> MS Rep: "Here is our super MS 2002 System, your cost is only $750 per machine...
Hate to burst your bubble, but you aren't thinking like a typical business manager. Anyone who's been around for a while knows that "free" doesn't necessarily equate to "inexpensive". Sure, I can hire a kid fresh out of college to be my sysop, but he's still likely to be asking for $60,000USD/year, and how can I know he won't simply create a horrible mess of my business, and then leave when some other company offers him twice the salary?
It's not just the PHB's that feel more comfortable paying a healthy chunk of change to guarantee consistent, experienced, timely technical support. In the long run, I think your argument is valid, but you'll still have a hard time selling it to your typical IT exec.
> The Linux operating system, which is freely available to programmers, is considered to be a distant threat to the
Windows operating system sold by Microsoft Corp...
Is that anything like the "sound of distant thunder"?
> After reviewing a few of the "scams" on the list, it seems like most of these could be eleminated (or at least lessened) by
taking just a "few" precautions.
...
One problem... This assumes a certain level of intelligence on the part of the average consumer.
You might add another rule to your list too: "Greedy people make easy suckers." How many of these scams make use of the basic human tendency to try to "get something for nothing"?
Who coined the term: "There's a Sucker born every minute" ?
Seems these problems (and the basic human traits that make them possible) have been with us for a long time.
Does this mean they are finally going after some of the get-rich-quick SPAM scams that keep flooding into my mailbox? Perhaps people will start getting the idea that sending out 10,000,000 emails promising a quick and easy way to GET OUT OF DEBT NOW is not such a great deal....
> 2.Having the source code would make figuring things out for interoperability purposes much easier for projects like Samba and WINE. Of course, neither of the above projects would use knowledge obtained from the crack (if the crackers actually downloaded any code worth looking at) - the legal risk is simply not worth taking.
I'm not saying anyone should do this, but consider the following:
Let's say someone on the SAMBA team is working on a particularly nasty little interface bug. Somehow, this individual gets a look at the stolen MS code. Using this knowledge, they are able to figure out this cryptic bit of interface behavior in the original MS software. They then go in and implement some function to correctly mimic the behavior or the MS code.
NOTE:At no time have they included actual MS code in their implementation. What they have done is simply used a different source of knowledge to help them reverse engineer and re-implement a bit of behavior in code.
Now, is this:
Legal?
Ethical?
Detectable?
(One other note: Since this the stolen code was supposedly all in "future" software, like MS ".NET", this whole question is pretty academic:-/)
The review mentioned some stills or screen shots from the movie, but I couldn't find any links. Does anyone know where to find some stills from the movie?
Hummm... On topic? I suppose. Dumb? Definitely - though not dumb enough that I'd moderate it down given the opportunity.
Do you really think Microsoft really needs such a lame excuse to "go after" the Open Source community and efforts such as Wine? They are perfectly capable of thinking up a lot more believable reasons than that why such reverse engineering "infringes" on their IP.
Microsoft may be a huge bully, but I don't think they are a huge brainless bully.
> Before the Clinton-Gore administration, the government resisted computerization. (...etc...)
Was this change in attitude because of Gore, or was Gore simply in the right place at the right time? No doubt, Gore used his position of influence to push the US government towards making use of technology, and towards funding of various technological initiatives, but would any other person in his position have done the same? Was he noticed because he was the Vice President? Was he simply lucky because he happened to jump on the right technology bandwagon?
I happen to think the article in question was a pretty obvious political rant, hiding behind a thin veil of "science", but I will agree that politics, and in particular, this presidential election is of interest to Geeks. Obviously, technology isn't the only issue here, but I don't think I have ever seen an election where technology and the balance of corporations against individuals has had such a high profile.
We live in the middle if these battles, and they do affect the way we live and work and play. And, with the "shrinking" of the world that the Internet is bringing upon us, it is no longer an issue limited to US audiences.
I laughed when the article started out with "Character assassination is, of course, nothing new for Republicans, who
mastered the art in the days of Richard Nixon." We all know of course, that no self respecting member of the other party would ever engage in such practices!!!
Come on now. Is this an article about how the media twists the facts (BIG NEWS!), or nothing more than a political rant against a particular candidate?
> I felt people were making the comparison by the stereotype of closed source projects shipping whenever it was in the best interests of the company versus open source's historical "when it's done" ship date.
Have you ever read The Cathedral and the Bazaar? The whole point of Open Source is to, "Release early. Release often." That's what makes Open Source a colaborative development environment. Linus didn't wait until he had a complete, SMP enabled kernel with full support for every conceivable device. He got something working, pushed it out on the Internet and let other people start hacking at it!
