Wow. Suppose this were to happen with other electronics..
I mean, how exactly are they supposed to really enforce such a thing? Would owning an XBOX 360 then be illegal? If that becomes precedent, that frankly scares the shit out of me. Ten years down the line, having some of my electronics retroactively made illegal to possess?
I'm no MS fanboy by the stretch of anyone's imagination - frankly I loathe them.
But given the wider implications here, I hope they get a partial victory out of this - such that people who allready have this equipment can keep it.
The point was freedom of money to buy political speech while keeping the money trail secret.
Wow.. what a DAMN SHAME to have unregulated speech!
Hey, if you don't want to listen to someone who may have been payed by "Big Politics", then perchance why don't you do something about it, like ask the journalists to affirm or deny they are being paid by politicians for their stories? You can challenge them to go on record. You could even get them to do this contractually, if you wanted to. (Via subscription, since you're paying them money, you could then file a class action against them for violating their agreed upon terms of contract..)
It's called "taking responsibility". But you'd rather try to take the easy way out (by creating or supporting the creation of) laws which will "do the job" - which they never do. Why? Because it never CAN do it. One may as well write a law suspending gravity. Or try to keep water from flowing back to the oceans. Money will enter politics because money and politics share so much in common - power. Do you think that *maybe* instead of making the government BIGGER (giving it more power), the solution is to make it smaller - so it has less power? And less draw for the power mad troglodytes who infest Congress (and the other two branches)? But as long as it is beneficial to spend millions for a Congressional seat, those millions WILL be spent.
If the government does decide to hop on the "broadband for all" bandwagon, broadband will become more scarce and worsen in quality - just like all other government handouts.
So here's a hearty cheer for "Stay the FUCK away from our broadband!", you god damned government assholes..
I'm not going to assume you're an American. But can we suppose for argument's sake that you are?
Okay, here is my argument: (and yes, I know it rests on the assumption that you're a leftist since you wish to repeal the second amendment - but I figure thats a safe assumption.)
This was actually the first thing I thought of, when I read that phrase.
I was trying to build a safe haven for my castle. The ocean was relentless. The sand was weak. I had to dig and pile as fast as I could to "keep the ocean out" so my castle would be "safe".
After reading a bit of http://www.flynnresearch.net/magnetics.htm it seems to me TFA has it wrong; they do not seem to be claiming perpetual motion, only far greater efficiencies.(sp)
I got sick of seeing huge amounts of RAM get sucked up by Firefox.
Yesterday I had upwards of 30 tabs open in Konqueror - and about 1.8 of 2 gigs free.
I honestly don't know how much RAM Firefox would have used if I had had the same tabs open. I would have been afraid to open that many in Firefox.
Alas, it is a shame that the flagship (in the public's mind) application of OSS is so buggy.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
From TFA:
"The fact of the matter is that if you look at popular desktop Linux distributions from Red Hat or Novell's SUSE, they match or exceed the system requirements of Windows XP. For example, Novell Linux Desktop 9 requires a minimum of 128MB physical RAM, which is identical to the requirements of Windows XP. If you compare OpenOffice 2.0 to the system requirements of Microsoft Office and again they are identical," he said.
I winced at the bolded section. 128 megs? Windows XP? Are they bloody serious? We don't want a computer that just boots up - we want productivity. And for productivity, XP needs more than 128 megs, unless by "productivity" you mean "wordpad"..
Never been there. I'm an autodidact. Thanks anyway.
Market's don't make that kind of complex decisions. A market [wikipedia.org] sets a price, that's all.
Of course markets are capable of making such "complex decisions" - it happens all the time. I am not ascribing any conciousness to this phenomenon, mind you. (Pun unintentional:D )
There's a theory that markets can enforce additional restrictions by "voting with your dollars", but it has been largely disproven in reality.
You are claiming that boycotts don't work? They surely do work, though.
The simple version is that markets are unable to communicate, much less enforce that kind of requests, because they only have a one-bit channel (buy or not buy) available. Thus it is impossible to effectively communicate anything that requires more than one bit of information.
This is perhaps one of the most inane things I've encountered in a debate. And I wasn't born yesterday, either.
Before you reply, consider that most of the additional communication channels you will offer are not part of the market, but outside it - just like government intervention, anti-trust laws and the other options you despise are.
ALL advertising is part of "the market"; thats well beyond "one bit" of communication. But the market goes beyond that, even. Whenever two people talk about a product or service, *that* communication is part of the market, too. Why is it part of the market? Because it non coercively influences the choices made within the market.
