Strange that... the GMO's don't bother me nearly as much as the companies that make them...
What about all that stuff floating around a couple of months ago about killswitches being built into crops and seeds? To make sure you keep buying from the company instead of "pirating" life itself...
And people don't like to trust Microsoft. But really, can you categorically and scientifically prove that Apple, as a private company with a structure similar to Microsoft for all intents and purposes (ie, make money, leverage one arm of the business to sell another, push price as hard as possible, generally anticompetitive where practical to be), can be trusted to the same extent? (And yes, people will immediately say, well Microsoft have gotten caught for these practices and Apple hasn't gotten caught yet so evidently they are more trustworthy).
Can you likewise trust the producers of your most beloved Linux distro? They may not be a profit minded company, but does that mean the quality of their updates will as a result be higher?
Or, as we have just demonstrated, if you can't trust the company you get your updates from, should automatic updating be stopped altogether?
I've been keeping an eye on the local HDD market and the only development I've seen since the first 1TB HDD's (well over a year ago now..) has been a price drop in 500GB disks, making them more attractively priced per gig than the 320's now.
But that's it! For over a year... where's the 1.5GB drives? All we get is some extremely expensive 64Gb flash drives with a Sata interface.
What, they have satelites and space shuttles up there and now they want to put a sun up there as well? Won't it burn the satellites and the shuttle? Did they think about what that would do to the GPS systems that people use in their cars? How are people going to find their way around?
Also, what about global warming? Sure, it'll reduce carbon emissions, but that extra sun will make everything down here even hotter! They didn't think about that! No, putting a sun up in earth orbit for space based solar power is just a dumb idea.
I've seen a few software patents... I'm not an expert by any means, but I am quite sure the patent stipulates an example methodology of what they try to achieve and so on.
Also, patents, unlike copyrights, can be challenged if they're obvious, like, "using a little X in the top right corner of an interface window to close the window".
The patent can be worked around by altering the code, so the window close is to the left, or it's a "y" instead of an "x". Usually it seems more likely to be a less efficient way to perform the same task, but then most desktop linuxes and windows aren't completely efficient already.
One - it's open source. The community will fix the code and make it clean as soon as any information about what code is infringing is released. Microsoft isn't as dumb as SCO, they won't make the same mistake. I understand Novell is happily going through the smoking wreckage of SCO now to pick out anything of salvageable value. Microsoft knows this. If you're a conspiracy nut, you'll also be convinced Microsoft set SCO up for the whole exercise. But Microsoft pulling an SCO after those disastrous results just doesn't make sense. I'll go out on a limb and suggest MS really does have some patents that are being infringed. They have some evidence. They won't announce just what it is because they know how quick the patents can be worked around.
Two - who cares anyway? Microsoft can't even stop the primary piracy of their own OS! Vista activation is bypassed, WGA is largely irrelevant, XP has been cracked and broken and redistributed thousands of times. I really can't see the little guy caring about a tiny portion of their Linux install infringing on an MS patent anyway.
Money talks. It looks like Blizzard did a better copy of Warhammer than Warhammer did. That's okay. The Warhammer guys copied all their stuff off Tolkien anyway, right? Elves, Orks, Dwarves.. jeez.
Of course, if you think any of that copying is acceptable, then that kinda means you have to also accept that Disney's business practices are in any way "acceptable".
Hilarious, considering I have the same credentials than they do and I know which OU's are exempt from policies anyway. I like how they strut around so self-importantly despite this. If they even tried such a half-arsed scheme I'd be revoking their access to the domain quicker than you can blink. I'd cite a security threat to make it more amusing.
Your comments have thus proven Linus's original comment perfectly valid. Security guys are wankers.
"don't piss off the guys that could make your life hell"
No... don't piss off the guy who administers your account and domain, owns your boxes and allows you to run your little FBI-CIA-NSA wannabe security empire.
"But the *discussion* on security seems to never get down to real numbers. So the difference between them is simple: one is hard science. The other one is people wanking around with their opinions"
Thanks Linus, that cracked me up. I've always felt that way about a lot of the stuff the security guys do. I'm gonna forward that to our local security guys and see what they think!