Now, obviously, the situation with an integrated commercial product is different from a single developer putting out pre-alpha code for others to start playing with. Commercial distributions have people depending on them for stability, But to say that Open Source historically waits until something is "done" before releasing it is to be completely ignorant of the Open Source development model. This is a "point zero" release, and as much as I diskile parroting the mantra that x.0 releases are never stable, I think that RH7.0 is another example of that rule. If you don't want to be on the bleeding edge, then wait until the bugs have been ironed out. If you want all the latest new features, then learn to live with the risks.
(BTW, I've been using 2.3/2.4 kernels for months. They don't always work on the first try, but they have the new features I need, and I've gotten used to living with the risk. I haven't had any catastrophic failures yet ((knock on wood)), but I make sure I have good backups...)
Uh... technically, I think most PC's still have an "image" of the OS, but it's a dumb install disk -- i.e., you put it in, reboot, and it whipes your disk and reinstalls a factory default configuration.
Still, it's a weak point, since even with a pirated copy, the user ends up with a "copy" of the OS on CD...
... and that's not even mentioning what happens when you install some other OS!
Actually, from the email, it sounded like MS thought they had licensed certain IP to a company in order to build MS compatable tools. When the company quit building tools, they withdrew the license. Could it have been that MS thought they were making use of this proprietary information to build NTFS compatability into Linux?
In other words, did they appear to take licensed information and then mis-appropriate it? If his was the case, then MS could have been justified in their threats, or at least in trying to protect this information.
That's what a "shrink-wrap" license is -- As soon as you break the "shrink-wrap" around the box, you've effectively agreed to the license, even though you haven't had a chance to see it yet!
> I really think this whole thing is just a big ploy to be able to buy and hide any code for breaking sdmi, NOT a way to further secure the
format. They simply want to buy the code,
Unlikely. Once the fundamental algorithm to crack the watermark is known, generating code to implement it is trivial, and their scheme is good as dead.
No, I think they are honestly trying to create a secure watermark, or at least "prove" to the industry that they didn't bungle the encryption scheme like they did last time.
That being said, I still think it takes balls the size of minor planets to go out to the "hacker" community and ask them to help create the "perfect" leg irons that will be used in the future to enslave them...:-(
-- If someone sells you software for a discount, they can stipulate that you can't turn around and use that software to make money.
-- If someone gives you a "free" service, they can stipulate that you use their software to gain access to that software (the Juno model).
These are two different situations though. Universities are not making any "commercial gain" off the Internet "service" they are being given. It's given out to students and staff to use, with the assumption that they are buying the students' "eyeballs" for a certain percentage of their time. I can't see how that would affect the universitie's status, or their ability to negotiate for academic pricing from other vendors.
> Back in the late 80's/early 90's, a company was launched which brought 10 minutes of advertising into public schools in exchange for
free satellite receiving equipment and televisions.... This doesn't sound any different
Sounds similar on the surface, but there are some significant differences.
Channel One brought in advertising, but they called it "News and Current Events." Very easy to manipulate.
Channel One was aimed at elementary schools. Say what you want about the current crop of college students, but I think they are just slightly more skeptical of corporations than the typical third grader.
That being said, Universities need to be very careful of corporate "gifts", but the mere fact that something has a corporate name behind it isn't a guarantee that it is "evil." Remember that most Universities live by donations and grants from corporate backed foundations or wealthy individuals.
Works for me too, though accessing the "info" function causes it to hang Don't know if that's a "gaim" bug or caused by the AOL servers gacking the client.
Duh... They're not saying that the technology is bad, only the use of it to illegally distribute copyrighted material without the knowledge or consent of the copyright owner. RealPlayer is an obvious example of a use that is perfectly valid, even in their eyes. There are plenty of uses for streaming of non-copyrighted material, or for distribution in ways that fall under "fair use". (Internet Radio broadcasts come to mind.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hate to burst your bubble, but you aren't thinking like a typical business manager. Anyone who's been around for a while knows that "free" doesn't necessarily equate to "inexpensive". Sure, I can hire a kid fresh out of college to be my sysop, but he's still likely to be asking for $60,000USD/year, and how can I know he won't simply create a horrible mess of my business, and then leave when some other company offers him twice the salary?
It's not just the PHB's that feel more comfortable paying a healthy chunk of change to guarantee consistent, experienced, timely technical support. In the long run, I think your argument is valid, but you'll still have a hard time selling it to your typical IT exec.
--
Is that anything like the "sound of distant thunder"?
--
...
One problem... This assumes a certain level of intelligence on the part of the average consumer.
You might add another rule to your list too: "Greedy people make easy suckers." How many of these scams make use of the basic human tendency to try to "get something for nothing"?
Who coined the term: "There's a Sucker born every minute" ?
Seems these problems (and the basic human traits that make them possible) have been with us for a long time.
--
Nah....
--
I'm not saying anyone should do this, but consider the following:
Now, is this:(One other note: Since this the stolen code was supposedly all in "future" software, like MS ".NET", this whole question is pretty academic :-/)
--
Actually, with a little hunting around on Google, I found: this series of shots.
