What the Hell are you ranting about? The important question that the GP asked -- and which you thoroughly failed to answer -- was this: were displays (of any sort; it doesn't matter which) ever put into the keys of keyboards?!
Are you expecting that the lazy programmer who included GPL'd code is going to leave the GPL licensing text in the file?
No, but that's irrelevant. Why? Because the situation is exactly the same whether the code is GPL or any other license, proprietary or otherwise! If the rogue programmer included GPL'd code, it's copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included Microsoft's proprietary code, it's also copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included IBM's proprietary code, it's still copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included Joe Bob's proprietary code, it's yet again copyright infringement! There is no difference between infringing copyright of GPL-licensed code and infringing copyright of otherwise-licensed code! Therefore, specifically singling out the GPL and ignoring everything else is nothing but FUD.
3. Because you want to keep you clients, you port your application to Linux.
In order to get access to the proper low-level interfaces (that you imagine you need for your bean counter), you start writing some kernel support functions.
[snip]
The only thing which has happened here is that McAfee has proclaimed that GPL is viral (it infects innocent suspects' code) [emphasis added].
Uh, what? "Innocent?" If they did what you said -- writing kernel code -- without GPLing it, then they were guilty of violating the GPL, not innocent! If they wanted to be innocent, they should have simply not used GPL code for their program.
Yeah, me too -- weren't we all just complaining in previous stories about Geek Squad-types digging into people's personal files when they didn't need to be? This is exactly the kind of law we wanted!
The Classmate PC can run Linux, in exactly the same way every PC can run Linux. In reality, however, almost every organization actually buying the thing is going to run Windows on it!
Re:Handbrake for Windows doesn't handle CSS
on
Sony BMG Dropping DRM
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· Score: -1, Flamebait
Windows? Who cares? Heck, I didn't even know Handbrake ran on Windows until just now; on a real OS it works just fine (i.e., handles CSS) and always has.
No, giving food, water, and medicine is moronic. Why? Because it doesn't fucking work! We've been giving them that kind of shit for decades now; if it was doing any good they wouldn't still be impoverished hellholes. Yet they are still impoverished hellholes, so obviously the current type of "aid" isn't working. Q-E-fucking-D, bitch!
Yep. Memory Stick is why I wouldn't buy Sony electronics before the rootkit/DRM/etc.; the rootkit/DRM/etc. is why I'll continue to boycott them even for products that don't have Memory Stick readers.
Labels have decided that temporarily, dropping DRM is better than Apple's terms, and hope to make it such that instead of Apple dictating the terms to the labels, the labels will be in the power to dictate terms to Apple ("We have Amazon. We don't need iTunes") and hope that Apple rolls over.
And if Apple ever did roll over, these non-DRMd tracks would disappear faster than fried chicken at a weight loss clinic. Which is why I'll still recommend that anybody who wants digital music (personally, I don't -- if I buy music, I buy a CD) use iTunes Plus (but certainly not "Fairplay"-infected "normal" iTunes!) instead of Amazon.
Yes! Intel wants to displace sales of the XO with that of the ClassmatePC, and the Classmate PC doesn't have any of the benefits of the XO.
It is a better fit for older kids and it simply has more computing potential.
But it's still an inferior solution. Here's why:
The Classmate PC doesn't run Sugar, the XO's UI. Instead, it runs Windows. Sugar was designed from the ground up to be used by children; Windows wasn't. Sugar has collaborative learning tools (e.g. multi-user whiteboarding, IM preconfigured to connect students to each other (as opposed to the Internet in general), automatic mesh networking), Windows doesn't.
The XO has Squeak and LOGO, the two best pieces of educational software ever created. The Classmate PC has MS Office instead, a piece of software that's fucking useless for kids.
The XO has a daylight-readable screen. This means it's not only good for the stereotypical kids living in mud huts with no school building, but also that it's good for comparatively well-off students on field trips (e.g. "go outside and study particular plants" or something). The Classmate PC is only useful inside.
