. In a nutshell, his response was: "I'm just telling you the facts. If you don't like them, that's not my problem." Equally, physicists will tell you that you cannot travel faster than light, which may put a damper on your planner vacation to Alpha Centurai, but guess what? That's not their problem either.
However, I'll do my best to come up with some answers to the question you pose all the same, as I myself am a professional content producer (in software, rather than music).
Firstly, I think it's a mistake to assume that people are basically dishonest, as there are many examples, even on the internet, that show that people are willing to pay for services that can be had for free. Consider; do you believe that there are any songs that cannot be found on a P2P network, and which can be found on something such as iTunes? Of course not. So why are people using iTunes? Clearly there's a market for legal music distribution, and just as clearly, the DRM on iTunes AACs doesn't prevent these songs showing up on P2P networks.
Secondly, content holders will still have the advantage over copyright infringers, because legal content distribution is always cheaper than illegal content distribution. There is a not insignificant cost to distributing content illegally; in the form of lawsuits (multiply probability of being caught by the average amount of money they'll fine you), in the form of decentralisation inefficiencies, in the form of anonymising algorithms that put security over speed, in the form of usability. A content holder can provide a better
I can't help but be amused that your comment immediately got modified +5 insightful for repeating the same opinion everybody else states, without addressing what I was even talking about. DRM does not (necessarily) equal Sony installing rootkits, so there's no reason to spread FUD, even if you feel it to be a righteous issue.
The original post asserted that "more and better movies would be made if movie companies were able to restrict the unlimited copying of their movies". I pointed out that DRM does not prevent piracy. How does that not address what you are talking about?
You say that what I wrote is FUD, but fail to say why. Nor do I understand why you mention Sony's rootkits; I didn't mention Sony at all in my previous post. Perhaps you should back up your claims with coherent arguments?
The fact of the matter is that the problem is AT LEAST 50% caused by the attitude that has come about here. So.. what is good about DRM? Not a hell of a lot. But don't blame the labels entirely - blame it on the millions of willfully infringing users who have nececcitated it.
Which would be fair enough, if DRM prevented copyright infringement. Which it doesn't.
DRM cannot prevent a user from illegally copying a file. DRM can make copying more difficult, but this isn't going to prevent a determined attacker from breaking in, and once the DRM is broken on a file, that file can then be copied by anyone else in the world.
What DRM is good for is stopping people legally copying or moving your files, because that would involve breaking the DRM scheme. It's an excellent way to restrict consumer choice and to prevent free markets arising. It's an effective tool against competition, and against traditional consumer rights such as Fair Use.
Most/.ers don't feel that the above is a good thing.
Unfortunately, DRM doesn't prevent people from making a copy of a file. What it does do is make it more difficult and illegal to make a copy; neither of these are sufficient barriers to stop a person from copying the file if they really want to. Thus, DRM does not prevent piracy; that's a myth.
However, DRM is very good at preventing legal copying of files. You can stop a customer from copying the music from their CDs to their MP3 player, which means that the customer will have to buy their music again in MP3 form - all the more profit for you. Similarly, you can use DRM to prevent your competitors from accessing your online music service, and use it to prevent free markets arising.
DRM is an excellent tool for restricting consumer freedom and choice. But that's all it's good for.
6) Wait for them to either give in and take the terrible deal or, if they do finally cancel on you, charge a 15% restocking fee for the camera you never took off the shelf. Either way, you sit on the money from their credit card for the whole period.
I'm unsure about the laws in the US, but here in the UK, Credit Card companies are jointly liable for purchases bought on credit. This means that if a dodgy firm tries to rip you off, you can get your money back off the credit card issuer. It can be a bit of a struggle to get the issuer to admit responsibility, however, as its a law that credit card companies forget about all too often.
I then tried to figure out how to change my screen saver. It wasn't in the Gnome menus- I finally found it under a "debian" menu elsewhere.
Curious. Whilst I'm not at my Ubuntu machine currently, I believe the screensaver configuration for 5.10 is in: System -> Preferences -> Screensaver Configuration.