My understanding was that the media levy was to pay copyright holders for the "fair use" activity of making backups and format-shifting of your own original music and data CD's etc.
It wasn't supposed to extend to copying media that you have not paid for the right to hold a copy of.
Would be nice to see if it changes anything, I've always liked Canada's stance. Australia seems much too happy just following along with the USA.
It doesn't actually change anything in any of the three countries. People all do the same stuff. It's just the Canadians aren't made criminals by doing the same activities as everyone else in the world.
It's also amazing how many "readers" on/. don't read TFA. Or even the summary.
From the summary: "An influential Brussels think tank is urging the European Commission to ban the bundling of operating systems with desktop and laptop computers"
From TFA: "Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission"
From the parent: "Nobody is suggesting you should not be able to buy a computer with a preinstalled OS and ready to go.
Also from the parent: "There are so many posts on this thread that are simply incorrect
Well... at least we got something right.
But anyway, my post was in line with the topic. My questions are still valid. Assuming MS doesn't stop this somehow, the changes to the euro retail market for PCs would be dramatic. (And yes before we argue the point, a preinstalled OS is by its very nature bundled, even if it's open source/free/etc). What kind of market would emerge as a result of such a ban on bundled OS's?
X-Fire is a horrible, viral, wannabe spyware rootkit (I'm not saying it is but it sure seems like it wants to be). It comes bundled with some games and has an installer that basically lies and if you click "No, don't install this horrible ball of pus and malware", then asks you "Are you sure you don't want to play with your friends online?" - inferring that without that bloated pile of scum you can't play multiplayer games.
This whole article should never have been posted.
No, I'm not trolling, the readers need to know how unethically this product is marketed.
Windows Vista requires a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, a DirectX 9-compliant video card, and an internet connection. Oh yeah, and TEN TIMES as much disk space. Now what extra value does Vista provide to you, the end customer? What advantage does Vista give you over XP?
Vista doesn't "require" any of that. If you want to run Glass, you need DX9, but you need similar graphics capability to pull the same kinds of tricks in Linux. Vista doesn't require an internet connection (maybe a little help from some third party tools, heh). I'm running Vista right now on a laptop that barely does DX8. The parent is posting FUD and the slashdot community loves it.
Vista isn't a spectacular improvement over XP but it is an improvement. There are dozens of little advancements in the UI and so on that make day to day management of the desktop much easier. Do you need Vista? No. Do you need XP? No. Most people would probably get by just fine on 2000 or Linux. That isn't the point! Does anyone here honestly believe that people only ever upgrade software because of one specific new feature they need? Or has anyone here upgraded simply because a product is "newer"?
The ONLY REASON to keep writing bloated software is to make you constantly spend more money staying exactly where you are, and your answer is to reward them by spending that money. Bloatware is capitalism gone wrong
WRONG. Firefox and even some distros of Linux are considered bloated by many. Are these products wholly a result of capitalism gone wrong? I don't recall constantly spending money so I can put a new version of Firefox on my desktop...
So, 10/10. Most of the community seems to have taken the kool-aid on this well crafted troll.
How bad is the DRM? Great question. But step a little deeper. We know the MPAA coke snorters firmly believe DRM works. We can therefore assume that they will only support formats that use "strong" DRM (that means, DRM that has a lot of marketing behind it to make the coke snorters believe it actually works).
So, either it has equivalent DRM to Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and then there's really no benefit over this technology than the others apart from maybe cost or whatever, and the MPAA cartel still might not invest in it because they already have new revenue streams from the other formats anyway.
Or it has no DRM, in which case no MPAA support. It might be an awesome product, but if you can't buy new movies on it, it won't reach mainstream acceptance and the economies of scale that drive the retail costs down, so it will not compare with the other formats in terms of features and price.
Hate them all you like, put them on the "B" Ark, whatever, but marketing makes or breaks a product and we all know it.
Look at Linux, it's free, it's competitive, but it's not marketed and it's not marketing driven, and you can tell by looking at it. It's starting to change, but the fact of the matter remains.