The XO has much better battery life than the Classmate PC
The Classmate PC has a TPM. What the fuck would students need that for?! No good can possibly come of it.
And last, but certainly not least, the XO is based on a Free Software system, explicitly designed to be modifiable by the students themselves (e.g. in Squeak, every UI widget has a context-menu item that literally says "open me in the class browser" which allows the user to modify the Smalltalk code for the widget and see the effects in real time as the code is re-processed by the interpreter). In contrast, the Classmate PC is closed-source, locked-down with "teacher and parent controls," and serves only to indoctrinate the students to the Microsoft hegemony.
In other words, the XO is capable of teaching students to learn independently, while the Classmate PC is only good for teaching them to run 419 scams and make inane, useless PowerPoint presentations!
P.S.: Having a marginally faster processor doesn't cause the Classmate PC to have more "computing potential!" When I was in elementary school, I used computers such as Apple IIs and 68k Macs. By high school, everything had switched to Windows-based PCs. But you know what? The stuff from elementary school was better, because it had better software (and I'm not talking about the OS). In elementary school, I learned arithmetic with Number Munchers, geometry and imperative programming with LOGO, made GUI applications with Hypercard, etc. In high school, the only computer-related class available was a glorified typing class, using MS Word. Aside from pretty fonts, everything in that class could have been accomplished by a fucking IBM Selectric! Oh yeah, and we "progressed" from Hypercard stacks to (linear) PowerPoint slideshows. And that's the sort of utter fucking bullshit that Intel is trying to "accomplish" with the Classmate PC!
I would have killed (figuratively) to have had access to Squeak when I was little. And Intel wants to take that away?! The Intel execs should be shot (literally)!
That's just what I was thinking -- I haven't had any bad experiences (but then again, I also don't travel much), but I sure hope the TSA goons can tell the difference between "pissed-off-because-the-person-is-a-terrorist" and "pissed-off-because-the-TSA-goon-is-screwing-up-civil-rights!"
Actually, somebody else who replied to me answered that: the takings clause in the Constitution. Apparently, Congress can extend copyright all it wants, but if it tried to shorten copyright on existing works it would be tantamount to taking the copyright holder's "property" (for lack of less inaccurate word) away, and thus unconstitutional.
Besides, no politician (or at least, no politician with any power) wants to shorten copyright anyway, so the issue has never come up.
Imagine what kind of awesome movies could be made if, say, the Alien, Predator, and Robocop franchises were dropped into the public domain.
Probably not much, because they'd be prohibitively expensive to make without the ROI enabled by copyright. I support the drastic reduction of copyright, but with full realization that a lot of the big-budget media we have today would cease to exist.
I keep hearing this "sovereignty" thing bandied about by (usually conservative) people.
FYI, I consider myself to be neither "conservative" nor "liberal;" in fact, any label is too one-dimensional to define any thinking person's ideology, and is thus bullshit. However, I can approximate by calling myself a "libertarian/green" or something like that. As far as "sovereignty" goes, I did not support the US ignoring the UN WRT Iraq (for example).
Here's the thing; Abiding by your agreements IS NOT some sort of weakness where you're somehow giving up your right of self-determination. It's simply keeping your end of a bargain. It's, you know, that honesty thing, where you make a contract, and then do the thing you said you were going to do in the contract.
Of course. Obviously, breaking a treaty would have consequences. But nevertheless, it's still our decision whether to do so and accept those consequences, or not. The person I replied to was sounding as if the treaties were written in stone, and that's simply not true (only the Constitution is, and even it can be amended). That's all I was trying to point out.
doing it simply "because we can" is not good enough.
Of course not! "Because we should," however, is. And drastically reducing copyright, I believe, is something we most certainly should do!
Some artists live off of a hit single from 10-20 years back.
Exactly! In other words, some artists have failed to contribute anything new in decades, yet are continuing to profit at the public's expense! Any normal person has to work, and continue to work, for a living; why should these magical fat-ass "artists" get preferential treatment, especially when "the progress of science and the useful arts" is not being successfully "promoted?"
