What happens if I don't listen to any songs? I've just spent that money, and don't say the gov't gives it back. If that's the case, then the governement is just taking your money, milking it for interest and giving it back. Also note that it's basically holding you hostage in a way. "We'll keep your money in case you do anything like that", seems totaly unfair. Or.. if I listen to 1 song.. and my neighbour listens to 100 a day? (not that far out.. just a few hours a day worth) We basically paid the same tax? What would happen?
It's also a little orwellian to me, to have my computer communicate to the gov't what I listen to. Or to anyone for that matter. We'd have a lot of security concerns too. How would the program determine what I've listened to? Couldn't a virus just download the first part of an mp3, play it, and I'd be charged? Or even just make it look like it's beeing played. You can make a virtual sound card/sound recorder quite easily.
We'd also have the fact that some countries will refuse to implement this, and what happens then? What if I go into the US from canada? listen to a song and come back?.. Or someone from the US goes to Canada?
Also.. to implement this you'd need a way to track who is who in a large database of people and songs, and IPs for that matter.
And another important part.. what if I don't use Windows? And I use Linux to play music? How will I be taxed then? And.. since I'm using linux.. I can always just download a vanilla kernel and not install the program to be taxed with. Or.. even better, just disconnect from the internet.. or people block the program.
The only way to implement this is through hardware, and I for one, will never pay for such a device. Also.. it's not that hard to circumvent hardware protections like that, and I think it'd be preety costly to develop something like that, and would increase hardware prices. And most important of all, people will opt for the hardware without.. how do you convicen hardware makers to put this in? And.. if you force them to, how many people will trust to gov't? how far away are you from communism when you adopt this?
Sorry if it seems a little messy.. I was writing it as I was thinking about it:)
I don't live in the US (Canada), we haven't really seen FUD from SCO here. Most large companies have laughed and moved on.
Why doesn't the US gov't stop this?
No infringement is proven, yet they're threatening lawsuits?
Is there some kind of law saying that it's legal?
And.. don't you have a blue sky law? I really don't see how SCO is selling anything but that..
Have you tried recently to make a program in ASM? A 3D program? how about a game? It'll take you hundreds of times the amount of time it takes in C/C++/Perl/Java so on.
That's how languages evolve. Less speed, more features for the programmer. This is to make more complex programs feasible, otherwise, every new program would take 2 times the amount of time it took for the older version. Point is.. faster development time, more features go into it. Hardware today is underused anyway.
PCs are slow to start up because of the BIOS. There are many people pushing for it's removal and replacement by other things. www.linuxbios.org
As for the predictions:
HURD (yeahh.. righhttt) A few new programming languges. One to replace C/C++. That would be much simpler to learn, faster to use, and have more features.
More advances in Language processing.. maybe even a more natural programming language that could be learned very quickly.
Computers will become part of the house, and controll everything from lights to stove. (You come into the house.. lights come on automatically, Star Trek type voice controll)
A better way of interacting with computers, maybe hand gestures, coupled with voice recognition. Much better voice recognition:)
Games with storyline and with graphics.
Linux maturing and taking up a big share of the desktop market.
Intuitive desktops and applications. Try looking at someone when they first come to a computer and seeing what they try. I'm doing this with Linux (trying on people with no Linux exprience just windows). When I've gathered enough data I'm starting an app to make migration simpler. (a unified setup utility)
Surprises.. things we never thought of, actual innovation:)
"Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had."
-Linus Trovals
Speaks for itself
I've been in the same situation before. My school used to use RM (a supposedly security enhancing program) to keep people from using too much space and running every program they wanted to. I found several very critical bugs in it, that allowed me to do anything, change people's settings to browse and change things on the server. I told my comp. sci. teacher (this was highschool) and after hefty explaining, he watched over my shoulder as I proved it. With a little more tinkering I found other ways of getting in, and ultimately changing everything from schedules to marks. Most teachers understood and trusted me not to share this, and I didn't until they switched their systems.
Except for one teacher.. who tried to get me kicked out. She is a comp. sci. teacher, though she has no clue what's going on. Started to accuse me of stealing, and of messing with the system. Thankfully nothing happened, because most other teachers knew me. School approached me and asked me what to use, I said use Linux, it's free, and waaay more secure then all this.
They ended up using WindowsXP (and depleting most of the comp. sci. budget), with an addon called Visual Castle. Well.. I've found several bugs in it again, and I can see marks and change anything I want. I haven't.. and never intend to do so, and don't intend to tell anyone I can do this.
My suggestion? clear your hands of it all, and forget about it. Not worth loosing your future over this, whatever they change, probably won't make much of a difference. There is always another bug, or misconfiguration lurking.
