I'm not sure, but I don't think the jury decided the amount. Doesn't the judge do that, decide the penalty? The jury only decides "guilty or not" for something. In this case, it depends how the case was put to them. If it was "did she make songs available without having the right to do so"... then that's it, no wiggle room. They'd have to say "guilty". You'd have to say it too, in their place. Then the judge came and slapped the $220k on her. I say, blame the judge on this one, not the jury.
Exactly! Her lawyer made exactly this point, said they haven't even shown whether anybody downloaded any song, and the judge answered they don't have to, that the very fact of making them available is to be punished.
That is the fact that is the most revolting in the whole thing. It opens a world of abuse. By this logic, if I leave a CD or a book somewhere and anybody takes it, I am guilty of making it available! Bam, copyright infringement. I mean, WTF?! Have they completely lost it?
Yeah, 1996 called, they want their virus distribution back.
And yet it's so damn sad to see that in 10 years the industry has still not learned to do things right.
Good security starts from the design phase. If it was not meant to be hacked it should not be hacked. Security holes are mainly the fault and the responsability of the people who designed those buggy pieces of software.
And yet we see the media always blaming "hackers". Sure, they're assholes who try to break and enter. But it's like a bank leaving its vault wide open and allowing anyone in, and then complaining that some people stole the money.
Why don't the programmers fix the security holes? Why do they allow the holes to exist in the first place? Nobody seems to ask those questions. I suppose "hackers are at it again" makes better headlines than "bad engineers are at it again".
"My brand new Ubuntu^H^H^H^H Vista install (yes, I'm very happy now) was not without a few hiccups that required experience well beyond the average user's ability and/or patience."
There. What's the difference?
This argument will always contain a fallacy, as long as you imagine that dumb users are somehow actually skilled in Windows more than in Linux or something else. They're not, it's the geeks that fix things no matter the OS.
Simple. Hire an economy professor to learn how to deal with these situations. Complex economy conditions can quite naturally appear in online games with large populations, you'd do well to have an expert handy.
Jesus, there's so much paranoia and resistance that apparently everybody forgets that black listing is one of the dumbest things you could do when it comes to security. It's no rocket science to see that if you're dealing with bots that attack blindly and dozens of new threats every day there's no way you're going to be able to keep track of all of them.
White listing is not about someone approving the list for you, it's just a generic mechanism that allows YOU to white list.
The BSD people hate GCC because IT is GPL licensed,[..]
This is nonsense. Read other comments on this story and you'll see that they do not "hate" gcc for its license. If anything, they most dislike the gcc developers' habit of dropping support for less popular architectures, which leaves various *BSD ports having to use several older gcc versions in parallel to get out a working distro.
Sounds like what my mom did by herself when I first moved alone. Fly-by seemingly at every 10 minutes (in my foolishness I only moved as far as across the street), kept a unit (younger siblings) no less than 5 minute away from my location at all times, made sure to load up my fridge to at least 40% at all times, and so on.
Oh, and please no jokes like "yo momma's a swarm of nanobots" and such.
Adding processing power to a display is a dumb idea. I already have processing power in various handheld devices, which already use it for their own purposes. All I need is an output interface (big screen, advanced sound system) and suitable connectors.
I can connect my camera to a TV and show the pictures and movies I've made. I can connect an MP3 player to a sound system.
Why would I want a bastard "smart" system like the one you describe? It's just a waste of processing power.
I see the laptop as a special case of the universal device, with some better portability thrown in. The purpose being easy relocation. They are preferred over desktops when frequent relocation is an issue, but not otherwise. They are less confortable, don't upgrade as easily, more expensive. They're the "use it and throw it" kind of device.
By comparison, my desktop computer is still the same I've used since I got my first. Interesting enough, it's not technically the same machine. Over the years I've gradually replaced parts and now it doesn't have any part that was there originally. But it's still "my desktop".
How is that? Agreed, when I'm on the move I will naturally turn to handheld devices that can offer basic services (multimedia playing, communication, web browsing). But there's no way I'm going to resort to them when I need actual work done, or for serious entertainment purposes. They're good to keep you going from one place to another, but for productivity's sake I will need to sit at a desk, use a full size keyboard, a normal mouse, and enjoy a large screen and sensible performance. And if I want to watch movies or play games I will also require the kind of hardware that doesn't travel easily.
Furthermore, that desktop computer paradigm itself is very hard to surpass. There are specialized devices that offer niche services (multimedia players, game consoles, handhelds, laptops), and there are desktop computers, which can be used for anything. That versatility is very hard to throw aside. Niche devices come and go, but a universal purpose device like the desktop computer will be around for a lot of time.