I'd have thought that a rather obvious place to put the screensaver configuration, myself.
So? I get stuck with compatibility problems all the time on my Linux stuff, could it be that there is an actual cost to messing around trying to get stuff working? If there is one thing Windows is good for, it is backwards compatibility.
Whether or not Linux has compability issues is not the point; rather, the point is whether you can come to a valid conclusion with a sample space of one.
The conclusions the study draws are dubious, because the study simply isn't comprehensive enough. If I see an toddler in London, would it be a valid conclusion to assume from this, that the majority of London's population consists of toddlers? Clearly not, yet the study in question does almost exactly that.
The dubious points of the study have been pointed out several times. The problems stems from third-party software that was incompatible with the Linux system they used. All the study shows is that an unnamed third party piece of software doesn't work with a specific version of Linux. From this sample space of 1, the study infers that server administrators can implement business targets more easily in Windows than in Linux. The study simply isn't nearly comprehensive enough to come to any valid conclusion.
The problems the study reported with Linux appear to all due to an incompatable unnamed 3rd party software package. Surely then, all this study can conclude is that the 3rd party software used was incompatable with SLES? And if not, why not?
Secondly, anything that is capable of doing more than something else is more versatile, period.
So, that said? What runs more hardware & software:
Linux
or
Windows
?
I'm afraid it's not that black and white. Windows supports more up-to-date IBM compatable hardware and software; this is true. However, Linux supports more different architectures and platforms than Windows. Ever tried installing Windows on a Mac or a PS2?
Furthermore, Windows is deliberately restricted. You get a standard interface, standard window manager, standard desktop. You can theme it, skin it - but you cannot remove it and replace it with something else. This ensures that Windows is very uniform in interface, which is one of its greatest advantages and disadvantages. Sit a Windows user down at a Windows PC, and its unlikely they'll get lost.
However, this uniformity comes at the price of less flexibility. In Linux the GUI is not artificially limited by this, which means that the GUIs for Linux are far more varied, and therefore versatile. Similarly, the filesystems for Linux are generally more flexible and versatile than Windows' FAT32 and NTFS.
"Sales of Windows systems accounted for 36.9 percent of all server revenue in the quarter, versus 31.7 percent for Unix and 11.5 percent for Linux (Overview, Articles, Company), Eastwood said. Enterprises increasingly are using Windows-based servers for applications such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) in addition to traditional uses such as e-mail and Web hosting. Migration from Windows NT to newer versions of Windows also is driving sales, he said."
That good enough for you? I think so!
The keyword here is sales. This report measures sales revenue, which is not an accurate way of measuring quantity. For instance, say I sold 100 copies of Windows for $1000 each, and 400 copies of Linux for $200 each. The total revenue for Windows would be $100'000, whilst the total revenue for Linux would only be $80'000. In such an example, Windows earns more revenue than Linux, but only has a quarter of the numbers.
This problem is further compounded by the fact that the majority of installed Linux distributions are downloaded for free, rather than bought with support. For instance, the company I work for recently installed freely downloaded copies of Fedora Core 4 on six servers.
In short, server revenue tells us little to nothing about the number of servers with Linux installed. The Netcraft survey, on the other hand, queries webservers directly, giving a reasonably accurate result. From this, it is safe to assume that Linux outnumbers Windows servers by a large margin.
You should take a look @ ALL the kernel level vulnerabilities Linux has, right here, & tell us all what you just did:
It's lucky that Redhat Linux doesn't use the stock Linux kernel then, otherwise it would be affected by those vulnerabilites. Redhat, and indeed most major Linux distributions, use customised kernels that are patched regularly through automated update tools.
Well, for one, apparently for end users (since a good 95-99% of systems that are desktops/laptops in BOTH corporate/business AND home users are Windows, & most likely 2000/XP/Windows Server 2003 by now).
Secondly, read that quote - seems @ the server level? Windows Server 2003 is 'rocking the planet' vs. its competition, period.
And, lastly, how you mention... can't you understand what you JUST said? It only seconds my viewpoint!
