I work doing tech support for desktop computers made by Compaq and HP, both of which are sold at Wal-Mart. A friend of mine said "welcome to Hell" when I came in today. Now I know why:^(
OK, at this point it's probably been said a million times, but if the government increases funding to the USPTO, they're doing us all a disservice (even me, who is not a US citizen).
What they need to do is fix the broken patenting system. Software patents, or the idea that a piece of logic can be patented, are causing more chaos to the average person than good. They're NOT helping innovation, they are in fact doing the exact opposite, by preventing good people who have a great idea from being able to implement it because some small part of their idea is covered by a vague, overly broad patent that never was intended to cover that purpose.
But hey, since when has the USPTO been good for the average person anyway, right? Corporations are getting their much-needed oppression powers from it, so it's all good.
If they want to use the art for their advertising they BETTER damn well have the time to read a license explaining how it can be used! I mean, this is Lindows, they HAVE to have a legal department, right?
If he wants to make money on his art when it's used for commercial purposes, more power to him. People still need to eat and have a roof over their heads and such, you know.
And all due to cookies? Come on now, while cookies are used by banner companies to track where you might go on the internet, spyware is MUCH more often spread through ActiveX plugins or attached to other programs.
I promise you that if every single Compaq computer owner turned off cookies they'd still be plagued with spyware (mostly because they don't know any better, but they still shouldn't have to deal with it).
You can't login as root, or SYSTEM, in Windows unless you change a Group Policy setting, I believe. Of course, you can do practically anything as an Administrator anyway. And new version of Windows XP actually try to hide the Administrator user, making it so that by default you can only login as the Administrator user account by going into Safe Mode. Not sure if there are any things that Administrator can do that regular user members of the Administrator group can't, but meh, I like to play the Devil's Advocate every now and again;^)
IMHO it is pretty simple actually. Average, email- and browser-using people don't want to spend an extra $10 / month for what they consider to be a hassle to setup. People fear change, and judging by my work with people who have obtained broadband connections with one company but are still paying AOL $10 / month for basically an email address, they might have a point. There are people out there that want to take advantage of their ignorance.
Most insightful comment on this page. Nintendo could bring the FBI to bear on them and shut down their site near instantly if they wanted to, and with this closed source we'd still have no idea how to create our own versions of this software. Sure, the binaries could be spread, but we'd be limited to what's already there.
It's called putting an idea forward. If you don't like it, come up with some constructive criticism and make a better idea, rather than taking the easy road and shooting down ones that are already out there.
MoodLogic can do the same sort of thing for marking tracks as having a certain "mood" (such song profiles are taken from a huge database of songs) and creating a playlist based on what type of music one wants to hear at the time. Unfortunately, not free, though you can get it to identify files if you profile some of your own songs (I think you get 25 identified songs per every five you profile yourself or something).
That's why I said making a distributed email relay system illegal, not anything like what was mentioned.
Re:Better Watch The Laws
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Paid To Spam
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· Score: 1
That's what I was thinking, if, for example, the laws stated that the computers had to specifically be owned by the company, it could work. Of course, then you have cases where the email systems are being operated by datacenters. It would have to be very specific, no doubt.
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I work doing tech support for desktop computers made by Compaq and HP, both of which are sold at Wal-Mart. A friend of mine said "welcome to Hell" when I came in today. Now I know why :^(
Yeah. Lots of dependancy problems from Windows Update, for sure.
If your prostate is in your colon, you, sir, have some serious problems.
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distictiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.
The funny thing here is that this post was modded +5, Insightful.
:^D
The funnier thing here is that my post will probably be modded -1, Flamebait
OK, at this point it's probably been said a million times, but if the government increases funding to the USPTO, they're doing us all a disservice (even me, who is not a US citizen).
What they need to do is fix the broken patenting system. Software patents, or the idea that a piece of logic can be patented, are causing more chaos to the average person than good. They're NOT helping innovation, they are in fact doing the exact opposite, by preventing good people who have a great idea from being able to implement it because some small part of their idea is covered by a vague, overly broad patent that never was intended to cover that purpose.
But hey, since when has the USPTO been good for the average person anyway, right? Corporations are getting their much-needed oppression powers from it, so it's all good.
If they want to use the art for their advertising they BETTER damn well have the time to read a license explaining how it can be used! I mean, this is Lindows, they HAVE to have a legal department, right?
If he wants to make money on his art when it's used for commercial purposes, more power to him. People still need to eat and have a roof over their heads and such, you know.
I own the first three comics of Marvel's Mutant X series and I think this TV series has single-handedly killed their value :^(
IBM is doing research into more effective PR?
And all due to cookies? Come on now, while cookies are used by banner companies to track where you might go on the internet, spyware is MUCH more often spread through ActiveX plugins or attached to other programs.
I promise you that if every single Compaq computer owner turned off cookies they'd still be plagued with spyware (mostly because they don't know any better, but they still shouldn't have to deal with it).
And the point of such a patent would be...?
You can't login as root, or SYSTEM, in Windows unless you change a Group Policy setting, I believe. Of course, you can do practically anything as an Administrator anyway. And new version of Windows XP actually try to hide the Administrator user, making it so that by default you can only login as the Administrator user account by going into Safe Mode. Not sure if there are any things that Administrator can do that regular user members of the Administrator group can't, but meh, I like to play the Devil's Advocate every now and again ;^)
Eh, Joey... get some of your friends over here and give this wiseguy a taste of the swinging tire. I have a feeling he won't be blabbing no more.
Which, as usual, assumes that the United States composes the ENTIRE WORLD. *sigh*
We usually do ;^)
IMHO it is pretty simple actually. Average, email- and browser-using people don't want to spend an extra $10 / month for what they consider to be a hassle to setup. People fear change, and judging by my work with people who have obtained broadband connections with one company but are still paying AOL $10 / month for basically an email address, they might have a point. There are people out there that want to take advantage of their ignorance.
Yup. I'm purchasing my hardware FOR my operating system. That's it.
They damn well are to me. If my sound card doesn't work in Linux, and it works in Windows, me AND my MP3s are staying in Windows.
Luckily, sound cards really aren't that difficult to setup in Linux, though there are some hitches to overcome.
...I give it about two days until it appears on the Microsoft propaganda machine's website.
Most insightful comment on this page. Nintendo could bring the FBI to bear on them and shut down their site near instantly if they wanted to, and with this closed source we'd still have no idea how to create our own versions of this software. Sure, the binaries could be spread, but we'd be limited to what's already there.
It's called putting an idea forward. If you don't like it, come up with some constructive criticism and make a better idea, rather than taking the easy road and shooting down ones that are already out there.
MoodLogic can do the same sort of thing for marking tracks as having a certain "mood" (such song profiles are taken from a huge database of songs) and creating a playlist based on what type of music one wants to hear at the time. Unfortunately, not free, though you can get it to identify files if you profile some of your own songs (I think you get 25 identified songs per every five you profile yourself or something).
Yes, but mailing lists are operated by the server that runs the email to which the mails are sent. Therefore, not distributed.
That's why I said making a distributed email relay system illegal, not anything like what was mentioned.
That's what I was thinking, if, for example, the laws stated that the computers had to specifically be owned by the company, it could work. Of course, then you have cases where the email systems are being operated by datacenters. It would have to be very specific, no doubt.