I was hoping for some game tips. Oh well. How to win:
1) Read the forums and learn what's "broken" (ie, locks and hunters) and employ those strategies. 2) Give up any notions of doing something because it's "Cool", cool doesn't win, it makes you a scrub 3) Give up any offline social life or business commitments 4) Grind to L70 as fast as you can. WoW is only about end game. 5) Network - Being in a top class guild makes you a contender and gives you opportunities. 6) Buy gold! Since we are speaking only of winning, buying gold makes you "win". I hate gold buying, for the record. 7) Raid. Raiding has the best rewards. You will need to raid on a schedule with your guild. Give up anything else. 8) Farm or play the AH and manipulate markets with your guild if you can. 9) Play PvE for levelling, it's easier and your equipment at the end of the day will be the same as a PvPers. 10) Winning WoW = gear. Grind arena, Raid, or farm for tradeskills, but gear = win.
That's how you play to win WoW. I don't like any of that stuff, so I don't play to win, just to have fun.
They haven't tied it in as a "critical" update through Windows Update or anything. They're playing by the rules but only barely, and they are definitely testing their boundaries constantly.
Just makes you think if that whole Netscape antitrust thing hadn't happened just what they could be doing with Windows Update. Firefox Removal Tool as standard? Clippy popping up and saying "It looks like you're dual booting between a sanctioned Windows OS and another, dangerous OS! I've removed the offending partitions for you."
I like that they've called the product "2008"... in the larger OS world, where Linux is still a little fringey compared to Windows, anchoring the product to a time instead of a more abstract version number will make less savvy end users more comfortable with their understanding of the product.
This is a good move! More FOSS products aiming at the mass market should consider adopting a similar approach!
By which I presume you mean he was given a multimillion dollar golden handshake and a few nice boardroom job offers at the afterparty drinks and cocaine session?
Slashdot Mirror
Strange that... the GMO's don't bother me nearly as much as the companies that make them...
What about all that stuff floating around a couple of months ago about killswitches being built into crops and seeds? To make sure you keep buying from the company instead of "pirating" life itself...
And people don't like to trust Microsoft. But really, can you categorically and scientifically prove that Apple, as a private company with a structure similar to Microsoft for all intents and purposes (ie, make money, leverage one arm of the business to sell another, push price as hard as possible, generally anticompetitive where practical to be), can be trusted to the same extent? (And yes, people will immediately say, well Microsoft have gotten caught for these practices and Apple hasn't gotten caught yet so evidently they are more trustworthy).
Can you likewise trust the producers of your most beloved Linux distro? They may not be a profit minded company, but does that mean the quality of their updates will as a result be higher?
Or, as we have just demonstrated, if you can't trust the company you get your updates from, should automatic updating be stopped altogether?
I've been keeping an eye on the local HDD market and the only development I've seen since the first 1TB HDD's (well over a year ago now..) has been a price drop in 500GB disks, making them more attractively priced per gig than the 320's now.
But that's it! For over a year... where's the 1.5GB drives? All we get is some extremely expensive 64Gb flash drives with a Sata interface.
What, they have satelites and space shuttles up there and now they want to put a sun up there as well? Won't it burn the satellites and the shuttle? Did they think about what that would do to the GPS systems that people use in their cars? How are people going to find their way around?
Also, what about global warming? Sure, it'll reduce carbon emissions, but that extra sun will make everything down here even hotter! They didn't think about that! No, putting a sun up in earth orbit for space based solar power is just a dumb idea.
I've seen a few software patents... I'm not an expert by any means, but I am quite sure the patent stipulates an example methodology of what they try to achieve and so on.
Also, patents, unlike copyrights, can be challenged if they're obvious, like, "using a little X in the top right corner of an interface window to close the window".
The patent can be worked around by altering the code, so the window close is to the left, or it's a "y" instead of an "x". Usually it seems more likely to be a less efficient way to perform the same task, but then most desktop linuxes and windows aren't completely efficient already.
Woah... talk about academic for two big reasons
One - it's open source. The community will fix the code and make it clean as soon as any information about what code is infringing is released. Microsoft isn't as dumb as SCO, they won't make the same mistake. I understand Novell is happily going through the smoking wreckage of SCO now to pick out anything of salvageable value. Microsoft knows this. If you're a conspiracy nut, you'll also be convinced Microsoft set SCO up for the whole exercise. But Microsoft pulling an SCO after those disastrous results just doesn't make sense. I'll go out on a limb and suggest MS really does have some patents that are being infringed. They have some evidence. They won't announce just what it is because they know how quick the patents can be worked around.