Being popular is not the same as being versatile.
I think Linux is versatile because it gives me a wide choice of window managers; Windows does not. It gives me a choice of about a dozen file systems; Windows does not. It gives me the choice of three major desktop environments; Windows does not. It allows me to customise my kernel with 3rd party patches; Windows does not. It allows me to mount hard drives as directories; Windows does not.
Linux can run off a 1.44MB floppy, or run the fastest supercomputer in the world. That seems pretty versatile to me.
It's just fact based on what was found is all. Accept it.
But the bug reports from Securia, which is not sponsored by Microsoft or Linux, show quite clearly that Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 have more known vulnerabilities than Redhat and Oracle. How can Windows Server 2003 be more secure when it is clear that it has more vulnerabilities?
(After all - the rest of the planet seems to, given that Win32 based Operating Systems (by now, I would wager mostly Windows NT-based OS', such as Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & software run on 95-99% of all the personal computers on the planet, & not just restricted to laptops/desktops, but servers as well).
I'm unable to find any statistics for 2005, but back in 2000, Linux accounted for 36% of webservers, and Windows only 21%, according to Netcraft. It's likely that this hasn't changed.
It just isn't quite as versatile as Win32 based OS
Windows is certainly more compatable with hardware and the majority of software binaries about, but more versatile? In what way?
The penguins here (most of slashdot) cannot seem to stand their OS got its tail handed to them here vs. a 99.999% rated OS as to uptime, but this time, about security issues!
The report wasn't about security issues.
Funniest part of it all? Most of the security issues were not with the DB engines, but the OS kernel/cores...
Are you sure you were you reading the same report as everyone else?
The Data Mining Software used in M1 required the Linux administrators to use MySQL 4.1, which was not part of the SLES distribution. This appears to be where the majority of the problems with the Linux servers stemmed from. Do you think the choice of Linux distribution and/or Data Mining Software biased the outcome report in any way?
The Linux administrators used SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. A majority of the problems with Linux seem to have involved SuSE's package and upgrade systems. Do you think that the results would have been significantly different if another distribution had been used?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think type errors are that big a deal. I've been programming for quite a while, and I can't recall ever having run across a type error in a running piece of software. Also, the lack of static typing allows the programmer extra flexibility that may be worth the tradeoff of having no compile-time type checking.
That was over 5 years ago, and you're still angry about it?
I tend toward being a skeptical person, so forgive me if I don't take your word for it. However, I fully understand your preference to anonymity, so I shall not pursue it.
That's it, that's my argument, right there! Distributing content illegally is inherently more costly than distributing content legally. Note that I'm talking about cost in an economic sense, ie. "The expenditure of something, such as time or labor, necessary for the attainment of a goal". Therefore I count bandwidth and the time to locate files as costs, as I alluded to in my original argument.
However, I cannot for the life of me understand why you think this is a bizare argument. It seems so obvious as to be almost self evident. But, I have spent some time looking into P2P technologies, so perhaps these things are obvious to me and not to others who may not be so well informed.
Consider; lets say I put a Britney Spears album up on my website, and allow people to download it via bittorrent. The economic costs for this will be some of the bandwidth, plus the legal fees incurred when I get sued for copyright infringement (lets say $20'000). If I put up an album that I myself have created, then I must only pay for the bandwidth. In this example, distributing illegal content is more expensive than distributing legal content.
By using a decentralised P2P network like Kazaa, I can vastly reduce the probability of being sued, but not completely reduce it. In economic terms, the cost is calculated as the legal costs multiplied by the probability of being sued. For instance, if I have a 1 in 10'000 chance of being sued for each song I download, and the legal costs are the same as my previous example, then the economic cost of each song is $2. However, this reduction in cost comes at a increase in search time, and a decrease in bandwidth. It's harder to find files through a decentralised P2P system, than it is to find them through a centralised search engine such as iTunes.
I can reduce the chance of being sued to near nil, by using a psuedononymous network like MUTE or GNUnet. However, this again results in a significant increase in search time, and a considerable decrease in bandwidth.