You should work on your reading comprehension. Try again, and you'll discover that I was making the point that there are not inherent racial differences between (for example) Nigerians, Americans, and Mexicans, but that rather the perceived differences are caused by the fact that we get a skewed sample (immigrants vs. non-immigrants).
Luckily, I don't have to generalize to realize that, because you automatically equate simply mentioning a particular ethnic group with being racist, you're the one who is obsessed with issues of race and is thus racist yourself!
As it happens, my girlfriend is from there (emigrated to the U.S. about 25 years ago) and is a remarkable individual.
Exactly: she was remarkable enough to get the heck out! It's not the people who come from there who are the scammers and crooks; it's the people who stay.
(It's the same with all immigrants, by the way. Take illegal Mexican immigrants in the US, for example. Why do they tend to be such hard workers? Because it takes a lot of effort to get here, so the lazy ones stayed home!)
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What the Hell are you ranting about? The important question that the GP asked -- and which you thoroughly failed to answer -- was this: were displays (of any sort; it doesn't matter which) ever put into the keys of keyboards?!
No, but that's irrelevant. Why? Because the situation is exactly the same whether the code is GPL or any other license, proprietary or otherwise! If the rogue programmer included GPL'd code, it's copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included Microsoft's proprietary code, it's also copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included IBM's proprietary code, it's still copyright infringement. If the rogue programmer included Joe Bob's proprietary code, it's yet again copyright infringement! There is no difference between infringing copyright of GPL-licensed code and infringing copyright of otherwise-licensed code! Therefore, specifically singling out the GPL and ignoring everything else is nothing but FUD.
Uh, what? "Innocent?" If they did what you said -- writing kernel code -- without GPLing it, then they were guilty of violating the GPL, not innocent! If they wanted to be innocent, they should have simply not used GPL code for their program.
Stopping the likes of Geek Squad from snooping around in peoples' hard drives, just like we wanted!
Yeah, me too -- weren't we all just complaining in previous stories about Geek Squad-types digging into people's personal files when they didn't need to be? This is exactly the kind of law we wanted!
The Classmate PC can run Linux, in exactly the same way every PC can run Linux. In reality, however, almost every organization actually buying the thing is going to run Windows on it!
Windows? Who cares? Heck, I didn't even know Handbrake ran on Windows until just now; on a real OS it works just fine (i.e., handles CSS) and always has.
No, giving food, water, and medicine is moronic. Why? Because it doesn't fucking work! We've been giving them that kind of shit for decades now; if it was doing any good they wouldn't still be impoverished hellholes. Yet they are still impoverished hellholes, so obviously the current type of "aid" isn't working. Q-E-fucking-D, bitch!
Yep. Memory Stick is why I wouldn't buy Sony electronics before the rootkit/DRM/etc.; the rootkit/DRM/etc. is why I'll continue to boycott them even for products that don't have Memory Stick readers.
Autoplay does not absolve Sony of any blame. It only creates additional blame to be levied at Microsoft.
And if Apple ever did roll over, these non-DRMd tracks would disappear faster than fried chicken at a weight loss clinic. Which is why I'll still recommend that anybody who wants digital music (personally, I don't -- if I buy music, I buy a CD) use iTunes Plus (but certainly not "Fairplay"-infected "normal" iTunes!) instead of Amazon.
If someone would be willing to use an "unauthorized" patch, then why don't they just use Handbrake now? It's no more illegal, and just as easy!
Yes! Intel wants to displace sales of the XO with that of the ClassmatePC, and the Classmate PC doesn't have any of the benefits of the XO.
But it's still an inferior solution. Here's why:
In other words, the XO is capable of teaching students to learn independently, while the Classmate PC is only good for teaching them to run 419 scams and make inane, useless PowerPoint presentations!