The only possible change I foresee is extreme miniaturization, which would at some point reduce the desktop computer to something like a pen that you take out of your pocket, place on the desk and it expands to a full size interface (keyboard, mouse, display, or all in one). Perhaps using holography and motion sensors. But for all practical reasons that kind of thing is a long way from the mainstream.
I didn't say it applied to countries all over the world, I only mean the US.
Besides, are you sure? They could argue they were only selling the physical support, that the software is free (or pennies) and that the bulk of the money actually is a subscription to Windows update. I wouldn't put anything past Microsoft. If there's a working angle, they're gonna use it.
I think that what the GP is trying to say is that with Vista (and possibly XP too) Microsoft transformed Windows from a software sale into a service offer. So you're not buying an item (ie. Windows OS copy), you're paying for a service (Windows update), and so you cross from copyright or property law into contract law. Also makes EULA legit, because it's not imposing terms after you bought an item (which would be arguably illegal), it's doing it before you start using a service. Pretty cunning of Microsoft, if it's true.
I guess future will tell. I think that this whole charade was the beginning of the end for MS Office, and it will start going down just like Explorer has. Only this times standards will have had a much bigger role to play. You can disregard standards in a browser and get away with it but it seems increasingly clear that it doesn't work that way with office documents.
Canada for instance has a surcharge on blank CDs that goes to the media trade groups. From what I can tell very little of it goes to pay the artists, and pretty much none goes to the independent labels.
Actually, I don't think that's the issue. He must've realised that can happen to BSD-licensed code a long time ago. So the problem is another one. There's an unspoken agreement in place for kernel drivers. The BSD camp brings their code, the Linux camp brings their code, they work together and then both camps get to take the common result home. Under their own respective licenses!
In order to achieve this they dual-licensed the code they put together. But now the GPL camp is breaking the agreement and putting stuff under GPL only. Technically it's not wrong, but it's a broken agreement nonetheless.
Cooperation can't be achieved via licenses, it's too complicated. You need this kind of unspoken agreement for it to work. If good will is gone, it's gone. Do you want the BSD and GPL camps to never work on anything together again?
OK. Let's assume for the sake of argument that FSF=Microsoft and they're all evil people. Why don't you do anything about it and keep using a license that exposes you to this?
And why if Microsoft takes stuff and doesn't give back you don't mind, but if FSF takes stuff over and gives it back, only better protected against the real world, you throw a fit? What kind of logic is that?
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I'm not sure, but I don't think the jury decided the amount. Doesn't the judge do that, decide the penalty? The jury only decides "guilty or not" for something. In this case, it depends how the case was put to them. If it was "did she make songs available without having the right to do so"... then that's it, no wiggle room. They'd have to say "guilty". You'd have to say it too, in their place. Then the judge came and slapped the $220k on her. I say, blame the judge on this one, not the jury.
Exactly! Her lawyer made exactly this point, said they haven't even shown whether anybody downloaded any song, and the judge answered they don't have to, that the very fact of making them available is to be punished.
That is the fact that is the most revolting in the whole thing. It opens a world of abuse. By this logic, if I leave a CD or a book somewhere and anybody takes it, I am guilty of making it available! Bam, copyright infringement. I mean, WTF?! Have they completely lost it?
Good security starts from the design phase. If it was not meant to be hacked it should not be hacked. Security holes are mainly the fault and the responsability of the people who designed those buggy pieces of software.
And yet we see the media always blaming "hackers". Sure, they're assholes who try to break and enter. But it's like a bank leaving its vault wide open and allowing anyone in, and then complaining that some people stole the money.
Why don't the programmers fix the security holes? Why do they allow the holes to exist in the first place? Nobody seems to ask those questions. I suppose "hackers are at it again" makes better headlines than "bad engineers are at it again".
"My brand new Ubuntu^H^H^H^H Vista install (yes, I'm very happy now) was not without a few hiccups that required experience well beyond the average user's ability and/or patience."
There. What's the difference?
This argument will always contain a fallacy, as long as you imagine that dumb users are somehow actually skilled in Windows more than in Linux or something else. They're not, it's the geeks that fix things no matter the OS.
Simple. Hire an economy professor to learn how to deal with these situations. Complex economy conditions can quite naturally appear in online games with large populations, you'd do well to have an expert handy.
Jesus, there's so much paranoia and resistance that apparently everybody forgets that black listing is one of the dumbest things you could do when it comes to security. It's no rocket science to see that if you're dealing with bots that attack blindly and dozens of new threats every day there's no way you're going to be able to keep track of all of them.
White listing is not about someone approving the list for you, it's just a generic mechanism that allows YOU to white list.
More explanations for a security expert here: The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security.