"Don't go to Bob's pizzas, they have lousy service, I waited over an hour for just a calzone the other day!" - how many bits is that, eh?
What I despise is force being brought into the market - whereby one group usurps another group's decision capability by fiat. "You _will_ do it _our_ way because _we_ have the guns!" And of course, this is what governments do best - "representitive" or otherwise.
You, just as plenty of other posters in this thread, seem to be forgetting a couple of facts: - They are convicted of abusing their monopoly in one market to force their way into other markets, and thus are subject to stricter rules than companies that are not monopolies. - The terms of 'opening up' cover API documentation and guaranteeing interoperability with other proprietary vendors as well as Free Software. NOT opening the source code.
Facts or opinions?
What is a "monopoly" ? A single business dominating a market for a geographical area? So does that mean the lone town pharmacy is a "monopoly" ? Sure does. Does that mean there is a problem? I doubt it. So the real question is, what makes a "monopoly" a bad thing? Thats when force comes into play. When a monopoly can use force to keep competitors from entering the market, or otherwise ensuring it's dominance _by force_.
But to the best of my knowledge, this force comes from ONLY ONE PLACE: governments.
So the government "convicting" someone of being a monopolist is a bit like the local thieves gang condemning one of it's own members and "making things right" with the local neighborhood by asking for protection money. No. Thank. You.
As for the terms of opening up being just the API:
'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'
Thats sounds to me like more than an API. After all, without being able to look at the source, how can one guarantee full interoperability?
Ergo: this doesn't impact proprietary software at all. Non-monopolists are perfectly allowed not to document their APIs. Microsoft can keep their sacred source code closed.
It does impact it if you simply extend to the logical conclusion. And thus, I ask again, is there to be no such thing as private speech?
What they are asked to do is pay up until they open their specs.
Paying a gang of criminals does not promote justice.
The market does want that, but when there's an 800lbs gorilla in the market, the market no longer works as intended. That's what being a monopoly is all about - shutting down the forces that makes a free market work.
Just because they are a "convicted monopolist" it does not follow that they are a true coercive monopoly, which to the best of my knowledge they are not. That is to say, they do not have access to governmental force to make others do their bidding - just economic force. For them to be a truly bad monopoly, the government would have to come in and back them up - which is starting to happen (DRM, trusted computing, and such) - but has not happened yet. It is not illegal for me to use another OS, or to write one, nor is it illegal for others with more resources than I to do so.
Something needs to negate that influence to jump-start an active and free market again. In this case, the European Commission is doing that.
I'd have to contend that this statement shows a complete lack of understanding of what free markets are or what they mean, and what they can do.
A government "jump starting" a free market is a contradiction in terms.
So does this mean - as a precedent - that the model of proprietary code is "over" ?
I'm not at all comfortable with that decision being handled by "extra market forces" - aka government. AKA, men with guns.
If the market wants MS to open up, the market should decide it. In the long term, I believe this is exactly what will happen - MS will have to adapt and compete or die off. Part of this adaptation will be better interoperability; but I would doubt that the proprietary model would end altogether.
As another take on this, many here claim that open source code is the equal to freedom of speech. And I agree with that. But then, what does that say when you advocate forceable openness of code? Does that indicate the reverse of the analogy: no private speech?
In summation, as bad as MS is, the government is worse.
Slashdot Mirror
He was deputy chief of science opperations at one of the USSR's main bioweapons facilities, and has detailed much of this experience in "Biohazard".
Frankly, this is the stuff of horror stories.
Wow. Suppose this were to happen with other electronics ..
I mean, how exactly are they supposed to really enforce such a thing? Would owning an XBOX 360 then be illegal? If that becomes precedent, that frankly scares the shit out of me. Ten years down the line, having some of my electronics retroactively made illegal to possess?
I'm no MS fanboy by the stretch of anyone's imagination - frankly I loathe them.
But given the wider implications here, I hope they get a partial victory out of this - such that people who allready have this equipment can keep it.
... but *opperated* remotely? As in, installed remotely? Do these things hover or fly around to install themselves? Somehow I doubt _that_ very much :P
Regarding your sig .. I am sure you know it is from 1997. I think others should know that, too.
i147 F7b AIQzC9 7kXTA8TzJ Vl LcYxkN FXkCFA Ev4Lpwjk2 A0Jy7flvj phOlaTF 3S Z0uPk kP 5RKMkQ 5U5oZPW FzA f rj4FB 4vrI ZWr dovA6W l CS6
Require full disclosure
The very ANTITHESIS of freedom of speech, as this would doom anonymity.
