Enstein's theories were also empirically unprovable until recent advances in avionics, minaturization, and electronics.
Bollocks. Einstein's relativity could be readily tested at the time by measuring the bending of the light by Sun's gravity. That's exactly what made them so strong and actually respected by the experimentalists.
To an experimentalist a theory is just hot air until it can be tested in practise.
Calling superstring "theory" fringe science is entire appropriate. An untestable hypothesis is just that; a hypothesis. It won't become a theory until it can be experimentally tested.
Well, when you create something you will automatically get a copyright for it.
It seems like you assume that I'm all for software patents. I'm not. If you can reproduce the functionality of the code that was closed down by legal means, I'm all for it. What I am trying to say that there is absolutely no reason why the company that extended the publicly available code should give their extensions back to public.
Yes, bottled water vendors have to compete against tap water. They manage.
A very apt characterization. "They manage". How do you think an investor would feel about that?
In other words, sure you can run a nickel-and-dime business with open software but you can never hope to achieve world wide acceptance and most of all profits. Sadly, it's still unclear if even the most successful open source company, RedHat, is actually in the black or if it is just an accounting trick.
Exclusive patents are forbidden by the GPL.
Uhhuh? And if software patents are allowed, do you think GPL would win in court if faced with a patent infringement suit? The idea of (open) licensing becomes irrelevant if software patents are allowed.
It makes the original code more troublesome to extend in obvious ways.
No it doesn't. You're free to extend the free codebase just like the company did.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like you think that everybody should have access to any code the company produced (at a cost, I might add). To my mind it's perfectly reasonably that any person or company should be free to opt out of that. Their code is their property and they should benefit from it financially (which is impossible if you give away your product for free).
The rest of your arguments are based on patenting software which I never brought up and which is irrelevant in this discussion since even GPL does not protect you from software patents.
You can use it to guarantee that the Excel or Word document you're mailing to your client does not get tampered with. A very worthy feature for law-firms and businesses that prefr to send quotes over e-mail.
So, you say that asking for control over one's own code means less freedom? Hell, GPL is a way to have control over one's code.
I say it again: taking an existing code, improving it and closing the resulting code does not result in a net loss of the freedom of original code. What's lost are the changes and the rest of the world had no right to that anyway.
So, tell me. Whose freedom has been restricted? If I write code, you do not have the right to see/use it.
Re:Yes, good thing. Revitalize live music instead.
on
The End of Physical Media
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
The "music industry" (or whatever is left of it) will see to that and you will have no say in the matter.
What you are advocating is total capitulation to the abusive music industry and you see complete secession from the industrial way of making and distributing music as the solution.
You are prepared to sacrifice the quality of production to this cause. I, on the other hand, like good, professionally produced and quality music. Not some amateur muffled-sounding garage recording. It's either quality or no music at all.
I'm not telling you to give up and eat whatever the industry is feeding you. On the other hand, if you give up the fight and go back to pure amateur performances, you've lost the war just as well.
In short, the professional production of music must stay, but the current model of distribution must go.
The new code could be closed - as is the prerogative of the people who write it. The viral nature of GPL is truly insidious because it deprives people of their natural freedom to decide on the license.
The difference is that you'll only pay for the music/movies you want. For instance, you don't have to buy a whole CD if you're interested in just one track.
As far as generating revenue goes, I've personaly bought software on-line: I'd download the software (VMware, DVD playback software, Eudora,...) and buy an activation key delivered via e-mail. I hate physical media and once we'll get enough bandwidth, this will be the future of software, audio and video trade.
The long term goal of EU is to have a single voice in foreign politics (there most likely will be an EU president and a minister of foreign affairs at some point), bind together all the national economies and harmonize legislation.
All of which, I think, is a good thing.
Re:What would make the ultimate player...
on
MPlayer 1.0Pre1 Is Here
·
· Score: 4, Informative
You can find the firmware packages here. You have to create a DOS boot disk (ie. you cannot update the firmware in Windows). The ZIP file contains both the flash utility and the firmware. Just make sure you download the correct firmware. Also note that there are some special firmwares for OEM drive versions.
I did a successful flash and now my LG DVD-ROM 8161B works perfectly! The auto-reset firmware sets the available number of region changes to the maximum every time I boot the computer. Neat!
Re:Why so much attrition against Windoze users?
on
MPlayer 1.0Pre1 Is Here
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Because if all the cool OSS stuff runs on Windows, there'll be nothing to convince people to use Linux.
Ah, so you want to force people into running Linux by depriving them of actually working open source software? What do you care what operating system people run? Mind your own business.