--
The review mentioned some stills or screen shots from the movie, but I couldn't find any links. Does anyone know where to find some stills from the movie?
--
Do you really think Microsoft really needs such a lame excuse to "go after" the Open Source community and efforts such as Wine? They are perfectly capable of thinking up a lot more believable reasons than that why such reverse engineering "infringes" on their IP.
Microsoft may be a huge bully, but I don't think they are a huge brainless bully.
--
Was this change in attitude because of Gore, or was Gore simply in the right place at the right time? No doubt, Gore used his position of influence to push the US government towards making use of technology, and towards funding of various technological initiatives, but would any other person in his position have done the same? Was he noticed because he was the Vice President? Was he simply lucky because he happened to jump on the right technology bandwagon?
--
We live in the middle if these battles, and they do affect the way we live and work and play. And, with the "shrinking" of the world that the Internet is bringing upon us, it is no longer an issue limited to US audiences.
--
Come on now. Is this an article about how the media twists the facts (BIG NEWS!), or nothing more than a political rant against a particular candidate?
--
Have you ever read The Cathedral and the Bazaar? The whole point of Open Source is to, "Release early. Release often." That's what makes Open Source a colaborative development environment. Linus didn't wait until he had a complete, SMP enabled kernel with full support for every conceivable device. He got something working, pushed it out on the Internet and let other people start hacking at it!
Now, obviously, the situation with an integrated commercial product is different from a single developer putting out pre-alpha code for others to start playing with. Commercial distributions have people depending on them for stability, But to say that Open Source historically waits until something is "done" before releasing it is to be completely ignorant of the Open Source development model. This is a "point zero" release, and as much as I diskile parroting the mantra that x.0 releases are never stable, I think that RH7.0 is another example of that rule. If you don't want to be on the bleeding edge, then wait until the bugs have been ironed out. If you want all the latest new features, then learn to live with the risks.
(BTW, I've been using 2.3/2.4 kernels for months. They don't always work on the first try, but they have the new features I need, and I've gotten used to living with the risk. I haven't had any catastrophic failures yet ((knock on wood)), but I make sure I have good backups...)
--
Still, it's a weak point, since even with a pirated copy, the user ends up with a "copy" of the OS on CD...
(Duhhh...)
--
I especially like the instructions on how to report competitors who you believe are selling PC's with illegal software!
--
In other words, did they appear to take licensed information and then mis-appropriate it? If his was the case, then MS could have been justified in their threats, or at least in trying to protect this information.
--
That, or you are humor impaired...
--
Works just like the Windows license...
--
Well, at least threatening to pull advertising (and the associated income) is better than threatening to sue the pants off 'em...
--
Unlikely. Once the fundamental algorithm to crack the watermark is known, generating code to implement it is trivial, and their scheme is good as dead.
No, I think they are honestly trying to create a secure watermark, or at least "prove" to the industry that they didn't bungle the encryption scheme like they did last time.
That being said, I still think it takes balls the size of minor planets to go out to the "hacker" community and ask them to help create the "perfect" leg irons that will be used in the future to enslave them... :-(
--
-- If someone sells you software for a discount, they can stipulate that you can't turn around and use that software to make money.
-- If someone gives you a "free" service, they can stipulate that you use their software to gain access to that software (the Juno model).
These are two different situations though. Universities are not making any "commercial gain" off the Internet "service" they are being given. It's given out to students and staff to use, with the assumption that they are buying the students' "eyeballs" for a certain percentage of their time. I can't see how that would affect the universitie's status, or their ability to negotiate for academic pricing from other vendors.
--
Sounds similar on the surface, but there are some significant differences.
- Channel One brought in advertising, but they called it "News and Current Events." Very easy to manipulate.
- Channel One was aimed at elementary schools. Say what you want about the current crop of college students, but I think they are just slightly more skeptical of corporations than the typical third grader.
That being said, Universities need to be very careful of corporate "gifts", but the mere fact that something has a corporate name behind it isn't a guarantee that it is "evil." Remember that most Universities live by donations and grants from corporate backed foundations or wealthy individuals.--
Works for me too, though accessing the "info" function causes it to hang Don't know if that's a "gaim" bug or caused by the AOL servers gacking the client.
--
My big gripe is that there's no integration between GPG and Netscape (what I use for email), but that's not the fault of GPG... :-(
--
Duh... They're not saying that the technology is bad, only the use of it to illegally distribute copyrighted material without the knowledge or consent of the copyright owner. RealPlayer is an obvious example of a use that is perfectly valid, even in their eyes. There are plenty of uses for streaming of non-copyrighted material, or for distribution in ways that fall under "fair use". (Internet Radio broadcasts come to mind.)
--
I'm not flaming you. I'm just pointing out that immitation is an easy trap to fall into.
--