Two - who cares anyway? Microsoft can't even stop the primary piracy of their own OS! Vista activation is bypassed, WGA is largely irrelevant, XP has been cracked and broken and redistributed thousands of times. I really can't see the little guy caring about a tiny portion of their Linux install infringing on an MS patent anyway.
Money talks. It looks like Blizzard did a better copy of Warhammer than Warhammer did. That's okay. The Warhammer guys copied all their stuff off Tolkien anyway, right? Elves, Orks, Dwarves.. jeez.
Of course, if you think any of that copying is acceptable, then that kinda means you have to also accept that Disney's business practices are in any way "acceptable".
It's a painful place to be....
Hilarious, considering I have the same credentials than they do and I know which OU's are exempt from policies anyway. I like how they strut around so self-importantly despite this. If they even tried such a half-arsed scheme I'd be revoking their access to the domain quicker than you can blink. I'd cite a security threat to make it more amusing.
Your comments have thus proven Linus's original comment perfectly valid. Security guys are wankers.
"don't piss off the guys that could make your life hell"
No... don't piss off the guy who administers your account and domain, owns your boxes and allows you to run your little FBI-CIA-NSA wannabe security empire.
"Forty-seven percent of tech pros admit they've kissed a co-worker"
I just thought about fourty-seven percent of my co-workers, and I say right now that this behavior must STOP.
I'm Australian. On that basis therefore I choose to trust Linus implicitly.
"But the *discussion* on security seems to never get down to real numbers. So the difference between them is simple: one is hard science. The other one is people wanking around with their opinions"
Thanks Linus, that cracked me up. I've always felt that way about a lot of the stuff the security guys do. I'm gonna forward that to our local security guys and see what they think!
My understanding was that the media levy was to pay copyright holders for the "fair use" activity of making backups and format-shifting of your own original music and data CD's etc.
It wasn't supposed to extend to copying media that you have not paid for the right to hold a copy of.
Would be nice to see if it changes anything, I've always liked Canada's stance. Australia seems much too happy just following along with the USA.
It doesn't actually change anything in any of the three countries. People all do the same stuff. It's just the Canadians aren't made criminals by doing the same activities as everyone else in the world.
It's also amazing how many "readers" on /. don't read TFA. Or even the summary.
From the summary: "An influential Brussels think tank is urging the European Commission to ban the bundling of operating systems with desktop and laptop computers"
From TFA: "Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission"
From the parent: "Nobody is suggesting you should not be able to buy a computer with a preinstalled OS and ready to go.
Also from the parent: "There are so many posts on this thread that are simply incorrect
Well... at least we got something right.
But anyway, my post was in line with the topic. My questions are still valid. Assuming MS doesn't stop this somehow, the changes to the euro retail market for PCs would be dramatic. (And yes before we argue the point, a preinstalled OS is by its very nature bundled, even if it's open source/free/etc). What kind of market would emerge as a result of such a ban on bundled OS's?
How could such a thing work from a retail perspective?
I agree, Windows bundling is anticompetitive - but what can you do?
By the same justice of course, it will be illegal for Linux to be pre-sold with a computer, because such a thing would also be anticompetitive.
The retailer would have to provide some kind of OS with the system, if you prevent OEM bundling.
Does this mean MS will just have to muscle on the computer retailers instead of OEMs?
I think they might if OOo now includes what is widely regarded as the finest of all email clients, Lotus Notes...
And did you find, as X-Fire told you, that you can now play with your friends online, as previously you had not been able to?
Or did you in fact find that X-Fire's marketing team were a bunch of wankers who'll be first with thier backs to the wall when the revolution comes?
X-Fire is a horrible, viral, wannabe spyware rootkit (I'm not saying it is but it sure seems like it wants to be). It comes bundled with some games and has an installer that basically lies and if you click "No, don't install this horrible ball of pus and malware", then asks you "Are you sure you don't want to play with your friends online?" - inferring that without that bloated pile of scum you can't play multiplayer games.
This whole article should never have been posted.
No, I'm not trolling, the readers need to know how unethically this product is marketed.