We can have free speech, or we can have unfree speech. I prefer the former, as the later means my ideas may be arbitrarily silenced.
Which do you prefer?
The point was freedom of money to buy political speech while keeping the money trail secret.
.. what a DAMN SHAME to have unregulated speech!
..)
Wow
Hey, if you don't want to listen to someone who may have been payed by "Big Politics", then perchance why don't you do something about it, like ask the journalists to affirm or deny they are being paid by politicians for their stories? You can challenge them to go on record. You could even get them to do this contractually, if you wanted to. (Via subscription, since you're paying them money, you could then file a class action against them for violating their agreed upon terms of contract
It's called "taking responsibility". But you'd rather try to take the easy way out (by creating or supporting the creation of) laws which will "do the job" - which they never do. Why? Because it never CAN do it. One may as well write a law suspending gravity. Or try to keep water from flowing back to the oceans. Money will enter politics because money and politics share so much in common - power. Do you think that *maybe* instead of making the government BIGGER (giving it more power), the solution is to make it smaller - so it has less power? And less draw for the power mad troglodytes who infest Congress (and the other two branches)? But as long as it is beneficial to spend millions for a Congressional seat, those millions WILL be spent.
96 pages of regulations is "light"? Only by government standards, geesh!
..
:)
How about a lighter touch: the US Constitution is about 6 pages.
Or, gosh golly & gee wiz, how about an even lighter touch than that? The first amendment is 45 words
Or how about: HANDS OFF THE INTERNET YOU ASSHATS!
Yeah, I think that sounds better
If the government does decide to hop on the "broadband for all" bandwagon, broadband will become more scarce and worsen in quality - just like all other government handouts.
..
So here's a hearty cheer for "Stay the FUCK away from our broadband!", you god damned government assholes
This: "yvRpS9t6OD9ueF39E8pGSUZCssLO7XmPjyNadWjv"
A botnet command or some other traffic?
Or even noise for the sake of noise? (Ie, spamming the government's ears)
Hi.
I'm not going to assume you're an American. But can we suppose for argument's sake that you are?
Okay, here is my argument: (and yes, I know it rests on the assumption that you're a leftist since you wish to repeal the second amendment - but I figure thats a safe assumption.)
Do you trust Bush with a monopoly on firearms?
Actually, I was ten years old.
:)
And it was on North Truro beach in Cape Cod.
This was actually the first thing I thought of, when I read that phrase.
I was trying to build a safe haven for my castle. The ocean was relentless. The sand was weak. I had to dig and pile as fast as I could to "keep the ocean out" so my castle would be "safe".
I figure they'll be as effective as I was.
But I had way more fun than they ever will
In Soviet Russia, links sponsor YOU!
After reading a bit of http://www.flynnresearch.net/magnetics.htm it seems to me TFA has it wrong; they do not seem to be claiming perpetual motion, only far greater efficiencies.(sp)
I got sick of seeing huge amounts of RAM get sucked up by Firefox. Yesterday I had upwards of 30 tabs open in Konqueror - and about 1.8 of 2 gigs free. I honestly don't know how much RAM Firefox would have used if I had had the same tabs open. I would have been afraid to open that many in Firefox. Alas, it is a shame that the flagship (in the public's mind) application of OSS is so buggy.
I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
/. ?
So don't post it on
From TFA: "The fact of the matter is that if you look at popular desktop Linux distributions from Red Hat or Novell's SUSE, they match or exceed the system requirements of Windows XP. For example, Novell Linux Desktop 9 requires a minimum of 128MB physical RAM, which is identical to the requirements of Windows XP. If you compare OpenOffice 2.0 to the system requirements of Microsoft Office and again they are identical," he said.
..
I winced at the bolded section. 128 megs? Windows XP? Are they bloody serious? We don't want a computer that just boots up - we want productivity. And for productivity, XP needs more than 128 megs, unless by "productivity" you mean "wordpad"
So go fuck yourself.
That they'll spend on this guy and just record the sounds of broken glass! :D
Wouldn't this make Blue-Ray/HD-DVD look pathetic by comparision, or am I missing something here? Any optical physicists care to comment?
Bet they sure could save tons of HD space if they just had one clip of Kenny's death.
You seriously need to get back to university.