And if you're so bent on having people move from Windows to Linux, why don't you concentrate on making Linux as easy to use and as comfortable as Windows is these days and the public adopt it - even without any dubious "in order to use our software, you'll have to use our operating system" bundling.
a lot more tricky and recreated the registry setting on reloading and needed some DVD Genie style software to work.
Do you have any links on that? I'm running XP Pro and I just flashed a new auto-resetting firmware on my LG DVD-ROM. It should reset the region count back to 5 every time the computer restarts.
I doubt petitions not to menion on-line petions have any effect.
Petitions are too easy and too easily forged.
Keep writing those letters to your MEPs and make them unique - do not mail them carbon copies of some example letter. Write it in your own words, your own ideas and feelings.
In order to free the code we have to close it? I call flamebait.
No. We don't have to close it, but if you want to call software truly free, people should also have the right to close the modifications to the source down.
Your kidnapping example does not make sense here. The software will really not be lost since the free code of the publicized version will still be available. Only the alterations made to the closed down source will not be released. In my mind, such a source has served its purpose by allowing a spin-off product to be made out of it.
In socialist countries, where there is a disproportionately larger share of power in the government (the regulatory bodies), there is far greater corruption in the government.
Sure there is corruption, but when it's in the government you can vote it out.
What are you going to do when the markets are corrupt? The public can't vote the CEOs out, maybe you can sue them but in any case they'll just get their golden parachute and start looking for another lucrative business to trash. How many Enron, WorldCom executives are in the jail?
It is a fact that Script Kiddies and Crackers target WinXX and its applications because they are easy to break into.
Script Kiddies most likely use Windows on their computers. They are not the best and the brightest of the inet crowd and find the Windows environment easiest to use (like the most people in the world). Furthermore, they can test their kits at home and that's why they also prefer to target Windows and why Linux computers seem apparently harder to crack. In short, it only makes sense to attack Windows computers: you can test your method at home and Windows computers are the most prevalent, that is easist to find, on the net.
I cannot verify your statistics as the link (even with the "OperatingSy stems" fixed) gives me a connection refused error.
Attacking the alleged 67% open source servers that make the internet does not make sense to a script kiddie or even a pro cracker. You'll end up against pros that way. You don't want to attack the best defended line, but you go for the soft spots and try to get around and behind the main line. Attack the soft home user computers en masse and use them as zombies for later attacks. And guess again which OS is used on most home computers?
Innovation usually causes new upstarts and breaks industries apart.
The big corporations tend protect their trade by buying off the small and innovative companies that are perceived as a future threat. This is one reason why I say that markets flow towards a monopoly.
But, if I had the money, it might be wise of me to loan you $100,000,000,000 or whatever is necessary to compete with them.
Attacking an established market is always a high risk strategy, no matter how much money you've got. Look at Microsoft's X-box project. They're still hanging on, but simply because they can pour so much money into the project. You can't do something like that using loan money.
Slashdot Mirror
Bollocks. Einstein's relativity could be readily tested at the time by measuring the bending of the light by Sun's gravity. That's exactly what made them so strong and actually respected by the experimentalists.
To an experimentalist a theory is just hot air until it can be tested in practise.
Calling superstring "theory" fringe science is entire appropriate. An untestable hypothesis is just that; a hypothesis. It won't become a theory until it can be experimentally tested.
Group A patents something.
Group B makes an open source GPL version of it.
Group A sues Group B.
Group B loses.
Group A: profit!!
Well, when you create something you will automatically get a copyright for it.
It seems like you assume that I'm all for software patents. I'm not. If you can reproduce the functionality of the code that was closed down by legal means, I'm all for it. What I am trying to say that there is absolutely no reason why the company that extended the publicly available code should give their extensions back to public.
Yes, bottled water vendors have to compete against tap water. They manage.
A very apt characterization. "They manage". How do you think an investor would feel about that?
In other words, sure you can run a nickel-and-dime business with open software but you can never hope to achieve world wide acceptance and most of all profits. Sadly, it's still unclear if even the most successful open source company, RedHat, is actually in the black or if it is just an accounting trick.
Exclusive patents are forbidden by the GPL.
Uhhuh? And if software patents are allowed, do you think GPL would win in court if faced with a patent infringement suit? The idea of (open) licensing becomes irrelevant if software patents are allowed.
No it doesn't. You're free to extend the free codebase just like the company did.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like you think that everybody should have access to any code the company produced (at a cost, I might add). To my mind it's perfectly reasonably that any person or company should be free to opt out of that. Their code is their property and they should benefit from it financially (which is impossible if you give away your product for free).
The rest of your arguments are based on patenting software which I never brought up and which is irrelevant in this discussion since even GPL does not protect you from software patents.
You can use it to guarantee that the Excel or Word document you're mailing to your client does not get tampered with. A very worthy feature for law-firms and businesses that prefr to send quotes over e-mail.