So long as I'm sharing illegal content, I have to choose between covering my tracks, or getting sued. These are the costs associated with illegal content sharing. If I were to distribute my own music, I would not have these costs. Nor are there any extra costs with distributing legal music, compared to distributing illegal music; I can still use Kazaa or Bittorrent if to distribute my own songs, and not have to worry about covering my tracks, nor getting sued by the RIAA.
Therefore, illegal content distribution is inherently more costly than legal content distribution. QED.
Do you understand now?
I claimed no such thing. The article /. linked to is by a musician, who talks about DRM on music. In my original comment, I was arguing against DRM on music (and video, incidentally), though I did not explicitly mention this, which was probably a mistake. When you started talking about software DRM, I pointed out the differences between software DRM and music DRM. I was not arguing that software protection is not DRM. I was arguing that DRM on music is a different animal from DRM on software, and that music DRM is significantly less effective for reasons I have already listed in detail.
Ah yes, but that's the "real world", as you so precisely point out. Copyright infringement works a little differently. Once a pirate breaks DRM on a song, they may copy as they please, which usually includes copying it to P2P networks, where anyone can access it. DRM has only to be broken once for it to become useless.
Secondly, anyone online can have a crack at breaking the DRM, at little to no risk to themselves. In the real world, a thief is hardly likely to fly from Australia to have a crack at opening my locks. And thievery is a risky business. Breaking DRM is not, as it is ridiculously easy to post an anonymous message online.
Even changing the locks is of limited use, as all the files downloaded with the old lock can still be broken into. Changing the locks protects against future cracks, but closing the gate after the livestock have escaped isn't going to do anything for the files that have already been downloaded.
Software is somewhat different from music and video, since music and video are datastreams, and thus must somehow be delivered intact through our eyes and ears without being intercepted along the way, whilst software is not directly interpretted; only its effects are. Also, software can have online checks, whilst music and video have to be playable offline. This makes the two mediums quite different.
Further, each piece of software can have a different DRM technique, whilst large collections of music are protected by the same DRM algorithm. Music has a more general audience, whilst software has more specific audiences - and those rare pieces of software that are big enough to warrent attention can be found cracked on P2P networks just the same as the latest chart-topper. Also, as you point out, spyware and malware can disguise themselves as game cracks. Playing a copied MP3 or AVI won't infect your computer.
Excuse me? Are you seriously claiming that there are no drawbacks whatsoever associated illegal content distribution? I'm sure I'm completely misunderstanding what you're trying to say, or you've totally misunderstood me.
Or are you trying to dodge the argument by writing it off as 'comedy gold'?
I overlooked this sentence in my previous post; to err is human and all that. I too am in the software business, and I was wondering how you know it is a "100%, indisputable fact" that the DRM you put on your product increases sales. This seems a rather strong assertion to make. Did you have a control group? How big was your sample space? To be as 100% sure as you are, your company must have spent a good many years of research and a significant sum of money getting that certain.
Also, as I'm sure you're aware, Software DRM is somewhat different from music/video DRM. Music has to work offline, whilst software can use online verification. Software is usually marketed to a smaller market, with unique DRM systems for each product. Music DRM, such as the one for iTunes, is the same for all tracks. And if all that fails, one can grab the output from the soundcard and convert it to FLAC or somesuch. All which make music considerably easier to pirate than software products.
Whilst we're assuming for the sake of argument that DRM doesn't work, let me attempt to explain why this is so in the real world. Classic encryption attempts to allow a recipient to decode a message, without an attacker being able to. In DRM, the attacker and the recipient are the same person. DRM works by hiding the encryption keys somewhere on the computer. This can delay an attack, but not to prevent one, since the encryption keys are stored on the attacker's property. All the attacker has to do is watch the DRM program to see where it gets the keys from, and then to replicate the process. And once the DRM is cracked, then there is no longer any limit to the amount of times that file can be copied.
There are many intelligent people on this planet; all it takes is for one person to crack the DRM, and it's all over. This is why DRM cannot prevent piracy. Anyone with a rough working knowledge of encryption can tell you this.