:D )
Never been there. I'm an autodidact. Thanks anyway.
Market's don't make that kind of complex decisions. A market [wikipedia.org] sets a price, that's all.
Of course markets are capable of making such "complex decisions" - it happens all the time. I am not ascribing any conciousness to this phenomenon, mind you. (Pun unintentional
There's a theory that markets can enforce additional restrictions by "voting with your dollars", but it has been largely disproven in reality.
You are claiming that boycotts don't work? They surely do work, though.
The simple version is that markets are unable to communicate, much less enforce that kind of requests, because they only have a one-bit channel (buy or not buy) available. Thus it is impossible to effectively communicate anything that requires more than one bit of information.
This is perhaps one of the most inane things I've encountered in a debate. And I wasn't born yesterday, either.
Before you reply, consider that most of the additional communication channels you will offer are not part of the market, but outside it - just like government intervention, anti-trust laws and the other options you despise are.
ALL advertising is part of "the market"; thats well beyond "one bit" of communication. But the market goes beyond that, even. Whenever two people talk about a product or service, *that* communication is part of the market, too. Why is it part of the market? Because it non coercively influences the choices made within the market.
"Don't go to Bob's pizzas, they have lousy service, I waited over an hour for just a calzone the other day!" - how many bits is that, eh?
What I despise is force being brought into the market - whereby one group usurps another group's decision capability by fiat. "You _will_ do it _our_ way because _we_ have the guns!" And of course, this is what governments do best - "representitive" or otherwise.
You, just as plenty of other posters in this thread, seem to be forgetting a couple of facts:
- They are convicted of abusing their monopoly in one market to force their way into other markets, and thus are subject to stricter rules than companies that are not monopolies.
- The terms of 'opening up' cover API documentation and guaranteeing interoperability with other proprietary vendors as well as Free Software. NOT opening the source code.
Facts or opinions?
What is a "monopoly" ? A single business dominating a market for a geographical area? So does that mean the lone town pharmacy is a "monopoly" ? Sure does. Does that mean there is a problem? I doubt it. So the real question is, what makes a "monopoly" a bad thing? Thats when force comes into play. When a monopoly can use force to keep competitors from entering the market, or otherwise ensuring it's dominance _by force_.
But to the best of my knowledge, this force comes from ONLY ONE PLACE: governments.
So the government "convicting" someone of being a monopolist is a bit like the local thieves gang condemning one of it's own members and "making things right" with the local neighborhood by asking for protection money. No. Thank. You.
As for the terms of opening up being just the API:
'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'
Thats sounds to me like more than an API. After all, without being able to look at the source, how can one guarantee full interoperability?
Ergo: this doesn't impact proprietary software at all. Non-monopolists are perfectly allowed not to document their APIs. Microsoft can keep their sacred source code closed.
It does impact it if you simply extend to the logical conclusion. And thus, I ask again, is there to be no such thing as private speech?
What they are asked to do is pay up until they open their specs.
Paying a gang of criminals does not promote justice.
The market does want that, but when there's an 800lbs gorilla in the market, the market no longer works as intended. That's what being a monopoly is all about - shutting down the forces that makes a free market work.
Just because they are a "convicted monopolist" it does not follow that they are a true coercive monopoly, which to the best of my knowledge they are not. That is to say, they do not have access to governmental force to make others do their bidding - just economic force. For them to be a truly bad monopoly, the government would have to come in and back them up - which is starting to happen (DRM, trusted computing, and such) - but has not happened yet. It is not illegal for me to use another OS, or to write one, nor is it illegal for others with more resources than I to do so.
Something needs to negate that influence to jump-start an active and free market again. In this case, the European Commission is doing that.
I'd have to contend that this statement shows a complete lack of understanding of what free markets are or what they mean, and what they can do.
A government "jump starting" a free market is a contradiction in terms.
So does this mean - as a precedent - that the model of proprietary code is "over" ?
I'm not at all comfortable with that decision being handled by "extra market forces" - aka government. AKA, men with guns.
If the market wants MS to open up, the market should decide it. In the long term, I believe this is exactly what will happen - MS will have to adapt and compete or die off. Part of this adaptation will be better interoperability; but I would doubt that the proprietary model would end altogether.
As another take on this, many here claim that open source code is the equal to freedom of speech. And I agree with that. But then, what does that say when you advocate forceable openness of code? Does that indicate the reverse of the analogy: no private speech?
In summation, as bad as MS is, the government is worse.