Windows Vista requires a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, a DirectX 9-compliant video card, and an internet connection. Oh yeah, and TEN TIMES as much disk space. Now what extra value does Vista provide to you, the end customer? What advantage does Vista give you over XP?
Vista doesn't "require" any of that. If you want to run Glass, you need DX9, but you need similar graphics capability to pull the same kinds of tricks in Linux. Vista doesn't require an internet connection (maybe a little help from some third party tools, heh). I'm running Vista right now on a laptop that barely does DX8. The parent is posting FUD and the slashdot community loves it.
Vista isn't a spectacular improvement over XP but it is an improvement. There are dozens of little advancements in the UI and so on that make day to day management of the desktop much easier. Do you need Vista? No. Do you need XP? No. Most people would probably get by just fine on 2000 or Linux. That isn't the point! Does anyone here honestly believe that people only ever upgrade software because of one specific new feature they need? Or has anyone here upgraded simply because a product is "newer"?
The ONLY REASON to keep writing bloated software is to make you constantly spend more money staying exactly where you are, and your answer is to reward them by spending that money. Bloatware is capitalism gone wrong
WRONG. Firefox and even some distros of Linux are considered bloated by many. Are these products wholly a result of capitalism gone wrong? I don't recall constantly spending money so I can put a new version of Firefox on my desktop...
So, 10/10. Most of the community seems to have taken the kool-aid on this well crafted troll.
How bad is the DRM? Great question. But step a little deeper. We know the MPAA coke snorters firmly believe DRM works. We can therefore assume that they will only support formats that use "strong" DRM (that means, DRM that has a lot of marketing behind it to make the coke snorters believe it actually works).
So, either it has equivalent DRM to Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and then there's really no benefit over this technology than the others apart from maybe cost or whatever, and the MPAA cartel still might not invest in it because they already have new revenue streams from the other formats anyway.
Or it has no DRM, in which case no MPAA support. It might be an awesome product, but if you can't buy new movies on it, it won't reach mainstream acceptance and the economies of scale that drive the retail costs down, so it will not compare with the other formats in terms of features and price.
Hate them all you like, put them on the "B" Ark, whatever, but marketing makes or breaks a product and we all know it.
Look at Linux, it's free, it's competitive, but it's not marketed and it's not marketing driven, and you can tell by looking at it. It's starting to change, but the fact of the matter remains.
People do not want unmarketable products.
I was hoping for some game tips. Oh well. How to win:
1) Read the forums and learn what's "broken" (ie, locks and hunters) and employ those strategies.
2) Give up any notions of doing something because it's "Cool", cool doesn't win, it makes you a scrub
3) Give up any offline social life or business commitments
4) Grind to L70 as fast as you can. WoW is only about end game.
5) Network - Being in a top class guild makes you a contender and gives you opportunities.
6) Buy gold! Since we are speaking only of winning, buying gold makes you "win". I hate gold buying, for the record.
7) Raid. Raiding has the best rewards. You will need to raid on a schedule with your guild. Give up anything else.
8) Farm or play the AH and manipulate markets with your guild if you can.
9) Play PvE for levelling, it's easier and your equipment at the end of the day will be the same as a PvPers.
10) Winning WoW = gear. Grind arena, Raid, or farm for tradeskills, but gear = win.
That's how you play to win WoW. I don't like any of that stuff, so I don't play to win, just to have fun.
They haven't tied it in as a "critical" update through Windows Update or anything. They're playing by the rules but only barely, and they are definitely testing their boundaries constantly.
Just makes you think if that whole Netscape antitrust thing hadn't happened just what they could be doing with Windows Update. Firefox Removal Tool as standard? Clippy popping up and saying "It looks like you're dual booting between a sanctioned Windows OS and another, dangerous OS! I've removed the offending partitions for you."
I like that they've called the product "2008"... in the larger OS world, where Linux is still a little fringey compared to Windows, anchoring the product to a time instead of a more abstract version number will make less savvy end users more comfortable with their understanding of the product.
This is a good move! More FOSS products aiming at the mass market should consider adopting a similar approach!
By which I presume you mean he was given a multimillion dollar golden handshake and a few nice boardroom job offers at the afterparty drinks and cocaine session?