I say it again: taking an existing code, improving it and closing the resulting code does not result in a net loss of the freedom of original code. What's lost are the changes and the rest of the world had no right to that anyway.
So, tell me. Whose freedom has been restricted? If I write code, you do not have the right to see/use it.
What you are advocating is total capitulation to the abusive music industry and you see complete secession from the industrial way of making and distributing music as the solution.
You are prepared to sacrifice the quality of production to this cause. I, on the other hand, like good, professionally produced and quality music. Not some amateur muffled-sounding garage recording. It's either quality or no music at all.
I'm not telling you to give up and eat whatever the industry is feeding you. On the other hand, if you give up the fight and go back to pure amateur performances, you've lost the war just as well.
In short, the professional production of music must stay, but the current model of distribution must go.
Doesn't that mean that vlc could be judged illegal in the future? I mean it is obviously circumventing the region code protection.
No. The original code is still absolutely free.
The new code could be closed - as is the prerogative of the people who write it. The viral nature of GPL is truly insidious because it deprives people of their natural freedom to decide on the license.
So, you'd rather have amateur artists than pros?
I have a friend who's a mean guitarist but I'd rather listen to a well-produced, professional band with a precise smooth sound than him.
As far as generating revenue goes, I've personaly bought software on-line: I'd download the software (VMware, DVD playback software, Eudora,...) and buy an activation key delivered via e-mail. I hate physical media and once we'll get enough bandwidth, this will be the future of software, audio and video trade.
I mean in the worst case scenario this will only mean pay-per-view and draconian DRM.
All of which, I think, is a good thing.
I did a successful flash and now my LG DVD-ROM 8161B works perfectly! The auto-reset firmware sets the available number of region changes to the maximum every time I boot the computer. Neat!
Ah, so you want to force people into running Linux by depriving them of actually working open source software? What do you care what operating system people run? Mind your own business.
And if you're so bent on having people move from Windows to Linux, why don't you concentrate on making Linux as easy to use and as comfortable as Windows is these days and the public adopt it - even without any dubious "in order to use our software, you'll have to use our operating system" bundling.
Do you have any links on that? I'm running XP Pro and I just flashed a new auto-resetting firmware on my LG DVD-ROM. It should reset the region count back to 5 every time the computer restarts.
Doesn't the firmware lock the drive if it thinks that the maximum region change count has been reached?
I thought that these days the DVD-ROM firmware controls the number of available region changes, not OS or the playback software.
Petitions are too easy and too easily forged.
Keep writing those letters to your MEPs and make them unique - do not mail them carbon copies of some example letter. Write it in your own words, your own ideas and feelings.
No. We don't have to close it, but if you want to call software truly free, people should also have the right to close the modifications to the source down.
Your kidnapping example does not make sense here. The software will really not be lost since the free code of the publicized version will still be available. Only the alterations made to the closed down source will not be released. In my mind, such a source has served its purpose by allowing a spin-off product to be made out of it.
Then it sounds like the Wine project was not 100% comfortable with the BSD license in the first place.
If you license BSD, you should accept that people may take your code and close it. That's what the truly free software is about.
Sure there is corruption, but when it's in the government you can vote it out.
What are you going to do when the markets are corrupt? The public can't vote the CEOs out, maybe you can sue them but in any case they'll just get their golden parachute and start looking for another lucrative business to trash. How many Enron, WorldCom executives are in the jail?
Script Kiddies most likely use Windows on their computers. They are not the best and the brightest of the inet crowd and find the Windows environment easiest to use (like the most people in the world). Furthermore, they can test their kits at home and that's why they also prefer to target Windows and why Linux computers seem apparently harder to crack. In short, it only makes sense to attack Windows computers: you can test your method at home and Windows computers are the most prevalent, that is easist to find, on the net.
I cannot verify your statistics as the link (even with the "OperatingSy stems" fixed) gives me a connection refused error.
Attacking the alleged 67% open source servers that make the internet does not make sense to a script kiddie or even a pro cracker. You'll end up against pros that way. You don't want to attack the best defended line, but you go for the soft spots and try to get around and behind the main line. Attack the soft home user computers en masse and use them as zombies for later attacks. And guess again which OS is used on most home computers?
The history.
Innovation usually causes new upstarts and breaks industries apart.
The big corporations tend protect their trade by buying off the small and innovative companies that are perceived as a future threat. This is one reason why I say that markets flow towards a monopoly.
But, if I had the money, it might be wise of me to loan you $100,000,000,000 or whatever is necessary to compete with them.
Attacking an established market is always a high risk strategy, no matter how much money you've got. Look at Microsoft's X-box project. They're still hanging on, but simply because they can pour so much money into the project. You can't do something like that using loan money.