I'm happy you don't feel safer, because you shouldn't. All the US did with this attacka against Iraq is make a new generation of terrorists. This time much more fanatic then the ones before. They don't even have saddam to take care of them anymore. They're disoriented, and don't know what to do in a new society with new rules. (I come from a former communist country and can tell you people there where mostly nuts, trying to abuse the system as much as they could. Some even went as far as riots).
Look at all the suicide attacks and the like against the US troops. It's clear they're not wanted there, and it's also clear that people feel lost and hopeless. Best thing the US could do now.. is try to get a gov't up as fast as possible, and get people jobs/money, even if there is a deficit, or they need a loan from the US.
In the future though.. I really hope the US doesn't need to see itself as the 'peacekeepers of the world'. And.. if you'll look at history, most major terrorists in the world today where once funded by the US, or had US involvement in some way or another. (Saddam, Gaddafi, Bin Laden..)
Switch from an open standard to a proprietary standard. If you're lazy enough to use an open standard and don't have the security built into it, then you really do deserve to get this. DTV deserves a class action lawsuit, what they're doing is like RIAA suing everyone who owns a cdwriter, or who connects to kazza. And.. I'm sure there are laws against this, though thankfully I'm in Canada:)
Put Linux on a laptop, make a script for XFree86. Start 2 versions of it using init and different arguments, and you have different personas. You can even have the two start different window managers if you want, or make a shell script that does this for you.
VMware isn't Linux, it's Windows running in an emulator inside Linux/MacOSX. Any Windows program should run, maybe except some low-level debuggers like softice. And you need to own a copy of Windows to insall in the VMware virtual machine.
How could they get a patent for technology that has existed much before either company was ever created?
Unix has been using this technology for ages. Mainframe operating systems have this feature too, and its an extension of the dumb-terminal idea.
So... How would this work?
The cold fact (warm and fuzzy for us:) that companies have to accept, is that no scheme like this can't work. Look at every other attempt at keeping a widely distributed system closed. DVDs.. CDs.. they've been trying this for ages, and will continue to fail because for it to work, a part of it will need to be in the phones. You can just open up a phone, reverse engineer the code inside, and find out how the protocol works. Remember the debacle with Sony CD protection and markers?
I've never been particularly worried about all these attempts, I'm much more worried of squads of lawyers and misguided (mallicious) governments.
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What happens if I don't listen to any songs? I've just spent that money, and don't say the gov't gives it back. If that's the case, then the governement is just taking your money, milking it for interest and giving it back. Also note that it's basically holding you hostage in a way. "We'll keep your money in case you do anything like that", seems totaly unfair.
:)
Or.. if I listen to 1 song.. and my neighbour listens to 100 a day? (not that far out.. just a few hours a day worth)
We basically paid the same tax? What would happen?
It's also a little orwellian to me, to have my computer communicate to the gov't what I listen to. Or to anyone for that matter. We'd have a lot of security concerns too. How would the program determine what I've listened to? Couldn't a virus just download the first part of an mp3, play it, and I'd be charged? Or even just make it look like it's beeing played. You can make a virtual sound card/sound recorder quite easily.
We'd also have the fact that some countries will refuse to implement this, and what happens then?
What if I go into the US from canada? listen to a song and come back?.. Or someone from the US goes to Canada?
Also.. to implement this you'd need a way to track who is who in a large database of people and songs, and IPs for that matter.
And another important part.. what if I don't use Windows? And I use Linux to play music? How will I be taxed then? And.. since I'm using linux.. I can always just download a vanilla kernel and not install the program to be taxed with. Or.. even better, just disconnect from the internet.. or people block the program.
The only way to implement this is through hardware, and I for one, will never pay for such a device. Also.. it's not that hard to circumvent hardware protections like that, and I think it'd be preety costly to develop something like that, and would increase hardware prices. And most important of all, people will opt for the hardware without.. how do you convicen hardware makers to put this in? And.. if you force them to, how many people will trust to gov't? how far away are you from communism when you adopt this?
Sorry if it seems a little messy.. I was writing it as I was thinking about it
I don't live in the US (Canada), we haven't really seen FUD from SCO here. Most large companies have laughed and moved on. Why doesn't the US gov't stop this? No infringement is proven, yet they're threatening lawsuits? Is there some kind of law saying that it's legal? And.. don't you have a blue sky law? I really don't see how SCO is selling anything but that..
Have you tried recently to make a program in ASM?
:)
:)
A 3D program? how about a game? It'll take you hundreds of times the amount of time it takes in C/C++/Perl/Java so on.
That's how languages evolve. Less speed, more features for the programmer. This is to make more complex programs feasible, otherwise, every new program would take 2 times the amount of time it took for the older version. Point is.. faster development time, more features go into it. Hardware today is underused anyway.