This is nonsense. Read other comments on this story and you'll see that they do not "hate" gcc for its license. If anything, they most dislike the gcc developers' habit of dropping support for less popular architectures, which leaves various *BSD ports having to use several older gcc versions in parallel to get out a working distro.
Sounds like what my mom did by herself when I first moved alone. Fly-by seemingly at every 10 minutes (in my foolishness I only moved as far as across the street), kept a unit (younger siblings) no less than 5 minute away from my location at all times, made sure to load up my fridge to at least 40% at all times, and so on.
Oh, and please no jokes like "yo momma's a swarm of nanobots" and such.
Please explain how the license for GCC affects code compiled by it.
Adding processing power to a display is a dumb idea. I already have processing power in various handheld devices, which already use it for their own purposes. All I need is an output interface (big screen, advanced sound system) and suitable connectors.
I can connect my camera to a TV and show the pictures and movies I've made. I can connect an MP3 player to a sound system.
Why would I want a bastard "smart" system like the one you describe? It's just a waste of processing power.
I see the laptop as a special case of the universal device, with some better portability thrown in. The purpose being easy relocation. They are preferred over desktops when frequent relocation is an issue, but not otherwise. They are less confortable, don't upgrade as easily, more expensive. They're the "use it and throw it" kind of device.
By comparison, my desktop computer is still the same I've used since I got my first. Interesting enough, it's not technically the same machine. Over the years I've gradually replaced parts and now it doesn't have any part that was there originally. But it's still "my desktop".
How is that? Agreed, when I'm on the move I will naturally turn to handheld devices that can offer basic services (multimedia playing, communication, web browsing). But there's no way I'm going to resort to them when I need actual work done, or for serious entertainment purposes. They're good to keep you going from one place to another, but for productivity's sake I will need to sit at a desk, use a full size keyboard, a normal mouse, and enjoy a large screen and sensible performance. And if I want to watch movies or play games I will also require the kind of hardware that doesn't travel easily.
Furthermore, that desktop computer paradigm itself is very hard to surpass. There are specialized devices that offer niche services (multimedia players, game consoles, handhelds, laptops), and there are desktop computers, which can be used for anything. That versatility is very hard to throw aside. Niche devices come and go, but a universal purpose device like the desktop computer will be around for a lot of time.
The only possible change I foresee is extreme miniaturization, which would at some point reduce the desktop computer to something like a pen that you take out of your pocket, place on the desk and it expands to a full size interface (keyboard, mouse, display, or all in one). Perhaps using holography and motion sensors. But for all practical reasons that kind of thing is a long way from the mainstream.
I didn't say it applied to countries all over the world, I only mean the US.
Besides, are you sure? They could argue they were only selling the physical support, that the software is free (or pennies) and that the bulk of the money actually is a subscription to Windows update. I wouldn't put anything past Microsoft. If there's a working angle, they're gonna use it.
I think that what the GP is trying to say is that with Vista (and possibly XP too) Microsoft transformed Windows from a software sale into a service offer. So you're not buying an item (ie. Windows OS copy), you're paying for a service (Windows update), and so you cross from copyright or property law into contract law. Also makes EULA legit, because it's not imposing terms after you bought an item (which would be arguably illegal), it's doing it before you start using a service. Pretty cunning of Microsoft, if it's true.
Ah, but see how many moderators automatically assumed that the Windows EULA actually allowed all kinds of shit? I find that interesting.
I see what you did there. You assumed that the government is not above the law.
I think the proper way to put it is "I for one welcome our British overlords".
I guess future will tell. I think that this whole charade was the beginning of the end for MS Office, and it will start going down just like Explorer has. Only this times standards will have had a much bigger role to play. You can disregard standards in a browser and get away with it but it seems increasingly clear that it doesn't work that way with office documents.
Actually, I don't think that's the issue. He must've realised that can happen to BSD-licensed code a long time ago. So the problem is another one. There's an unspoken agreement in place for kernel drivers. The BSD camp brings their code, the Linux camp brings their code, they work together and then both camps get to take the common result home. Under their own respective licenses!
In order to achieve this they dual-licensed the code they put together. But now the GPL camp is breaking the agreement and putting stuff under GPL only. Technically it's not wrong, but it's a broken agreement nonetheless.
Cooperation can't be achieved via licenses, it's too complicated. You need this kind of unspoken agreement for it to work. If good will is gone, it's gone. Do you want the BSD and GPL camps to never work on anything together again?
OK. Let's assume for the sake of argument that FSF=Microsoft and they're all evil people. Why don't you do anything about it and keep using a license that exposes you to this?
And why if Microsoft takes stuff and doesn't give back you don't mind, but if FSF takes stuff over and gives it back, only better protected against the real world, you throw a fit? What kind of logic is that?