I recall reading an article by a cryptographer who had pointed out that DRM was essentially useless for the purposes of combatting piracy, and was asked a similar question to the one you pose. In a nutshell, his response was: "I'm just telling you the facts. If you don't like them, that's not my problem." Equally, physicists will tell you that you cannot travel faster than light, which may put a damper on your planner vacation to Alpha Centurai, but guess what? That's not their problem either.
However, I'll do my best to come up with some answers to the question you pose all the same, as I myself am a professional content producer (in software, rather than music).
Firstly, I think it's a mistake to assume that people are basically dishonest, as there are many examples, even on the internet, that show that people are willing to pay for services that can be had for free. Consider; do you believe that there are any songs that cannot be found on a P2P network, and which can be found on something such as iTunes? Of course not. So why are people using iTunes? Clearly there's a market for legal music distribution, and just as clearly, the DRM on iTunes AACs doesn't prevent these songs showing up on P2P networks.
Secondly, content holders will still have the advantage over copyright infringers, because legal content distribution is always cheaper than illegal content distribution. There is a not insignificant cost to distributing content illegally; in the form of lawsuits (multiply probability of being caught by the average amount of money they'll fine you), in the form of decentralisation inefficiencies, in the form of anonymising algorithms that put security over speed, in the form of usability. A content holder can provide a better
The original post asserted that "more and better movies would be made if movie companies were able to restrict the unlimited copying of their movies". I pointed out that DRM does not prevent piracy. How does that not address what you are talking about?
You say that what I wrote is FUD, but fail to say why. Nor do I understand why you mention Sony's rootkits; I didn't mention Sony at all in my previous post. Perhaps you should back up your claims with coherent arguments?
Which would be fair enough, if DRM prevented copyright infringement. Which it doesn't.
DRM cannot prevent a user from illegally copying a file. DRM can make copying more difficult, but this isn't going to prevent a determined attacker from breaking in, and once the DRM is broken on a file, that file can then be copied by anyone else in the world.
What DRM is good for is stopping people legally copying or moving your files, because that would involve breaking the DRM scheme. It's an excellent way to restrict consumer choice and to prevent free markets arising. It's an effective tool against competition, and against traditional consumer rights such as Fair Use.
Most /.ers don't feel that the above is a good thing.
Unfortunately, DRM doesn't prevent people from making a copy of a file. What it does do is make it more difficult and illegal to make a copy; neither of these are sufficient barriers to stop a person from copying the file if they really want to. Thus, DRM does not prevent piracy; that's a myth.
However, DRM is very good at preventing legal copying of files. You can stop a customer from copying the music from their CDs to their MP3 player, which means that the customer will have to buy their music again in MP3 form - all the more profit for you. Similarly, you can use DRM to prevent your competitors from accessing your online music service, and use it to prevent free markets arising.
DRM is an excellent tool for restricting consumer freedom and choice. But that's all it's good for.
I'm unsure about the laws in the US, but here in the UK, Credit Card companies are jointly liable for purchases bought on credit. This means that if a dodgy firm tries to rip you off, you can get your money back off the credit card issuer. It can be a bit of a struggle to get the issuer to admit responsibility, however, as its a law that credit card companies forget about all too often.
Curious. Whilst I'm not at my Ubuntu machine currently, I believe the screensaver configuration for 5.10 is in:
System -> Preferences -> Screensaver Configuration.
I'd have thought that a rather obvious place to put the screensaver configuration, myself.
Then why publish the report at all, if it draws no valid conclusion?
Whether or not Linux has compability issues is not the point; rather, the point is whether you can come to a valid conclusion with a sample space of one.
The conclusions the study draws are dubious, because the study simply isn't comprehensive enough. If I see an toddler in London, would it be a valid conclusion to assume from this, that the majority of London's population consists of toddlers? Clearly not, yet the study in question does almost exactly that.
The dubious points of the study have been pointed out several times. The problems stems from third-party software that was incompatible with the Linux system they used. All the study shows is that an unnamed third party piece of software doesn't work with a specific version of Linux. From this sample space of 1, the study infers that server administrators can implement business targets more easily in Windows than in Linux. The study simply isn't nearly comprehensive enough to come to any valid conclusion.