P.S.: Having a marginally faster processor doesn't cause the Classmate PC to have more "computing potential!" When I was in elementary school, I used computers such as Apple IIs and 68k Macs. By high school, everything had switched to Windows-based PCs. But you know what? The stuff from elementary school was better, because it had better software (and I'm not talking about the OS). In elementary school, I learned arithmetic with Number Munchers, geometry and imperative programming with LOGO, made GUI applications with Hypercard, etc. In high school, the only computer-related class available was a glorified typing class, using MS Word. Aside from pretty fonts, everything in that class could have been accomplished by a fucking IBM Selectric! Oh yeah, and we "progressed" from Hypercard stacks to (linear) PowerPoint slideshows. And that's the sort of utter fucking bullshit that Intel is trying to "accomplish" with the Classmate PC!
I would have killed (figuratively) to have had access to Squeak when I was little. And Intel wants to take that away?! The Intel execs should be shot (literally)!
That's just what I was thinking -- I haven't had any bad experiences (but then again, I also don't travel much), but I sure hope the TSA goons can tell the difference between "pissed-off-because-the-person-is-a-terrorist" and "pissed-off-because-the-TSA-goon-is-screwing-up-civil-rights!"
Actually, somebody else who replied to me answered that: the takings clause in the Constitution. Apparently, Congress can extend copyright all it wants, but if it tried to shorten copyright on existing works it would be tantamount to taking the copyright holder's "property" (for lack of less inaccurate word) away, and thus unconstitutional.
Besides, no politician (or at least, no politician with any power) wants to shorten copyright anyway, so the issue has never come up.
Probably not much, because they'd be prohibitively expensive to make without the ROI enabled by copyright. I support the drastic reduction of copyright, but with full realization that a lot of the big-budget media we have today would cease to exist.
FYI, I consider myself to be neither "conservative" nor "liberal;" in fact, any label is too one-dimensional to define any thinking person's ideology, and is thus bullshit. However, I can approximate by calling myself a "libertarian/green" or something like that. As far as "sovereignty" goes, I did not support the US ignoring the UN WRT Iraq (for example).
Of course. Obviously, breaking a treaty would have consequences. But nevertheless, it's still our decision whether to do so and accept those consequences, or not. The person I replied to was sounding as if the treaties were written in stone, and that's simply not true (only the Constitution is, and even it can be amended). That's all I was trying to point out.
Of course not! "Because we should," however, is. And drastically reducing copyright, I believe, is something we most certainly should do!
Exactly! In other words, some artists have failed to contribute anything new in decades, yet are continuing to profit at the public's expense! Any normal person has to work, and continue to work, for a living; why should these magical fat-ass "artists" get preferential treatment, especially when "the progress of science and the useful arts" is not being successfully "promoted?"
...but why the HELL would that still need copyright?!
So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?
Obviously, once you eliminate fuzzy measures like "life of the author," corporate and personal copyrights can be exactly the same 5 years.
Nah, HTML and plain text can always be automatically generated from the ODF.
You should work on your reading comprehension. Try again, and you'll discover that I was making the point that there are not inherent racial differences between (for example) Nigerians, Americans, and Mexicans, but that rather the perceived differences are caused by the fact that we get a skewed sample (immigrants vs. non-immigrants).
Luckily, I don't have to generalize to realize that, because you automatically equate simply mentioning a particular ethnic group with being racist, you're the one who is obsessed with issues of race and is thus racist yourself!
Disk space is cheap, so I'd probably make PDFs and ODFs, and store them along with the original proprietary format in a zip file.
So what? You can't get blood from a stone; I'll bet this "LANCOR" scammer doesn't have any assets to pay if it loses anyway!
Exactly: she was remarkable enough to get the heck out! It's not the people who come from there who are the scammers and crooks; it's the people who stay.
(It's the same with all immigrants, by the way. Take illegal Mexican immigrants in the US, for example. Why do they tend to be such hard workers? Because it takes a lot of effort to get here, so the lazy ones stayed home!)