PCs are slow to start up because of the BIOS. There are many people pushing for it's removal and replacement by other things. www.linuxbios.org
As for the predictions:
HURD (yeahh.. righhttt)
A few new programming languges. One to replace C/C++. That would be much simpler to learn, faster to use, and have more features.
More advances in Language processing.. maybe even a more natural programming language that could be learned very quickly.
Computers will become part of the house, and controll everything from lights to stove. (You come into the house.. lights come on automatically, Star Trek type voice controll)
A better way of interacting with computers, maybe hand gestures, coupled with voice recognition.
Much better voice recognition
Games with storyline and with graphics.
Linux maturing and taking up a big share of the desktop market.
Intuitive desktops and applications. Try looking at someone when they first come to a computer and seeing what they try. I'm doing this with Linux (trying on people with no Linux exprience just windows). When I've gathered enough data I'm starting an app to make migration simpler. (a unified setup utility)
Surprises.. things we never thought of, actual innovation
You can easily play DVDs in Linux. I use xine, it's simple to use, and very quick. Better then any windows player I've seen.
"Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had." -Linus Trovals Speaks for itself
I've been in the same situation before.
My school used to use RM (a supposedly security enhancing program) to keep people from using too much space and running every program they wanted to.
I found several very critical bugs in it, that allowed me to do anything, change people's settings to browse and change things on the server. I told my comp. sci. teacher (this was highschool) and after hefty explaining, he watched over my shoulder as I proved it. With a little more tinkering I found other ways of getting in, and ultimately changing everything from schedules to marks. Most teachers understood and trusted me not to share this, and I didn't until they switched their systems.
Except for one teacher.. who tried to get me kicked out. She is a comp. sci. teacher, though she has no clue what's going on. Started to accuse me of stealing, and of messing with the system. Thankfully nothing happened, because most other teachers knew me. School approached me and asked me what to use, I said use Linux, it's free, and waaay more secure then all this.
They ended up using WindowsXP (and depleting most of the comp. sci. budget), with an addon called Visual Castle. Well.. I've found several bugs in it again, and I can see marks and change anything I want. I haven't.. and never intend to do so, and don't intend to tell anyone I can do this.
My suggestion? clear your hands of it all, and forget about it. Not worth loosing your future over this, whatever they change, probably won't make much of a difference. There is always another bug, or misconfiguration lurking.
I'm happy you don't feel safer, because you shouldn't. All the US did with this attacka against Iraq is make a new generation of terrorists. This time much more fanatic then the ones before. They don't even have saddam to take care of them anymore. They're disoriented, and don't know what to do in a new society with new rules. (I come from a former communist country and can tell you people there where mostly nuts, trying to abuse the system as much as they could. Some even went as far as riots). Look at all the suicide attacks and the like against the US troops. It's clear they're not wanted there, and it's also clear that people feel lost and hopeless. Best thing the US could do now.. is try to get a gov't up as fast as possible, and get people jobs/money, even if there is a deficit, or they need a loan from the US. In the future though.. I really hope the US doesn't need to see itself as the 'peacekeepers of the world'. And.. if you'll look at history, most major terrorists in the world today where once funded by the US, or had US involvement in some way or another. (Saddam, Gaddafi, Bin Laden..)
Or..
:)
Switch from an open standard to a proprietary standard. If you're lazy enough to use an open standard and don't have the security built into it, then you really do deserve to get this. DTV deserves a class action lawsuit, what they're doing is like RIAA suing everyone who owns a cdwriter, or who connects to kazza. And.. I'm sure there are laws against this, though thankfully I'm in Canada
Put Linux on a laptop, make a script for XFree86. Start 2 versions of it using init and different arguments, and you have different personas. You can even have the two start different window managers if you want, or make a shell script that does this for you.
VMware isn't Linux, it's Windows running in an emulator inside Linux/MacOSX. Any Windows program should run, maybe except some low-level debuggers like softice. And you need to own a copy of Windows to insall in the VMware virtual machine.
How could they get a patent for technology that has existed much before either company was ever created? Unix has been using this technology for ages. Mainframe operating systems have this feature too, and its an extension of the dumb-terminal idea. So... How would this work?
The cold fact (warm and fuzzy for us :) that companies have to accept, is that no scheme like this can't work. Look at every other attempt at keeping a widely distributed system closed. DVDs.. CDs.. they've been trying this for ages, and will continue to fail because for it to work, a part of it will need to be in the phones. You can just open up a phone, reverse engineer the code inside, and find out how the protocol works. Remember the debacle with Sony CD protection and markers?
I've never been particularly worried about all these attempts, I'm much more worried of squads of lawyers and misguided (mallicious) governments.