The problems the study reported with Linux appear to all due to an incompatable unnamed 3rd party software package. Surely then, all this study can conclude is that the 3rd party software used was incompatable with SLES? And if not, why not?
I'm afraid it's not that black and white. Windows supports more up-to-date IBM compatable hardware and software; this is true. However, Linux supports more different architectures and platforms than Windows. Ever tried installing Windows on a Mac or a PS2?
Furthermore, Windows is deliberately restricted. You get a standard interface, standard window manager, standard desktop. You can theme it, skin it - but you cannot remove it and replace it with something else. This ensures that Windows is very uniform in interface, which is one of its greatest advantages and disadvantages. Sit a Windows user down at a Windows PC, and its unlikely they'll get lost.
However, this uniformity comes at the price of less flexibility. In Linux the GUI is not artificially limited by this, which means that the GUIs for Linux are far more varied, and therefore versatile. Similarly, the filesystems for Linux are generally more flexible and versatile than Windows' FAT32 and NTFS.
The keyword here is sales. This report measures sales revenue, which is not an accurate way of measuring quantity. For instance, say I sold 100 copies of Windows for $1000 each, and 400 copies of Linux for $200 each. The total revenue for Windows would be $100'000, whilst the total revenue for Linux would only be $80'000. In such an example, Windows earns more revenue than Linux, but only has a quarter of the numbers.
This problem is further compounded by the fact that the majority of installed Linux distributions are downloaded for free, rather than bought with support. For instance, the company I work for recently installed freely downloaded copies of Fedora Core 4 on six servers.
In short, server revenue tells us little to nothing about the number of servers with Linux installed. The Netcraft survey, on the other hand, queries webservers directly, giving a reasonably accurate result. From this, it is safe to assume that Linux outnumbers Windows servers by a large margin.
It's lucky that Redhat Linux doesn't use the stock Linux kernel then, otherwise it would be affected by those vulnerabilites. Redhat, and indeed most major Linux distributions, use customised kernels that are patched regularly through automated update tools.
Being popular is not the same as being versatile.
I think Linux is versatile because it gives me a wide choice of window managers; Windows does not. It gives me a choice of about a dozen file systems; Windows does not. It gives me the choice of three major desktop environments; Windows does not. It allows me to customise my kernel with 3rd party patches; Windows does not. It allows me to mount hard drives as directories; Windows does not.
Linux can run off a 1.44MB floppy, or run the fastest supercomputer in the world. That seems pretty versatile to me.
But the bug reports from Securia, which is not sponsored by Microsoft or Linux, show quite clearly that Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 have more known vulnerabilities than Redhat and Oracle. How can Windows Server 2003 be more secure when it is clear that it has more vulnerabilities?
I'm unable to find any statistics for 2005, but back in 2000, Linux accounted for 36% of webservers, and Windows only 21%, according to Netcraft. It's likely that this hasn't changed.
Windows is certainly more compatable with hardware and the majority of software binaries about, but more versatile? In what way?
You mean the Windows Server 2003 that has 8 unpatched vulnerabilities? That Windows Server 2003? And SQL Server 2000, which has a highly critical vulnerability?
Compared to something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 4, which has 0 known vulnerabilities, or Oracle 7.x, which has 0 known vulnerabilities.
Funny how all the "independant" reports that claim Windows is more secure than Linux are funded by Microsoft. That's just such a coincidence.
The report wasn't about security issues.
Are you sure you were you reading the same report as everyone else?
The Data Mining Software used in M1 required the Linux administrators to use MySQL 4.1, which was not part of the SLES distribution. This appears to be where the majority of the problems with the Linux servers stemmed from. Do you think the choice of Linux distribution and/or Data Mining Software biased the outcome report in any way?
The Linux administrators used SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. A majority of the problems with Linux seem to have involved SuSE's package and upgrade systems. Do you think that the results would have been significantly different if another distribution had been used?